Archive for April 2008

Sen. Sam Brownback Puts Hold on Kathleen Stephens Nomination

April 25, 2008 Appeasement, Six-Party Talks, U.S. Politics 5 comments

Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.  — The Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a)

Let me be first nice Jewish boy to say it: Â ”G-d bless Sam Brownback.” 

One of the Senate’s oldest traditions is the nomination ”hold.”  For judicial appointments, holds are the exclusive prerogrative of home-state senators.  For ambassadors, senate custom allows any senator to place a hold on any nomination, which cannot go forward until the senator lifts it.  Holds can be placed and maintained in secret, although the Senate has a poor record for keeping secrets recently. Â Holds need not be explained.  Some result from little more than personal vendettas. Â Some are used to extract concessions from agencies. 

Senators from both parties place holds, and there’s nothing rare or unique about them.  In the 1990′s, several Republican senators put holds on Richard Holbrooke’s nomination as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.  In 2004, John Kyl — reportedly egged on by John Bolton — put a hold on the nominee to be ambassador to the IAEA.  In 2006, Democrat Dick Durban of Illinois put one on the President’s nominee for Ambassador to Australia.  In 2007, John Kerry put one on the nominee for Ambassador to Tanzania, who was a native of Wisconsin.  Earlier this month, Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey put one on the nominee to be Ambassador to Armenia. 

You will recall that in this post, I wrote about Kathleen Stephens, the State Department’s nominee to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.  Though well qualified for the job and (so I am told) a nice person when you meet her, Ms. Stephens is also a long-time crony of Christopher Hill, the man who would excuse North Korea from answering for its human rights atrocities, its support for terrorism, its abductions of the citizens of other nations, its counterfeiting of U.S. currency and money laundering, its nuclear proliferation, or its refusal to disclose  all of its nuclear weapons programs before being relieved of key U.S. sanctions.  Hill has long been Ms. Stephens’s protege, and there is every reason to believe that her views closely match Hill’s; in fact, Stephens’s key policy initiative in her current job was to push for a full peace treaty with North Korea.  There is less reason for confidence that Stephens’s views would align with those of a new, more conservative government in Seoul.

Provided Ms. Stephens’s views do not conflict with her duty to obey the law, it is her right as a citizen to hold them, no matter how wrong or discredited I may believe them to be. Â Of course, not everyone has a right to represent the United States as an ambassador.  An ambassador represents the interests and values of an entire nation, and that requires an extraordinary degree of trust. 

Senator Sam Brownback has spoken with Ms. Stephens twice to let her explain her views.  He doesn’t have that trust, and so he’s holding the nomination.  He’s under enormous pressure from the Administration and the State Department.  In spite of that, he went to the Senate floor yesterday to explain his views openly:

senbrownbackonholdofkoreanambassadornom.wmv

You could read more about this here and here in the Chosun Ilbo, but the media have mostly phoned this one in and failed to explain Sen. Brownback’s thinking.  That’s why I’d like to try to explain what they haven’t. Â 

Back in 2003, Sam Brownback sponsored something called the North Korean Freedom Act.  The State Department’s appeasement crowd, which was not then as dominant as it is today, reached out to friends in the Senate and blocked it in the Foreign Relations Committee, back when Senator Richard Lugar was Chairman. 

The following year, a watered down version appeared as the North Korean Human Right Act.  That April, hundreds of people, most affiliated with LiNK or the North Korean Freedom Coalition, descended on Capitol Hill to lobby for the NKHRA.  We didn’t have appointments, mind you.  Hundreds of us just descended on offices in teams of a dozen each and registered our support for the Act’s passage (and often, that consisted of explaining our views to 19 year-old staffers who couldn’t find Korea on a map). 

At the time, I was fresh out of the Army, and I was summarily elected leader of an ad-hoc team that was thrown together of other teamless individuals.  Of those hundreds of amateur lobbyists, we may have been the only ones to actually meet a senator.  Out of sheer blind luck, we entered Sen. Lugar’s office just as he was walking out of it with an Army general and an Army colonel.  Personally, Lugar was congenial and generous of his time.  I gave my very best two-minute closing argument.  Lugar feigned interest convincingly and listened politely.  And probably for completely unrelated reasons, the North Korean Human Rights Act made it out of Lugar’s Committee that year. Â In October of 2004, the the North Korean Human Rights Act passed both houses by voice votes.  The President signed it just before Election Day 2004 in a modest ceremony.  And much like the feeling of wetting one’s self in dark suit, many of us had a warm feeling inside, but no one really noticed.  And so everyone — especially the State Department’s East Asia Bureau, of which Kathleen Stephens has been Deputy Assistant Secretary since 2005 — forgot about the North Korean Human Rights Act.

