Archive for August 2008

Let Them Eat Grass: North Korea’s ‘Miracle’ Foods

August 24, 2008 Famine & Food Aid, WTF? 2 comments

Displaying its characteristic talent for attracting universal apathy punctuated by brief moments of global disgust, the North Korean regime claims to have invented noodles that make you feel full … even when you aren’t. Â 

North Korean scientists have developed a new kind of noodle that delays feelings of hunger, a Japan-based pro-Pyongyang newspaper has reported.  The noodles were made from corn and soybeans, the Choson Shinbo said.  They left people feeling fuller longer and represented a technological breakthrough, the newspaper said.

According to the newspaper, which is seen as closely linked to the Pyongyang leadership, the new noodles have twice as much protein and fives times as much fat as ordinary noodles.  “When you consume ordinary noodles (made from wheat or corn), you may soon feel your stomach empty. But this soybean noodle delays such a feeling of hunger,” it said on its website.  The noodles would be available soon across North Korea, the newspaper said.  [BBC; hat tip]

What the report doesn’t make clear is how exactly this “breakthrough” adds to the available food supply, if at all (for that matter, the same could be said of the Ryugyong Hotel or highly enriched uranium; wouldn’t it make more sense to spend those resources on importing some corn?).  Factories to process food aren’t much use if there’s no raw material to process, unless the raw material is the by-products of those crops.  Historically, the regime has “solved” hunger by feeding people inedible hulls, cobs, and stalks that are mostly cellulose, which the human digestive system was never designed to process.

The appearance of stories about technological breakthroughs in food production tend to coincide with episodes of famine, and maybe, we can suppose, popular discontent about famine.  Recently, the regime has announced the ability to make noodles from such stuff as sweet potatoes, arrowroot, elm (!), and acorns, which have to be leached of their natural tannin content to be edible. Â Not that those are bad for you, provided of course that agricultural production can deliver raw materials to all of those whizbang new factories.

Approximately as dependable as the harvest itself are perennial reports about new factories that make noodles, crackers, and even rice from potatoes.  Observe: Â 2008, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999.  Each report claims a new breakthrough, although the technological substance of each year’s breakthrough is hardly distinguishable from the last.  What all of them have in common is that none of them predates a solution to North Korea’s endemic hunger, which occasionally wanes, but never disappears.

In relatively less lean times, the official reports mostly talk about food in the same way they talk about everything else — from a nationalist perspective, speaking of Chosun’s “unique food culture” or celebratory feasts for this-or-that Supremo’s birthday, with frequent stories about the Okryu Noodle Restaurant in Pyongyang.  In leaner times, state media try to fend off panic with reports of miracle foods.

There is a close correlation between periods of famine and the appearance of official exhortations about substitute foods.  This year’s reports are the first such reports since the spring of 1999, just after the peak of the Great Famine.  Curiously, the earliest mention of “substitute” foods occurs in July 1998, although North Korea was probably in famine conditions as early as 1993, and the S.T.A.L.I.N. archives go back to January of 1996.  Thereafter, KCNA carries more stories encouraging the production and consumption of “substitute” foods. Â 

In most cases, the regime conceded that the consumption of substitute foods was undesireable, speaking of ”the difficult conditions where they have to eat food substitute due to an acute shortage of food caused by years of natural disasters.”  At other times, the consumption of those foods implicitly portrayed as undesireable, but also as an act of patriotic self-sacrifice.  In some stories, they were even portrayed as a part of the Brave New Soilent World into which North Korean techology was leading the world:

Every encouragement is given to produce substitute food in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The Korean people are still pressed for food because of the continued economic blockade by the enemy and natural disasters. To cope with this, steps have been taken to increase agricultural production as well as to take substitute food. Detailed arrangements have been made to produce substitute food through introducing science. The Ministry of Food Administration delivered several tons of seed of amaranth [OFK: In case you're wondering] to provinces early this year. [....] Its cultivation has stood the test and it is now in wide use in people’s diets. Amaranth is processed into noodle, bread, pancake, cake, sweets and confectionery, soy and beanpaste. An exhibition of over 120 kinds of food drew public attention in Kangso district, Nampho. These food items were made of 100 tons of amaranth, the first crops this year. [....]  Other plants are also in wide use for substitute food.  [KCNA, Aug. 22, 1998]

