Archive for September 2008

Ho Hum, North Korea Violates 2 More U.N. Resolutions, World Yawns

September 17, 2008 "United" Nations, Proliferation, WMD 7 comments

launchpad.jpgRemember that fancy new North Korean missile test site that was in the news the other day? 

North Korea has reportedly conducted an engine ignition test for a long-range missile, presumably the Taepodong-2 missile with a range of 6,700 km, at a new long-range missile test site under construction in Dongchang-li, North Pyongan Province. For the test, the rocket engine of a missile is laid out horizontally at the test site and ignited to test its performance.

The test confirms that part of the Dongchang-li test site, which is expected to be completed by 2009, is already operational, and that North Korea has been continuing development of long-range missiles.

The engine is presumably for a Taepodong-2 missile, whose test firing failed in July 2006, or an improved version with a range of longer than 10,000 km. A government source said after the failed test in 2006, North Korea has intermittently conducted engine ignition tests and continued development of long-range missiles.

The Dongchang-li test site is said to be much larger and better than the one in Musudan-ni. Its existence was first reported in the foreign press last Thursday.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Let us consult the Book of Meaningless Prohibitions, Resolution 1718, Paragraph 5 (right after the ones about wearing white after Labor Day and snacking after 10 p.m.):

[T]he DPRK shall suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching; 

And here’s Paragraph 2 of Resolution 1695:

[T]he DPRK suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme, and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching; 

I feel the occasional compulsion to point these things out not because they are consequential but because they are not.  Still, the dwindling ranks (opens in a Vista-clogging pdf) of the UN-topians deserve to be browbeaten with these things.  I’m actually hoping that this time, the U.N. will underperform its most famous parody by not even managing to send Kim Jong Il ”a very angry letter.”  Our crack State Department did manage to meekly acknowledge the violation of one of these resolutions (one out of two?).  Safe to say that not one of a wide range of possible consequences for this will be considered, much less imposed.

I should also note that they — the North Koreans, I mean — are blathering about their “war deterrent” again (that’s code talk for the nuclear arsenal they had supposedly promised to give up).  Try to reassure yourself that nothing the North Koreans say should be taken at face value … except their promises to disarm, of course, because you’d have to hate peace not to believe those.  Hey, you don’t hate peace, do you?

Joe Biden Is Blocking North Korea Human Rights Legislation, and You Can Help Un-Block It (Update: Biden’s Staff Denies, Predicts Bill Will Pass This Term)

September 16, 2008 Activism, Human Rights, U.S. Politics 6 comments

[Update:  Not so, says Frank Jannuzi, who wrote in after I put up this post.  According to Jannuzi, Biden has never blocked this bill and has never opposed the two provisions mentioned in the post below.  As to the refugee provisions of H.R. 5834, Jannuzi says Biden supports them just as they are in the House version.  Jannuzi also says that not only does Biden support a full-time Special Envoy with ambassadorial rank, Biden offered the amendment to the 2004 Act creating the post to begin with.  And in all fairness, it was President Bush who filled the post with a junior, well-meaning loyalist whom he allowed the State Department to chew up and spit out.

What follows is a much-abbreviated paraphrasing of my follow-up questions and Jannuzi's answers; don't take anything here as a direct quote.  So will there be more amendments to the bill?  In the course of getting unanimous consent, naturally.  And what specific amendments will Sen. Biden seek?  Jannuzi wouldn't say, but offered that the refugee provisions will have to approach the issue in a comprehensive and collaborative way.  You mean collaborative as in with China?  Well, collaborative with all of the countries where the refugees go and stay. 

So I'm working with some conflicting information here, but I'm happy to let Jannuzi tell his side of it and thank him for writing in to do so and answer a few questions.  I left the conversation feeling that whatever Biden pays Jannuzi is money well spent, and with my own opinion of him enhanced.  And whatever the truth may have been last week, this week, barring some sneaky secret hold or other parliamentary end-run, the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization appears headed for passage before the Senate goes into recess ... in some form.  That's the key caveat we'll just have to wait to see.  What do I think?  I think this is a moment when I'm glad Biden is the vice presidential nominee, because I'm jaded enough to wonder if things would be looking up like this if he wasn't. Â 

So with that, let me suspend my appeal for calls and e-mails, and offer my most sincere thanks to those who made them.]

Original Post:  Four years ago, President Bush signed the North Korean Human Rights Act in an attempt to address the world’s worst human rights atrocities in our world today:  the mind-warping oppression of an entire nation, the starvation of millions while the regime blocked international aid and squandered its income on weapons, the murder of refugees and their babies, and the operation of the world’s worst concentration camps since Nazi Germany, camps that occupy vast areas of the country. 

