Journalist Kang Chol-Hwan, a well-known defector who spent years in North Korean prison camps and author of “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” reported on the fate of the cheerleaders in Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest newspaper.

The security precautions guaranteed that none of the women would spread good information about life in the South or join the rising tide of defectors — a problem that has become increasingly serious as refugees from North Korea make their way from northeastern China to the country’s southern borders.

Kang, who left North Korea in 1992, attributed his report to another defector, Lee Myeong-Ho, who was held in the same camp in South Hamgyong Province where he said the young cheerleaders are incarcerated.

Lee, according to Kang’s report, saw “21 beautiful women” detained in the Daeheung camp since the end of last year. “I found out that they were the cheerleading team that had gone to South Korea,” Lee said.

Lee, who made his way to South Korea after escaping to China, told Kang he could not determine for himself what the women had done to wind up in prison since inmates are forbidden to talk to one another. But he told Kang the rumor was they had broken their promise to North Korean security services not to disclose what they had seen in South Korea.

“Another defector explained the cheerleaders are picked among university students, propaganda squad members and music school students from good families,” said Kang.

“Before they were sent to South Korea,” Kang wrote, "they had to sign a pledge bearing their ten fingerprints that said if they are going to an enemy country — Pyongyang’s epithet for the South — they must fight as soldiers of leader Kim Jong-Il and never talk about what they have seen or heard in South Korea once they return.”

Kang said those who signed the pledge “agree to accept punishment if they break the promise.”

Kang quoted Lee as saying that Daeheung “usually houses those convicted of economic crimes with a political dimension but has recently also become a camp for political dissidents.” The camp, in a mining area in rugged mountains stripped bare of vegetation, is “known as one of the worst in North Korea,” according to Kang’s report.

Dressed as drum majorettes, the North Korean cheerleaders performed alluring routines, cheering on North Korean athletes and grinning for the cameras. But they were carefully shielded by their North Korean minders and South Korean police from any chance meetings with South Koreans.

Just to make doubly sure of their isolation, they were whisked away to cabins on their ship every night — all before getting a grand, carefully orchestrated and tightly guarded send-off by Pusan’s mayor and other top officials as they sailed off at the end of the games.

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