One aspect of alternative of substitute foods state media never mentioned was how they affect those who eat it:

Manufactured “alternative food” consists of cabbage stalks, cornstalks and grasses ground up and mixed with some cereal and an enzyme to make noodles or cakes.

“This locally manufactured alternative food has very little nutritional content and is basically a stomach filler,” U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator David Morton said in a statement. “We have seen that eating it can cause serious problems such as digestive difficulties, particularly among the children and the elderly.”  [CNN, May 11, 1999]

Judging by state media reports, the worst of the famine must have passed by December 1999, when the state media suddenly began reporting that the people no long had to survive on substitute foods.  The recovery must have been gradual, as those reports continued through 2001. 

The new reemergence of “substitute” food stories in the official media likely signals a new desperation in the food situation.  That’s especially so when you realize that the North Korea people have already watched their loved ones die from eating grass and cornstalks.  Even in North Korea, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.  The NGO Good Friends tells us that it has been happening again this year:

Furthermore, in regions like Shingye County, and Hwangju County, there is news that there are now cases of people dying from grass poisoning in addition to starvation. The citizens of these areas have been subsisting on grass porridge because of the lack of rations, but because they have not been properly preparing the grass for consumption, they are falling victim to grass poisoning. On farms in North Hwanghae Province, it is understood that on average, 3-4 people are dying daily. Because of this, wails and exhortations can be heard coming from different villages.  [Good Friends No. 137, June 2008]

Substitute foods probably never really disappeared from the North Korean diet.  Recall this 2005 report in which a North Korean dissident “guerrilla camera” brought back footage of a teenage soldier sent home to die of starvation because substitute foods had destroyed his digestive system.  In a society that puts such emphasis on “military first,” and where military service is regarded as an iron rice bowl, it’s reasonable to infer that the civilian population was eating at least as badly as the junior enlisted soldiers.

See Also:  The Soylent Green connection also occurred to Richardson.

One More:  While searching for the term “substitute food” in the KNCA archives (using the invaluable S.T.A.L.I.N.) I found a recent and rather extraordinary claim by official state media that the Japanese ate Korean comfort women as a “substitute food.”  Ick.  As brutal as the Japanese were, this seems a bit far-fetched.

Die, Swedish Imperialists!

August 22, 2008 Europe, Unintended Humor, WTF? 7 comments

The blog is writing itself again:

The Communist North Korean government has declared Sweden their enemy and a US war puppet.  [...] 

According to information from the Swedish Armed Forces, this brusque message was first conveyed in a North Korean radio broadcast, then printed as an official document and distributed to the United Nations.

The North Koreans’ attack is not directed against the Swedish government as such, but against Sweden’s and other neutral countries’ military observation missions on the border between North and South Korea.

Sweden is active in the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) present in the area. Following the end of the Korean War in 1953, the NNSC’s task is to keep the peace with the help of the Swedes and the Swiss in demilitarized zones.  [The Local, Sweden]

HT, James Taranto.

Leon Sigal: Conspicuous, Self-Made Fool

August 22, 2008 Appeasement, Proliferation, Six-Party Talks One comment

If you read enough obscure publications about North Korea and our policies toward it, you’ll eventually run across something by Leon V. Sigal, who is the Director of something called the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security
Project (note the word “hegemony” in its url.)  A reader forwards me this piece by Sigal published on Napsnet, a publication of the Nautilus Institute, which was also published in the Japan Focus. 

