Archive for June 2007

Republicans Rebel on N. Korea Policy, Demand GAO Money Laundering Inquiry

June 12, 2007 Counterfeiting, Money Laundering, U.S. Politics 30 comments

You may recall that in this post and in this piece for Front Page Magazine, I suggested that our own State Deparment’s attempts to return $25 million to the North Korean regime — much or most of it proceeds of crime — could violate U.S. money laundering laws, as well as two U.N. resolutions the United States successfully lobbied for less than a year ago.  As it turns out, great minds think alike.

Now, with Russia about to step up to facilitate this faustian transaction, six House GOP foreign policy heavyweights have signed a letter asking the General Accountability Office to determine whether it’s legal.  The letter cites the very same sections of the criminal code I’d cited in the pieces linked above (cool!).  Among the members is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 

Here’s the text; my deepest appreciation to both of the readers who forwarded it: Read more

S. Korean Election Update: Uri’s Support Falls to 9%, Below DLP’s

June 12, 2007 Korean Politics One comment

The most surprising news of this Korean political season was buried near the bottom of a news story about the contest between the candidates for the Grand National Party nomination.  Only the interesting news wasn’t about the GNP candidates: 

The GNP had by far the most support among parties with 52.9 percent. Next was the radical Democratic Labor Party with 10.3 percent, and only then Uri with 9.1 percent. The Democratic Party garnered 5.1 percent, the New Party for Centrist Reform, a[n] Uri splinter group, 3.5 percent, and the People First Party 1 percent. [Chosun Ilbo] 

The DLP, a minor party, now leads the ruling party, albeit from a modest position.  New readers may not realize that a sizeable portion of the DLP was recently exposed as little more than a North Korean front organization, and yet, the party still polls ten percent. 

This reminds me to ask — isn’t Uri dead yet?  Whatever happened to those bold plans by Comrade Chung and the Dancing Piggy to form a new leftist “People’s” party from the ashes of Uri?  I do not know of another campaign in which a party of significance (which is what you are, by definition, when you’re in charge) was so absent from the public debate.  Not that I’m complaining.  After all, their actions tell us all we need to know about what they stand for. 

Still, you’d think that six months before South Korea elects its next president and National Assembly, its ruling party would be taking advantage of every photo opportunity to trumpet what it’s accomplished in improving relations with North Korea. While I would argue that the improvement consists exclusively of South Korea winning the privilege of giving the North unconditional aid, there are always some who are fooled by mostly meaningless gestures — joint ceremonies, athletic events, the one-time passage of a single train, and tightly controlled hostage reunions.  I tend to believe that Uri’s voters have always voted their emotions anyway, especially those centered around race, pride, and nationhood. Â 

In the wake of Agreed Framework 2.0 and its unfolding failure, however, the strain of North Korea failing to throw the South Korean left a bone is showing.  Today, North Korea snubs the South Korean government by not inviting its officials to a photo op to commemorate the 2000 summit, and Prime Minister Han Myung-Sook accuses the North of electoral meddling.  Now the North is raising tensions along the maritime border, accusing the South of violating it and implicitly threatening violence.  This shouldn’t astonish any watcher of North Korea or South Korean politics, of course.  South Korean political factions frequently fail to seal strategic internecine alliances before elections.  It’s no wonder the ruling party and its testy North Korean ally are having some trouble getting their act together just six months before the next election. Fortunately for them (but less so for the Korean people) the same can be said of their opponents, who will probably win by default alone. 

Still, the aid rolls in, although we already know who will eat it. As I’ve suggested before, South Korea should send corn, not rice, because the North Korean elite are the ones who eat rice. 