Except for Sam Brownback … and, I should note, some principled people in the House.

You may not remember that the Act required the State Department to make human rights a “key” part of its negotiations with North Korea, or that it required expanding radio broadcasts to 12 hours a day, or that it required U.S. consular facilities overseas to “facilitate the submission of applications” by North Korean refugees for political asylum.

You can be forgiven for forgetting, because none of those things has actually happened.  I told you why back in November 2005.  My reliable source told me that Nicholas Burns, the unofficial high priest of the appeasement wing, sabotaged the funding and implementation of the Act.  And as a result, our consulates in China are turning away North Korean refugees at the gates, Radio Free Asia spent much of last year in a hiring freeze, less than 50 North Korean refugees have gotten into the United States, we have a part-time Special Envoy who wears a shock collar, and human rights are a functional non-issue in our talks with the North Koreans.

As a matter of policy, you may well disagree with all of my views on those things, and if so, I encourage you to express that view to your member of Congress, as I have done to mine and yours.  If you don’t like the law, there are ways of changing it, but the list of acceptable methods does not include allowing members of the Executive Branch to defy it.

I understand that the issuance of regulations, the formulation of policies, and the creation of budgets takes time, but it doesn’t take nearly four years.  There is no rational explanation for State’s behavior except that it considers itself self-governing and above the law.  That attitude has made State some enemies in Congress this week over the much-delayed Syria revelations, but this deserves to be just as big a scandal. 

You will see, incidentally, some Google Earth images of Camp 22 in that speech, and if you think those photographs look familiar, you’re right.  At the very least, full disclosure requires me to mention at least that much and let you infer the rest on your own.  Not that anyone who got this far confused me with a disinterested or unbiased observer.  If you’re disinterested, then you did not click that last link.

Kathleen Stephens may be perfectly qualified technically and linguistically, but an absence of respect for the law is a disqualification for any public servant in a democracy.  And as with every single politician human being alive, there are issues on which Senator Brownback and I would probably disagree, but on this issue, he deserves more than the commendation of the few people who will read this — he deserves to be remembered by history.  Here is a man who made a difference, and here, by itself, is a reason to remember that one man, driven by conscience alone, defied his President and his friend to save the lives of people who will never see, know, or vote for him.

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: Nuke Disclosure Starts a Category 3 Sh*tstorm

April 24, 2008 Appeasement, Proliferation, Six-Party Talks, U.S. Politics 13 comments

[Update: Watch the CIA's video on the al-Kibar reactor:

I'd love to know how they got those photographs of the reactor's interior, and I can only guess that some trusted person who is now in a much safer place took them.]

How stupid and how evil does Kim Jong Il have to be to get the attention of Congress in an election year?  This stupid and this evil:

The United States on Thursday released an intelligence document with photographs of what it said was a Syrian nuclear reactor built with North Korean help.  [Reuters; interesting fact sheet at that link, btw]

“The belief is that the reactor was nearing completion,” said one official familiar with the content of the briefings. “It would have been able to produce plutonium.”  [Washington Times, Joshua Mitnick]

The evidence is, to say the least, hard to dismiss:

The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel’s decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.

Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core’s design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows “remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon,” a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video “very, very damning.”  [WaPo, Robin Wright]

There’s no reasonable defense to the charge that North Korea has crossed the Red Line in a very big way.  No wonder the State Department stonewalled Congress for so many months.  No wonder Chris Hill has feared this day like Kennedys fear sobriety checkpoints. 

If there is one explanation for why Agreed Framework 2.0 got as far as it did, it’s the fact that the media and Congress haven’t been paying attention. Â They are now.  People are about to have what will be, for many of them, a first opportunity to kick the tires of the Edsel Chris Hill was trying to sell us.  And nobody — Republican or Democrat — is defending Bush now.  Let’s begin with the reaction that will matter most:

The Arizona senator, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who has touted his experience in security issues as a strength in his campaign, said the North Korean nuclear disclosures were “troubling but not surprising.”

“North Korea has not acted in good faith for more than a decade,” he said. “The goal of our diplomacy must be an agreement that advances America’s national interests in the full denuclearization of North Korea and the cessation and full accounting of North Korea’s proliferation activities.”

