Something tells me the Putinjugend Nashi web site isn’t going to feature, by popular demand, this newly released 1945 report by a Soviet Lieutenant Colonel who drove through Hwanghae and North and South Pyongyan provinces just after the war’s end. The officer’s detailed, 13-page report on the behavior of Russian soldiers in North Korea makes drunk G.I.’s in Itaewon look like Mormon missionaries by comparison:
The handwritten document in Russian was discovered by the Woodrow Wilson International Center, a U.S. think tank devoted to national security, and translated into English.
“The immoral behavior of our servicemen is horrible. Regardless of rank, they indulge in looting, violence and misconduct every day here and there. They continue to do so since few have been punished,” the document said. The lieutenant colonel described the atrocities of the Red Army, which described itself as “liberators” at the time. “The sound of gunfire never stops at night in areas where our troops are stationed,” he said.
“Drunk and disorderly soldiers commit immoral behavior and rape is prevalent.”
It added, “Drunk soldiers are often spotted on the streets in broad daylight and drinking parties in more than 70 inns and public buildings take place every night.” [Donga Ilbo]
Given the behavior of German soldiers on Russian soil, it’s possible to put the atrocious behavior of the Russians who invaded Germany in 1945 into some perspective, though it still doesn’t excuse the widespread mass rape of German women. It’s much harder to understand why the Russians could justify behaving like this toward Koreans, whom they themselves recognized as victims of fascism and colonialism:
A North Korean who tried to bring a drunk Soviet lieutenant to justice said, “I cannot forgive the Soviet soldier who raped my wife.” Many such perpetrators went unpunished. Though another lieutenant colonel urged the Soviet military police to punish the perpetrators to maintain military discipline several times, his words went unheeded, the report said.
The 25th Primorsky Krai unit commander of the Soviet Far East Army arrived at Pyongyang Airport on Aug. 26, 1945, and described the Soviet army as liberators. “Remember fellow Koreans! Your happiness is up to you. You have achieved freedom and independence. Everything is up to you now,” he said. The report, however, quoted the commander as threatening to “hang half of the Koreans” if they rise up against the Soviet army in protest of their abuses.
The commander held a party with his subordinates for 22 hours in a row in downtown Haeju on Nov. 16, 1945. A fire broke out and burned houses, but he said the fire was an act of arson committed by dissidents and received 300,000 yen as compensation.
The report quoted another Soviet colonel as saying privately, “The Korean people were enslaved for the past 35 years. It’s okay for them be enslaved a little longer.”
We all eagerly await the calls for an inquiry by some Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In fact, let me just put it out there that Charles J. Hanley, having recycled the No Gun Ri story at least three times now, might actually find some fresh material here.
This week’s papers have several disturbing indicators suggesting that a sudden deterioration of the food situation is in the works. First was this report that even shops and hotels for foreigners in Pyongyang had run out of food; then, Robert linked to a report that kids can now seen begging even in Pyongyang.
Depending on what you choose to believe, however, this may not be an entirely new development. Our friend Christine Ahn, no less, reports seeing kids begging during a 2004 “solidarity” visit to Pyongyang.
“I went to North Korea as a peace activist. North Koreans were living in very difficult conditions. Eight-year-old children were loitering around the hotel, shaking because of hunger. Even soldiers were extremely thin.
From which she concludes:
One thing that surprised me was the mental strength of the North Koreans. I strongly felt their pride and urge to preserve their system.
So, Christine, you could feel the urge of starving eight-year-olds to preserve the system? Do tell! Still, I tend to think that a person who prefers to speak of North Korea’s “collective spirit” and complete absence of sexist billboards would not have mentioned the hungry kids unless she’d actually seen them. Ahn says the kids were “loitering.” To ask her to concede that they were most likely begging may be asking too much.
In other dreary news, at least one “leading” expert projects that North Korea’s grain production will continue to decline. Meanwhile, a regime crackdown on illegal border crossing has caused food prices to rise in North Korea.