Some Anju Links: 

* Things certainly aren’t looking good for the FTA in Congress, are they? Â 

* Here’s your deceptive headline of the week: “Korean Couple Drown “˜Due to Poor English’.”  Well, no.  They drowned due to an unfortunate combination of a car accident and a flood.  Specifically, they drove off a road into a flooded river.  After this, explains the Chosun, they called 9-11 and apparently couldn’t explain that their car was filling with water.  This is a tragic and horrible situation, and if the 9-11 operator really hung up on them, she should lose her job at the very least.  It’s also irrelevant to the cause of death unless the EMT’s could have been dispatched, arrived, launched a boat, and rescued the unfortunate couple in less time than it took for the car to fill with water and sink.  In other words, not every sad story has a victim. 

* Kim Jong Il Death Watch: Predictably, the South Korean National Intelligence Service says he’s hale and healthy, but I intend to continue circling these rumors like a buzzard. 

Charles J. Hanley Hunts for New Atrocities

June 10, 2007 Media Criticism, Terrorism/Iraq 14 comments

I couldn’t help but feel dismay when I say the byline on this story.  Remember this guy?  I would not have even looked for the byline, asking myself who wrote this crap, had I not seen this passage:

In eastern Baghdad, a U.S. helicopter fired flares on a crowd on a square, hours after clashes between American troops and Shiite militia that left at least five people dead. The military said the flares were part of an automatic self-defense system.

If I have a greater criticism of the media in Iraq than their tendency to hire local stringers of questionable allegiance, it’s their idea that one can report on military matters despite one’s complete ignorance of them.  So for Mr. Hanley’s benefit, I’ll write slowly. 

Flares are not weapons.  The military does not fire them at people.  They are not projectiles, have almost no muzzle velocity, are attached to parachutes, and do not explode or break up on impact.  Automatic flare dispensers are attached to aircraft to divert surface to air missiles.  Their purpose is defensive.  Unfortunately, almost any bright light or reflection can set them off, and when that happens, they can scare people or set fires.  The flares only burn for a few seconds, however, so the risk is mitigated unless the aircraft is flying at a very low altitude. 

Hanley might have bothered to explain these things, rather than suggest to his readers that the military “fired” some vaguely napalm-like projectiles at crowds of civilians, a suggestion that is nothing less than mendacious.  It is the metaphorical equivalent of what he himself charges.  But then again, Hanley downplayed and minimized North Korea’s use of refugees as human shields in 1950.  Why?  Because Hanely is a professional atrocity mongerer who thrives in the shadows of vagueness and ignorance and knows what the Pulitzer Committee likes.  Just about every 13 months, Hanley retreads the same old No Gun Ri story as a shocking “new” revelation all over again. Â Â 

Journalism requires more than the ability to write a clear sentence.  It requires the persistence to find the relevant facts and the integrity to report them.  Hanley is the sort of hack who puts his entire profession in a bad light because he refuses to do those things.

State: N. Korea Spent UN Funds to Buy Property in France, Britain, Canada

June 10, 2007 Uncategorized 5 comments

The UN has released the results of a preliminary audit report on the UN Development Program’s operations in North Korea.  Those operations were shut down following revelations that the UN gave the regime cash with few conditions and little accountability, and essentially became its “ATM machine.”  Among the juicy revelations is that the UN was keeping a large sum of counterfeit “supernotes” in a UN safe.  The UN now concedes that the UNDP violated UN rules:

A statement by UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, who called for the audit in January under pressure from the U.S., said the preliminary report “identifies practices not in keeping with how the United Nations operates elsewhere in the world.” But he insisted that the audit does not back up U.S. charges that UN funding on a large scale was systematically diverted to North Korea’s regime.

The audit, conducted by the internal Board of Auditors at the UN, based its preliminary findings on interviews with UN staff and on reviews of documents in New York. But the auditors did not have access to documents or staff in North Korea, leaving many of their conclusions murky.

Ban said a follow-up visit to North Korea is required in order to get more detailed information. But the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has already rejected such a visit, and critics of the UN said they doubted it would happen.  [Chicago Tribune]

The State Department must have had higher hopes for accountability and full disclosure, because it told the Washington Post just where it thinks the money went:

About $3 million in United Nations money intended to help impoverished North Koreans was diverted by the Pyongyang government toward the purchase of property in France, the United Kingdom and Canada, according to a confidential State Department account of witness reports and internal business records. Millions more, the department reported, went to a North Korean institution linked to a bank alleged to handle arms deals.

