Score One for ‘Soft’ Power: The inside story of how Freedom House helped overthrow the Kyrgyz dictatorship is here.

Freedom House is expected to announce the hiring of its new Director for North Korea Advocacy any day now, using $2 million in grant money that comes courtesy of Section 102 of the North Korea Human Rights Act. I have great respect for the work FH does, but I wonder if North Korea is a challenge for which they’re really prepared. They’re not going to be able to simply set up an office in Pyongyang and start slipping greenbacks to dissidents and setting up opposition media. It shouldn’t be difficult to persuade voters in any number of countries that the North Korean regime is positively revolting, but if they intend to do anything that will directly influence the ordinary people of North Korea, they will have to be prepared do something much bolder that what they did in Bishkek.

Are they be prepared to do it?

The New York Times has a very interesting article on the North-Korea Libya story today. Again, we almost delve into the question of how much evidence of guilt we demand in relation to deliberatively secretive regimes that create unbearable risks, and whether secretive regimes should be entitled to the benefits of doubts they cultivate. David Sanger misses the latter point entirely and indulges in plenty of gratuitous editorializing about Iraq. Put that aside, however, and he’s done a fine job of laying out the evidence of the North Korean transfer for the reader to evaluate:

The Bush administration, joined by United Nations inspectors, now say the uranium most likely came from North Korea and helps to build a case that the North has exported dangerous nuclear material to Libya, and perhaps beyond. The officials drew on scientific tests, secret documents and interviews with key players in the black market, which taken together are potentially highly incriminating. But the evidence is also circumstantial.

In interviews this week, administration officials and foreign diplomats disclosed that Libyan officials had also surrendered financial ledgers to the United States that provide a guide to the front companies involved in the nuclear network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist. One large payment, American officials contend, was directed to North Korea, presumably for the uranium hexafluoride that arrived in Tripoli in 2001. But American and foreign officials who have seen the financial documents or been briefed on them say they do not prove a direct payment from Libya to the North Korean government.

The charge of “unilateralism” takes a kidney punch, too:

A European diplomat familiar with the I.A.E.A.’s investigation of the uranium shipment said a growing number of clues suggested that the source of the uranium was indeed North Korea. “There is a North Korean connection here,” he said. “But what it is exactly is a mystery.”

Sanger seems almost too embarassed to touch Dafna Lizner and Glenn Kessler for the reckless little screed they published in last week’s Washington Post fiasco, which I fisked here (the single malt distillation of stuff you’ve already read on this blog). Sanger goes to great pains to avoid telling us that his colleagues are full of it:

Last week, for the first time in public, the White House declared that the uranium came from North Korea. “The fact that nuclear material found its way out of North Korea to any destination is a source of serious concern for the United States,” said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, in a letter to The Washington Post. The letter denied that American officials visiting Asia had focused on the North Korean connection to draw attention from the fact that Mr. Khan’s network in Pakistan – an American ally – had acted as a middleman.

Well, that’s certainly putting it mildly. The WaPo claimed that the administration “concealed” and “covered up” Pakistan’s role–in essence, that it lied to its allies. Sanger blew his responsibility to correct the record here. Hey, sometimes, I have to do nasty cross-examinations of perfectly nice people who for reasons that are very important to them, lie. Did it again today, in fact. I didn’t enjoy it, but when your business is the dissemination of truth, you do your duty. Professional courtesy shouldn’t intrude upon one’s obligation to the truth.

All that being said, the article is still a must-read, and Sanger’s reporting is still praiseworthy.

(Links to Part I, Part II, and Part III, and a highly recommended post at No Illusions.)

The New York Times has a very interesting article on the North-Korea Libya story today. Again, we almost delve into the question of how much evidence of guilt we demand in relation to deliberatively secretive regimes that create unbearable risks, and whether secretive regimes should be entitled to the benefits of doubts they cultivate. David Sanger misses the latter point entirely and indulges in plenty of gratuitous editorializing about Iraq. Put that aside, however, and he’s done a fine job of laying out the evidence of the North Korean transfer for the reader to evaluate:

The Bush administration, joined by United Nations inspectors, now say the uranium most likely came from North Korea and helps to build a case that the North has exported dangerous nuclear material to Libya, and perhaps beyond. The officials drew on scientific tests, secret documents and interviews with key players in the black market, which taken together are potentially highly incriminating. But the evidence is also circumstantial.