Sigal’s piece is entitled, ”How A Mock Trial Could Turn Victory into Defeat on North Korea’s Nuclear Arms.”  Sigal argues that opponents of Agreed Framework 2.0 are delaying North Korea’s imminent (believe!) disarmament for the sake of putting North Korea on “mock trial” by demanding answers about how much help North Korea gave Syria to build the al-Kibar reactor even while it was negotiating its nuclear disarmament with us. 

Although Sigal thinks that we can afford to wait for those answers while North Korea disarms — Sigal either hasn’t seen or chooses not to mention this, this, this, or this statement of contrary intent – Sigal does not attempt to deny that clandestine nuclear proliferation is, you know, kind of a big deal:

 Washington is right to ask North Korea what nuclear help it gave Syria because of the corrosive mistrust such actions cause. But getting an answer is hardly an urgent security concern. It can wait because whatever help North Korea may have given to Syria’s nascent reactor project went up in smoke in Israel’s September 2007 air strike.  [Leon Sigal in Napsnet]

It might be easier to take Sigal and his argument seriously were it not for how he’d reacted to these same revelations last October:

“The Syria story is complete nonsense. No one in a position to know has said anything about nuclear transfer. If you go read carefully what officials have been saying, they have not said that.

According to Sigal, the person “not in the position to know” who had been spreading rumors of a connection is John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador in UN. “This is another one of those games that the Boltons of the world play when they see the negotiating track getting serious,” Sigal explained, “which is they throw some threat on the table to try to derail talks that turns out not to be quite the threat they made of it. They exaggerated the uranium enrichment program”¦and tried to use it to block negotiations, and they did so successfully for a while.  [Leon Sigal, interviewed by the Daily NK, Oct. 3, 2007]

I wonder which uranium Sigal is so sure the Boltons of the world exaggerated.  Would that be this uranium or this uranium?

“From what I have seen, there is simply no evidence what so ever of any North Korean nuclear connection to Syria. My guess is that at the end of the day we will learn the Israelis found something quite different.Â  [Id.]

You can’t help but be in awe of anyone who can spew such ferociously doctrinaire conclusions unassisted by any factual basis for them whatsoever.  I’ll offer Sigal’s very submission of his NAPSNET piece as evidence that he holds himself forth as an expert analyst.  So has ”analysis” ceased to be a rational processing of known facts into conclusions, or has some committee in Geneva voted to reverse this sequence?  Not that I would deny Sigal his biases any more than he’s entitled to deny me mine, but if all people are biased and some people are objective, then one can still be biased and objective. Â 

If one can — simultaneously – be as oafish, sloppy, and consistently wrong as Sigal, and also be a recognized expert, then we’re going to have to print a lot more diplomas.

N. Korea: We Have No Human Rights Issues, You Slave-Trading Imperialists!

August 21, 2008 Anju Links, Human Rights, Six-Party Talks, WTF? One comment

If you haven’t read the full KCNA editorial denouncing the United States for not de-listing the North as a state sponsor of terrorism, the quotes the media I showed you here really don’t do it justice:

Explicitly speaking, there is no “human rights issue” much touted by the U.S. in the DPRK. The Korean people fully enjoy genuine freedom and rights under the socialist system where all people form a big family. It is the consistent popular policy of the DPRK government to fully guarantee the rights of the citizens in a responsible manner. In the DPRK based on the man-centered Juche idea all working people do labor according to their abilities and wishes and lead a genuine life, given ample opportunity of learning. It is absolutely illogical for the U.S. to talk about the “human rights issue” while ignoring such reality.

So, if we try to distill some consistency of principle here, does this mean that nations have no right to criticize each others’ internal affairs?

There is the most serious human rights issue in the U.S. as it is a rogue state that exterminated tens of millions of native Indians and accumulated wealth through slave trade and flesh traffic and a country where the almighty dollar principle and the fin de sickle lifestyle based on the law of the jungle prevail. The impoverishment of Americans in the mental and cultural lives is actively fostered institutionally, driving them into the abyss of corruption, despair and crimes. This is a true picture of the American society today.