During the last four years, our State Department blocked key provisions of that Act that were designed to help North Korean refugees and make the end of those atrocities a precondition to North Korea gaining normal trade and diplomatic relations with the United States. Â The State Department has instead done Kim Jong Il’s work in Washington by watering down any criticism of the atrocities in North Korea to appease its regime.  The 2004 Act also created a Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, a post filled three days a week by Jay Lefkowitz, who has been privately marginalized and publicly humiliated by Condoleezza Rice and her State Department.  Meanwhile, human rights issues have been effectively sidelined as an issue in our talks with North Korea.

In an effort to force the State Department to comply with the law and throw a lifeline to the desperate and starving people of North Korea, the House has passed the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act.  The Act would force the State Department to obey the law by allowing North Korean refugees to seek asylum at U.S. consular facilities abroad.  It would also make the Human Rights Special Envoy’s job a full-time post with ambassadorial rank so that he can’t be sidelined from talks with the North Koreans as easily.

The State Department is now trying to block the Reauthorization Act by working through its wholly-owned subsidiaries in the Senate, Richard Lugar and Joe Biden.  The legislation is now stalled in the Senate.  An OFK reader with direct knowledge informs me that Biden and his staffer Frank Jannuzi, who also tried to block the 2004 Act, are trying to strip out the provisions on refugees aslyum and strengthening the Human Rights Special Envoy’s hand. 

It’s tempting to say that that North Korean “endorsement” of Obama paid off, but in fact, toothless diplomacy comes naturally to Joe Biden, and this is probably about what we should expect from an Obama administration.

(By the way, if you still believe that sweet-talking the North Koreans will actually disarm them, let me help you catch up on recent events.  While you were probably watching the presidential campaign, the North Koreans told Condi Rice to her face that they’re not giving up their nukes. Â They also refuse to allow any verification of their incomplete declaration of their nuclear programs and activities, and they now say they’re rebuilding the one worn-out reactor they had temporarily disabled.  Meanwhile, a much larger reactor right across the river is untouched by any disarmament initiative and may be almost ready for start-up, and we’ve let the North Koreans completely off the hook when it comes to explaining their past proliferation to other countries and their suspected secret uranium enrichment program.  For this, Kim Jong Il — who still refuses to hurry up and die – expects billions in aid and trade benefits and the full restoration of full diplomatic relations.  Some deal.)

Unfortunately for the good guys, the ranking Republican, Richard Lugar, and his Korea point-man, Keith Luse, are just as much in the appeasement camp as Biden.  With Lugar leading the Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee and no GOP members forcing him to stiffen his spine, foreign policy conservatives are a non-presence there.  As a result, Biden is just days from achieving his goal of letting the Senate go into recess without passing this legislation.

This is why we need your help.  Please urge your senators to pass this legislation before the Senate goes into recess.  Here is a sample copy-and-paste message you can send to the web forms at this link (opens in a new window):

Please support the immediate passage of H.R.5834, the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act, an important effort address the modern-day holocaust in North Korea.  In North Korea, millions are starving while its regime squanders its funds on weapons and luxuries for Kim Jong Il.  In North Korea, 200,000 men, women, and children are suffering and dying in the world’s worst concentration camps since Nazi Germany.  Hundreds of thousands who have fled North Korea have found no place to turn, as other nations refuse to extend a hand to assist these desperate refugees.  Today, the Bush Administration wants to normalize diplomatic relations with this odious regime without demanding an end to those atrocities.  I believe that policy is wrong, and that it won’t help disarm North Korea, which has reneged on the February 2007 disarmament agreement in spite of our silence and the betrayal of our values that silence represents.  Please urge Senator Biden to stop blocking H.R. 5834 and let it pass in the same form as previously passed by the House.

I wouldn’t normally suggest writing to Biden if you’re not from Delaware, but of course, Biden’s place on the 2008 Democratic ticket means that he wants everyone in America to be his constituent.  So please, send your message directly to Joe Biden, too. 

Fortunately for the good guys, Chris Hill’s alter-ego Sung Kim needs to be confirmed by the Senate to become the State Department’s Special Envoy to the six-party talks, the latest failed attempt to appeal to Kim Jong Il’s softer side, and any senator could hold up that confirmation. Â 

Anju Links for 13 September 2008

September 13, 2008 Anju Links 5 comments

HELLO! ARE-YOU-THE-BRAIN-SPECIALIST!?  More rumors about Kim Jong Il’s health, and speculation about what might follow him, at the New York Times.  The Times doesn’t specify, but another report claims it was brain surgery.

THIS TIME, I TEND TO AGREE WITH THE CONSENSUS VIEW of post-KJI North Korea, whenever that eventually should grace us all:  military junta with Dauphin figurehead to lend legitimacy to puppetmasters.  But with the regime so economically weakened and unpopular, one can’t help thinking that the loss of the god-king would break what little is left of the old theocratic magic and trigger a round of backstabbing intrigues that would put the Borgias to shame, or greed-driven reforms that would quickly get out of hand.  Big Man regimes seldom outlast the Big Man for long, and North Korea is already an outlier.

