SEOUL — Cindy Warmbier sent three huge Chinese-style lanterns up into the sky over Cincinnati on Dec. 12 last year. “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 U.S. 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 spoke over Skype from their home in Wyoming. “We don’t know if Otto still exists.”
When Otto was detained on Jan. 2 last year, 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 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.
Otto, then a 21-year-old economics major at the University of Virginia, 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. He had done lots of research and decided on the Young Pioneers travel company because it targeted young, adventurous people like him.
On Otto’s final night in Pyongyang, New Year’s Eve, 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 hour-long trial in March, sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor. That was the last time Otto was seen in public.