The regime, for its part, thinks the answer to low food production is more state intervention, not less. It is offering financial incentives to party officials and their wives in Pyongyang to move to the countryside, something that would be tantamount to suicide for city folk unaccustomed to the hardships and privations of rural life.
Civic group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said the party held seminars at party chapters on Feb. 23 promising W10,000 in cash and 120 kg of food for households if they voluntarily move to farms.
The Workers’ Party recently distributed copies of a training manual for senior officials on fortifying rural bases. “To increase grain production the most important thing is to make up for a shortage in the rural workforce. This is why blue-collar workers and office workers in urban areas, senior officials in particular, should lead the vanguard in the campaign.” The regime is urging the wives of senior officials in the party and security agencies to set an example for others.
The regime is afraid of the possibility of mounting public discontent if it forces people to relocate at a time when they are seething in the wake of a disastrous currency reform. The regime is giving indoctrination classes to senior officials to move to rural areas and urging them to set an example, news media speculated.
But the group said such efforts would not be effective in persuading ordinary North Koreans to move to rural areas because living conditions there are very bad. “It’s very likely that the regime will end up forcibly relocating them,” it added.
The report goes on to predict that the regime won’t find many volunteers and will end up relocating people forcibly. But moving people from the top of the food chain to the bottom is a potential source of instability when it creates anxiety within the ruling class. This is a story worth watching.
Thirty American victims of Hezbollah terror attacks have filed civil action in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against the government of North Korea. The plaintiffs, injured by Hezbollah rockets fired into northern Israel during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, allege that North Korea aided the militant group by training senior Hezbollah leaders and by providing networks of underground storage bunkers meant to house Katyusha rocket launchers. [Ha’aretz]
This would be the third recent civil suit against North Korea in a U.S. court of which I’m aware. The first, by surviving crew members of the U.S.S. Pueblo and the widow of its captain, won $65 million in damages over North Korea’s horrific torture of those men. The second suit, which is pending now, seeks damages for North Korea’s role in a 1972 terrorist attack at Lod Airport that killed 26 people, most of them religious pilgrims from Puerto Rico. Both suits took advantage of an exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act for acts by states that were then listed as state sponsors of terrorism (meaning that Esther Kim should call her lawyer, but Robert Park need not bother).
Having observed, no doubt, that North Korea never defends these suits and inevitably ends up on the wrong side of a default judgment, the plaintiffs have asked for $100 million in compensatory damages, plus an unspecified amount in punitive damages. The suit cites this 2007 memorandum by the Congressional Research Service to support its allegations.
This is not to say that North Korea is completely beyond litigating its claims in foreign courts. In 2008, North Korea reached a 39 million Euro settlement with several insurers that it sued for refusing to pay on claims that the insurers suspected of being fraudulent. Those suspicions were later supported by the detailed account of former North Korean insider (and my friend) Kim Kwang Jin.
Here’s the plaintiffs’ lawyer, speaking about the newest lawsuit:
“Hezbollah’s underground facilities significantly improved their ability to fight the Israelis during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war,” the memorandum added.
Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said: “North Korea has become a major player in providing support and material resources to Middle East terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.” It was North Korea which trained Hezbollah’s leadership and built the underground bunkers that permitted the terrorists to evade Israeli jets during the Second Lebanese War and to continue their rocket attacks targeting civilians,” she added.
Darshan-Leitner added that, “As a facilitator of the Hezbollah rockets, North Korea is financially liable to all those Americans injured by the terrorists. The lawsuit aims to secure a measure of justice for the terror victims and teach North Korea that it cannot continue to support Hezbollah with impunity.”
President Obama decided not to restore North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism on February 3, 2010. President Bush removed North Korea from the list on October 11, 2008 as a reward for its “progress” toward nuclear disarmament. Discuss among yourselves.
