Robert Collins

Robert M. Collins completed 37 years of service as a soldier and U.S. Department of the Army civilian employee. He served 31 years in various assignments with the U.S. military in Korea, including several liaison positions with the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. Mr. Collins’ final assignment was as Chief of Strategy, ROK-US Combined Forces Command, serving the four-star American commander as a political analyst for planning on the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asian security issues. He received the Sam-il Medal (Republic of Korea Order of National Security Medal, Fourth Class) from President Lee Myung-bak and the U.S. Army Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service by the Secretary of the Army. Mr. Collins earned a B.A. in Asian History from the University of Maryland in 1977, and an M.A. in International Politics, focusing on North Korean Politics, from Dankook University in 1988. Mr. Collins is a Senior Advisor at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), where he conducts interviews with North Korean escapees living in South Korea to gather data on the North Korean population and their human rights. He is the author of Marked For Life: Songbun, North Korea’s Social Classification System; Pyongyang Republic: North Korea’s Capital of Human Rights Denial; From Cradle to Grave: The Path of North Korean Innocents; Denied From the Start: Human Rights at the Local Level in North Korea; North Korea’s Organization and Guidance Department: The Control Tower of Human Rights Denial; and South Africa’s Apartheid and North Korea’s Songbun: Parallels in Crimes Against Humanity; Propaganda and Agitation Department: Kim Jong-un Regimes Sword of Indoctrination which were published by HRNK.