In interviews this week, administration officials and foreign diplomats disclosed that Libyan officials had also surrendered financial ledgers to the United States that provide a guide to the front companies involved in the nuclear network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist. One large payment, American officials contend, was directed to North Korea, presumably for the uranium hexafluoride that arrived in Tripoli in 2001. But American and foreign officials who have seen the financial documents or been briefed on them say they do not prove a direct payment from Libya to the North Korean government.

The charge of “unilateralism” takes a kidney punch, too:

A European diplomat familiar with the I.A.E.A.’s investigation of the uranium shipment said a growing number of clues suggested that the source of the uranium was indeed North Korea. “There is a North Korean connection here,” he said. “But what it is exactly is a mystery.”

Sanger seems almost too embarassed to touch Dafna Lizner and Glenn Kessler for the reckless little screed they published in last week’s Washington Post fiasco, which I fisked here (the single malt distillation of stuff you’ve already read on this blog). Sanger goes to great pains to avoid telling us that his colleagues are full of it:

Last week, for the first time in public, the White House declared that the uranium came from North Korea. “The fact that nuclear material found its way out of North Korea to any destination is a source of serious concern for the United States,” said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, in a letter to The Washington Post. The letter denied that American officials visiting Asia had focused on the North Korean connection to draw attention from the fact that Mr. Khan’s network in Pakistan – an American ally – had acted as a middleman.

Well, that’s certainly putting it mildly. The WaPo claimed that the administration “concealed” and “covered up” Pakistan’s role–in essence, that it lied to its allies. Sanger blew his responsibility to correct the record here. Hey, sometimes, I have to do nasty cross-examinations of perfectly nice people who for reasons that are very important to them, lie. Did it again today, in fact. I didn’t enjoy it, but when your business is the dissemination of truth, you do your duty. Professional courtesy shouldn’t intrude upon one’s obligation to the truth.

All that being said, the article is still a must-read, and Sanger’s reporting is still praiseworthy.

(Links to Part I, Part II, and Part III, and a highly recommended post at No Illusions.)

South Korea is making it official:

A high official from the National Security Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, said during a discussion with reporters that, “Korea will break away from its Cold War-era ‘camp’ diplomacy.” By “camp diplomacy,” it appears he was referring to the structure of conflict between the South Korean, U.S. and Japanese “camp” and the North Korean, Chinese and Russian “camp.”
. . . .

Receiving a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, President Roh said, “Korea must play the role of balancer so that tensions do not revive within Northeast Asia.” It has been learned that the president has recently said that hegemonic competition between China and Japan was a major factor of insecurity in Northeast Asia, and that Korea needed to block a situation in which a U.S.-Japan alliance faced off against China.

So we can bring our troops home now, right? Of course not! Amazingly, South Korea insists that “[i]n the processes of carrying out the role of balancer, Korea will make as its base the Korea-U.S. alliance.” Uh huh. I’m sure that with the National Guard and Reserves overextended and two hot wars going on, Don Rumsfeld–like Odysseus ordering himself tied to the mast–will see the urgent priority of keeping 32,000 active duty personnel in Korea to protect the region from his own fiendish plans.

Korea–where policy comes from the barrel of a bong.

Here are links to Part I, Part II, Part III, Part III 1/2,and Part IV, and Part V.

South Korea is making it official:

A high official from the National Security Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, said during a discussion with reporters that, “Korea will break away from its Cold War-era ‘camp’ diplomacy.” By “camp diplomacy,” it appears he was referring to the structure of conflict between the South Korean, U.S. and Japanese “camp” and the North Korean, Chinese and Russian “camp.”
. . . .

Receiving a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, President Roh said, “Korea must play the role of balancer so that tensions do not revive within Northeast Asia.” It has been learned that the president has recently said that hegemonic competition between China and Japan was a major factor of insecurity in Northeast Asia, and that Korea needed to block a situation in which a U.S.-Japan alliance faced off against China.

So we can bring our troops home now, right? Of course not! Amazingly, South Korea insists that “[i]n the processes of carrying out the role of balancer, Korea will make as its base the Korea-U.S. alliance.” Uh huh. I’m sure that with the National Guard and Reserves overextended and two hot wars going on, Don Rumsfeld–like Odysseus ordering himself tied to the mast–will see the urgent priority of keeping 32,000 active duty personnel in Korea to protect the region from his own fiendish plans.

Korea–where policy comes from the barrel of a bong.