Hat tip to a friend.
On a distantly related note, the plaintiffs will have one less source of North Korean assets to attach to satisfy their judgment. Pyongyang Soju has withdrawn from the U.S. market after discriminating drunks said “bleccccch.”
Not for the first time, China has announced that it has leased part of the North Korean port at Rajin, a move that would give China’s rust belt access to the Pacific. I’m just not going to find the time to write about this in detail, but you can read more about this here. Given recent reports that North Korea had canceled the last lease, you have to wonder how much this really means.
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Two North Korean loggers have sought asylum at the South Korean consulate in Vladivostok. Kushibo has more here.
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North Korea inaugurates a new military unit to handle a newly developed medium-range missile:
The North’s People’s Army recently launched a division supervising operational deployment of missiles with a range of more than 1,860 miles (3,000 kilometers) that it had developed in recent years, Yonhap news agency reported citing an unidentified South Korean government source.
The missiles could pose a threat to U.S. forces in Japan, Guam and other Pacific areas that are to be redeployed in time of emergency on the Korean peninsula, Yonhap said. [AP]
I’m going to add just one small bit to the fracas between the Korean Finance Ministry and two reporters with whose work I’m familiar — Don Kirk and Evan Ramstad. As to the questions themselves, sometimes, the function of a good reporter is to challenge official groupthink and corruption, especially in a place where groupthink is as prevalent as it is in Korea. I do not think that a country that aspires to be a hub of international business can nonetheless exempt itself, for cultural reasons, from ethical standards that have gained international acceptance. One of these is that governments ought not to ply interest groups or investors with prostitutes (which seems to be a reasonably good guess as to where the questions might be headed). If a reporter has a basis to believe that this has occurred, it seems fair to ask about it. The questions Kirk and Ramstad were at least as appropriate as the question that brought us this infamous episode of presidential mendacity. As for the context in which the questions were asked or the other issues between Ramstad and the Foreign Ministry, I have no particular knowledge and therefore nothing useful to add.
I will confess, however, that I am biased toward Kirk and Ramstad, am a fan of their work, and wish them both well. Long before this episode, I’d noted their role in a trend toward much-improved reporting about Korea lately. Some full disclosure would be appropriate: I consider Kirk a personal friend, and he arranged for his publisher to send me a free review copy of his excellent book about Kim Dae Jung. I don’t think this was enough to buy me off, but I put that out there for your consideration. Kirk’s book, like his original exposure of the 2000 summit scandal, are prime examples of questions that some Koreans no doubt considered pushy and inappropriate at the time, not just in spite of the fact that they contradicted Korean groupthink about DJ and North Korea, but because they contradicted it. Those who lived in Korea in those years know the extent to which those issues had become intertwined with Korea’s national pride and nationalism. For a time, it was blasphemy to challenge it.
Ramstad has featured my work, and Curtis’s, in the Journal. In addition to our lengthy conversation during which which he interviewed for that article, we’ve had a number of e-mail exchanges. These, in addition to my observation of his work, have been sufficient for me to get a sense of his subject matter knowledge, which is first-rate. His reporting has added a much-needed correction to past reporting of North Korea by reporting on conditions inside North Korea itself. Both Kirk and Ramstad are correspondents of the first caliber. To the extent that their questions drew attention to elephants that went unmentioned in a room filled with reporters, so much the better.
Surely even the most determined opponent of the Iraq War would agree that this is a far better way for a war to end than this, or this. It’s not quite over, of course, but there’s no reason for it to go on. No one in Iraq wants it to go on, and most importantly, no one is afraid:
One of trite bumper sticker slogans that became vogue in the last five years is that you can’t export democracy at gunpoint. From where I sit, it looks like we just have. Mind you, Iraq is one of those extraordinary cases — the only case I can envision today — in which direct foreign military intervention was an appropriate way to accomplish that. I submit that the intense unpopularity of the war in the terrible years of 2004-2008 was not so much that the casualties exceeded what our politicians expected before they voted to send the troops in. It was unpopular because the people could not see the outcome we see here. How else could this result have been achieved? Not without violence, certainly, and had it not been achieved, Iraq would be in a state of unrestrainable genocide, proliferation, and aggression.
