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Cool. The South Korean government will help Iraq set up an Internet infrastructure.
Archive for August, 2005
Former Chinese Diplomat Describes “Seething Underclass”
Chen Yonglin, the Chinese diplomat who recently defected in Australia, has a new interview out with the Washington Diplomat. If he’s right, the little grey men in the Forbidden City might want to reread the parts of The Communist Manifesto that talked about alienation and class warfare:
In a series of interviews in the U.S. and Australian press, Chen repeatedly characterized the Chinese government as “evil” and described a vast network of secret Chinese spies who had infiltrated the United States and Australia to steal top military and technological secrets.
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He described communist China as a cesspool of government corruption with a seething underclass of citizens that is ready to explode in anger and resentment. He said the poor people are simply powerless, and even the wealthier people are furious with a government that can seize their properties and possessions with virtually no due process.“The situation in China is like a volcano,” Chen said. “More and more people are dissatisfied with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] power. Every year there are more than 60,000 acts of civil disobedience and some are very big. There will be more riots in China. While the poor people are angry with the government, even rich people are not satisfied with the CCP because their private property cannot be guaranteed.
The official Chinese response? “There is no so-called political persecution at all.” Uh huh.
NYT on the USFK and Talks Delay
The New York Times has two articles of interest. The first is a detailed report on how U.S. force structure in Korea will change. It relies heavily on an interview with Gen. Leon LaPorte, the USFK Commanding General.
The other discusses the North Korean decision not to return to the talks next week. Interestingly, North Korea uses the more transparent excuse of the annual US-ROK military exercises rather than focusing on Jay Lefkowitz’s appointment as Special Envoy for Human Rights. In fact, the Times article says that North Korea didn’t specifically cite the Lefkowitz appointment in its statement, although there’s little question it miffed them. You have to wonder just what Lefkowitz can really say to the North Koreans when our diplomatic team isn’t really saying anything:
Several organizations say they have evidence of vast prison camps and suppression of dissent in North Korea, but Mr. Hill said last week that although the rights issue was not part of the current talks, North Korea would have to improve its record in order to end its isolation from the international community.
I actually have some sympathy with the position that any slender hope of a successful negotiation (or failing that, the appearance that we sincerely tried) requires you to start with basic fundamental principles on which you can agree. Otherwise, the North could well blame the human rights issue rather than say, its refusal to admit to its uranium program, as the reason for the breakdown. If the talks break down over North Korea’s dishonest denials or its intransigent refusal to disarm–which still looks more likely than any other option–there’s no harm done.
A basic negotiation principle is that you start with the broader issues, and if an agreement then seems realistically possible, you progressively reach the narrower ones. But these talks aren’t going to go far before they touch the issue of verification, and that means transparency, which means inspections. Unless the U.S. unwisely agrees to limiting inspections to narrow areas pre-approved by North Korea, weapons inspections and human rights issues will intersect rapidly on such issues as the testing of WMD on humans, or the use of forced labor to build and staff WMD facilties. The same applies to diplomatic normalization, where the U.S. position is that human rights improvements–meaning some measure of openness–will have to come first.
In the short term, there’s probably little harm in keeping the human rights issue out of harm’s direct way, but in the medium term, the human rights issue is barreling toward the metaphorical intersection where it will collide with the issues of verification and normalization.
Korean Version of OFK Eberstadt Interview
Daily NK has published a Korean-language translation of my interview with Nicholas Eberstadt (who spells his name with a “b”). While you’re there, check out this refugee interview covering the current supply of food, education, housing, electricity, and other necessities of life.
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Koreans Demonstrate for Democracy in Egypt: This must be the most interesting and unlikely connection to emerge from the Carnival of the Revolutions. Thanks to Freedom for Egyptians for the link.
News Summary
China and North Korea have a new treaty on the processing of refugees . . . as something other than refugees. Thanks to Chinese concepts of open government, opaque writing from the Chosun Ilbo, and a generous ladle-full of South Korean government doublespeak, I have almost no idea what the agreement would actually do, which probably means, “nothing good.”
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A new poll finds that 67% of people are either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with President Roh Moo Hyun, who gets no credit for what is very nearly an honest admission of his incompetence on national television. Here ends the good news. Most of the dissatisfaction seems related to economic factors, and the plurality candidate preferred as a replacement is the living personification of the authoritarian right’s realpolitik, Park Geun-Hye. OK, some more good news: Chung Dong-Young came in last in the straw poll, at 10%.
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From the Kaesong Industrial Park, where South Korean corporations dream of a future in which North Koreans’ prison blues are embroidered with their logos, the Joongang Ilbo reports that involuntary servitude can be hazardous to your heath:
In January, four people were injured in separate accidents. Three among them lost fingers. In June, a worker suffered a burn, and the accidents have continued. The ministry said 10 accidents have occurred so far, including the deadly fall of last year.” North Korean workers are unfamiliar with the South’s machines and equipment on the production lines,” said a ministry official. “They also lack safety awareness. Because they are paying social welfare insurance to North Korea, worth about 15 percent of their wages, South Korea is not providing separate compensation.”
Can we assume that the 15 percent figure is supplied by the North Korean government–meaning that it’s understated? I went to law school because I can’t do math, but take $58 a month and subtract out a 15% gratuity (and don’t expect anyone to serve you food). Now try to feed your family.
