Ohioans want US action to free long-held son
DIPLOMACY /
SEOUL — Cindy Warmbier sent three huge Chinese-style lanterns up into the sky over Cincinnati on Dec. 12. “I love you, Otto,” she said as they floated away, imagining that her son, turning 22 that day, might see them from wherever he was being held in North Korea. Then she sang him “Happy Birthday.”
If ordinary Americans are alarmed about the current tensions with North Korea, imagine how Fred and Cindy Warmbier feel. Through two nuclear tests and dozens of missile launches, while Kim Jong Un has been threatening to “ruthlessly ravage” the United States, and President Trump has been sending warships to the Korean Peninsula, their son Otto has been detained in North Korea.
“We’ve not seen or heard from Otto in 16 months,” Fred Warmbier said. He and Cindy were speaking over Skype from their home in Wyoming, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. “We don’t know if Otto still exists.”
When Otto was detained on Jan. 2, 2016, U.S. officials advised them to remain silent to avoid antagonizing North Korea and prolonging their son’s detention, they said. But they have had enough.
“The era of strategic patience for the Warmbier family is over,” said Fred, echoing a line from top members of the Trump administration who have declared an end to the Obama-era policy of waiting for the North Korean regime to return to nuclear negotiations.
“With the last administration, Otto seemed to be an unwanted distraction, and they urged us to keep quiet,” Fred said. “Now the new administration is there, so we’ve decided to start speaking out.”
In recent years, North Korea has periodically detained American citizens, some of them tourists, and some of them Korean Americans involved in development work. Previous detainees have been released after high-profile Americans — including former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — flew to Pyongyang to plead for them, giving the regime a propaganda victory. But North Korea has not even responded to offers to send someone for the current detainees, according to a person involved in the process.
Three Americans are being held in North Korea: former Virginia resident Kim Dongchul, who was working in a special economic zone in the North; Tony Kim, a professor teaching for a month at a university in Pyongyang who was detained last weekend; and Otto.
He was a 21-year-old economics major at the University of Virginia when he decided to go to North Korea on his way to Hong Kong for a January study-abroad trip last year.
“He was curious about their culture, and he wanted to meet the people of North Korea,” Fred said.
Otto had done lots of research and decided on the Young Pioneers travel company because it targeted young, adventurous people like him. He had traveled overseas plenty of times before, including to Europe with his family twice, and to Israel, Ecuador and Cuba.
Although North Korea is one of the most isolated countries, it has been trying to encourage tourism in recent years, and a handful of companies regularly take groups there without incident. The State Department, however, has steadily ratcheted up its travel warning for North Korea, noting the risk of arbitrary detention.
On Otto’s final night in Pyongyang, New Year’s Eve 2015, he appears to have gone to a staff-only floor of his hotel and attempted to take down a large propaganda sign lauding the regime. He was charged with “hostile acts against the state” and, after an hourlong trial in March 2016, was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor. That was the last time Otto was seen in public, and Swedish diplomats, who represent U.S. interests in the country, have been denied access to him.
Otto was salutatorian at Wyoming High School and a National Merit Scholar, captain of the soccer team and homecoming king. He spent a summer studying at the London School of Economics and had enough credits as a sophomore at Virginia to graduate.
“This is somebody who has never been in trouble in his life,” Cindy said. “Why would you say no to a kid like this?”