He said any agreement must be completely verifiable and take into account the interests of allies South Korea and Japan.  “In addition, it would be a serious mistake to exclude from the negotiations our legitimate concerns regarding North Korea‘s egregious human rights abuses,” McCain said.  [Reuters]

And with that, Bush is orphaned and exposed as a hypocrite on human rights.  Good for McCain, though it’s a bit of a stretch to turn this into an attack on Obama.  Granted:  in a blind taste test, I’d pick Obama as the most likely proponent of a policy this naive, but you can’t hold Obama responsible for this one (or much of anything else; he came to Washington, stopped for a cup of coffee, and decided to run for President). 

Republicans in Congress were also critical:

After receiving a classified briefing for Congress members, Michigan Republican Pete Hoekstra on Thursday called it “is a serious proliferation issue, both for the Middle East and the countries that may be involved in Asia.”  [Rep. Peter Hoekstra, via AP]

Hoekstra is one of those who has been demanding answers since last fall, along with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, but other reactions, such as that of Democratic Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, are somewhat more surprising.  As was this:

“Reports that North Korea – over a period of several years – helped Syria build a nuclear reactor make clear that any deal to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear programs must also stop its proliferation activities and include vigorous verification. Â Â Â   
 
“Unless we are able to confirm that North Korea is no longer in the nuclear proliferation business, the United States should not lift sanctions on the North.  Our goals are, and must remain, both shutting down North Korea’s nuclear programs and ensuring that North Korea does not transfer dangerous technology to other irresponsible states. Â [Sen. Joe Biden, Press release]

Biden then calls for the United States not to cut off the six-party talks, which these senators aren’t calling for, and for that matter, I’m not calling for, either. Â Talks have cosmetic value and do little harm, as long as you keep your expectations realistic and apply enough pressure.  So score one for Senator Biden over Senator Strawman. Â 

Although Democrats are probably more supportive of Bush’s new policy than Republicans, your base of support is never strong when most of it is in the other party: 

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East subcommittee, accused the Bush administration of selectively leaking the classified information, which he called “bizarre behavior.”

While reporters without security clearances were selectively given information “most of us got no information whatsoever,” Ackerman said as he opened a separate hearing on U.S. policy toward Syria.  [AP]

And in the end, no one will really care much what the policy’s few remaining defenders say.  If the Democrats become strong in their opposition, Bush’s left-of-center defenders will fall silent.  Their support is on consignment.

“The United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation facilities or nuclear weaponization facilities,” he said. “The lack of any such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor is part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent lack of fuel, either imported or indigenously produced, also is curious and lowers confidence that Syria has a nuclear weapons program.” Â [David Albright, via the WaPo]

If we caught a North Korea freighter carrying nuclear bombs to Bandar Abbas, Albright would no doubt point out that they were not yet loaded onto bombers.  Ironic, as Richardson notes.  But dig this:

U.S. intelligence officials will also tell the lawmakers that Syria is not rebuilding a reactor at the Al Kibar site. “The successful engagement of North Korea in the six-party talks means that it was unlikely to have supplied Syria with such facilities or nuclear materials after the reactor site was destroyed,” Albright said. “Indeed, there is little, if any, evidence that cooperation between Syria and North Korea extended beyond the date of the destruction of the reactor.”

And also, there’s no conclusive evidence whatsoever that Bill Clinton has received so much as one extramarital hummer or lied about it under oath since 1996. Â The point being? Â And in any event, I wouldn’t be so sure about that:

Asked yesterday whether the North has assisted Syria’s nuclear program since the Sept. 6 bombing, officials said, “Not at that site.” They declined to elaborate.  [Washington Times]

There will be (forgive me) fallout from the briefing and Congress’s reaction.  For one thing, it’s hard to believe that Chris Hill feels that his job is secure these days:

Mr. Hill was put in charge of the talks more than three years ago in the hope of finding a new way to deal with the North Koreans. But support for him has wavered, and President Bush has repeatedly warned aides not to agree to anything that “makes me look weak,” according to former officials who sat in on meetings with him on North Korea.

Mr. Cheney’s office and other conservatives have argued that Mr. Hill’s proposed deal would amount to a huge concession. In return for a minimal declaration from North Korea — an accounting of how much plutonium it has produced — it would be removed from the terrorism list and would no longer be subject to economic sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act. [....]

It is not clear what has changed, apart from the politics of the moment. Mr. Hill’s boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has not voiced strong support for Mr. Hill’s effort to coax the North Koreans along, granting them rewards for steps along the way to compliance with a deal that calls, ultimately, for the country to give up its weapons.