….

During 2001 and 2002, the UNDP also transferred more than $8 million of other agencies’ funds to the North Korean government, the State Department said. Pyongyang then transferred at least $2.8 million of the UNDP funds to North Korean diplomatic missions in Europe and New York to “cover buildings and houses,” including purchasing buildings in France, the United Kingdom and Canada, the probe found.

The UNDP said the national government received $2.2 million. The agency has no means to determine how North Korea financed its purchase of expensive houses, Morrison said, but he said the UNDP has verified that its money was used to fund its programs.

Worse, some of the gear the North Koreans bought with the aid money had potential military applications: Â GPS equipment, computer equipment, and a mass spectrometer. 

The State Department also alleged that the UNDP paid nearly $2.7 million for “goods and equipment” to a North Korean financial institution that is linked to Tanchon Commercial Bank (also known as Changgwang Credit Bank). President Bush designated that institution in 2005 as the main North Korean financial agent for sales of ballistic missiles and parts used in the assembly of weapons and missiles.

A UNDP official said the State Department has cited to the agency two financial institutions linked to Tanchon — Zang Lok and the International Financial and Trade Company. The UNDP found one payment, for $22,000, sent via Zang Lok in 2004 and none for International Finance.

According to this subsequent AFP report, the U.S. Mission to the UN has essentially confirmed the Post report.  The UN claims that the U.S. accusations do not comport with its records, an inconsistency that isn’t that hard to explain.

Some Anju Links:

*  We’ve seen a lot of bad reporting come of journalistic tours of North Korea.  It takes an exceptional reporter to find humor, compassion, and truth in a carefully guided itinerary designed to suppress those things, but the L.A. Times’s Mark Magnier did it:

Our senior tour guide, whom we nickname “Good Cop,” is in his mid-30s, speaks English well and appears relatively comfortable around foreigners.

Our second tour guide — we nickname him “Mini-Me” after the diminutive character in the Austin Powers films — is a decade younger, betrays no sense of humor and shows a pretty deep distrust of foreigners.

Mini-Me also appears to hold sway over his older colleague, which on the face of it is unusual in Korea’s strong Confucian culture, hinting at superior political credentials and the underlying fear that binds society. “This is the last time I say this to you, no pictures,” he barks in a typical warning. “Or there will be uncomfortable events.”

The two are assisted by a young female guide in training, whose main function seems to be sitting strategically near the back of the bus to keep a close eye on us, and a driver, for a group of seven visitors.

*  The Daily NK reports that a tidal wave has killed 100 people along North Korea’s northwest coast:

Receiving information from a people’s unit chairperson, a source in Yongcheon said that “people in Dosan-ri and Bosan-ri in Yongcheon make living by collecting sea shells, and around 70 households were affected. Another source said that the dead included fishermen fishing in the coastal sea of Cholsan, women, and students collecting seashells.

Collecting seashells in North Korea is done by boarding a boat on a coastal sea as the tide rises. When it ebbs, people get off the boat and collect seashells on the foreshore. As the tide rises again, they need to get back on the boat. This practice caused the death toll to rise. The dead included young students who began school in March, who were helping their parents in other cities make a living. 

The disaster happened in March.  Although as many as 2,000 others were injured, the regime ordered everyone to cover it up; consequently, the injured received no outside assistance, but a few of the bereaved got new color televisions.

*  British American Tobacco is pulling out of North Korea, in another setback to those who believe North Korea is ready for, or can be changed by, major corporate investment.  Further proof:  North Korea’s largest source of foreign exchange may be counterfeit cigarettes, and you have to wonder how much BAT’s technical assistance may have contributed to that.  You will recall that I had a dry-run radio debate with former Ambassador Donald Gregg on the subject.  Unlike Gregg, I could see no good in North Korea devoting its agricultural resources to growing anything but food, given what we know about how Kim Jong Il will spend his share of the profits.