To all of those who served and to their families, there are not enough occasions when the rest of us thank you for what you have done. Let this be one of those occasions. Thank you.
The fact that Japan has its own Roh Moo Hyun now is both more and less troubling than Roh’s own presidency. On the one hand, Hatoyama wasn’t elected on a wave of anti-Americanism, but because voters were understandably tired of one-party rule. If Hatoyama doesn’t improve conditions in Japan, he may not hold power for long. On the other hand, we have much more air and naval power in Japan than in Korea, and whereas Korea is strategically expendable to America, Japan really isn’t.
I hold Barack Obama responsible for the fact that somewhere in Futenma, someone hates us.
If you believe in peace, it might be worth a minute of your time to condemn the utter senselessness of the terrorists who murder Iraqis for defying them and voting in the Arab world’s only truly free elections. The terrorists may even be losing the support of the BBC:
The campaign of sectarian killing is beginning to seem like mindless nihilism, rather some sort of clear-cut political strategy. Having completely failed to derail the democratic process here, it is hard to see what the extremists can do now. Other than raise the level of violence even more, of course. [BBC, John Simpson]
Who would have thought this could happen four years ago? Thank goodness President Obama had the spine and the will to stand up to all those calls to pull the troops out.
I’m not sure of what the story is, or why Pepsi’s site used to say, “Voting ends on February 28th,” and now says, “Voting ends on March 31st,” but LiNK confirms they’re still in the running for $250K. I suppose that means I’ll have to fix that button and put it back in my sidebar. For now, vote here. They’ve dropped to number 7, so they definitely need your vote.
And if anyone from LiNK can explain why the deadline was extended, please e-mail me or drop a comment. Thanks.
Update: So I guess the way this works is that Pepsi starts the contest all over again every month. LiNK’s position hasn’t dropped; this is a whole new beginning.
So Operations Key Resolve and Foal Eagle have started again. I boldly predict that this year, as has been the case for each year for the many decades we’ve had troops stationed in South Korea, the exercise will not end with an American invasion of North Korea. Just as predictably, North Korea is threatening the United States and/or South Korea. The challenge for North Korean propagandists is always how to make each year’s threat stand out from such previous-year classics as “sea of fire.” After all, you can only say “brigandish,” “imperialist,” and “merciless” so many times before people start to suspect you’re writing your missives with pre-printed refrigerator magnets.
The North’s military warned Sunday that it would bolster its nuclear capability and break off dialogue with the U.S. in response to the drills. It also said it would use unspecified “merciless physical force” to cope with them, saying it is no longer bound by the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. [AP]
“The revolutionary armed forces of (North Korea) will be left with no option but to exercise merciless physical force as the rival is set to do harm to the (North),” the military’s mission at the truce village of Panmunjom said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea has escalated its threats against South Korea and the U.S. over the planned drills. Last week, the North vowed to strengthen its nuclear deterrent and its means of delivery — an apparent reference to missiles. Last month, the North also threatened a “powerful” — even nuclear — attack if the drills go ahead. [AP]
Also, because any excuse will do, North Korea is telling us yet again that it’s not going to disarm:
North Korea said Sunday it would no longer move forward with nuclear disarmament in response to a planned U.S.-South Korean joint military exercise. The announcement was made by the official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA.
“The maneuvers clearly indicate once again that the U.S. and the South Korean authorities are the harassers of peace and warmongers keen to bring a war to this land,” the statement said. [CNN]
President Obama decided not to restore North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism on February 3, 2010. President Bush removed North Korea from the list on October 11, 2008 as a reward for its “progress” toward nuclear disarmament. Discuss among yourselves.