Ms. Rice has been a strong critic of the 1994 agreement between North Korea and the Clinton administration, complaining that it was “front loaded” with rewards for the North.  [....]

“He’s feeling pretty abandoned by Rice and Bush,” one of his colleagues said Wednesday. Mr. Hill did not respond to messages.  [NY Times]

There are in fact rumors that he will resign, although I’m in no position at all to substantiate them.  Stay or go, Hill’s precarious situation probably means that the Singapore Surrender is a non-starter, one that would go into the same legislative dustbin as Dubai Ports World, Harriet Miers, Comprehensive Immigration Reform … and the FTA with Korea.

Kathleen Stephens’s nomination seems less certain now.  There’s a Senate hold on her nomination, and her close association with Hill may harm her chances that State will push hard to have it lifted. 

The doves may have finally overplayed their hand this time. 

Anju Links for 24 April 08

April 24, 2008 Anju Links One comment

THAT’S MORE LIKE IT:

South Korean human rights groups said Thursday they will block the Olympic torch relay in protest at China’s alleged human rights violations against Tibetans and North Korean defectors. The torch for the 2008 Beijing Olympics is scheduled to reach South Korea on April 27 and be passed on to North Korea on the following day. It will arrive in Beijing in early May. “We urge China, as a host of the Olympic Games, to abide by the common values of humankind and respect the human rights of the weak,” said Christian Accountability for Society, Save North Korea and Helping Hands Korea in a joint press conference held in front of the World Peace Gate at Seoul’s Olympic Park. “China must stop its forceful repatriation of North Korean refugees and its violent crackdown on Tibetan protestors. [Yonhap]

SPEAKING OF THE CHICOMS SHOOTING THEMSELVES IN THE FEET, I’d say that stories like this aren’t going to do good things for the tourist trade this summer. Not only does it look like a bad time to be a white person in China, it seems to be an especially bad time to be there if you’re French or want to catch a taxi. It’s been pointed out elsewhere that Olympic protests have given the ChiCom regime propaganda fuel, which is true. But what a gift this regime has for hitting itself when it swings blunt instruments.  The result of the regime’s self-serving incitement is stories like these, which could crush foreign attendance at the Olympics to an ever greater degree than the protests themselves.  Now watch how quickly the regime cracks down on the new Boxers it has incited.

ANOTHER WAY TO VIEW THIS: watch how much smarter Hu Jintao still is than Roh Moo Hyun, whose own brand of incitement, usually through surrogates within his own party, earned Korea more enduring ill will than his successor will easily overcome.

EXPECT TO HEAR MORE REPORTS of North Korean spy arrests in South Korea. Unfortunately, Yonhap’s report is too badly translated for us to know if that will mean better enforcement or just better publicity.

PYONGYANG SOJU IS ARRIVING in the United States, in spite of the reported arrest of the importer. This is the thin end of the wedge in the State Department’s plan to respond to North Korea’s behavior, no matter how reprehensible and uncooperative, with cash.

More Senate Republicans Rebel Against Bush’s North Korea Policy

April 23, 2008 Appeasement, Six-Party Talks, U.S. Politics 4 comments

Fourteen Republican senators have signed a letter to President Bush opposing his agreement to let the North Koreans off the hook on full disclosure, disarmament, money laundering, terror sponsorship, concentration camps, abductions — you name it – before we lift sanctions.  An excerpt:

We are … concerned about the present course of action on North Korea’s nuclear program being pursued by representatives of your Administration.  It cannot be said that North Korea has complied with its commitments.  From all appearances, Kim Jong Il believes that the United States will take whatever deal we can get, allowing him to dictate the time, place, manner, and content of the fulfillment of his promises. 

A scan of the full letter here:  letter-to-bush.pdf

Many thanks to a faithful reader and good friend who leaked this to me.  For background: 

I’ll be interested in hearing how the presidential candidates react.

State Will Tell Congress that N. Korea Was Helping Syria Build a Reactor

April 23, 2008 Appeasement, Six-Party Talks, U.S. & Korea 3 comments

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are both reporting that State is about to give Congress that briefing that it’s long been demanding about what exactly the Israelis bombed in Syria last September. 

A senior congressional aide and a former Bush administration North Korea specialist said they believed the briefings were designed to persuade members of Congress that removing those sanctions was justified.

Latest word, by the way, is that when State publishes its new list of state sponsors of terror, North Korea will still be on it, although you can be sure that the report will be about as heavily doctored as Stalin’s biography in a Soviet encylopedia.

