"The Government Should have a Monopoly on Force"

Or in other words, "Only the Police and military should have guns." Tell that to the starving North Koreans who were recently executed because they dared cross into China looking for food for themselves and their families.

Is this really the kind of world we want?

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North Korea publicly executes 15 starving refugees fleeing to China in desperate search for food

North Korea has publicly executed 15 starving people, mostly women, for illegally entering neighbouring China in search of food, an aid group said yesterday.

The 13 women and two men were shot on a bridge in the north-eastern town of Onseong as local residents watched. It was the second mass execution to be reported this week.

The group of 15 were sentenced to death for illegally crossing the border into China or for helping others to do so, to ask for help, in money or food, from relatives living there.

The report of the shootings, on February 20, came from the South Korean group, Good Friends, which works in the North.

Officials in South Korea's unification ministry, who handle relations with the impoverished communist North, could not confirm the bridge killings.

But Good Friends said residents were appalled by what they saw.

One resident said: "The shooting was too much - all those people did it for their livelihood. They got too harsh punishment. Everyone is anxious about a lack of food."

Good Friends, citing a local official, said the execution was aimed at deterring an expected surge of people illegally crossing the border this spring.

It has become a daily routine for a few residents to disappear and illegally cross the border to visit relatives in China.

"We shot them to send a warning to people," the official said.

Good Friends said unauthorised border crossings are normally punishable with a maximum seven year jail sentence.

North Korea suffers severe food shortages and frontier provinces provide opportunities for residents to get supplies before returning.

Others flee their homeland through China, the refugees often travelling to Southeast Asia hoping to win resettlement in South Korea.

Rights groups estimate tens of thousands of North Koreans are hiding in northeast China.

In another alleged incident of North Korean zero tolerance of anyone suspected of trying to leave the country, a South Korean newspaper yesterday reported North Korea had executed 22 fishermen on their return after straying out of the country's waters by mistake.

Having drifted into South Korean territory, they told officials they had no intention of claiming asylum.

They said they strayed accidentally while fishing for clams and oysters. They were sent back to North Korea where the fishermen were shot dead by agents of North Korea's national security agency.