Here are links to Part I, Part II, Part III, Part III 1/2,and Part IV, and Part V.

Thailand and Laos have now decided to work together to stop North Korean refugees from entering their countries. I suppose you could call that someone’s “quiet diplomacy,” but not in a direction that favors North Korean refugees. Given anti-Unification Minister “Chicken” Chong Dong-Young’s fugitive slave exclusion policy, there isn’t much question about South Korea’s message to the people of North Korea: Rot in hell.

And now for the cover-up the Washington Post will never put on Page One. The South Korean government, still apparently seeking to avoid offending North Korea–while going out of its way to offend Japan and alienate the United States–has banned the North Korean execution video from television in South Korea, according to the Christian Science Monitor (thanks to Paul Webb for the link).

[D]ue to intense though indirect pressure by Seoul officials, the North Korean execution tapes, purportedly of “middlemen” who help refugees escape to China, are not yet available for viewing by Koreans in the South. The indirect censure adds to frustration among those documenting the gulags and torture in the North. They charge indifference in the South to evidence of manifold suffering by ethnic siblings across the demilitarized zone.

That would be the “North Korean execution / firing squad / refugee / dissident / escapee” video, or any other words any person in South Korea is likely to enter into a search engine. The effect of the ban may be somewhat muted, since Brendan, commenting at NKZone, reports that the video has already been shown on TV in Seoul. Still, it’s incomprehensibly frustrating to see the Korean government’s disingenuousness and hypocrisy laid bare:

“We have told of many public executions [in the North]. But officials in Seoul always ask us for material evidence,” says Pak Sang Huk, an escapee from the North. “Now that we have evidence, they don’t want to see it…. The people who brought this tape through China were speechless when they visited KBS [Korean Broadcast Service] studios, and were shunned.” Mr. Pak claims those who filmed the executions risked their lives to do so.

It gets much, much, much worse. Stop reading right now, pick up your wastebasket, make sure it has a fresh plastic bag inside, and clutch it to your chest. You may now read on:

Seoul’s effort to avoid broadcasts of negative images or facts about North Korea is part of a larger strategy dating to the Sunshine Policy and Korean summit of 2000. In this view, unification of North and South can’t be achieved if the South criticizes or acts in a manner that the North deems hostile. “Kim Jong Il holds public executions to show the Kim family is omnipotent,” says Jae Jin Suh of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “It is naive to think that Pyongyang will respond to a push by Seoul to change and treat its people better. We need to focus on what is effective, not what we think we should say.”

So there you have it. The regime has a perfectly good reason for summarily shooting people in public: to maintain its reign of terror. Hey, who are we to judge? Morals, schmorals. Never in my entire life have I seen such a retch-inducing justification for murder for the sake of terror. Jae Jin Suh’s words should be tattooed onto his forehead, engraved on his tombstone, and recorded on his death certificate. And then he should be bound, gagged, and dragged across the Yalu to Hoeryong. South Korea has departed so far from any values it once shared with the civilized world that it’s become impossible to explain what drives its policies. Perhaps, just 32 days until that next bi-election, Uri thinks it can’t afford to let the voters be distracted from the real national priority–Operation Tokdo Freedom!©

So, as a public service to the people and journalists of South Korea–who, unlike National Assembly members, can’t watch this video–here’s a link to it. And here’s another link showing a brief clip and offering the full movie on DVD(!). Just how do you suppose history will remember Chong Dong-Young? One defector suggests an answer:

Another refugee plaintively asked the group what South Koreans will say to North Koreans “once North Korea is liberated. “What will we say when they ask us, ‘What did you do to help?’ “

Those of you in South Korea, enjoy this site while you still can . . . forecasts call for a 50% chance of interruptions of service.

Thailand and Laos have now decided to work together to stop North Korean refugees from entering their countries. I suppose you could call that someone’s “quiet diplomacy,” but not in a direction that favors North Korean refugees. Given anti-Unification Minister “Chicken” Chong Dong-Young’s fugitive slave exclusion policy, there isn’t much question about South Korea’s message to the people of North Korea: Rot in hell.

And now for the cover-up the Washington Post will never put on Page One. The South Korean government, still apparently seeking to avoid offending North Korea–while going out of its way to offend Japan and alienate the United States–has banned the North Korean execution video from television in South Korea, according to the Christian Science Monitor (thanks to Paul Webb for the link).