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Still on the subject of unethical business dealings with North Korea, we have a curiously vague follow-up to last week’s report of a new scandal at Hyundai Asan, which books those pricey Mt. Kumgang trips where the only North Koreans you’ll ever meet are government minders. It now seems that North Korea is so upset over the firing of Hyundai Asan’s Vice Chairman that it’s cut back on the number of visitors it allows in. That suggests that North Korea was a beneficiary of whatever “corruption” the deposed executive was engaged in. This will get more interesting.
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Even North Korea’s privileged few have to face industrial hazards. North Korea’s Air Koryo apparently has such an atrocious safety record that it’s been banned from French airspace. Those falling sacks of crystal meth can leave a mark, n’est pas?
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We already know that food production and safety are not among the regime’s highest priorities for the allocation of its scarce resources. Now have a look at where the money is going–the bulldozing around of a million people, give or take a few hundred thousand, to hold up sheets of painted cardboard. Sound government policy, you ask? It all depends on your perspective:
But one North Korea specialist said the performance was merely “an opiate to make the people forget about their tiresome lives.” A government official said, “It’s an event that seeks to show North Korea’s internal unity in the current domestic and international situation.”
The perspectives that would interest me much more are the ones behind the 300,000 sheets of painted cardboard.
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South Korea is taking a page from the North and creating lists and classes of collaborators, presumably so that it can root them out for three generations. Japan’s occupation of Korea ended in 1945, but it’s still the subject of ferocious anger by Koreans. That’s partially because the occupation was brutal, but it’s also because a political movement that lacks a coherent vision of the present or plan for the future must dwell in the past. Note that the ruling party neatly gerrymandered the definition of “collaborator” to exclude the fathers of some of its own Big Men.
OFK Pre-Orders Bun Bo Xa and Ca Phe Sua Da After Winning Lunch Bet
Errrrrrrrrm . . . . I can already taste the lemon grass. Succulent.
Carnival of the Revolutions, 29 August 2005
Welcome to the Carnival of the Revolutions edition for August 29th. Hosting next week’s edition (Sept. 5) will be Thinking-East; next up (Sept. 12) is Quid Nimis. Updates added, typos fixed.
East Asia and the Pacific Rim
Burma: Did the government’s army use chemical weapons against Karen rebels earlier this year? The Jubilee Campaign, a Christian human rights NGO, prints an editorial by Lord David Alton, a member of the British House of Lords. Publius reports on new rumors of a coup in Rangoon.
China: Publius looks at growing income inequality in China and the parallel rise in unrest that is worrying the regime’s leaders. Simon World has a fascinating post about Chinese and Indian political scientists’ forecasts for both nations as emerging powers. D.J. McGuire at China-e-Lobby sees a papal capitulation to the Chinese authorities, who have an uncharacteristic enthusiasm for competition when it comes to Catholic Churches. He also reminds us that it has now been 56 years since the leaders of the formerly independent East Turkestan were killed in a mysterious plane crash on the way to Beijing for talks with Mao, who responded by sending in the Chinese army.
China is having an oil crisis; just have a look at this photograph from the New York Times. Simon World looks at the reasons behind it, and finds that government interference has compounded market pressures. How can this fail to have a significant impact on China’s economy? The Peking Duck has more.
Quid Nimis reports on the strange case of the Gitmo Uigurs whom the U.S. military captured in Afghanistan. The military doesn’t think the men are dangerous (really? It’s not exactly a short stroll from Hotan to Konduz—it’s fair to wonder what they were doing there) and doesn’t want to return to China for fear of severe treatment.
Simon World looks at the problems of being an honest journalist in China, as does Peking Duck.
Indonesia: Islamic extremists are stepping up their persecution of Christians in West Java, reports the Jubilee Campaign. In one case, they showed up during a Sunday service at a church that had been operating since 1956 and ordered the service to end and the church to close permanently.
Japan: Mutant Frog has an interesting Taiwanese take on the upcoming election between Junichiro Koizumi, who has moved his country closer to the United States, and his opponent in the Democratic Party of Japan.
Nepal: In a deeply troubling development, Publius reports that the king’s repressive response to a brutal Maoist insurgency has driven the peaceful opposition into the arms of the Maoists.
North Korea: Each party had its own way of trying to set a positive atmosphere going in to the recent six-nation talks. This week, we learned that North Korea’s was to restart its reactor at Yongbyon. Late word from Beijing was that the six nations were on the verge of agreeing to a joint statement of very general principles for a plan to “denuclearize” the North. Update: The Chosun Ilbo reports that the North is refusing to return to the talks until mid-September at the earliest, to protest the appointment of a U.S. Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea. Scroll down for details.
Does North Korea have a “right” to a “peaceful” nuclear program? The legal support for that claim is dubious, but that North Korean demand helped deadlock the last session of six-nation disarmament talks. South Korea’s Unification Minister sided with the North Koreans, but the Foreign Minister later backpedalled. The U.S. position, which had been clear in the wake of the talks, was thrown into confusion when the American negotiator said that the issue would not be a “show-stopper.” Oh? North Korea’s specific demand has been for peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which would mean reactors, fuel rods, and other things with which the North can’t be trusted.