“The process for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will naturally come to a standstill,” the North’s official KCNA news agency quoted a senior military official as saying.
“It is illogical to sit face to face with the dialogue partner, who brings dark clouds of a nuclear war while leveling its gun at the other party, and discuss ‘peace’ and ‘cooperation’ with him,” the official was quoted as saying. [Reuters]
And they had been doing so well until now! If only we could all just get along. If only we had another Agreed Framework:
The North has been demanding a peace treaty with the U.S. and even made it a major condition for its returning to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. [….] On the face of it, it’s a very easy decision to make,” John Feffer, the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus, a Washington-based think tank, told The Korea Times. The proposition also appears commonsense because the U.S. and North Korea have not exchanged any significant gunfire since 1953.
Some observers correctly say that it’s because U.S. negotiators see granting a peace treaty to the ill-behaving North as a “reward.” But a deeper and even ultimate diagnosis may be that it’s because the U.S. actually cannot afford to give it to North Korea. And the problem lies with its domestic political situation, according to Feffer.
“U.S. law stipulates that a peace treaty must obtain two-thirds of the votes in the Senate. The problem is that there are a number of Senators, mostly Republican, who are not willing to sign a peace treaty with North Korea. This domestic consideration has to be taken into account,” said Feffer, adding that this is the “real reason” the U.S. administration is unwilling to offer a peace pact. [Korea Times, Sunny Lee]
And here I was, prepared to hold Barack Obama responsible for the fact that the people in Pyongyang who tell the KCNA guys what to write who hate us, only to see John Feffer elucidate why the stuff that KCNA says is actually all the Republicans’ fault. But then, Feffer’s unique talent is the capacity to construct an argument that everything that happens in Korea — Kim Jong Il starving North Koreans, Kim Jong Il testing nukes, Kim Jong Il breaking promises, Kim Jong Il threatening the neighbors — is somehow America’s fault. In some circles, this unique gift is confused with intelligence.
Note to Sunny Lee: couldn’t you find anyone to go on record and express a view that isn’t the exclusive dominion of the lunatic fringe? Now fasten your seat belts, because we’re about to cross over to an alternative universe:
In a survey last year by Rasmussen, a U.S. polling organization, North Korea topped the list of countries that American voters see as the biggest national security threat. A Gallup poll in February showed that the view hasn’t changed. The North again topped the list of countries, together with Iran, in “critical threats to the U.S. vital interests.”
The results show the predominantly negative perceptions the American public have toward North Korea. And given that their view on the North, not the U.S. administration, may be the ultimate decider on whether a peace treaty should be signed, Pyongyang is at a critical disadvantage.
In its peace treaty demand, North Korea may have neglected this factor. It’s important for the secretive state to have “winning negotiations” with U.S. nuclear envoys, but behind them are lawmakers, and behind them the general public, who ultimately influences U.S. negotiations.
“There is a tendency in the U.S. that sees a peace treaty with North Korea as somehow a concession,” said Feffer. “That’s why it has been so difficult to push the issue forward domestically.”
Perhaps, it’s time for North Korea to engage in a charm offensive of public diplomacy to earn the hearts and minds of Americans first to see progress on its demand.
I suppose it violates the Feffer Principle to imply that Kim Jong Il modify his behavior — or even that he has the free will to do so — but I would humbly suggest that a minimally effective “charm offensive” might begin with Kim Jong Il announcing a moratorium on declarations of war, nuke and missile tests, public executions, threats against the neighbors, illegal arms shipments and technology transfers to shadowy regimes, and the refusal of international food aid for starving people. Maybe he could even show some sincerity by closing down his death camps. Any one of those things would go a lot further to dispel our hegemonic misconceptions than any of Feffer’s intricate constructs of brittle logic.
The AP is reporting that Pakistani security forces have captured Scummy Hippie Traitor Number One, Adam Gadahn, in Karachi.
