Anju Links for 8 May 2008

JOSEPH HONG, ONE OF LiNK’s RISING STARS and one of this site’s most valued readers, writing in the International Herald Tribune, asks, “Where has all the courage gone?” After summarizing the current conditions both inside North Korean and for the refugees who have managed to flee, Hong says:

In light of this, it is fair to say that international institutions have totally failed in their duty to protect refugees and curtail human rights violations.

President George W. Bush has met with North Korean defectors and the families of abductees in the Oval Office on several occasions. The meetings intended to bring hope to dissidents and to send a clear message to the North Korean regime that its human rights practices would not be tolerated by the free world.

After a meeting in April 2006, the president assured the visitors that he would work “so that the people of North Korea can raise their children in a world that’s free and hopeful.”

Yet the direct responsibility for dealing with North Korean human rights has been relegated to a quiet and often censored special envoy, Jay Lefkowitz. [International Herald Tribune]

Read the whole thing. Hong has some spot-on recommendations for how President Bush and President Lee should be working together to save the lives of North Koreans. The advice is almost too insightful to be heeded. Ironically, it’s now the South Koreans who appear to get it.

THE OTHER TALKS WITH NORTH KOREA: I had heard rumors to the contrary last week, but it doesn’t look as if the State Department has reached an agreement with the North Koreans on food aid:

State Department press officer Nancy Beck earlier this week described the discussions as “inconclusive”. She said the provision of food aid depends on the level of need, supply “and our view of other needs that might exist, and our ability to ensure aid is reliably reaching the people in need”. [Reuters]

Once again, the problem is that the North Korean government has no sense of urgency about filling mass graves with expendable people. The only way the regime will accede to some transparency is if it’s forced. The elite will have to share the pain for that to happen.

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE STAFFER KEITH LUSE doesn’t strike me as one of Washington’s more clear-headed observers of North Korea, judging from his observations of his latest visit to Yongbyon. I credit Luse for enough honesty to express his agnosticism that North Korea is really ready to give up its nuclear weapons programs at all. So why does Luse still support a deal with no concrete or realistic prospect of achieving its main objective? When you consider the countervailing cost to the core principles on which so many long-term, bipartisan, national polices have been based, just contemplate this short list of the formerly intolerable things that we are about to declare tolerable: nuclear proliferation, counterfeiting, drug dealing, the sponsorship of terrorism, international kidnapping, and genocide.

By the way, if you read Siegfried Hecker’s linked piece, have a barf bag handy. Just to show you what I mean here:

By their definition, the DPRK has completed 10 of 12 disablement actions. They have slowed down the last two to actions to allow the other parties to catch up. [Nautilus]

Thanks, Sig. The Rodong Sinmun could not have said it better. When the loyalties of people who truck with influential policymakers are so vaporous, it’s no wonder we get rolled by the North Koreans every time. Until we can close the Testosterone Gap, a determined little clique of fourth-world phobocrats will continue to profit by threatening the security of the world’s greatest power.