Congressional sources said the briefings would be for members of the House of Representatives and Senate committees that deal with armed services, foreign affairs and intelligence.  Spokesmen for the White House and for the office of the Director of National Intelligence declined comment.

“The administration routinely keeps appropriate members of Congress informed of national security and intelligence matters, but I’m going to decline to comment on any specific briefings,” said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Asked why the briefings were happening now, the senior congressional aide said, “Because they are about to lift sanctions … and they want to convince members that we have enough clarity from what the North Koreans have acknowledged to us, and what we have learned through our own methods, to proceed with confidence.”  [Reuters, Mohammed Arshad]

The Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon reports that the targeted facility was to be a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, something that had been reported by the press before but has never been confirmed by U.S. officials on the record.  Still uncertain are a number of conflicting reports that North Korea also transferred nuclear “material” to Syria, as well of reports of nuclear technology transfers to Iran.

The argument, then, would go like this:  one listed state sponsor of terrorism has proliferated nuclear technology and perhaps “materials” of some kind to an especially active state sponsor of terrorism, one that’s actively supporting the people who are killing Americans in Iraq today.  Now that we’ve told you that, we faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats are asking you, the elected representatives, to de-list the proliferating party, which, by the way, is sticking with an incredible blanket denial of the entire transaction, has not confessed to its recent terror sponsorship or retail terrorism, and is promising to neither end nor renounce its terrorism or support thereof.  They admit nothing, they regret nothing, and if you do this, you will have proved that terrorism works.

Oh, and this will probably trash our relations with Japan.  Meanwhile, U.S. permanent resident Kim Dong Shik’s North Korean kidnapper still sits in a South Korean jail.  I wonder what he knows.

The Administration has handled congressional relations on this rather badly.  After months of extraordinary secrecy and failing to brief the key committees of Congress, State offended some in Congress by giving the North Koreans a detailed briefing first, leaving not just Congress at the back of the line, but also South Korea and Japan, which went to the Israelis to learn what we presumably wouldn’t tell them.

Unfortunately, because the North Koreans are still refusing to tell us the whole story about Syria — and because we’re now saying we’ll let the North Koreans off the hook and write their declaration for them based on what we do know – the briefing may only serve to accentuate North Korea’s bad faith in dealing with us and our own stupidity for going along with it.  And obviously, given the reactor’s remote location and surrounding secrecy – along with the checkered history of both parties here — there’s reason to assume that the purposes were not entirely peaceful.

Then there’s the fact that North Korea’s declaration, the part we’re still asking them to make, will still be materially false.  North Korea is saying it will declare 30 kilograms of plutonium, which is 20-30 kilograms less than U.S. intelligence estimates.  This leaves the questions of uranium enrichment and North Korea’s existing warheads unresolved, although the low-ball plutonium estimate suggests that the North Koreans will probably deny having any more completed warheads. 

Honest. 

Also unresolved is the issue of verification in the world’s most opaque and controlled society. Â Getting a North Korean concession on verification is the nominal purpose of Sung Kim’s visit to Pyongyang this week, although North Korea’s positions on the declaration — and the growing congressional resistance those positions are creating – will almost certainly come up.

All of which makes you wonder just how safe this deal will make everyone feel when it’s all said and done.

Bush has come under withering fire over all of this, most of it from people who voted for him and who questioned Clinton’s Agreed Framework (which, frankly speaking, was less bad that this one).  Bush’s own position on all of this has been exceedingly difficult to pin down.  After a White House spokesperson intially said the White House has accepted the Singapore Surrender, Bush later said this:

“You know, there’s all kinds of rumors about what is happening and what’s not happening,” Bush said at a news joint conference with Lee. “Obviously I’m not going to accept a deal that doesn’t advance the interests of the region.”  [....]

“So we’ll wait and see what he says, and then we’ll make a decision about our obligations, depending upon whether or not we’re convinced that there is a solid and full declaration,” Bush said.  [Reuters]

Which some interpreted as Bush backing away from this putrid deal.  Bush also suggested that the North Koreans might be trying to stall through the end of his term (d’ya think?)  For his part, President Lee said that he and Bush were ”still waiting for North Korea to declare their full program” and that Kim Jong Il “should not get away with this temporary measure.”  This quote from Lee was especially interesting:

“I believe if North Korea’s declaration is not satisfactory or if the verification is not satisfactory, we could probably have a temporary achievement, but in the long term that will cause a lot more serious problems,” Lee said.