To Your Health, Part 2

June 10, 2007 Kim Jong Il 2 comments

[Update:  Mostly dead or slightly alive?  The Daily NK passes along an alleged eyewitness report of a recent sighting in which Kim seemed relatively healthy.  Once again, I strongly suggest a fresh consignment of whiskey, bacon, and maybe some Italian sausage as a gesture of, you know, friendship.  Heck, if we can get him to consume enough of it, we might eventually be able to get some corn into the bellies of his poor subjects.  If the report is authentic, it's telling that the Daily NK can even get to those permitted access to His Porcine Majesty.]

Last September, I passed along reports that Kim Jong Il’s radiator was about plugged up, and that he could barely walk under his own power.  For those of us ardently hoping that he’ll be with Saddam very soon, this new report ought to give us some ghoulish delight:

Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s reclusive leader, has been so unwell that he could not walk more than 30 yards without a rest, western governments have been told.

Diplomats in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, are increasingly convinced that the 65-year-old dictator needs heart surgery to restore his apparently flagging health. He has had to be accompanied by an assistant carrying a chair so that, wherever he goes, he can sit and catch his breath.

Speculation about the state of Kim’s health was heightened when a team of six doctors from the German Heart Institute in Berlin flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, for eight days last month. Kim, who also suffers from diabetes, was believed by diplomats to have been among those on the list for treatment by the combined medical and surgical team. But a spokesman for the German team said they had only treated three labourers, a nurse and a scientist.  [London Daily Telegraph, Sergei Soukhorukov]

Maybe we should make another exception to our “luxury goods” sanctions for bacon.

Freedom House Panel on N. Korean Gulags

June 8, 2007 Activism, Human Rights, The Camps One comment

If you couldn’t make it to the Freedom House panel on the North Korean gulags, “Concentrations of Inhumanity,” Freedom House was kind enough to send a transcript of some of the remarks, the bios of the panelists, and even a few pictures. Â 

 hawk_and_banner.jpg   panelists_2.JPG   panelists_1.JPG

One of the two most salient points I take from the discussion is human rights scholar David Hawk’s explanation of why operating these camps is a “crime against humanity,” as defined by the Rome Statute.  The other is the general media disinterest in the entire subject, which is why a market exists for better media.  Let’s hope someone covers this event.

Those materials will be posted on Freedom House’s own North Korea page on Monday, so I’m especially thankful to FH for letting you see it here first.  If you’re ever considering a charitable contribution to a human rights group worthy of its name, consider Freedom House.  And don’t forget that LiNK co-sponsored.

Some related links:

  • A link to the FH page where you can also find David Hawk’s report, “Concentrations of Inhumanity.”
  • My June 2005 interview with panelist Jae Ku.
  • My October 2006 interview with panelist Gordon Flake.
  • Google Earth images of Camp 16, Hwasong. 
  • Google Earth images — a tour, really — of Camp 22, Hoeryong.

Updates:  Welcome Gateway Pundit readers.  If you don’t click any other links here, please follow the link immediately above and learn about Camp 22. Â It’s the single most important post I’ve written in the three years I’ve kept this blog. 

So who covered the story?  The Christian Post wrote a good report.  From those who dominate the industry, it got the Big Yawn. Â They’ll even (mostly) overlook it if you gas kids, as long as you vex George W. Bush.

More Missile Launches

June 7, 2007 Diplomacy, WMD 6 comments

The news is breaking over the TV that North Korea has launched more short-range missiles.  A cry for help, no doubt.  Could it be more obvious that AF 2.0 will not work unless North Korea has a fundamental change of attitude, and that North Korea has not yet had that epiphany?

Update

True, But Would It Sell Papers?

June 7, 2007 Drugs & N Korea, Korean Society, Media Criticism 5 comments

At the Marmot’s Hole, R. Elgin notes that the Korean press is trying to make foreigners the scapegoats for South Korea’s drug problems.  I agree with R. Elgin.  The article notes a “huge increase” in drug smuggling into Korea, and then proceeds to indirectly blame Americans, Canadians, and Chinese for it. 