Guess not.

The “human rights” piffle made by the U.S. high-ranking officials indicates that they have no stand to recognize and respect the dialogue partner. The U.S. is persisting in the politically motivated provocations as evidenced by the ruckus kicked up over the non-existent “human rights issue” in the DPRK, an indication of its deep-rooted hostility and inveterate enmity toward the DPRK.

Piffle?

This attitude leaves the DPRK and the countries concerned skeptical about the U.S. intention to implement the points of the October 3 agreement. Such provocative acts of the U.S. as slandering and pulling up its dialogue partner can never help the talks make any progress in the positive direction. [KCNA]

The North Koreans are even objecting to the very idea that the United States is entitled to verify North Korea’s disclosure:

North Korea said on Wednesday it saw as “unjust” calls from global powers such as the United States for Pyongyang to verify claims it made in disarmament talks about producing arms-grade plutonium. The North’s KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed spokesman from its Foreign Ministry as also saying that South Korean-U.S. military exercises, which started on Monday, had spoiled the atmosphere for the disarmament discussions.

“This situation compels the DPRK (North Korea) to heighten vigilance against such unjust demands as the ‘verification in line with the international standard’ recently claimed by the U.S. as regards the nuclear issue,” the spokesman said. [Reuters]

Given the U.S. position of withholding that delisting until the North lets us verify its declaration, it certainly seems as if we’re at an impasse, doesn’t it?  The only thing needed to make this complete is for the North Koreans to say, “FOR THE 1,002ND TIME, SECRETARY RICE, WE’RE NOT GIVING UP OUR NUKES”:

North Korea “will increase its war deterrent in every way as long as the U.S. and its followers continue posing military threats to it,” a spokesman for the North’s Foreign Ministry said in comments carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency. The remarks came two days after South Korea and the U.S. launched Ulchi Freedom Guardian, an annual computer-simulated war game and follow daily criticisms of the exercises in North Korean media. The exercises come amid a dispute between the U.S. and North Korea over ways to verify the North’s declared nuclear programs under an aid-for disarmament deal. [AP, Kwang-Tae Kim]

In the North Korean vernacular, “war deterrent” means nukes.

SOME ANJU LINKS:

MAYBE I KNEW THIS ONCE AND FORGOT IT, but in any event, it’s not exactly “new”: apparently, North Korea demanded “economic aid” before it would agree to send a representative to Lee Myung Bak’s inauguration. Lee refused to pay, and no doubt a Hankyoreh editorial was conceived. Â 

WE MUSTN’T POLITICIZE THE OLYMPICS, YOU KNOW: So far, not a single demonstration has been approved at those Olympic “protest zones” in Beijing.

AND IN A SAD AND TERRIBLE WAY, I DON’T DOUBT HER:

While athletes may not be receiving much media coverage at home, they haven’t forgotten their lines. Pak said she owed her weightlifting victory to guess-who. “When I was about to do the third (lift), I kept in my mind that the Dear Leader would be watching,” Pak said after her Aug. 12 win. “That thought was real encouragement to me and that is how I was able to lift the last weight.”

She stopped short of emulating Cha Kum Chol’s celebration at the world weightlifting championships in Thailand in September. Then, the 56-kilogram winner burst into a rendition of “If you didn’t exist, we wouldn’t exist” — a eulogy to Kim Jong Il — at a news conference. “A lot of people give much pleasure to the Dear Leader and I’m happy to be one of them,” Cha said in Chiang Mai. [Bloomberg, Grant Clark and Heejin Koo]

You want to laugh, but it just doesn’t feel right somehow.

Dear Ban Ki Moon: A Letter from the Commitee for Human Rights in North Korea

August 21, 2008 "United" Nations, Activism, Appeasement, Diplomacy, Human Rights, Six-Party Talks No comments

CHRNK, taking heart from Ban’s words in a July 4th speech in Seoul, hopes that they will mark the beginning of something more sustained, and perhaps even remotely effective.