[D]ue to intense though indirect pressure by Seoul officials, the North Korean execution tapes, purportedly of “middlemen” who help refugees escape to China, are not yet available for viewing by Koreans in the South. The indirect censure adds to frustration among those documenting the gulags and torture in the North. They charge indifference in the South to evidence of manifold suffering by ethnic siblings across the demilitarized zone.

That would be the “North Korean execution / firing squad / refugee / dissident / escapee” video, or any other words any person in South Korea is likely to enter into a search engine. The effect of the ban may be somewhat muted, since Brendan, commenting at NKZone, reports that the video has already been shown on TV in Seoul. Still, it’s incomprehensibly frustrating to see the Korean government’s disingenuousness and hypocrisy laid bare:

“We have told of many public executions [in the North]. But officials in Seoul always ask us for material evidence,” says Pak Sang Huk, an escapee from the North. “Now that we have evidence, they don’t want to see it…. The people who brought this tape through China were speechless when they visited KBS [Korean Broadcast Service] studios, and were shunned.” Mr. Pak claims those who filmed the executions risked their lives to do so.

It gets much, much, much worse. Stop reading right now, pick up your wastebasket, make sure it has a fresh plastic bag inside, and clutch it to your chest. You may now read on:

Seoul’s effort to avoid broadcasts of negative images or facts about North Korea is part of a larger strategy dating to the Sunshine Policy and Korean summit of 2000. In this view, unification of North and South can’t be achieved if the South criticizes or acts in a manner that the North deems hostile. “Kim Jong Il holds public executions to show the Kim family is omnipotent,” says Jae Jin Suh of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “It is naive to think that Pyongyang will respond to a push by Seoul to change and treat its people better. We need to focus on what is effective, not what we think we should say.”

So there you have it. The regime has a perfectly good reason for summarily shooting people in public: to maintain its reign of terror. Hey, who are we to judge? Morals, schmorals. Never in my entire life have I seen such a retch-inducing justification for murder for the sake of terror. Jae Jin Suh’s words should be tattooed onto his forehead, engraved on his tombstone, and recorded on his death certificate. And then he should be bound, gagged, and dragged across the Yalu to Hoeryong. South Korea has departed so far from any values it once shared with the civilized world that it’s become impossible to explain what drives its policies. Perhaps, just 32 days until that next bi-election, Uri thinks it can’t afford to let the voters be distracted from the real national priority–Operation Tokdo Freedom!©

So, as a public service to the people and journalists of South Korea–who, unlike National Assembly members, can’t watch this video–here’s a link to it. And here’s another link showing a brief clip and offering the full movie on DVD(!). Just how do you suppose history will remember Chong Dong-Young? One defector suggests an answer:

Another refugee plaintively asked the group what South Koreans will say to North Koreans “once North Korea is liberated. “What will we say when they ask us, ‘What did you do to help?’ “

Those of you in South Korea, enjoy this site while you still can . . . forecasts call for a 50% chance of interruptions of service.

Thailand and Laos have now decided to work together to stop North Korean refugees from entering their countries. I suppose you could call that someone’s “quiet diplomacy,” but not in a direction that favors North Korean refugees. Given anti-Unification Minister “Chicken” Chong Dong-Young’s fugitive slave exclusion policy, there isn’t much question about South Korea’s message to the people of North Korea: Rot in hell.

And now for the cover-up the Washington Post will never put on Page One. The South Korean government, still apparently seeking to avoid offending North Korea–while going out of its way to offend Japan and alienate the United States–has banned the North Korean execution video from television in South Korea, according to the Christian Science Monitor (thanks to Paul Webb for the link).

[D]ue to intense though indirect pressure by Seoul officials, the North Korean execution tapes, purportedly of “middlemen” who help refugees escape to China, are not yet available for viewing by Koreans in the South. The indirect censure adds to frustration among those documenting the gulags and torture in the North. They charge indifference in the South to evidence of manifold suffering by ethnic siblings across the demilitarized zone.

That would be the “North Korean execution / firing squad / refugee / dissident / escapee” video, or any other words any person in South Korea is likely to enter into a search engine. The effect of the ban may be somewhat muted, since Brendan, commenting at NKZone, reports that the video has already been shown on TV in Seoul. Still, it’s incomprehensibly frustrating to see the Korean government’s disingenuousness and hypocrisy laid bare:

“We have told of many public executions [in the North]. But officials in Seoul always ask us for material evidence,” says Pak Sang Huk, an escapee from the North. “Now that we have evidence, they don’t want to see it…. The people who brought this tape through China were speechless when they visited KBS [Korean Broadcast Service] studios, and were shunned.” Mr. Pak claims those who filmed the executions risked their lives to do so.