“The United States is not dealing with North Korea alone,” he said. “There are other parties to these six-party talks and they must all agree to this declaration.”  [AFP]

Another hint, it seems, that Lee isn’t fond of one-party talks. 

Later, however, Bush asked us to all just hush and give peace a chance:

“Why don’t we just wait and see what they say before people go out there and start giving their opinions about whether this is a good deal or a bad deal?” Bush said. Â [Washington Post]

It may be the fact that their acceptance would be our worst case scenario. Â Some in the media have long sought to portray this as a false choice of appeasement or war, and it does seem that our government doesn’t think it has other options.  But of course, it does.

Yes, This Should Be Interesting

April 23, 2008 Appeasement, Korean Politics 5 comments

PAGING DON KIRK: Former South Korean spymaster Kim Ki-Sam, who must know where a lot of the bodies from the 2000 North Korea summit scandal are buried, has just been granted asylum in the United States, reports Yonhap. From the article, you have to infer that Kim was able to convince an immigration judge that he has something to be afraid of in South Korea, notwithstanding the recent changes in the presidency and the National Assembly.

Kim is promising to reveal plenty of juicy detail about the scandal.  The news conference is set for next Saturday.  Yes, I’m tempted to attend.

All of this is delectably timed with Kim Dae Jung’s nip-the-new-president’s-heels tour of America.

Anju Links for 22 April 2008

April 22, 2008 Anju Links 3 comments

ANOTHER GOOGLE EARTH MYSTERY: In the two days following my publication of this post on North Korea’s construction of a suspected underground runway, the same site has also been discovered by the Voice of America and Yonhap. Thanks a million for reading, guys. I’d thank you two million for a little attribution or a link….

IS KOREA’S LEFT MOVING TOWARD THE CENTER? Well, there’s a lot less room under the tent these days. By the way, the picture accompanying the Hankyoreh’s report has to be one of the most exploitive photo-ops I’ve ever seen.

TWO SOUTH KOREANS ARE REFUSING to carry the Olympic torch for the ChiComs … because of Tibet. That’s one of several perfectly fine reasons, but can they think of no other reason that’s closer to home, but perhaps less fashionable?

BORROWING A TACTIC FROM RADICAL ISLAM, the Chinese are staging anti-French demonstrations to try to intimidate their critics to silence. As with radical Muslim rage, ChiCom nationalist rage is probably both sincere and carefully manipulated. And given the significant inroads radical Muslim intolerance is making against free speech in the free world, it’s only sensible that China would also learn to leverage our own intellectual weakness against us.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Leaders Co-Sponsor Bi-Partisan N.K. Human Rights Bill

April 22, 2008 Human Rights, Refugees, U.S. Politics 2 comments

[Updated and bumped 4/22:  The GPO has published the full text; it's here:  hr-5834.pdf

It mainly reauthorizes the existing Act, tightens State's reporting requirements, and adds more power and prestige to the post of Special Envoy.  It also demands quick action from State on increasing radio broadcasting and "facilitating the submission of applications" for asylum at our consular facilities in Asia.] 

I don’t have a link to the bill or this press release yet, but it’s from a reliable source, verbatim and in full.  Thanks to a reader for sending.  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, bless her, has been a stalwart on this issue.  And if Howard Berman really ignores the State Department and supports this, I’ll say that Tom Lantos‘s shoes have been more than filled.

Ros-Lehtinen Introduces North Korea Human Rights Act

Legislation co-authored with Chairman Berman may see vote in late April

(WASHINGTON) ““ U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) today introduced a bill to improve resettlement policies for victims of the communist regime in North Korea and expand democracy promotion programs.

Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that she expected the North Korea Human Rights Reauthorization Act to be approved by the committee later this month. Ros-Lehtinen co-authored the legislation with committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA).

“North Koreans struggle to survive in deplorable conditions perpetuated by a brutal regime. Human rights violations are common and the appalling humanitarian conditions have compelled many people to flee the country just to survive,” said Ros-Lehtinen.

According to Ros-Lehtinen, “the combination of an intensified crackdown by China, which forcibly returns refugees, and recent public executions of border-crossers inside North Korea, have made the situation of North Korean refugees even more precarious.

“Despite the intent of Congress in 2004 when it enacted the first North Korean Human Rights Act, only 43 refugees have been admitted to the United States, out of more than 6,000 who have been resettled during that time,” Ros-Lehtinen explained.