You are reported to have called upon the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to “take the necessary steps to improve their human rights situation”¦,” and said, “There are still many areas where human rights are not properly protected and even abused. This is an unacceptable situation.We agree, and trust your singling out this situation, which long has merited greater attention by the Secretary-General and the United Nations, will mark the beginning of a sustained effort to hold the government of North Korea accountable for its serious human rights transgressions.  [Part 1 - hrnk-ltr-to-ban-ki-moon-08112008.doc]  [Part 2 - hrnk-ltr-to-ban-ki-moon-08112008-part-21.doc] 

Sometimes, who is in charge tells you everything you need to know about what an organization will accomplish.  Ban’s elevation as General Secretary, following a career that had been built on appeasing North Korea and saying as little as possible about human rights where they are the most systematically denied, convinced me to abandon all hope in the U.N.  Ban, I believe, is destined to be remembered in much the same way that whatsisname who headed of the League of Nations in the late 30′s isn’t. Â 

A deserving exception to this would be the North Korean people, who are entitled to remember Ban for his role in prolonging their suffering, and in shielding their oppressors from shame.  In the context of Korea’s long history, of course, plenty of Koreans have meekly collaborated with the oppression of their countrymen.  The best I can say for Ban is that I hope a future Korean government won’t expropriate the property of his great-grandchildren.

Is the CHRNK foolish enough to believe that Ban will defy the Chinese and speak or act decisively? Â No, because it isn’t foolish at all. Â CRNK is composed of very smart people of various political persuasions.  Its authors are some of the very brightest academics studying North Korea today:  Marcus Noland, Stephan Haggard, and David Hawk to name just three outstanding examples.  Of course, Lee Myung Bak’s election has the potential to sway Ban to some degree, but it will probably take sustained and forceful public shaming to get Ban Ki Moon to deploy the High Commission for Refugees to the Chinese border.

Another figure to whom sincere concern about human rights does not come naturally is Chris Hill, but CHRNK has also written to him, hoping to sustain the pressure Senator Brownback brought to bear.  This letter attempts to add structure to the idea of making human rights improvements an integral part of North Korea, something that both the North Koreans and Hill would probably prefer didn’t exist.  The letter makes a series of specific demands for essential improvements, including closing down the gulags, lifting the information blockade, feeding the hungry.  Then, there is the matter of linking those goals to the aid without which the North Korean regime couldn’t survive.

Link Assistance to North Korea to tangible improvements in the regime’s human rights record: Assistance to the government of North Korea must be predicated on steps taken by it to protect the rights, including freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and freedom of conscience of the people of North Korea.  [hrnk-ltr-to-chris-hill-080320081.doc]

Thanks to Chuck Downs, the CHRNK’s new Executive Director, for forwarding both letters.  You can read my previous interview with Mr. Downs here. 

It’s What’s for Dinner!

August 20, 2008 Anti-Americanism, U.S. & Korea No comments

Even in Seoul:

Resumed supplies of controversial U.S. beef are already second most popular in the Korean imported beef market.  According to quarantine data by the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service on Monday, a total of 4,439 tons of U.S. beef passed Korea’s quarantine inspection from July 1 onwards.

During that period, Korea imported beef from four nations. Australian beef accounted for 60.2 percent or 12,753 tons from a total of 21,184. The U.S. came second with 20.9 percent or 4,439, followed by New Zealand (17.7 percent or 3,750 tons) and Mexico (1.1 percent or 241 tons). In less than two months, U.S. beef has secured over 20 percent market share since import resumed on June 26. [Chosun Ilbo]

The silent majority has voted with its chopsticks.