Another potential show-stopper is North Korea’s refusal to admit that it has a covert uranium enrichment program. This week, Pakistan publicly admitted selling North Korea the centrifuges it uses for the program, in what would seem to be a calculated and negotiated leak to undermine North Korea’s denials.
What if the talks fail? In an interview exclusively for this blog, noted Korea expert Nicholas Eberstadt claims they already have, and discusses economic consequences that the U.S. could impose in response. Will those be enough to supply the missing deterrent from U.S. policy toward North Korea, in case North Korea won’t cease to threaten other nations or its own people? While the North Korean rulers probably don’t take military threats seriously, given the number of American soldiers in their artillery range, they may be less cavalier about outside appeals to the legimitacy of their rule.
While any North Korean resistance movement is probably years from challenging North Korea’s tyranny, some early steps toward encouraging dissenters have come from President Bush, Freedom House, Natan Sharanksy, and the U.S. Congress, via the ADVANCE Democracy Act and the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 (see sidebar at upper right). Last week, the White House finally nominated Jay Lefkowitz as U.S. Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea, a position created by the NKHRA last fall.
North Korea is the world’s most opaque society, and getting information about life on the inside is exceedingly difficult. Your new must-read source is the DailyNK, an online journal written by and for North Korean defectors, with help from sympathetic writers in South Korea and elsewhere (full disclosure: I’m one of them). Its recent scoops include an interview with a starving North Korean soldier, an expose of Kim Jong Il’s sex life, North Korea’s secret house churches, the rising use of cell phones despite a government ban, and a report on North Korea’s drug problem.
Another of our best sources of information about North Korea is Professor Andrei Lankov, who lived in North Korea as a Soviet diplomat for a number of years. He has several fine posts at NKZone, including this one, about North Korea’s strictly controlled markets. NKZone contributor Michael Rank looks at North Korea’s state religion.
The feds recently rolled up a Chinese gang that was marketing drugs and North Korean “supernotes,” and was planning to smuggle in heavy weapons, too. What makes the story a must-read is just how the feds executed the bust.
South Korea: A once-staunch American ally continues to drift toward irrational exuberance for the message of the North Korean regime. That exuberance has come at a high price for free expression in the South. A new survey of South Korean youth adds to a growing body of statistical evidence that anti-Americanism in South Korean is running near Middle Eastern levels (when will the U.S. government launch a Korean al-Hurrah?). In another setback for civil liberties in South Korea, the police appear to have been too busy checking themselves for rectal polyps to prevent pro-North Korean thugs from intimidating and threatening Radio FreeNK, an Internet broadcasting service by North Korean defectors for a secret audience in their homeland. The threats may now force Radio FreeNK to shut down, in what may well be an example of vicarious censorship by withdrawal of state protection.
At least the Korean left didn’t follow through on its vow to tear down the statue of Douglas MacArthur; OFK readers recently caused the Christian Science Monitor to correct a report that an organ of the South Korea government supported that position, too. The reporter’s humility and willingness to correct the record form a strong contrast to some other journalists’ recent behavior.
North Korea has admitted to kidnapping Japanese citizens, but what of the hundreds of South Koreans kidnapped by the North, or the thousands of POWs held by the North for sixty years after it agreed to return them in the 1953 armistice? Meekly, haltingly, the South Korean government is starting to inquire about their status. Despite years of South Korean appeasement, the Lost Nomad reports that the North has not been receptive.
If it bothers you that South Korea’s peace and prosperity are defended by American soldiers, but that many South Koreans bar members of the U.S. military from their businesses–and now, even from a public sporting event–you can show your support for our service members by supporting this blogger’s complaint the South Korean Human Rights Commission on their behalf. Given that the HRC considers restricting adolescents’ hairstyles to be a human rights violation, such an expansive interpretation of “human rights” would seem to include discrimination in public accomodations based on race and national origin.
Not all the news from South Korea is bad. The current anti-U.S. government is so weakened that it has improbably asked the opposition to form a coalition, something that would require amending the South Korean Constitution.
A nascent political movement in South Korea, known by its supporters as “The New Right,” breaks from conservative South Korea’s authoritarian past and progressive South Korea’s reflexive appeasement to challenge South Korea’s nearly universal silence about North Korea’s horrific human rights record. New Right legislators, led by former political prisoner and rising star Kim Moon-Soo, recently introduced a South Korean version of a North Korean Human Rights Act, although it’s sadly unlikely that the bill has enough support to pass this year.
Philippines: Asia Pundit has a roundup of news from the PI, including news links on the latest bombing in Basilan. When will President Arroyo finally stop occupying Iraq and Palestine?
Australia will start requiring Islamic schools to teach Australian values, according to Stefania.
South Asia
Pakistan: Gateway Pundit reports that Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf will address the American Jewish Committee in New York, and that the Pakistani rape victim whose case inspired an international outcry has helped two women win elected office in her village.
Bangladesh: Fair Vote Watch looks at the developing evidence that the recent wave of bombings was inspired and funded by international terrorists.
Middle East
Hate Watch: Winds of Change has the latest.
Media: You’ll never guess what channel they’re watching in Cairo and other places in the Middle East these days.