The bill:

- includes findings urging the U.S. Department of State to improve its screening, processing, and resettlement of North Korean refugees;

- requires the appointment of a full-time envoy to work on North Korean human rights issues;

- requires a report from the Broadcasting Board of Governors on efforts to expand U.S. broadcasts to North Korea; and

- increases to $4 million U.S. funding for the human rights and democracy programs.

“The United States has the largest refugee program in the world by far. The Korean community in the United States, which numbers nearly 2 million, is the largest outside northeast Asia, and shares many family ties to North Korea. The United States welcomes tens of thousands of refugees fleeing repression every year, and Congress must ensure that North Korean victims also have a reasonable opportunity to pursue their dreams of living in freedom,” said Ros-Lehtinen.

#####

[Correction on the title:  It's the House Foreign Relations Affairs Committee.] 

Anju Links for 18 April 2008

April 18, 2008 Anju Links 3 comments

THE LIFE IMPRISONMENT ZONE of Camp 14 is described in vivid detail by Shin Dong-Hyuk, who claims to be a survivor (by the way, hat tip to usinkorea for sending this).  Shin’s story of how another prisoner helped him survive interrogation in an underground dungeon is particularly touching.  The concern you always have with reports like this is that they come from a single source and can’t be independently confirmed.  Oddly enough, this report comes by way of the Pattaya (Thailand) Daily News, which I admit to not having heard of before.  I intend to give this one a much closer read when I have time, and see if any of the details check out on Google Earth, where most of Camp 14 is now visible in hi-res.

MORE PROBLEMS WITH THE NORTH KOREAN BORDER GUARDS: Â I’ve previously blogged about low morale, corruption, and desertion in their ranks. Â Reports of banditry shouldn’t be terribly surprising, as defectors have been telling us that for years.

“On the dawn of March 27, a group of seven soldiers who look like border guards, entered the house of Pak In Sun at Dongmyong-dong 2-ban in Hoiryeong City after prying open the door of the house with a lever. They hit Mr. Pak with a blunt object and knocked him down. Then, they gagged and tided up Mrs. Pak and her son who were begging for life and robbed the house,” said Kim Chul (52, pseudonym) in an interview with a Daily NK reporter on April 5. Kim Chul was visiting relatives in Yanji, China.

Kim said, “The incident disturbed the Hoiryeong Public Security Agency and the Border Garrison, and both are under investigation.Â  [Daily NK]

What the citizens of Hoeryong obviously need is a better SOFA.  The politically significant fact, aside from the rise of civilian hostility, is that this will empower the secret police to investigate the military, which could strain the regime’s internal cohesion.  But the Daily NK reports that the local secret police chief is, unsurprisingly, a rather unpopular figure himself. 

I DON’T DOUBT THAT IDOLATRY is an expensive thing (one, two), but note the wildly inconsistent estimates of how expensive.

THEY CAN START AT FOGGY BOTTOM:  The U.S. Committee on International Religious Freedom is calling on the “international community” – a fine oxymoron, that – to pressure China into ceasing its forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees:

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a 49-page report that North Korea employs stringent security measures to stop the spread of religion, especially Protestant Christianity, which has connections with past U.S. intervention and modern-day South Korea.  Some of the harshest treatment is inflicted on refugees sent back to North Korea from China, the commission said.

“The forcible repatriation of refugees from China remains an issue of special concern,” said its report on North Korea, titled “A Prison Without Bars.”  “If it is discovered that they have either converted to Christianity while in China or had contact with South Koreans — both of which are considered to be political offenses — they reportedly suffer harsh interrogation, torture and ill-treatment.”  [....] 

Former North Korean security agents told the commission that authorities set up mock prayer meetings to entrap new converts in North Korea and train staff in Christian practices for the purposes of infiltrating churches in China.  [Reuters, David Morgan]

Ahem.

A REFUGEE’S STORY:  It’s a bit dated, but interesting. Â A refugee tells how state-sanctioned opium growing starved a good share of an entire village to death, including most of his family. 

DID SABOTAGE cause mass-casualty train wrecks? Â Well, accusations of “wrecking” are a classic Stalinist blame-deflection method, so I’m skeptical.  I wonder if the train was insured.

Rice: Lift Sanctions Now, Disarm and Verify Someday

April 18, 2008 Appeasement, Six-Party Talks 6 comments

bush-to-carter.gif[Scroll down for a highly significant update.] 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that verifying any North Korean nuclear declaration would take time and suggested Washington may drop some sanctions on Pyongyang before this is complete.