U.N. Will Ask 2MB for Food Aid for N. Korea

August 20, 2008 Famine & Food Aid 15 comments

The World Food Program will ask South Korea to contribute aid for North Korea within the next 10 days.  Presumably, the aid would go through the WFP, which would represent a significant shift away from the Roh / DJ policy of giving unilateral and effectively unmonitored aid, will full knowledge that most of it will end up in the wrong stomachs.  Lee appears to understand that unmonitored aid only prolongs the hunger and misery.  Left to set its own priorities, the regime will feed the elite first, the military second, and use what’s left over as a tool of control over everyone else.  That only works, of course, if they’re kept hungry.

To some extent, that principle is undercut when private organizations continue to provide aid without sufficient monitoring safeguards.  According to this report, private groups have contributed about $30 million in food aid to North Korea this year.  The amount pales next of governmental contributions, but it’s a significant enough amount to meet the needs of plenty of Pyongyang apparatchiks whose priorities might otherwise align with their starving countrymen. 

(I should note that the article says nothing at all about monitoring or the lack thereof.  I’m making an inference based on what I’ve read previously, small organizations’ bargaining power, and a what may also be a restrained use of that power. Â I’ll leave it to you to accept or reject that inference as you see fit.)

The WFP also estimates that North Korea’s next harvest will be just three million tons next year, which is about as bad as this year’s harvest.  If the next harvest is equal to the last one, presumably, the overall food situation will be worse because hungry people are exhausting their reserves and coping strategies of last resort this year.

Lee has repeatedly said that he’d give food aid if the North Koreans would simply request it, and that general principle probably won’t change despite the recent downturn in relations.  Monitoring, however, may continue to be an issue.

Richard Halloran Prognosticates on N. Korea Regime Collapse

August 19, 2008 An Alliance?, Regime Change 2 comments

Halloran knows how many predictions of North Korea’s collapse that have passed unrealized, and he’s wise enough to abstain from outright predictions.  Instead, he walks us through the factors that make it worthy of urgent-yet-careful planning:

North Korean soldiers in a regime that gives priority to the military forces have been reduced to two skimpy meals a day. Factory workers nap on the floor for lack of food and energy.

That has led to conjecture that North Koreans, despite the pervasive controls in the Hermit Kingdom’s police state, may throw caution to the winds. “We just don’t think they can go along with this much longer,” said an American official with access to intelligence assessments.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington reports that North Korea, after ten years of food shortages, stands on the precipice of famine that could have political consequences. “The possibility of widespread social distress and even political instability,” the institute said in a study, “cannot be ruled out.”

Another study, from the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, says: “Dismal economic conditions also foster forces of discontent that potentially could turn against the Kim regime -especially if knowledge of the luxurious lifestyle of communist party leaders becomes better known or as poor economic performance hurts even the elite.”

Even so, an assessment from Jane’s, publisher of security reports, said five years ago: “The only significant power base that might challenge the regime is the military. Since Kim Jong Il became Chairman of the National Defense Commission, however, he has promoted 230 generals. Most of the army’s 1,200-strong general officer corps owes their allegiance to him.” Nothing appears to have changed that judgment-except starvation.  [Richard Halloran, Real Clear Politics]

Let me just run down a very, very broad list of other risk factors I perceive. Â No links; this is from just too many sources for me to distill.