Prosecutors believe the rising number of American drug offenders correlates to a rising number of English teachers coming to Korea, prompted by the recent trend for English education.

The total of 116 foreign drug offenders caught in Korea last year is a 28.4 percent decline from the year before. There were 88 foreign drug offenders caught in 2002, 86 in 2003, 203 in 2004, and 162 in 2005.  [....]

Prosecutors said that Korea, which was once considered drug-free, is increasingly being used as a conduit by criminal groups for international drug trafficking. Â 

The article offers no data about the volume or substances found in the possession of persons of these nationalities.  For all we know, the drug seizures from the foreign teachers could be personal use amounts. Â 

I would concede, on one hand, that there is generally more social acceptance for drug use among Americans, Canadians, and Europeans than among South Koreans overall.  I think this is regrettable, but it does not mean that drug use in Korea is a “foreign” problem.  The article’s discussion about Korea as a trans-shipment location could even suggest that South Korea is a net exporter of illegal drugs, although I doubt that this is the case.  Let me suggest an alternative theory that may have less appeal on the Korean street:

South Korean customs officers raided a warehouse in the southeastern port of Busan last week and found 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of methamphetamine smuggled through North Korea, the biggest haul in South Korean history.  [Bloomberg, June 2003]

On one hand, I see no stats for North Koreans being arrested.  On the other hand, as long as Roh Moo Hyun runs South Korea, a North Korean diplomat could abduct schoolgirls off the streets of Seoul with a meathook and never get arrested.  As Michael Breen recently pointed out, the South Koreans keep welcoming the same North Korean drug ship back to their ports.  There’s little question that North Korea faces little risk in selling dope in South Korea.  How many English teachers can say that?

This theory — that North Korea is more likely to be responsible for this “huge increase” than a few hippie English teachers – has the advantage of actual evidentiary support.  For the Korean media, however, it has an overriding disadvantage:  zero xenophobia value.  Statistically, I wonder how the volume of the English teachers’ pot and ecstasy compares to the volume of crank the North Koreans are moving South.  I can say that of the three substances, meth is easily the most addictive and dangerous. 

Army Life in North Korea

June 6, 2007 Google Earth, NK Military No comments

My favorite e-mails are the ones I get from readers, and among even these, the best are those that send links or new information I hadn’t seen before.  One reader today sent this Google Earth image (click to enlarge; coordinates along the bottom of the image):

soldiers4.jpg 

He wondered whether the label on the placemark was accurate.  I opined that it probably was not, because of the absence of a fence line or guard posts, the location just east of Pyongyang as opposed to an isolated area, and its mismatch with any known labor camp locations (I’ve placemarked all of them).  I’ve published plenty of GE photos of North Korean gulags, and this just doesn’t look like one of them.  

I still think this shows something interesting, however.  I believe this is an army post holding a formation.  After I laid out my reasons, the reader agreed.  We also agreed that this could be a small detention camp for displaced persons, although that possibility is much less likely.  This is, after all, Pyongyang’s eastern defensive perimeter, not too far from Kim Jong Il’s palace, a “core” area where the population ought to be relatively well-fed and loyal. It’s where you’d expect to see army posts; you’d expect to see gulags spread out in remote areas far from major roads.

Here are two more images.  Note the shadows.  I’m guessing the time is about 9 or 10 a.m., which is a bit late for morning formation.  Most likely, these guys got up much earlier to do their physical training or exercises.  Why such a late formation?  Unless the North Korean army is made up of stoners, slackers, or hung-over drunks, these guys are having a late morning formation.  Why?  I could only guess that it’s for some kind of political harangue. 

soldiers3.jpg   soldiers2.jpg

It’s not the only place you can see soldiers in formation.  Here’s an image of a location near the DMZ.

soldiers1.jpg

This also looks to be later in the morning.  The shadows aren’t long, but the sun appears to be due east on a summer day.  Accounting for the different seasons, you might even guess that both pictures were taken around the same time of day.