Grain of salt: this, from Pakistani sources, which don’t have a terribly good record for reliability.
And in related news, there’s some sweet red-on-red fighting reported in eastern Afghanistan, with the forces of ex-Marxist, ex-mujahid and thorough scumbag Gulbuddin Hekmatyar fighting against the Taliban. Some of Gulbuddin’s people are said to be getting the worst end of the fight and defecting to government forces. While I don’t doubt that Gulbuddin himself could bring over plenty of valuable intel, he is after all the man primarily responsible for destroying Kabul, and who got his start throwing acid into the unveiled faces of women at Kabul U.
During the Soviet war, mujaheddin groups fought each other frequently, the but Soviets’ arrogance and brutality prevented them from exploiting those divisions successfully.
Starting yesterday, several news outlets had reported that North Korea had released recent video of Kim Jong Il appearing in Hamhung to mark the re-opening of a textile factory in Hamhung, but to my intense aggravation, none provided a link to the actual video. YouTube, however, does not disappoint:
The video shows Kim waving to an assembled crowd with his right arm, and moving his left arm slightly to applaud … himself, presumably. Heil me. There are no shots showing both Kim Jong Il and the crowd. Note that Kim is wearing a parka, and the septuagenarians with him (Kim Yong Nam is on the right) are wearing heavy overcoats, while those in the crowd below wear business suits and hamboks. Mike Madden identifies the rest of the rogues’ gallery. Decide for yourself whether he really was appearing before this crowd. The crowd is assembled in front of what Curtis identifies as the Hamhung Grand Theater:
The two large objects in the foreground starting at :50 don’t show up in the satellite imagery. At first, I guessed that they were monuments, but if they are, they’re new. Otherwise, the scenery in the video matches the imagery.
There is no audio with this video. In fact, I haven’t heard any audio of Kim Jong Il speaking since his stroke, which leads me to suspect that his speech may still be slurred, or that the pitch of his voice may be unnaturally high in a way characteristic of stroke victims. If anyone knows more about that, I’d appreciate an e-mail or a comment.
Mike Madden’s post identifies the reopened factory as the February 8th Vinalon Complex, which, according to the Nuclear Threat Institute, is one of North Korea’s largest chemical plants. It’s also suspected of producing chemical weapons, “including blister, choking, nerve, and tear agents.”
The February 8th Vinalon Complex occupies the grounds of a former Japanese-owned factory that processed acetylene carbide to produce iso-octane for aviation fuel during World War II. Dr. Lee Sŭng Ki, a famous chemical engineer and the inventor of vinalon, supervised the construction of the February 8th Vinalon Complex, which began in 1959 and was completed in 1961. The facility was the first dedicated vinalon production plant in North Korea, and it was organized as a “complex” (聯合企業所) in 1974. According to the Segye Ilbo, the 13th Nuclear Chemical Defense Battalion is posted here. There are no firm details about the types of CW agents that may be produced at this facility. [NTI]
The NTI has more information on the links between vinalon and chemical weapons here. Here’s a photograph of the plant from 2000:
More on the plant’s closing:
The factory, established in 1961, reportedly shut amid worsening economic difficulties in the mid-1990s. The North’s state media have said it recently resumed producing vinalon, and that would help the country become an economically prosperous nation. [AP]
Vinalon is a synthetic fiber the North Koreans claim to have been invented in secret by a Korean scientist working under the oppressive heel of the Japanese. Despite their concession that vinalon was invented in 1939, the North Koreans have appropriated vinalon as a symbol of their scientific and economic self-reliance. The North Koreans say now that the February 8th complex just “resumed mass-producing quality vinalon cotton and various chemical goods after being streamlined,” but this account seems to contradict a report of a 2008 Kim Jong Il visit:
[H]e learned about the technological updating and production at the complex, walking round the rebuilt and newly constructed workshops. After making the rounds of the exterior and interior of the rebuilt and newly established processes, he expressed great satisfaction over the fact that builders and their helpers successfully completed the large project equivalent to the construction of a big factory by their own efforts and with their technology in a brief span of time. He highly appreciated their feats and extended warm greetings to them. [KCNA, May 28, 2008]
If the plant was operating so efficiently then, why throw this big grand-reopening / streamlining bash?