  • Hunger has reached Pyongyang, and the regime is thinning out the capital’s population to keep the unhappy people as far away from the regime’s power center as possible.  This is a new and very significant development.
  • Another new and destabilizing development is the thinning of North Korea’s ruling classes, and possibly a shift away from “military first.” Â The more people you kick out of the lifeboat, the more you rock it.  The problem is, there isn’t much evidence to show that either trend is especially deep.  But if either trend is real, then either could be destabilizing.
  • Some military units are probably experiencing food shortages, although it’s hard to say to what extent those shortages are localized in certain areas or units.  Hunger in the North Korean military is not an entirely new development; what’s unknown is its intensity and pervasiveness this year.  Because North Korean troops are usually assigned to locations far from their native regions and seldom form strong bonds with the people in the areas where they serve, hunger in a local area has less impact on the morale of garrisons in those areas. 
  • There does seem to be more hunger in critical industries, including defense industries, ports, and North Korea’s remaining mines and steel mills, than in prior years.
  • Food prices spiked in the spring and have since stablized at levels that many North Koreans still can’t afford.  I would not trust any estimates of how many people have died or will die.  No one has enough access to North Korea to make that assessment.  It does not appear that a large-scale famine will happen this year, but conditions will probably continue to worsen for at least another year.
  • Pre-harvesting of crops, depletion of wild plants, and the consumption of seed crops mean that next year’s harvest will also be bad, even if the weather isn’t.  I haven’t seen reports that people are slaughtering their draft animals.
  • Regime policies restricting trade are responsible for much of the misery, have probably caused considerable public discontent, and have the potential to cause much more.
  • Internal control over information has broken down significantly in the last five years, meaning that the only people who actually believe the myth of the Workers’ Paradise inhabit South Korean dormitories, union halls, and press rooms.  There is probably much more discontent in North Korea than most observers realize.  The question is whether people are desperate or brave enough to do anything about it.
  • So far, there have been no reports of large-scale migrations by people seeking food.

Halloran also sees the regime as more isolated than before because the six-party talks are “deadlocked with no end in sight.”  That would be true if the United States continues to demand verification and inspection rights worthy of the name, rights that don’t build in opportunities for the North Koreans to “clean up” suspicious sites before inspectors arrive, or to put others off limits.  I suspect that Chris Hill and like-minded colleagues would love nothing more than to allow for exactly that to get any deal they can.

Pyongyang’s alienation of Seoul is a more serious matter:  South Korean aid probably played a major role in keeping caviar on Kim Jong Il’s table and Swiss watches on the wrists of his generals.  President Lee Myung Bak has cut that aid dramatically. Â No evidence suggests that China has substantially increased its aid to the North to make up for that loss of income.  North Korea may have played out its bait-and-switch game witht Americans.  It may now be courting the Japanese by “reinvestigating” the suspected abductions of more Japanese to North Korea. 

So far, however, none of this has caused much widespread popular discontent, and the discontent we have seen has been localized in outlying parts of the country.  The food situation is likely to be even worse next year, but that won’t be destabilizing unless it reaches deep into the military and the ruling class.  That said, I agree with Halloran’s implicit conclusion that collapse is more likely than it has been in the past, although there’s no saying when or how.

Last February, the ROK government announced that it was updating its contingency plans for “unrest” in the North.  The announcement reversed the policy of the Roh administration to functionally boycott planning for the execution of OPLAN 5029.  If you haven’t yet read CPT Jon Stafford’s Military Review paper on North Korea collapse planning, by all means do so.  Also not to be missed is a similar discussion by Robert D. Kaplan in The Atlantic.

Anju Links for 19 August 2008

August 19, 2008 Anju Links No comments

OLD FAITHFUL ERUPTS, RIGHT ON SCHEDULE: Â Remember that tantrum I predicted?

”The DPRK submitted an accurate and complete nuclear declaration,” the [KCNA] commentary said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Â 

”The U.S., however, has not honored its commitment to write the DPRK off the list of ‘state sponsors of terrorism,’ a key political compensation in concluding the implementation of the agreement,” it said. Â 

”This is obviously a violation of the principle of ‘action for action’ essential for realizing denuclearization,” the commentary said.  [Kyodo News]

Damned if I can find that statement directly at the source, but I’ll take their word for it. 

North Korea accused the United States on Monday of using human rights to block progress in a six-nation agreement on eliminating nuclear weapons in the communist country.

U.S. President George W. Bush “blustered that he would handle the ‘human rights issue’ as ‘an element for negotiations with North Korea,’” the official Korean Central News Agency said, referring to comments made by Bush during his recent visit to Asia.

“We categorically dismiss this as a premeditated act of the U.S. to deliberately throw a hurdle in the process of the six-party talks” and avoid implementing key points of a disarmament deal, KCNA said.  [IHT]

C’mon KCNA, can’t you do any better than that?  I was hoping for at least one use of the word “brigandish.”