THE HANKYOREH ASKS THE SAME QUESTION I’ve been asking:  How the hell can people claim to know that today, the world’s most reclusive despot can brush his own teeth?  Read the whole thing and decide for yourself.  My own skepticism is undiminished, especially in light of past history.  Hey, a well-timed illness can be just the thing if you need to stall your way out of a promise to a lame-duck president.

IMPOSSIBLE UNTIL IT’S INEVITABLE:  The revival of U.S. and South Korean operational plans for the collapse of North Korea is taking on new urgency these days.  Recall that former President Roh backed away from the very idea of planning for such a contingency, for fear of offending a regime that has 10,000 artillery tubes pointed at South Korean cities and towns.

YOU CAN READ SOME RELATED THOUGHTS from Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, although I found this quote to be the most interesting part of his Web memo:

The magnitude of the dispute between the U.S. and North Korea over the verification protocol will make it more difficult for diplomats to continue papering over differences. The Bush Administration is constrained in its ability to again capitulate to North Korean demands in light of rising criticism regarding its perceived over-eagerness to reach an agreement and secure a policy legacy. As such, there is declining potential for a breakthrough during the waning months of the Bush Administration.  [Bruce Klingner, Heritage Foundation Web memo]

I hope he’s right, but he may be underestimating the determination of the State Department, and the election-year disengagement of the entire elected portion of our government.

MEANWHILE, DON KIRK RELAYS THIS UNDERSTATEMENT from uber-appeaser Evans Revere of the Korea Society :

“We’re at a bit of an impasse now,” says Evans Revere, president of the Korea Society in New York, but “whether it has anything to do with reports [of Kim's illness] is a matter of speculation.”  [Don Kirk]

No it isn’t.  Multiple impasses, including the most recent, all predated the reports of Kim Jong Il’s stroke (may Allah constrict his cerebral capillaries).  In any event, those impasses have only been broken by unilateral State Department capitulations.  The North Korean side of this negotiation has been at an impasse since at least September 2005, with the negligible exception of further disabling something that was used up anyway.  We’ve made all the concessions, and we’ve only negotiated against ourselves.  The North Koreans mainly just watched, and to a degree, tolerated the spectacle.

A GOOGLE EARTH PROJECT FOR YOU?

North Korea has been building a new long-range missile base, which is larger and more efficient than its existing intercontinental ballistic missile base, in Pongdong-ni, North Pyongan Province over the last eight years, AP quoted a military expert as reporting Thursday. At the moment, North Korea maintains a long-range missile base in Musudan-ni, North Hamgyeong Province.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Supposedly, it’s near North Korea’s west coast, not far from China.  The new facility is designed to allow the North to test long-range missiles more frequently than the older, smaller Musudan-ri facility.  You may want to scour this, this, this, this, and this for clues as well.*  Someday, I suppose, we’ll give the North Koreans another extended series of payoffs in exchange for some unverifiable promises to stop building missiles, too.

THE CORRUPTION-RIDDEN U.N. DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM, whose funds were diverted by the North Koreans, and whose accounts were used to conceal suspicious North Korean financial transactions, is considering a return to North Korea.  Aren’t there other countries with more potential for development than those that mercilessly crush every flicker of enterprise?  For a look at North Korea’s own development priorities, see the previous item.  Shouldn’t that be a factor in how these funds are allocated?

THE OUTRAGE!  Commie textbooks being pulled out of classrooms all over South Korea.

*  Curtis Melvin of NK Econ Watch, who has already published a comprehensive map of everything remotely interesting in North Korea, thus robbing all other Google-Earthers of any hope of “finding” anything new, is ineligible for this challenge, since he probably found it before Pike and Bermudez did anyway.  We are in awe, Curtis, and we curse you just the same for ruining it for the rest of us.

Wake Me Up When There’s an Unscheduled Military ‘Parade’

September 11, 2008 Kim Jong Il, Kremlinology 2 comments

The latest report on Kim Jong Il’s condition — for what it’s worth — is that he is recovering but partially paralyzed on his left side.

Foreign doctors, possibly from China and France, performed the operation after Kim, 66, collapsed about Aug. 15, the newspapers Dong-a Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo reported, citing unidentified government officials.

Kim’s condition has improved and he is not suffering from slurred speech, a disability often associated with a stroke, the reports said.  [AP, Jae Soon Chang]

It saddens me to consider that the extraordinary rendition of a few French doctors would do far more for the cause of world peace than the State Department’s entire East Asia Bureau and the U.N. combined.  Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Human Rights Industry to get on board with that one.
As to the increasing specificity of these reports, I will just say that it’s surprising … even incredible.  And in addition to so many other potential sources of disinformation here, consider that most of these leaks appear to be coming from South Korean intelligence sources.

