The company that brought Otto Warmbier to North Korea has made a name for itself by helping tourists be edgier than their friends.
The company that brought Otto Warmbier to North Korea has made a name for itself by helping tourists be edgier than their friends, but has also subtly blamed the American by saying “the vast majority of people are able to respect” local laws.
Young Pioneers Tours took Warmbier and other Westerners to the isolated regime at the end of 2015, a trip that resulted in more than 17 months in detention and severe brain damage for the 22-year-old University of Virginia student.
Warmbier was brought back to the U. S. in a coma last week and died Monday. His funeral was held Thursday in his hometown of Wyoming, Ohio.
The tour company, founded by British expat Gareth Johnson and based in China, said after the young American’s death that it would no longer take U. S. citizens to North Korea because of potential dangers.
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But Young Pioneers has prided itself on getting people within picture-taking distance of danger, advertising Budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from.”
Visits to the Kim Jong Un regime are the main course, with trips to the country described by former customers as hard-partying adventures with a cavalier attitude and a gung-ho drinking culture that included an inebriated Johnson.
The company also has offerings that send tourists to other repressive places.
Among the offerings for 2017 are trips to Turkmenistan, the breakaway Georgian area of South Ossetia, Myanmar, Iran and Chechnya, where there have been recent reports of gay men being round up and put into camps.
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Johnson previously tried to explain his logic for the trips to North Korea by saying that the tourism doesn’ t benefit the regime, which has been accused of taking Americans hostage to gain leverage as it irks the international community with its nuclear program.
His company also says that there are “many reasons” why to visit similar places other than just feeling naughty.
“Some just want to see every country, others have cultural or historical connections to them and in the case of North Korea for example many visitors are going as they are pro-engagement, ” the company told the Daily News Thursday.
“Tourism is one of the only forms of interaction between North Korea and foreign nationals and many people believe, as we do, that engagement is important — especially in shaping the relationship between the next generation of North Koreans and the world.”
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But amid renewed tensions with Pyongyang, American lawmakers have lashed out at the idea of their countrymen playing amateur ambassador to the repressed people.
Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) said that Americans “stupid” enough to go to North Korea should sign a waiver absolving the government of responsibility, and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Ca.) has suggested banning tourism to the DPRK.
In its explanation Thursday, Young Pioneers said “until Otto Warmbier, there was no situation where a foreign tourist was truly endangered in the country” and that recent accounts about near-detentions in North Korea were revisionist.
“The reality is they would not have been detained and very few people have ever been detained. The laws that shouldn’t be broken are clear and the vast majority of people are able to respect them, ” it said.
Warmbier was given a show trial for allegedly stealing a North Korean propaganda poster, and sentenced to 15 years forced labor after a tearful confession many believe was forced.
“Our company deals with tourists — people visiting Korea on tours with proper entry papers. There have been only 5 tourists detained in North Korea and all with clear reasons, there have not been serious consequences for a tourist detention until now, ” Young Pioneers said.
But reaction in the U. S. has been less forgiving to the Kim Jong Un regime, which said that Warmbier’s illness was from botulism before doctors in the U. S. said he had brain damage.
“This college kid never should have been detained in the first place, ” Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio said at Warmbier’s funeral Thursday, saying that North Korea must be held accountable for “a basic disregard for human rights, for human dignity.”
With News Wire Services