North Koreans, it seems, didn’t really feel much like celebrating on February 16th:
One person was killed by armed guards on Feb. 16 when a group of people attempted to rob a food train at Komusan Railway Station in Puryong-gun, North Hamgyong Province, defector group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said. The attack came on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday after a disastrous currency reform sent food prices skyrocketing. The train was loaded with rice imported from China, the group said. Workers, outraged over the death, attacked armed guards with ploughs and police and military were called in.
“North Koreans are angry that guards shot a worker dead for a few kilograms of rice but protesters are unlikely to get off lightly because the incident happened on Kim’s birthday,” the group said. [Chosun Ilbo]
The North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS) reported that a North Korean was shot dead in a fight after he, along with several other hungry residents, attempted to loot food items by jumping on a train in North Hamgyeong Province. The train shipping imported foods from China was passing through the region. The province shares a border with the northeastern part of China.
“A man, who was identified only as Jung, died during a physical fight with security forces,” the report said. [Korea Times]
Are North Koreans really resisting their government more, or does the proliferation of cell phones mean that we’re just more likely to hear about it when they do? My guess is that it’s a bit of both, since resistance against this regime certainly isn’t an entirely new development.
In any event, I was interested in knowing where this riot had occurred to put it into the context of the the region, prior reports of disturbances, and the size of the population there. Komusan turns out to be a small, isolated town along the railroad line from Hoeryong on the Chinese border down to the large North Korean city of Chongjin, the city described in Barbara Demick’s recent book. It also turns out to be just 7.5 miles as the crow flies from the village of Chongo-ri, which has given its name to the infamous prison camp I located just east of there, with much help from David Hawk and Chuck Downs, and some key tips from Curtis and my wife.
The north side of the town is taken up by what appears to be a large mill serving the numerous mines in the surrounding hills. As we’ve learned, there are copper mines in this area.
Here are some closer views of the town and the station.
This area has long been a hotbed of discontent. It’s geographically isolated, so disturbances would be easy to contain. That may be why various Korean regimes have long sent malcontents to this part of the country. But today, this area has become strategically significant. The main supply routes from China to North Korea run through Sinuiju in the West and Hoeryong in the East. This railroad line is the eastern route from China that supplies the provinces of North and South Hamgyeong and Kangwon. It runs south to Chongjin, then southwest along the coast to Hamhung, Hungnam, and Wonsan. North Korea’s interior is mountainous. It has a few roads and rail lines, but most appear to be poorly maintained. If disturbances interfere with this rail line, the next best ways to supply the east coast would be by ship, using those cities’ dilapidated ports, or by bringing the supplies through Sinuiju in the west through Pyongyang, then to Wonsan and up the coast again.
For now, there’s only this Korean language link. There isn’t much detail to add. The report didn’t go into detail, stating only that it was too horrible to describe in detail, which is just as well. The Free Robert Park blog, which has claimed to report first-hand information from Park in the past, contains this cryptic entry dated March 2nd:
The news article that was here has been removed at the request of Robert’s family because it was causing distress. Not because it was untrue. I hope that you dear reader will also be sensitive while you seek the truth, and that you will pray with love for Robert and his family. The torture did not stop when he left Pyongyang, and is now affecting all those close to him.
I must say that the sexual — and presumably, homosexual — torture of an American prisoner wouldn’t fit with my expectations of how North Koreans would have been instructed to treat anyone who might live to tell about it. Yes, it’s apparent that Mr. Park left Pyongyang in a state of emotional distress, but then again, Park didn’t show obvious signs of the severe beating the Chosun Ilbo reported he’d experienced. I really don’t know what to make of this, but if it’s true, Park ought to find the courage to tell the world about it.