In another sense, whether the rumors are true is subordinate to domestic perceptions.  Today’s North Korea has leaky borders, a proliferation of cheap tunable radios, cell phones, dope dealers, and porn smugglers.  The rumors of Kim’s condition are probably racing through markets in Wonsan and Chongjin as we speak.  In the world’s last great information vacuum, rumor must move with the speed and power of the water behind a broken dam.  In the right hands and with some divine intervention, the rumors themselves could destabilize North Korea regardless of whether there is any truth to them.

Another (partial) State Department briefing transcript below the fold.

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Also, In a Just World, Isaac Hayes Would Still Be Alive

September 10, 2008 Kim Jong Il, Kremlinology 45 comments

That night there came from the farmhouse the sound of loud singing, in which, to everyone’s surprise, the strains of Beasts of England were mixed up. At about half past nine Napoleon, wearing an old bowler hat of Mr. Jones’s, was distinctly seen to emerge from the back door, gallop rapidly round the yard, and disappear indoors again. But in the morning a deep silence hung over the farmhouse. Not a pig appeared to be stirring. It was nearly nine o’clock when Squealer made his appearance, walking slowly and dejectedly, his eyes dull, his tail hanging limply behind him, and with every appearance of being seriously ill. He called the animals together and told them that he had a terrible piece of news to impart. Comrade Napoleon was dying!

A cry of lamentation went up. Straw was laid down outside the doors of the farmhouse, and the animals walked on tiptoe. With tears in their eyes they asked one another what they should do if their Leader were taken away from them. A rumour went round that Snowball had after all contrived to introduce poison into Napoleon’s food. At eleven o’clock Squealer came out to make another announcement. As his last act upon earth, Comrade Napoleon had pronounced a solemn decree: the drinking of alcohol was to be punished by death.

By the evening, however, Napoleon appeared to be somewhat better, and the following morning Squealer was able to tell them that he was well on the way to recovery.  [George Orwell, Animal Farm, Chapter 8]

The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and LA Times are quoting U.S. or Western intelligence sources that that Kim Jong Il is “seriously” or “gravely” ill.  From there, the reports diverge.  One senior South Korean intelligence officer says it’s “certain” that Kim Jong Il is ill.  One South Korean diplomat says the illness was “not serious enough to threaten [Kim's] life,” which may or may not contradict “Western intelligence sources” which suspect a stroke.  One legislator from the leftist opposition Democratic Party, who purports to quote an intelligence source, says he’s recovering from the problem, whatever it was.  The North Koreans say the reports are not only false, but “a conspiracy plot.”  Let me translate this my analysis into words that may not be suitable for the President’s Daily Briefing:

Who the f*ck knows?

It’s all speculation, and probably groundless speculation at that.  Who do you suppose has access to up-to-date information about Kim Jong Il’s health that would actually leak it to foreign intelligence?  We have no way of knowing whether the information is (a) credible, (b) accurately interpreted, or (c) outright disinformation.  And then there’s this point made by the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler:

Still, in recent months, a variety of media outlets have reported that Kim was so weak that he could not walk 30 yards (he later appeared in public and seemed able to walk), that a group of German doctors went to North Korea to perform heart surgery on him (the doctors denied it), and that he passed away (most likely untrue because he’s since appeared in public, although at least one veteran expert has suggested the government could be using body doubles).

Meaning, I’ve written about these reported illnesses and extended absences enough times to know that we’ve never managed to figure out if there was a greater significance to any of those reports.  All of them could be true, or none of them.  I will boldly predict, nonetheless, that sometime within the next 20 years, Kim Jong Il will die, and there will be much rejoicing carefully disguised as mourning.  Then, some time within the next five years, when one junta leader has managed to stab all of his rivals in the back and consolidate the next oligarchy, there will be a “secret speech” about His Porcine Majesty’s “mistakes.”  Andrei Lankov, quoted in the L.A. Times story above, puts it this way:

“He is going to die sooner or later, and eventually one of these reports about his health will be true, but this one is probably much ado about nothing,” said Andrei Lankov, a respected Pyongyang watcher and a professor at South Korea’s Kookmin University.

Oh, and the AP’s drive-by Korea-watchers Pamela Hess and Matthew Lee — whose analysis of world events seldom fails to blend illogic and superficiality — wrote a story under the single dumbest headline I’ve seen all year:

Kim Jong Il may be gravely ill, jeopardizing talks

Which I suppose is a lot like printing one that says, “Hitler Suicide Jeopardizes Non-Aggression Pact with Stalin.”  Safe to say, Hess and Lee haven’t really been keeping up with the state of those talks and ought to take a few moments out of their busy schedule to read this blog now and then.  Remember, children, they get paid for this.  I do it for free.
Anyway, feel free to beseech the deity or fetish object of your choice that Kim Jong Il will soon join his old man in the Great Meat Locker.  Sure, things could always get worse — and probably will — but that’s more likely to be because the rumors are false than because they’re not.