“The ‘human rights’ ruckus again kicked up by the U.S. is a product of its deliberate scheme to deter the six-party talks from making progress and completely scuttle the denuclearization process,” KCNA said.

Which is to say, the denuclearization process in which North Korea has recently and repeatedly told us it will never give up its nuclear weapons.  The State Department, for the moment, is rejecting the North Korean charge and standing fast on verification. 

BUT WE MUSTN’T INTERVENE IN THEIR INTERNAL AFFAIRS:

“Lee Myung Bak Group’s Moves to Control Pubic Broadcasting Service Assailed.”  [headline, KCNA]

In case you haven’t seen my comment on the subject, it’s here.  Lee’s actions are far from ideal, much farther from North Korea, which ranks dead last in RSF’s global press freedom index.  I’m not certain that North Korea was also dead last in Freedom House’s press freedom index, but Iran, Saudi Arabia, Angola, the Palestinian Territories, Equitorial Guinea, and Sudan all ranked as marginally less oppressive.  You’d think North Korea would have shame enough not to chastise anyone else on freedom of the press.

HE PROBABLY SHOULDN’T INTERVENE IN HIS OWN INTERNAL AFFAIRS, EITHER: 

President Lee Myung-bak on Monday warned North Korea ill continue to attempt to ‘sow ideological dissent’ in the South in a bid to prevent it from pooling its national capabities.  [Chosun Ilbo]

I think there’s much we still don’t know about North Korea’s influence in the South, although what we do know is scary enough. 

NOW HERE’S A BRIGANDISH SCHEME IF I’VE EVER SEEN ONE:

“I have a sincere principle that North Korea should quickly open and build economic self-reliance in the international community,” Lee said in an interview with Yahoo.com posted Monday.

North Korea introduced limited economic reforms in 2002 but has since backtracked after they failed to resuscitate its economy and allowed some outside influences into the tightly controlled nation.

Lee, a former construction industry chief executive, also urged North Korea to forge “coexistence and co-prosperity” through sincere talks with South Korea, saying he is confident the two Koreas will soon improve their current soured relations.

The two countries remain at odds over the shooting death last month of a South Korean tourist at a North Korean mountain resort.  [IHT]

Anju Links for 18 August 2008

August 18, 2008 Anju Links No comments

THAT’S STILL LEAVES 40% DARWIN CAN’T EXPLAIN: 

The number of tourists to North Korea plunged more than 60 percent last month following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist at Mt. Kumgang resort.  [Chosun Ilbo]

So if you want to attract tourists, it’s probably a good idea not to shoot them.  Got it.  The same report, sourced to Arirang News, says that inter-Korean trade fell by 1.5% since last year, and that non-commercial transactions, which includes aid, fell by more than 80%.  Commerce at Kaesong rose last year, but look for that pattern to change, too.

THIS SORT OF THING COULD SPOIL THE ATMOSPHERE FOR TALKS: 

“Candlelight Struggle Unabated in S. Korea”

“Member of Solidarity for Progress Arrested by S. Korean Puppet Police”

“Release of Prisoners of Conscience Demanded in S. Korea”  [KCNA] 

So if these are appropriate topics of discussion, why isn’t Camp 22?

IF ANY MORE EVIDENCE IS NEEDED that Russia is moving in a disturbing direction, just look at how defensive Russia sounds when you lump Stalin in with Hitler (ht to a reader).  But as this response notes, “Communist terror was in the same league of infamy as the crimes of the Third Reich. It actually lasted longer, killing significantly more people than the Nazis did.”  Related:  the United States has no real military options in Georgia, but we do have some diplomatic ones.  In the longer term, Russia’s behavior gives NATO two things it lacked when it was centered around the parasitic “Soft Reich” countries of Western Europe — a purpose, and new members who might actually share and contribute to it.

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