Egypt: For the first time anyone can remember, state-controlled TV in Egypt allowed an opposition candidate’s criticism of Hosni Mubarak on the air. The Big Pharoah wonders whether this for real, or just simulated balance. Freedom For Egyptians thinks the entire election is a fraud, but definitely give this blog a serious look before you conclude that it’s mere conspiratoral cynicism. FFE’s lockean demand for individual rights and courage in questioning the demonization of The Usual Suspects (principally, Israel) is welcome relief from the usual al-Jazeera perspective. HT: Gateway Pundit.
For a wider angle view, don’t miss this interesting Washington Post video report on Egypt’s pro-democracy movement. It’s not entirely good news; the Muslim Brotherhood is by far the strongest opposition movement.
Iran: Dr. Zin at Regime Change Iran looks at why Iran will never give up its determined pursuit of nuclear weapons, and how that pursuit might yet bring the United States and Old Europe together (if Gerhard Schroeder’s reelection campaign doesn’t tear them apart first). He also has a must-read update summarizing the major developments relating to the pro-democracy movement, human rights, and diplomacy. Stefania at Free Thoughts reports on more bad news for the Iranian people: violent clashes and public executions.
Iraq: As negotiators in Iraq haggled (but thus far, did not fight) over a draft constitution, bloggers speculated on what the parties sought, and whether the draft would be good for Iraq. Update: As of Monday a.m., it appears that the Sunnis did not agree with to the draft proposed by Shi’ite and Kurdish delegates.
The invaluable Iraq the Model discusses what the Sunnis and everyone else want. Publius doesn’t agree that the dispute is one of anti-federalist Sunnis versus pro-federalist Shi’ites, as most often portrayed, but a question of factions that control militias trying to weaken the central government to the point of impotence. Writing in the New York Times, David Brooks asks what is so wrong with that, and notes that Iraq’s religious leaders have rejected the theocratic Iranian model in favor of one-person, one-vote. Michael Barone reminds Americans that Iraqis might not necessarily make the same choices Americans would make, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not building as free a society as can be expected under the circumstances.
A parallel debate concerns whether the draft constitution’s provision that no law may controvert the principles of Islam (nor can any law controvert democracy, meaning both terms will be subject to vastly differing interpretations) means de facto theocracy in more conservative areas. Stephania at Free Thoughts is very worried about the imposition of shar’ia in Iraq. Publius cites the provisions in question and does a line-by-line comparison to similar provisions in the Afghan Constitution. Alenda Lux picks up on the same line of thought, and asks why the New York Times did not have the same reaction in the Afghan case, which resulted in neither a return to Taliban rule nor the overnight transformation of a feudal society into Wisteria Lane. Dean Esmay attacks comparisons of the draft constitution to Iran’s, arguing that Iran’s Constitution gives the mullahs far more inherent authority. Quid Nimis has one last suggestion to encourage a compromise: “Let’s lock the Iraqi parliament in a room with a bunch of Spanish mimes and tell them they can’t leave ’til we have a constitution. Cruel, I know, but these are tough times.”
Gateway Pundit reports that some die-hard neo-Ba’athists in Baquoba and a Sunni Arab district of Kirkuk held small pro-Saddam, anti-Constitution demonstrations. While the demonstrations received predictable press attention, turnout was limited to a few hundred people in each district, both of which were once key bases of Ba’athist support. It’s also likely that rejectionist sheiks encouraged the demonstrations to enhance their leverage at the bargaining table.
Over on Tech Central Station, Michael Fumento reports on the rebuilding of Fallujah–a place we never seem to hear about these days, probably because things aren’t going badly enough to be newsworthy. On the subject of rebuilding, Strategy Page has some advice on how not to train Iraqi security forces, and the Signaleer has a compendium of good news from Iraq. Arthur Chrenkoff, again telling us a story that traditional media aren’t, looks at evidence that voter turnout may be enthusiastic in areas that boycotted January’s election. The Idiom has some photos of Iraqi teens that suggest the makings of a modest social revolution.
Michael Yon is in Mosul, Iraq, writing the best blog that ever was. Yon, who embedded himself with Deuce Four, a Styker battalion in Mosul, Iraq, has no budget (except our tips) and no journalistic training, and yet also has better coverage of the battlefront than any newspaper, magazine, or network on earth. With his crisp, dry writing and his easy interaction with soldiers that clearly benefits from his own military background, Yon has made himself into the Ernie Pyle of our time, writing for an unserved market of Americans who want to know how their soldiers are fighting the terrorist enemy. He does so by bringing us back reports like this, photographs like this, and video like this that the rest of the media, for whatever reason, are not. This week, Yon has published his most breaktaking dispatch yet, describing the circumstances that caused him to pick up a weapon for the first time. You are left wondering where we find men like these, and whether the courage of the American people to get through another day of watching the evening news will equal their courage to get through IEDs, snipers, and mortar fire. I have little doubt that they would if they could read more reports like Yon’s, whose observations seem far more newsworthy than, say, Cindy Sheehan’s view that the terrorists are “freedom fighters.”
Another brave journalist who tried to give balanced reports of both good and bad news in Iraq was Steven Vincent, who was murdered by Shi’ite thugs near Basra recently. Middle East “expert” Juan Cole, attempting to rationalize the murder, took a beating from Vincent’s widow (who, of course, speaks with what Maureen Down calls “absolute moral authority”). Leaving Cole’s warped logic aside for a moment, some of his factual misunderstandings seem, well, understandable. An apology should have ended it, but Cole’s arrogant response to Mrs. Vincent (via Dean Esmay) was much worse than saying nothing at all.