Verify Distrust: Kim Jong Il’s Next Move

September 8, 2008 Uncategorized 3 comments

No one exceeds Kim Jong Il at the production of belligerent and grandiose theater.  So exactly what sort of kind of theater is he putting on for international monitors at Yongbyon?  That may depend on what you’d rather believe.  Do you remember a time, back when Roh Moo Hyun and George W. Bush were still the presidents of their respective nations, when South Korean leaks always cast the Americans as too suspicious and inflexible?  My, how times have changed.

North Korea has moved disassembled parts of its main nuclear reactor back to the plutonium-producing facility in a step toward its restoration, South Korea’s top diplomat said Thursday. Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan expressed concern over the North’s move and urged it to honor a disarmament pact.

“It’s not just words,” Yu told reporters. “They’re putting words into action. I urge North Korea to stop any unilateral move and resume” disarmament. Yu said the North has placed “severed or removed equipment back to around the five-megawatt atomic reactor,” the country’s sole operational reactor at the heart of its nuclear ambitions.  [IHT]

Separately, the IHT’s Choe Sang Hun describes that equipment as “cables, pipes and other disassembled parts it had stored at sheds since its engineers began disabling the complex late last year.”  Choe also notes that the North Koreans have started clearing away the debris of the old cooling tower they dynamited in June.
The State Department would like very much prefer that you view this as a mere “negotiating tactic.”  Still, there are dissenters:

North Korea has begun reassembling nuclear facilities at Yongbyon which it had already disabled, Fox News reported Wednesday. An intelligence source told the Chosun Ilbo the story is true, adding Seoul “should watch carefully what North Korea does next.”

Quoting U.S. government officials, Fox said, “The North, after halting the disassembly of a key nuclear center, is now putting the center back together…  The motive isn’t clear but sources say North Koreans likely are reassembling nuclear facilities at Yongbyon partly to protest the United States’ delay in taking the country off its list of terrorist-sponsoring nations.”  A U.S. government official was quoted as saying, “They’ve been threatening this move for some time.”  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read the full transcript below, and if you do, I hope you’ll agree that the State Department spokesman is quite clearly — to paraphrase a vulgar expression — talking out of the exit ramp of his alimentary canal.  He admits to knowing very few of the facts and takes this as license to put his preferred spin on them.  All he really claims to know for sure is that the North Koreans are “moving some equipment around that they had previously put into storage.”  Meaning what?  Pressed for details, the spokesman would not elaborate, although we have monitors on the ground watching all of this happen.

But this time, we have monitors on site watching everthing, so you have to wonder why State pretends to need “clarification” of what the North Koreans are really up to.  More to the point, the North Koreans have already clarified it:

Before workers began moving mothballed equipment back into place, North Korea informed U.S. personnel at its Yongbyon nuclear plant it would start reassembling its nuclear facilities, a South Korean official said today.  [....]

North Korea had publicly warned of such a move last week after stopping work to disable facilities at Yongbyon, including its main nuclear reactor, claiming Washington had failed to remove it from the U.S. blacklist of states sponsoring terrorism under a deal reached last year.  [AP, Jae Soon Chang]

True or not, doesn’t this declaration of intent mean something by itself?  Then, this little gem of a money quote:

The U.S. played down Pyongyang’s latest step.

He’s not the only one to use that word.

If you parse all of these reports carefully, the sources in the know don’t exactly say that the North is rebuilding the same reactor it had partially disabled.  Why should it?  The North has already produced a small arsenal from it, and its capacity is modest.  Some of that disablement was mostly symbolic; other disablement operations might in fact make it more difficult to restart the reactor (here, I lack the technical knowledge to opine, but proliferation expert Henry Sokolski has his doubts).  But the key fact is that this small reactor had probably reached the end of its useful life anyway.

But the channel added, “Even now, piecing the facility back together is seen as a symbolic gesture because so much already has been taken apart.” Experts predict that it will take more than a year to restore the nuclear facilities. Another U.S. official said North Korea’s intent might be “to put further pressure on us.” “The cooling tower is gone but the reactor could be back in operation in two to three months,” the official said. [ Chosun Ilbo]

But the crucial fact that none — none — of these sources bother to mention is that the disablement left some of North Korea’s other reactors completely untouched.  That’s a key point to pick at when you examine exactly how State is downplaying this, and it’s where I ask you to follow me in some baseless yet plausible speculation.  Because if the North Koreans really want to scare us, they’re more likely to fire up this reactor, a brand-spanking-new fifty-megawatt model right next door:

yongbyon-1.jpg   yongbyon2.jpg   yongbyon3.jpg

In 2005, the Washington Post reported that the North Koreans had accelerated construction of this reactor to prepare it for completion within two years. The report and the photographs suggest that they’re probably close, though we probably don’t know how close.  But if they’re as close as they seem to be, this is more a plausible destination for that equipment the North Koreans are rolling out of storage.  And no, no disablement was done on this reactor. Nor, for that matter, was any done on this 200-megawatt reactor, although this photograph suggests that that one is much less far along.