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So I wasn’t able to make it to Korus House to see the Venerable Pomnyun speak, but the Hankroyeh, of all places, cites him as saying that two thousand people have starved to death in North Korea since The Great Confiscation. I’m tempted to fall back on ordinarily reliable maxim that everything the Hanky publishes is false just because it’s published in the Hanky, but in this case, it’s slightly more complicated than that. First, it’s likely that that many North Korean prisoners or kotjaebi would have starved to death even without The Great Confiscation, but we’ll never know for certain. Second, I don’t doubt that The Great Confiscation has caused the deaths of many North Koreans, whether through suicide, execution, or starvation. Third, I don’t believe either Good Friends or any other organization with contacts inside North Korea has developed those contacts sufficiently to make reliable estimates. Undercounting seems much more likely than overcounting, but both are distinct possibilities. Fourth, I cite Good Friends frequently because they’re a valuable source for reporting anecdotes from which we can infer general trends, but I would caution anyone against relying on them for statistical information.
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Axis, Schmaxis: Janes publishes new imagery of an Iranian missile launch site and finds a North Korean connection.
Update: I went on Google Earth, where I found and marked the base camp, but GI Korea does me one better and finds what may be the construction site Janes refers to. Assuming that’s the right place, the similarities aren’t any more obvious to me than they are to GI Korea, but if I’m reading the imagery dates correctly, they’re about a year old. Maybe Janes has newer images and more interpretive skill than me.
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The Chosun Ilbo cites a Radio Free Asia report (good luck finding it) that even Pyongyang’s shops and hotels for foreigners are running out of food:
Radio Free Asia on Wednesday quoted a member of an American NGO who recently visited the North to deliver aid as saying shops in Pyongyang are empty, there are few foreigners in hotels, and construction has come to a standstill.
The American recalled that even no kimchi, the staple spicy delicacy of Korea, was found among dishes of Korean food served in the Koryo Hotel. He wondered if the hotel could not afford to make it due to skyrocketing prices. He had visited the North for more than 10 years, but it was the first time no kimchi was served, he added.
RFA quoted a Western diplomat in Pyongyang as saying foreigners travel to the Chinese border town of Dandong at weekends because they cannot find daily necessities even in designated shops in the North.
Several years ago, after observing the rise of the now-failed Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, the goombahs in the Kremlin decided that it would be a good thing to have some street muscle handy in the event any Russians got similar ideas. In the annals of accidental fame, the Kremlin is to irony what the Taliban are to sodomy; thus, it’s only natural that the group was called the “Democratic Anti-Fascist Youth Group.” The Russian acronym turns out to be NASHI, the Russian word for “ours,” lest anyone miss the nationalist appeal.
Certainly the Kremlin must have liked the idea that its new Putinjugend wouldn’t be under the state’s direct control, technically speaking, a useful thing should some knees or skulls happen to break in the course of someone getting carried away by the passionate expression of someone’s love for his Mother. Land. As Miriam Elder informs us, NASHI’s web site, responding to what it calls “many requests,” has published a series of North Korean propaganda oil paintings depicting Yankee big-nosers massacring babies and defiling pure North Korean women. This would be my personal favorite:
Is lovely, da? Da!
(Hmm. What do you suppose it would cost to have them paint us some weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?)
What are we to take from this? That we should all hope for the day when America will finally elect a president capable of suave, nuanced diplomacy … a president who can “reset” our relations with Russia and undo all the harm caused by those reckless, imperialistneoconcowboys. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton must be held responsible for this decline in relations, because I, for one, simply cannot rest while knowing that somewhere in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, someone does not like me.
And they had been doing so well until now! If only we could all just get along. If only we had another Agreed Framework: 