Israel / Palestine: Alenda Lux tells us why the Gaza withdrawal won’t bring peace, in a word: Hamas. I like James Lileks’s take, but then again, I almost always do.
Saudi Arabia: Austin Bay links to a Strategy Page report (subscription required) on Al-Qaeda’s loss of its top leader and 15 others. The report also mentions the narrowly failed rocket attack on a U.S. Navy ship in the harbor at Aqaba, Jordan.
Syria: There’s a new dissident Syrian blog in on the net: Syria Comment PLUS. Gateway Pundit links to his report of unrest in the North.
Yemen: Jane at Armies of Liberation reports on some revolting conduct by the government of Yemen toward journalists who report allegations of government corruption. Death threats are just the beginning. In one case, they threatened a journalist’s kids. There are signs of a blogswarm. Separately, she writes about “kaafirophobia,” but don’t expect to see seminars about it on a campus near you.
Africa
Zimbabwe: The Zimbabwean Pundit has several interesting posts this week, all of them deeply depressing. Dictator-for-Life Robert Mugabe is using his dubious win in last March’s elections to rewrite the Constitution, giving himself even more powers than he held previously. The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, has seemed at a loss for what to do next since March. After the threat of an MDC split, Tsvangirai has gone back to the people to set the party’s new direction. China is happy to assist with the looting, most recently of Zimbabwe’s mineral resources.
Ethiopia is still holding its sham election. Gateway Pundit has much more.
Latin America
Cuba: It’s been a bad week for Fidel Castro. Babalu Blog’s Val Prieto and his computer both survived Hurricane Katrina (which is great news for the rest of us). Val reports on a more profound and preventable tragedy: “Thirty one souls who wanted only to breathe freedom. God damn you, fidel castro.” Stefania at Free Thoughts has photos of a meeting of an independent and official campesinos’ union.
Venezuela: There is actual news not involving Pat Robertson’s mouth. Publius reports on more violent protests on the streets of Caracas, on its worsening economy and increasingly corrupt government, and how the opposition is building a case for a peaceful change of power. The Bad Hair Blog describes an uncomfortable meeting between Hugo Chavez and the Pope.
H.L. Mencken observed that for every problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. Pat Robertson’s call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez appears to have won him few friends, although the critics can’t agree on why not (since all agree that none would miss him). Not even anti-Chavez Venezuelan bloggers are supportive. Eugene Volokh has strong reservations about the use of assassination as a tool of foreign policy, although that tool has some unlikely proponents. Most reactions were ambivalent, including Val Prieto, who helpfully offers to buy the ammo, but also sees the downside: “I’ve never been a fan nor a follower of Robertson. And he may very well be a beer or two short of a six pack, but for months now Hugo Chavez has been stating the US wants to kill him with much hyperbole and fanfare. So it seems to me Robertson was just calling his bluff. . . . The MSM, unfortunately, will harp on this, ad infintum, until we are all just sick of hearing about it. And Chavez and fidel, along with their MSM coconspirators, will use this to their advantage.” The Manolo’s companero Val, he is wise, for Jesse Jackson is already getting himself some publicity by declaring that Chavez is as harmless as a fluffy little dove. Another effect of Robertson’s charge through the foreign policy china-shop is that his own relationships with nefarious regimes now become fair game.
Europe
Belarus remains a dreary laboratory for out-of-work Sovietologists. Alenda Lux reports that the Belarussian government recently arrested or detained several members of the opposition, two Georgian activists, and one U.S. diplomat. Poland is leading diplomatic efforts to pressure the Lukashenko regime and support the opposition, and former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa recently said he would support a democratic revolution in Belarus. Condoleeza Rice, speaking from Lithuania, denounced Belarus as Central Europe’s “last true dictatorship.” Germany’s Radio Deutsche Welle may soon begin broadcasting into Belarus. Dissent is possible in Belarus for those with courage, such as Students for Global Democracy. Here’s how you can support them. Their “unauthorized” portrait of Lukashenko alone is worth a click.
The Ukraine celebrates the 14th anniversary of its independence from Soviet rule–now as a free nation. A brave journalist who died for exposing dictator Leonid Kuchma’s corruption is honored.
What do Poland, the Ukraine, Georgia, and Lithuania have in common? Boxing Alcibiades reports that they’re all seeking a more “multipolar” Eastern Europe, one with less Russian influence and a more evangelical, Hegelian view of democracy than the agnosto-Episcopal values of the EU. That such an alliance became necessary says something about the gap between the EU’s high ambitions and its rudderless drift through reality. The backlash against Putin’s Russia isn’t confined to Eastern Europe, either (see Central Asia, below).
Russia’s birthrate is plummeting. Chrenkoff has the stats.
With Germany in the middle of an election cycle, Gerhard Schroeder is looking for an issue to distract voters from the nation’s bleak economy. He appears to have settled on stirring fears of a U.S. invasion of Iran (this, the same Gerhard Schroeder who wants to sell arms to China). Scapegoating and playing on irrational fears are two tactics with long, sad histories in German politics.
Italy: Stefania at Free Thoughts wants to know whether the Italian Red Cross aided terrorists in Iraq, and informs us how the Vatican’s occupation of Iraq and Palestine has invited the natural results of Middle Eastern rage at these insults and grievances. Why do they hate us? It can’t help they we’re paying them to.