Here, I predict, is your next North Korean nuclear crisis.

Oh, and what are we going to do about any of this this?  Bupkes:

MR. MCCORMACK:  Well, nobody’s talking at this point about any punitive steps beyond those that are already in place.  There are already Security Council resolutions.  There are already bilateral sanctions that are in place.  We have a whole host of them that are on the books.  We’re focused on the positive aspect of this, the positive pathway of trying to get North Korea, along with our ““ we as ““ we along with our partners in the process to engage North Korea, get them to fulfill their obligations.  But ultimately, they are the ones that have to make those decisions.  So I don’t ““ I’m not aware of any other punitive steps that are under consideration by us or anybody else.

It’s as though these guys don’t realize we have other options.  Transcripts below the fold.

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Hill: We Would De-List N. Korea Even Before Verification

September 7, 2008 Appeasement, Diplomacy, Six-Party Talks One comment

Why, all we need is one more set of promises:

THE United States will take North Korea off its terrorism list “immediately” if it can agree on a way to verify its nuclear facilities, America’s top nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said today.

The renewed pledge followed a flurry of meetings here after North Korea said it had stopped dismantling its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and started taking equipment back to the site.

“I want to stress that we’re not looking to verify their declaration (of nuclear activities) now; we’re looking to come up with rules of how we will verify it in the future,” Mr Hill said.

“Our focus is on trying to get through the verification protocol and then we will take them off the terrorism list immediately,” he said.  [AFP]

The North Koreans would be insane not to take this.  Surely they’ll find some reason to repudiate, renege on, or renegotiate this by the time the next administration’s political appointees settle into their chairs.  I don’t know what I else can say about this that I haven’t said before, so I’ll let John Bolton fire while I reload:

Many observers believe that Pyongyang is simply waiting for an Obama presidency to make the next round of concessions. That’s possible, and is certainly a backup strategy. But the North’s real aim is based on its reading of the Bush administration’s psychology.

In their view, Secretary Rice fears the North Korean “success” slipping away and the deal itself threatened, if the North causes trouble because it remains on the terrorism list. Thus, as the administration’s days dwindle down to a precious few, to quote a famous song line, Ms. Rice will inexorably grow more anxious to “save the deal.”

In Pyongyang’s judgment, this in turn will lead to “delisting,” even though the North has come nowhere close to agreeing to the “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement” of its nuclear program — which was where the administration started six years ago.

Mr. Bush’s course here is clear: He must not generate another Niagara of concessions to Kim Jong-il in his remaining months. If an Obama administration wants to start off by bending its knee to Pyongyang, don’t do them a favor. And if a McCain administration is in the offing, don’t cripple its possibilities by losing what little leverage the terrorism listing still provides us.  [John Bolton, Op-Ed, the Wall Street Journal]

Below the fold, a transcript of some of Hill’s recent comments on this (thanks to a reader). Read more

Congratulations to Suzanne Scholte

September 4, 2008 Activism, South Korea, U.S. & Korea One comment

Suzanne Scholte, the President of the Defense Forum Foundation and head of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, has been awarded the Seoul Peace Prize, which comes with an award of $200,000:

In a press conference held at the Seoul Press Center on Wednesday, Lee Chul-seung, chairman of the Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, said, “We selected Scholte as the winner this year for her contribution to improving human rights of North Korean residents and North Korean refugees, and bettering the status of refugees in Western Sahara.”

“When the Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung governments, and countries (which took the closest interest in Korea) turned their face away from North Korean refugees and the human rights situation in North Korea for political reasons, Scholte contributed to letting the international community know about the conditions of North Korean refugees and the North Korean human rights situation and drew attention to such issues.” [Chosun Ilbo]

The prize will be awarded in Seoul on October 7th. Suzanne, whom I’ve known for five years now, is one of those people whose dedication is inexhaustible. Though her cause was ignored by most Democrats and ultimately betrayed by a Republican President, Suzanne tirelessly lobbied congressmen, the State Department, religious leaders, and other NGO’s to earn their support and build enduring alliances. Among her close collaborators is activist-scholar-svengali Chuck Downs, who is now Executive Director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (Suzanne sits on the board of that body as well). She was one of the driving forces behind the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. No one on earth with a serious interest in promoting human rights in North Korea does not know Suzanne; many, including myself, were brought to this cause by her. No doubt, the prize money will be well-spent for good causes.