Thanks to the reader for sending the image.  I’ll let it be his choice to identify himself.

Some anju links: 

*  There is a new harvest of rewards for giving away the store to Kim Jong Il: Â Kim agreed in February to shut down the Yongbyon reactor in April.  He never complied with this term of the deal, or any other, but the reactor briefly shut down in May, for technical reasons.  In June, Kim Jong Il promptly restarted the reactor, eliminating any residual doubts about his good faith.  Russia is now saying, again, that this is all our fault for not returning millions in laundered criminal proceeds to North Korea, even though that was never a part of the deal and arguably violates U.S. law.  All I can say is thank goodness George W. Bush has learned to use diplomacy to solve problems and win friends.

*  “I and my brother against my cousin, I and my cousin against the stranger.”  Speaking of enemies who respond poorly to diplomacy, NATO troops have caught Iran red handed arming the Taliban.  This is ironic in two ways.  First, Iran once armed the Taliban’s enemies, although this shouldn’t seem odd for even casual observers of the region.  The second irony is that some U.S. experts on the Middle East still would tell us that terrorist alliances can’t cross sectarian lines.

*  Having lost much of his support among foreign policy conservatives, George W. Bush will meet with North Korean democracy activists and again mouth the words about spreading democracy that he actually seemed to mean in 2004.  The credibility problem Bush has since bought himself is the difficulty of spreading democracy while enabling those who crush it with the least mercy.

Anju Links for June 5th

June 5, 2007 Anju Links, Uncategorized 4 comments

*  Richardson has some interesting updates on the North Korean family that defected by sailing hundreds of miles to Japan in an open boat.  The possession of “personal use” amounts of methamphetamine by one family member suggests that what we’ve heard is true — that drugs are increasingly available to ordinary North Koreans.  What I don’t know is whether the son was a user, or whether the meth was part of their elaborate preparations, in this case, to help keep them awake during the journey.

*  I don’t have Times Select and don’t plan on getting it, but if you have it, Nick Kristof has written an article about North Korea’s underground railroad.  Let’s hope its tone is less ambivalent than other things Kristof has written on the subject, which have been full of gratuitous contempt for the conductors’ religious beliefs.

*  Here’s a final reminder on the Freedom House panel tomorrow:

Washington , D.C.– Freedom House released a new report detailing crimes against humanity taking place in North Korea ‘s political prisoner camps in late May. Based on recent interviews with former North Korean political prisoners in the kwan-li-so or “control zone” labor camps, the report carefully details the criminal acts prohibited by Article 7 of the (Rome) Statute of the International Criminal Court that are being carried out in North Korea on a massive scale. Written by David Hawk, author of the acclaimed study Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps, the report also outlines the international forums where other states and non-governmental organizations can seek to persuade North Korea to improve its human rights record.

WHAT: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Panel discussion, titled Concentrations of Inhumanity: A Discussion

WHO: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Panelists include:

                        David Hawk, author, Concentrations of Inhumanity

                        David Scheffer, former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues

                        L. Gordon Flake, Executive Director, Mansfield Foundation

                        Jae H. Ku, Director, US-Korea Institute at SAIS

                        Thomas O. Melia, Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House

WHEN: Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Wednesday, June 6, 2007, 1:30-3:30pm

WHERE: Â Â Â Â Â Â  National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, 13th Floor, Holeman Lounge

Freedom House sponsored the writing and publication of this report in order to increase international recognition that the severe human rights violations taking place in North Korea constitute crimes against humanity. North Korea is the only country to have received Freedom House’s lowest possible scores for both political rights and civil liberties throughout the 35 years in which the organization has published its annual global survey, Freedom in the World.

Freedom House is an independent nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom in the world.  To learn more about Freedom House’s North Korea program, visit www.nkfreedomhouse.org.

« Older Entries   Recent Entries »