Central Asia
Gateway Pundit sees signs that Russia is losing its grip over its empire in the “near abroad.” Even as Russia’s population is falling rapidly, the populations of the ex-Soviet states in Central Asia are rising rapidly. Registan reports on a multinational pro-democracy organization, which includes members from Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Kygyzstan.
Ingushetia’s Prime Minister has narrowly escaped a bomb blast. Russian security forces blame terrorists, presumably from next-door Chechnya.
Afghanistan has seen a modest surge in fighting during the last two months. The “fighting season” has a long tradition, based on the practicality that small bands of fighters with mules can’t traverse high mountain passes until the snow melts. You would expect the fighting to be more severe with a referendum on the country’s constitution coming in less than three weeks, but the Taliban has just declared that it won’t attack the polls, in what is either an attempt at deception, an effort to preserve its dwindling street cred, or a sign of ambivalence about martyrdom (HT: Chrenkoff). Otherwise, what’s the news from Afghanistan? Nothing newsworthy, really.
Azerbaijan: Registan reports on an interesting approach to suppressing the opposition vote: simply rename two spoiler candidates after the opposition’s candidate. Update: There’s a more detailed post over at the New Eurasia blog. Thanks, Marianna.
Armenia: Oneworld Multimedia reports on the latest efforts to resolve the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Iraq is not the only country writing a new constitution. U.S. diplomats are offering words of encouragement, but the opposition has yet to fully join in the electoral process.
Turkmenistan: “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov is a very odd breed of bird. He’s already forced everyone to buy and read his book. He’s banned gold teeth, opera, ballet, and car radios. He’s renamed a month of the year after himself. Now, he’s banned recorded music at public events. Insert your own Milli Vanilli joke here.
Tajikstan has put a rather Soviet end to one of the more imaginative ways of smuggling dope of which I’ve heard.
Uzbekistan: Coming Anarchy links to a piece in The Economist thrashing the EU for its “spineless” response to the massacre at Andijon, where Publius reports that the protests (if not all of the protestors themselves) are back. Arthur Chrenkoff wonders if the left will care about human rights in Uzbekistan now that the United States has announced that it’s removing its military bases.
Kazakhstan: After failing to acquire Unocal, China has purchased the Canadian firm PetroKazakhstan.
Kyrgyzstan’s new leaders appear to be headed for a power struggle, Registan reports. On one side is President Kurman Bakiev, a former economist and opposition leader; on the other is Prime Minister Felix Kulov, a former leader of the post-Soviet successor to the KGB, later jailed by the deposed Akayev regime.
Turkey’s Prime Minister’s recently commented on his country’s past treatment of its Kurdish minority. His words will seem like gross understatement to outsiders, but in the context of Turkey’s domestic politics, they are a dramatic departure from an official state of denial that the Kurds are a distinct people.
United States
The American home front is probably the only front on which the War on Terror—a fight for the survival of America’s freedom and prosperity–could be lost. President Bush tries to persuade the American people of what’s at stake, as some ask whether he’s making his case directly enough. Donald Sensing asks wants the President to talk to the American people about the consequences of defeat. Strategy Page has more.
A small college newspaper in Illinois thought it had the next Cindy Sheehan story, but it turns out to have a hoax, most likely politically motivated.
If our country is great ten years from now, it will be because of men like Casey Sheehan, not because of the words his mother spoke while blinded by paroxysms of grief and the spotlights of her exploiters. Take a moment to remember Casey Sheehan. Further from the cameras, a young Marine is welcomed home by a town that appreciates his sacrifice.
Friends of authoritarian regimes everywhere, take heart: Jane Fonda and George Galloway are together at last. Can Kim Jong Il be far behind? Ted Turner is working on it. Karl Rove has sent out his staff to book all of them on the Sunday shows and Hannity & Colmes.
There is apparently an alternate universe just miles from my home in which “support our troops” means taunting them in their hospital beds. The surrender activists at Code Pink became victims of their own “soldiers are victims” propaganda when they distastefully brought their message to the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. Not only were the Freepers waiting for them, but so was a young soldier who lost both legs in the fighting four months ago. Do not hold your breath waiting for a New York Times columnist to declare that this soldier–who roundly denounced Code Pink–speaks with absolute moral authority.
United Nations
John Bolton is already throwing down drop cloths and knocking out walls. First in his sights is reforming the U.N.’s reform proposal. Most of the U.N.’s failings can be reduced to a single flaw: the absence of common values. John Tabin links to a piece in The New Republic that addresses that flaw in party by proposing a U.N. counterpart for the exclusive membership of democracies.
The HRC Responds, Part I
My August 8th e-mail to South Korea’s Human Rights Commission was a two-parter–a complaint, and at the bottom of the letter, a question. Let’s take them in inverse order, because a week ago, the HRC did in fact respond to my request for clarification of one point, about its allegedly delayed report on Human Rights in North Korea (scroll down):
Our committee didn’t intented not to open this results [to the public]. The media misunderstood that as not [making the report] open to public. The fact that we didn’t announce the results because of South-North korean relationship or their government is not true.
I will update the original post to reflect the HRC’s response; readers can make up their own minds.