This award also speaks volumes of how Seoul’s view of the world has changed, and that shift is now starting to manifest itself in the ways Seoul’s influence is seen in Washington. In the past, such groups as the Korea Society, the Korea Economic Instite, and the Korea Foundation had all promoted and supported the appeasement of North Korea. Can some overdue reorientations in those groups be far behind?

Anju Links for 3 Sept 08

September 3, 2008 Anju Links No comments

MORE REGIME COLLAPSE PROGNOSTICATIONS from Strategy Page.  What all of these articles are trying to describe is a gradual process whose pace we can’t really measure, although their high-altitude description of the process seems about right.  What also seems likely is that the regime will last through the year, given the passage of the spring and summer without any significant incidents of unrest.  Soon, the pre-harvested fall crops will come in, and the worst shortages may be over until next spring.  In any event, I don’t see widespread famine as a danger to the regime; it’s hunger among the military and the elite that threatens it.  For this year, I’m moving DPRK government bonds from “sell” to a cautious “hold.”

NONE OF WHICH MEANS THE NORTH KOREAN PEOPLE ARE CONTENT:  Largely due to Lee Myung Bak’s new refugee policies, the number of North Korean refugees arriving in the South is expected to exceed 3,000 this year.  That would be a  tremendous jump — about double last year’s figure.

WFP OFFICIAL SAYS N. KOREA NOT IN A FAMINE YET:

Tony Banbury, the WFP’s regional director for Asia who has just spent a week in the reclusive country, said North Korea risked sliding back into famine if it did not get help now, with people already resorting to foraging to sustain themselves.

“We don’t believe it’s a famine. We are intent on making sure it doesn’t turn into one. The operation will have a huge impact in preventing a worsening of the situation,” he told a news conference in Beijing, referring to their new aid appeal.  [IHT]

I tend to view WFP statements like this skeptically.  On the one hand, Marcus Noland recently told us that the WFP had overstated North Korea’s annual food needs for years, thus inflating the amounts it asked of international donors.  On the other hand, I suspect the WFP understates conditions the frank discussion of which could alarm or offend the regime.  Banbury in particular has tended to go soft on the regime.  That said, the food situation is still so opaque that no one really knows anything for sure.  My general take, however, is to credit the repeated reports by Good Friends that there is significant starvation mortality in the southern provinces and the far northeast.  And that would be a famine as I see it.
THE LATEST NORTH KOREAN SPY SCANDAL continues to unfold.  Spyware has been found on a ROK Army colonel’s computer:

A military intelligence source on Monday said the e-mail was sent early last month to the colonel via China. The source added that the e-mail was programmed to automatically steal stored files if the recipient opened it.

But whether military secrets were actually stolen by way of this e-mail was not known. Military authorities are reportedly alive to the possibility that military secrets were leaked, considering that the recipient is in charge of the South Korean military’s central nervous system — Command, Control, Communication, Computer & Information (C4I). [Chosun Ilbo]

THE LONG ARM OF KIM JONG IL: Other defectors are worried about the regime’s infiltration of their circles and threats to their families back in the North with the somewhat alarming report that arrested North Korean spy Won Jeong-hwa “attempted … to kill high-profile North Korean refugees, including Hwang Jang-yup.”  Funny how the South Koreans don’t seem to be nearly as prickly as the North Koreans about interference in their internal affairs.
SO FAR, THE U.S. GOVERNMENT ISN’T BACKING DOWN on verification:

Speaking to reporters in the week North Korea announced it is halting the disablement process, Vershbow said, “We need to be able to use well established verification techniques if we are to have confidence that the verification is accurate. Some of the things North Korea provided, such as Russian aluminum tubes samples and thousands of documents “raised as many questions as they answered,” he said.

ONE AREA IN WHICH LITTLE SEEMS TO HAVE CHANGED after Roh Moo Hyun’s departure is South Korea’s continued resistance to paying half the cost of keeping USFK on it soil:

The United States has asked the Korean government to pay at least 6.6 percent and up to 14.5 percent more for the upkeep of U.S. Forces Korea next year.

According to documents distributed by the ruling Grand National Party on Thursday, the U.S. wants Korea to increase its share from the current 42 percent to 50 percent in the long term, and immediately to reflect either last year’s inflation rate of 6.6 percent or the 14.5 percent, average inflation increase rate between 1999 and 2004.

The Korean share this year was W741.5 billion (US$1=W1,082). With a 6.6 percent raise, this will grow to W790.4 billion, and with a 14.5 percent hike to W849 billion. Korea is against the proposal, saying it can only manage a raise of 2.5 percent, which is last year’s domestic consumer price growth rate.

The two sides have a tough task ahead in the second round of high-level talks on the issue, which resumed Thursday.  [Chosun Ilbo]

The Pentagon isn’t the State Department, and they’ve been very unhappy about this for years, but don’t expect any dramatic announcements in an election year.

THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM DOESN’T HAVE MUCH TO SAY about Korea, and what it does say is more significant for what it doesn’t say than what it does say, which is much like the Korea policy George Bush nominally held but never aggressively pursued during his first term:

Another valued ally, the Republic of Korea remains vigilant with us against the tyranny and international ambitions of the maniacal state on its border.

Stop laughing!

The U.S. will not waver in its demand for the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, with a full accounting of its proliferation activities.

Hey, I mean it!

We look toward the restoration of human rights to the suffering people of North Korea and the fulfillment of the wish of the Korean people to be one in peace and freedom. [RNC Platform, opens in pdf]

Yeah, right.  They could never get away with this if anyone was actually paying attention.  For those who didn’t notice it, the Bush administration’s recent last-ditch efforts to appease Kim Jong Il and all that they never actually accomplished get nary a mention, which suggests (a) that foreign policy conservatives hate it; (b) that McCain isn’t a fan, either; and (c) that it’s blowing up in our faces.  I hope that’s just a figure of speech.  More at the Chosun Ilbo.

Get a Load of This Aso.

September 1, 2008 Japan, Japan & Korea 2 comments

The tepid and unpopular Yasuo Fukuda, who showed signs of softening Japan’s policies toward North Korea, is out, and Foreign Minister Taro Aso looks like the front-runner to replace him. 

Fukuda recently installed former Foreign Minister Taro Aso as secretary-general of the ruling party. Aso has kept a low profile during nearly all of Fukuda’s term and could be seen as offering a fresh start for the party.  [AP]

Is this good news or bad news?  The answer is “yes!” 

On the positive side, Aso is one of the hardest of hard-liners on North Korea policy in Japan’s mainstream, a term whose meaning Aso may have single-handedly expanded.  He’s been a critic of Chinese and South Korean aid to the North, commenting in 2006 to the Budget Committee of his country’s House of Councillors, “South Korea and China are helping North Korea. I can’t understand why they do so?” 

Following the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718 in 2006, following North Korea’s technically semi-successful but diplomatically successful nuclear test, Aso offered Japan’s help to the U.S. Navy to inspect and search North Korean ships for banned cargoes.  He has been a proponent of Japan’s new war contingency legislation, which steps away from Japan’s post-war constitutional pacificism.

Also on the bright side, Robert can now hope that that knish he’s been longing for may be just a 2-hour flight away:

He also drew criticism in 2001 when, as economics minister, he said he hoped to make Japan the kind of country where “rich Jews” would want to live.

Aso said then he had not intended to be discriminatory.  [The Standard, Hong Kong]

I wish Foreign Minister Aso zol zayn mit mazel recruiting any Jewish person on this earth who’d want to deplete his retirement paying $30 a knish, but let’s view this as a step in the right direction from seeing Japan as ”one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture and one race*,” which is itself just a step away from … me, flagrantly violating Godwin’s Law:

Upper house speaker Satsuki Eda of the opposition Democratic Party told Aso in a meeting that the electorate was shifting away from the LDP, the Nikkei financial daily and other papers said.

Apparently irritated, Aso told Eda: “If you look at history, you will see that as a result of the people moving away from the party of government, regimes like the Nazis have come into power,” the Nikkei reported.

Yukio Hatoyama, Democratic Party secretary-general, called for an apology.  [Reuters]

Aso made this comment was less than 30 days ago, which doesn’t suggest that he’s outgrown his gift of gaffe. 

It may or may not be significant that Aso is the heir to a mining company that employed POW’s and Koreans as slave laborers, but Aso isn’t exactly known for angst-ridden reflection on Japan’s past. 

In May 2003, Aso caused an uproar in South Korea after he made comments that were interpreted as an attempt to justify some of the actions Japan imposed on the Koreans during its 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean peninsula. Japan forced Koreans to change their names to Japanese ones during the time, but Aso said that the measure initially began when some Koreans had asked for Japanese names. Â  [China Post]

Aso later apologized to South Koreans “for having hurt their feelings.”  I predict he’ll set the Chinese and Korean netizens off more than one, and more than twice.

There’s plenty more where that came from, such as this gem: 

“Japan is doing what Americans can’t do,” local media quoted Mr Aso as saying in a speech about Japan-sponsored investment in the Middle East. “Japanese are trusted. It would probably be no good to have blue eyes and blond hair. Luckily, we Japanese have yellow faces.”  [The Guardian]

By that logic, was it really such a good idea for Japan to participate in the six-party talks at all? 

Curzon Curzon at Coming Anarchy isn’t much of a fan, either.  But keep it in perspective, fellow bloggers.  As long as Taro Aso remains in office, you’ll have a lot fewer days of wondering what to write. 

Now for the downside:  if Lee Myung Bak’s popularity dives under 20% again, can the Tokdo War be far behind?

*  Note that the Roman Catholic Aso left out religion.

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