It gets much, much, much worse. Stop reading right now, pick up your wastebasket, make sure it has a fresh plastic bag inside, and clutch it to your chest. You may now read on:

Seoul’s effort to avoid broadcasts of negative images or facts about North Korea is part of a larger strategy dating to the Sunshine Policy and Korean summit of 2000. In this view, unification of North and South can’t be achieved if the South criticizes or acts in a manner that the North deems hostile. “Kim Jong Il holds public executions to show the Kim family is omnipotent,” says Jae Jin Suh of the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul. “It is naive to think that Pyongyang will respond to a push by Seoul to change and treat its people better. We need to focus on what is effective, not what we think we should say.”

So there you have it. The regime has a perfectly good reason for summarily shooting people in public: to maintain its reign of terror. Hey, who are we to judge? Morals, schmorals. Never in my entire life have I seen such a retch-inducing justification for murder for the sake of terror. Jae Jin Suh’s words should be tattooed onto his forehead, engraved on his tombstone, and recorded on his death certificate. And then he should be bound, gagged, and dragged across the Yalu to Hoeryong. South Korea has departed so far from any values it once shared with the civilized world that it’s become impossible to explain what drives its policies. Perhaps, just 32 days until that next bi-election, Uri thinks it can’t afford to let the voters be distracted from the real national priority–Operation Tokdo Freedom!©

So, as a public service to the people and journalists of South Korea–who, unlike National Assembly members, can’t watch this video–here’s a link to it. And here’s another link showing a brief clip and offering the full movie on DVD(!). Just how do you suppose history will remember Chong Dong-Young? One defector suggests an answer:

Another refugee plaintively asked the group what South Koreans will say to North Koreans “once North Korea is liberated. “What will we say when they ask us, ‘What did you do to help?’ “

Those of you in South Korea, enjoy this site while you still can . . . forecasts call for a 50% chance of interruptions of service.

Asian dictatorships haven’t had an especially good record against the rash of new viruses lately. Now comes word that bird flu has made its way into North Korea, and that the starving nation, which depended on chicken for 13% of its meat supply (how does anyone know this?), has been slaughtering thousands of the birds and burning their carcasses. The latter may be a wise precaution in light of recent reports that starving North Koreans–the vast majority of whom probably eat meat only on the rarest of occasions–were digging up the buried carcasses of other recent cullings. Let’s hope that South Korea, in its haste to stand up North Korea as a pool of cheap non-union labor, hasn’t let any of these birds reach store shelves.

South Korea and the U.N. are promising aid, no doubt realizing the potential for an epidemic in a weak, undernourished population living in unsanitary conditions and willing to risk anything for something to eat. Expect the regime to permit a token presence of foreign assistance at most, given their recent announcement that they’re kicking out existing U.N. food aid workers (explanation: “they’re no longer needed”). The regime has long depended on keeping North Koreans unaware of the better conditions in other countries, feels threatened by the increased inflow of outside information in recent years, and is in the middle of a ruthless crackdown to stop it.

The regime, as usual, will tolerate premature mortality among its citizens for the sake of internal control. But closed societies tend to be vulnerable to rumors and panic, and rumors of an epidemic could have a powerfully destabilizing effect.

UPDATE: Typos fixed. My apologies for the pre-coffee posting.

UPDATE II: Well this is certainly interesting. Remember that unexplained postponement of the North Korean parliament’s meeting last month? Our friends at the Unification Ministry (reader beware) offer this explanation:

“Analyzing all information we’ve got so far, the intelligence community concluded the delay was caused by the avian influenza outbreak,” a ranking official of South Korea’s Ministry of Unification said. . . . “With more than 600 delegates from all over the country supposed to gather in Pyongyang for the legislative meeting, there was concern the disease would spread uncontrollably,” the Unification Ministry source said. In connection with the Supreme People’s Assembly session, North Korean officials usually tour poultry farms, other cooperatives and power plants in and around Pyongyang.