The HRC Responds, Part II
The other part of my e-mail to the Human Rights Committee was a complaint. You’d think it subject matter would have been obvious enough from the subject line:
Complaint–discrimination based on race and national origin
Here, in relevant part, is what it said:
I am [my bad; should have said was] an American soldier who spent four years defending your human rights. Today, I am an activist for withdrawing US forces from Korea, and for promoting human rights for North Koreans. Why? Because in Korea, this kind of discrimination seems to be perfectly legal:
I linked to this post, which said, in relevant part:
Below: August 2005. South Korean demonstrators show their appreciation for their prosperity and freedom of speech by standing at the entrance to a soccer match holding signs that say, “American soldiers not admitted.” The U.S. team was not playing.
Isolated incident? No.
Barring American soldiers from Korean businesses is quite common, as I can attest from personal experience, but permitting discrimination at a public event is a new low. Does Congress know about this? Why does the South Korean government allow this?
This kind of discrimination goes on with no apparent objection from the Korean government, as I also observed during my four-year tour in Korea, from 1998 to 2002. To be completely clear, I said:
Please consider this to be the submission of a formal third-party complaint that private parties regularly engage in discrimination against US soldiers on the basis of race and national origin, including at a public sporting event in Taegu last week, and that Korean authorities knowingly tolerate this.
Here is the HRC’s response to that part of the complaint:
1. Hello, This is a Human right consult center of National Human Right Associate.
2. I think your inquiry is that Korean government’s ignorance about racism and our commitee’s opinion about North Korean hunman rights.
3. Our committee deals with all the case according National human right act law.
4. So if you want to commit your complain about racism than you can use our instructions which I attached below.
This is where things get curiously circular, because the HRC only takes complaints from foreigners who are “resident in Korea” For confirmation of identity, the site also requires a Korean resident ID number and the name of the complainant. Anonymous complaints are not accepted. This means complaining to the HRC is not an option for U.S. service members in Korea. First, they don’t have Korean resident ID numbers. Second, the military rightfully frowns on its personnel involving themselves in domestic politics.
That means that American soldiers need the help of their friends who are residents of Korea. They need not be Americans. They can be Koreans, Austalians, Canadians, Brits, or anyone who appreciates that the members of the U.S. military don’t make American foreign policy and do the hard, hot, cold, muddy work of protecting Korea from Kim Jong Il. Policy disagreements do not justify giving Private Snuffy the Jim Crow treatment. These are not the values that those soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors are there to defend.
American service members also need the help of the American people, regardless of where they live. Americans’ e-mails can exert great pressure on the Korean government to ban discrimination against our service members in Korea. This is not an unreasonable request, because Korea is neither an emerging democracy, a nation at war (in a real sense, at least), or a third-world nation. This is simply a ways we can support our service members while they’re assigned to protect another nation’s freedom and prosperity, and ultimately, our own.
Here are the sites and e-mail addresses to which you may send your complaint:
- S. Korean Human Rights Commission: nhrc@humanrights.go.kr
- S. Korean Embassy, Washington: political_usa@mofat.go.kr
- U.S. Congress (find your rep site)
Your letter need not be long. Just say, “I support a ban on discrimination against American service members in Korea,” and be sure to include the URL of this page. That’s all. And please be polite.
Thank you.
Carnival of the Revolutions on OFK
I’m hosting, so if you have submissions, send your links to onefreekorea(at)yahoo(dot)com. My arbitrary and capricious deadline is Sunday morning . . . before I crawl to the computer. The earlier you send it, the better the odds I’ll include it.
Engaging the North Korean People
One of my main criticisms of the South Korean view of engagement is that it’s seldom permitted to include the people of North Korea. It often reaches the South Korean people, of course, but only with a carefully scripted portrayal of the North as benign and neighborly. Most engagement with the North thus far has been South Korean state welfare for the North’s government and government-owned industries.
See through the schmaltzy emotionalism of this report of a South Korean singer’s concert in Pyongyang to its possible significance in breaking through to the hearts of the people in the audience. Engagement that reaches the people of North Korea may indeed have the potential to spark a mass realization that they are deeply discontented. That’s why the regime is unlikely to let this happen again:
Then a small miracle happened: a song sung by a South Korean pop star brought tears to North Korean eyes. It was about halfway through the concert that Cho launched into the North Korean favorite “We Meet Again After a Dangerous Storm”, which turned some eyes decidedly misty, and there was no stopping the flow of tears with songs such as “Touch-me-not” and “Old Castle”.
Near the end, Cho had them in the palm of his hand with renditions of “Arirang Dream” and “Solo Aririang.” By then, most of the audience were singing and clapping along.
With a few melodies, Cho did in two hours what countless politicians and businessmen failed to do over a decade: he touched a nerve among ordinary North Korean people and sparked genuine interest and emotion. The songs may have been new to the people of Pyongyang, but the song in the heart of Cho Yong-pil, who sang of becoming one, was familiar to them all.
Now, read any South Korean press report about an event of this kind with caution, but this appears to have been what truly significant engagement with North Korea will inevitably be: subversive.
Does North Korea Have a “Right” to a Nuclear Program?
In response to an earlier comment, I went and dug up the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and did some analysis. The answer is yes, but with strict conditions that North Korea has not met. I thought the comment worthy of a post on the main page, so I reproduce it, slightly edited, here.