Separately, a senior U.S. official said an American team would visit North Korea next week to discuss how to verify the “complete and correct” accounting of its nuclear programs that Pyongyang was due to deliver by Dec. 31.  [Reuters, Arshad Mohammed]

Not only do I not believe that the disarmament of North Korea is a possibility this year, privately, proponents of Agreed Framework 2.0 acknowledge that.  So let’s just be clear about this:  no one believes that the Bush Administration is going to disarm North Korea during the remainder of its term, and few people believe that any U.S. president is going to disarm North Korea, ever.  When someone induces you by promising something they know damn well they can’t deliver, it’s called lying.

Now listen to Condi make excuses for why the North Koreans may not be ready to verifiably disarm after all:

“Verification takes some time because these are complex programs, this is a nontransparent society, there is a history here of surprises and so it will take some time — even past the second phase — for verification to completely play out,” Rice told reporters at a news conference.

“Just because we … believe obligations may have been met in the second phase, if there is evidence as we are into the third phase that something was not true … there is always the ability and the absolute intention to react,” she added.

In other words — they sign agreements, but we don’t really expect them to abide by them because, after all, they’re assholes.  Hey, we have to respect their Kim Jong Il’s inalienable right to “a nontransparent society” and hold back some “surprises.”  And if we find any, no doubt President Obama’s White House spokeswoman will read a statement of “concern.”  That’ll show ‘em.

So much for expecting Kim Jong Il to make that “strategic decision” to disarm. Â Another goalpost completely, verifiably, and (don’t kid yourself) irreversably dismantled.  But not to worry, says Condi:

The administration is arguing that although it has scaled back its demands about what the North must admit about its nuclear past, it will still get the information it wants, along with new ways to make sure Pyongyang isn’t cheating.

“No one has let them off the hook,” said Dennis Wilder, special assistant to the president and senior director for East Asian affairs.  [AP, Anne Gearan]

I should cut a break to someone who’s paid to spout pablum he doesn’t believe, but here’s the reality of it — without sanctions, we’ll have no leverage except appeals to Kim Jong Il’s tender mercies.  And if anyone tells you that sanctions can easily be restored once lifted, they’re lying.  Finally, remember that State is talking about submerging the verification function into another Rube Goldberg working group jointly controlled by all six parties, meaning that we play Gulliver to the North Koreans, the Russians, our friends the ChiComs, and whatever whim overtakes South Korea in any given year.

And we can see how effective those working groups have been in making progress on human rights, haven’t we? Â So please quit pretending that any of this is about taking away Little Fat Boy’s nukes.

The next question is what drives the blind, unilateral, and unrequited pursuit of full diplomatic relations with this abhorrent regime.  Disarmament that no one believes in anymore can’t be it.  It’s clear enough what the goal here isn’t.  Rather, I think the goal must be the mere privilege of posting diplomats in that dull, underfed, oversurveilled Potempkin village known as Pyongyang, even if it means trashing relations with the governments of Japan and South Korea and racking up a deep resentment by the North Korean people that will outlast Kim Jong Il by many decades.  And for what?  To cash in on their riches of vinalon, corn-stalk noodles, and slave-mined coal? 

The only good thing that can be said of any of this is that the few people who are actually paying attention to this are pretty alarmed, and that Chris Hill must not have had complete success at acceding to all of North Korea’s demands in Singapore, or else we probably wouldn’t still be sending diplomats to Pyongyang.  And although this deal seems to grow worse with each passing day, resistance to it may prove insufficient to do much more than chip away at its edges.  Absent a full congressional rebellion or vocal denunciation from McCain, all that stands between Kim Jong Il and his financial salvation is his own intransigence.

Update:

OK, you expected this from John Bolton, and you expected this from me, but you probably did not expect this from the Washington Post:

If the United States were able to reach its goal of having North Korea surrender its plutonium, substantial concessions would be justified. But senior administration officials say they don’t expect that the Kim regime will turn over its plutonium in the coming nine months. That raises the question of why President Bush would allow North Korea to evade full disclosure. Mr. Hill’s deal would preserve the negotiating process — but what does the Bush administration stand to gain from it? All along the risk has been that North Korea would repeatedly extract economic and political favors from the United States without giving up its nuclear arsenal. The latest deal would seem to greatly increase the chance that that will be the legacy of Mr. Bush’s diplomacy.  [Editorial, Washington Post]

By now, you’ve no doubt noticed something highly familiar in this logic.  If Glenn Kessler’s employers are accusing Bush of appeasement, the time is ripe for Republicans (and not a few Democrats) to denounce this cave-in.

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