N. Koreans dash for freedom

BEIJING -- Fifteen North Koreans clambered over a low concrete wall and into the protection of the lightly guarded German Embassy School on Tuesday, the second mass effort to gain asylum by North Koreans here in as many days.

The German ambassador rushed to the school and persuaded the Chinese police not to enter.

The North Koreans, including at least one child, spent the night in the school building and were provided with blankets, water and food, said an embassy spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity.

He wouldn't say whether the group had asked for asylum or to go to South Korea.

The scene was oddly serene compared with the mayhem on Monday after 12 North Koreans tried to enter a compound housing the Ecuadoran Embassy. Most were dragged off instantly by police officers who had apparently been tipped off.

The back-to-back episodes display an extraordinary capacity for reconnaissance and organization on the part of the North Koreans, many of whom are advised by human rights activists, some in China but many overseas. In a city whose embassies are ringed with soldiers and barbed wire, they ingeniously located these two small openings in the wall.

Douglas Shin, a Los Angeles pastor who has worked with North Korean refugees for many years, acknowledged that a network of activists had organized three earlier asylum efforts in Beijing. He said that the two this week were planned largely by the refugees -- though with some outside logistical advice and financial support. The group Tuesday was accompanied by a rights monitor, and Shin said his group had helped buy the vehicles used Monday.

"We are fighting everyone who is preventing us from helping the North Koreans," he said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "What are our motivations? Sometimes we just want to help people. Sometimes we feel hatred for the dictatorship. Sometimes we see a war and North Korea's pending collapse. Sometimes maybe we are fighting the Chinese dictatorship, as well."

Experts estimate that more than 100,000 North Koreans live illegally in China, although many more have probably moved back and forth at some time in the past five years. Though they generally come in search of food, fleeing years of hunger in their homeland, they often become accustomed to China's more open society. This year, in an angry response to the asylum campaign, China has rounded up many North Koreans and sent them home.

Once the North Koreans manage to enter embassy property, the Chinese have let them leave the country and ultimately go to South Korea. This year, over 80 have followed that route.

China requires them to go to South Korea by way of a third country, as a face-saving measure with North Korea, its longtime ally. The Philippines said Tuesday that 21 North Koreans in the South Korean consulate in Beijing will leave China today. Tuesday's asylum attempt was extraordinary in many respects, not the least of which was that the Chinese police, who conduct heavy surveillance, seemed to have bad information. In midafternoon, large numbers of Chinese security personal gathered outside the German Embassy, apparently suspecting some kind of action.

The North Koreans were 2 miles away, jumping without resistance into a small embassy-affiliated compound that houses the school and apartments for German diplomats.

"At 3:25 a principal came in and said that North Koreans were on the grounds and we had to leave as soon as possible so they could close the building," said 12th-grader Sven-Erik Green, who said the group had already perched on the fire escape below his classroom.

Other students said the people in the group were all well dressed and could easily pass for Chinese. Many asylum seekers in Beijing arrive in trendy clothes -- some even have cell phones -- items bought by advocates to help them blend in before their attempts.

Embassy representatives deflected questions about whether the school compound enjoyed diplomatic status, which would make it off limits to the police.

About 8 p.m., the North Koreans left the fire escape to sleep elsewhere in the compound.

Monday's event showed similar planning, even though it ended badly, with the detention of at least six people. The refugees arrived at the diplomatic compound Monday in cars, carrying a ladder to mount the fence. They had carefully chosen the Ecuadoran Embassy as their destination, in what was until that morning Beijing's least guarded diplomatic compound.

But they were not prepared for the security that greeted them, mostly plainclothes police officers.

-- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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