________________
First, I place very little value on what the NPT does and does not allow in a case like this one. What can you say about the NPT’s ability to restrain a nation that lied its way into the NPT, withdrew when it was caught lying, was paid a tyrant’s ransom to somewhat haltingly rejoin it, and then, caught lying again, pulled out again.
However, I don’t agree with your analysis that the NPT simply gives states the unconditional right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The NPT divides states into five permanent nuclear weapons states and a whole bunch of non-nulcear weapons states (for those who see this as “unfair” and want return to non-legal equities, skip back to the top paragraph).
Article II of the NPT binds non-nuclear-weapons-possessing signatories to refrain from acquiring nukes and nuke programs. NK is clearly out of compliance here. Article III requires non-nuke states signing the NPT (presumably for the benefit of “peaceful” nuclear energy) to accept safeguards, which are administred by the IAEA.
Thus, it’s fair to say that compliance with the IAEA safeguards regime is a condition of the “right” to peaceful nuclear programs. North Korea has long been out of compliance with that regime, and it’s the IAEA’s position that it remains out of compliance.
It stands to reason that a nation out of compliance with its safeguards obligation ought not to have any right to nuclear programs under the NPT. That, of course, brings us back to the essential weakness of the UN–its consistent failure to attach real consequences to noncompliance with its resolutions. Here, however, the U.S. government takes a share of the blame. The Agreed Framework undercut what was theoretically a multilateral control mechanism and helped China and other nations undercut whatever stern UN action may have been forthcoming. Thus:
1. North Korea does NOT have the right to a peaceful nuclear program, at least not until it gets back into compliance with the safeguards agreement;
2. The IAEA would be insane to declare NK compliant with the safeguards without a full and unfettered right to inspect anytime/anywhere, and without an admission on the uranium program (read the IAEA fact sheet on the DPRK; the IAEA takes this seriously). North Korea will never agree to those conditions;
3. NPT or not, without an extraordinary departure from its past and present intransigence, North Korea cannot be trusted with nuclear materials.
Talks Update: Did the U.S. Cave?
Take everything you read in this post with extra skepticism, because the reports this week are even less consistent than usual. The main questions this week surround Pyongyang’s claim on a right to “peaceful” nuclear programs. Amid recent signs that the U.S. was ready to cave on that and other issues in the wake of Anti-Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young publicly taking Pyongyang’s side, the U.S. and South Korean positions aren’t exactly manifest.
The Chosun Ilbo reports on South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon’s visit to Washington to seek clarity and unity in both countries’ positions:
The suggestion is that things did not go beyond a restatement of positions and more has to be done before agreement between the two allies can be reached. The U.S. has so far been adamant that North Korea cannot be trusted with a nuclear program of any kind. “We agreed for the head negotiators to harmonize and deal with all issues, including this one, in Beijing when the six-party talks resume” next week, Ban said.
However, the U.S. chief negotiator at the six-party talks Christopher Hill hinted that a solution may be in the works, saying the U.S. had different views on the matter from South Korea and Russia but the issue was unlikely to prove a big stumbling block in the talks. Washington did not otherwise state a clear position on the matter.
The two sides reaffirmed that Pyongyang must dismantle all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs. Ban said, “The nuclear dismantlement we refer to here means the physical destruction of all nuclear facilities,” while a mere nuclear freeze as agreed in 1994 “is not an article of consideration at all.” He added, “This means North Korea must abandon all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs, and even ideas in their heads.” He said North Korea’s 5 mw reactor was also “clearly something to be dismantled.”
As for a timeframe for North Korea to “regain trust” so it can use civilian nuclear energy, Ban said it would take at least two or three years for Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear programs, and that would represent the process of regaining trust as the country improves transparency through international inspections.
That suggests a gradual and careful South Korean retreat from Chung’s position. From Chung’s statements, you’d think that South Korea would return to the pre-2001 pretense that all was peaceful as steam poured from the stack at Yongbyon. From Ban’s statements, you get the idea that we’re talking about tearing Yongbyon down, but letting the North Koreans keep their x-ray machines and smoke detectors.
Reuters has more insight into the U.S. position, which Hill had thrown into confusion two days ago:
“The issue for some of the partners is whether … North Korea could then reclaim a right to nuclear energy,” Hill said. “If you ask me, it’s not exactly a showstopper issue — the real issue is getting rid of all their nuclear programs.”
In the past, Washington has insisted that even if North Korea scraps its military programs it must give up the right to develop peaceful nuclear power because of fears it could use those programs for building atomic weapons.
But Hill played down North Korea’s demand, which had been the main reason the talks broke down earlier this month after 13 days.
It was a “theoretical, downstream” issue and it would be difficult for North Korea to restart any nuclear development after it scraps its programs under a negotiated deal, he said.
The article also includes the interesting detail that North Korea will not in fact return by the end of August, but in early September, at the earliest. U.S. officials will also be meeting with the Chinese and Japanese in the coming days.
So does this mean I win the lunch bet? The difference between the 29th and the 2nd is only four days. I think a clear win requires at least a week of instransigent or dilatory absence by Pyongyang. This article also suggests that Pyongyang will be using that week to capitalize on the complete abandonment of any pretense that this administration is not engaging in bilateral talks.
Not far off the subject, it’s too bad this place is way out in Alexandria, because the Vietnamese food there is exceptional. Try the skewers.