It also raises a question of whether South Korea may have imported infected birds, given that the above-linked story in the original piece, dated March 15th, reported that Seoul was still planning to import 40 tons of chickens. But here is what the Joongang’s latest piece says:

Following the indications that North Korea was facing a bird flu outbreak, Seoul quietly began quarantine measures. The 400,000 tons of chicken meat, scheduled to be imported from the North on March 11, was stopped, and incoming travelers from the Kaesong industrial complex and the Mount Kumgang resort were given thorough health checks at the border. “Because the North would possibly get upset, we had to carry out the measures secretly,” Rhee Bong-jo, vice minister of unification, said.

The report could be wrong; on the other hand, the Unification Ministry’s passion for keeping secrets to avoid offense could potentially have interfered with getting out the word to stop all imports. Reading these reports together–and they’re from the same paper–it sounds like the Unification Ministry knew there was a serious health risk on the 11th, but had not told the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry about it four full days later, meaning that the latter was still telling the press that the imports were an imminent go and no one should worry, since North Korea had “strict quality controls.”

In a word: oops!

Another unanswered question (for me, anyway) is whether the disease can be carried only by live birds, or can be contracted by eating one. At the very least, however, you have to question the Unification Ministry’s judgment in not alerting the public–not to mention other ministries–to the potential danger.

Asian dictatorships haven’t had an especially good record against the rash of new viruses lately. Now comes word that bird flu has made its way into North Korea, and that the starving nation, which depended on chicken for 13% of its meat supply (how does anyone know this?), has been slaughtering thousands of the birds and burning their carcasses. The latter may be a wise precaution in light of recent reports that starving North Koreans–the vast majority of whom probably eat meat only on the rarest of occasions–were digging up the buried carcasses of other recent cullings. Let’s hope that South Korea, in its haste to stand up North Korea as a pool of cheap non-union labor, hasn’t let any of these birds reach store shelves.

South Korea and the U.N. are promising aid, no doubt realizing the potential for an epidemic in a weak, undernourished population living in unsanitary conditions and willing to risk anything for something to eat. Expect the regime to permit a token presence of foreign assistance at most, given their recent announcement that they’re kicking out existing U.N. food aid workers (explanation: “they’re no longer needed”). The regime has long depended on keeping North Koreans unaware of the better conditions in other countries, feels threatened by the increased inflow of outside information in recent years, and is in the middle of a ruthless crackdown to stop it.

The regime, as usual, will tolerate premature mortality among its citizens for the sake of internal control. But closed societies tend to be vulnerable to rumors and panic, and rumors of an epidemic could have a powerfully destabilizing effect.

UPDATE: Typos fixed. My apologies for the pre-coffee posting.

UPDATE II: Well this is certainly interesting. Remember that unexplained postponement of the North Korean parliament’s meeting last month? Our friends at the Unification Ministry (reader beware) offer this explanation:

“Analyzing all information we’ve got so far, the intelligence community concluded the delay was caused by the avian influenza outbreak,” a ranking official of South Korea’s Ministry of Unification said. . . . “With more than 600 delegates from all over the country supposed to gather in Pyongyang for the legislative meeting, there was concern the disease would spread uncontrollably,” the Unification Ministry source said. In connection with the Supreme People’s Assembly session, North Korean officials usually tour poultry farms, other cooperatives and power plants in and around Pyongyang.

It also raises a question of whether South Korea may have imported infected birds, given that the above-linked story in the original piece, dated March 15th, reported that Seoul was still planning to import 40 tons of chickens. But here is what the Joongang’s latest piece says:

Following the indications that North Korea was facing a bird flu outbreak, Seoul quietly began quarantine measures. The 400,000 tons of chicken meat, scheduled to be imported from the North on March 11, was stopped, and incoming travelers from the Kaesong industrial complex and the Mount Kumgang resort were given thorough health checks at the border. “Because the North would possibly get upset, we had to carry out the measures secretly,” Rhee Bong-jo, vice minister of unification, said.

The report could be wrong; on the other hand, the Unification Ministry’s passion for keeping secrets to avoid offense could potentially have interfered with getting out the word to stop all imports. Reading these reports together–and they’re from the same paper–it sounds like the Unification Ministry knew there was a serious health risk on the 11th, but had not told the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry about it four full days later, meaning that the latter was still telling the press that the imports were an imminent go and no one should worry, since North Korea had “strict quality controls.”

In a word: oops!

Another unanswered question (for me, anyway) is whether the disease can be carried only by live birds, or can be contracted by eating one. At the very least, however, you have to question the Unification Ministry’s judgment in not alerting the public–not to mention other ministries–to the potential danger.