Archive for May 2009

What leverage does Russia have?

May 29, 2009 Diplomacy, Russia 2 comments

Interesting news and analysis focusing on Russia within the past 24 hours.

In the past, the Kremlin has relied on China to make the leading decision on how to react to North Korean aggression since the latter appears to have more influence on the DPRK when dealing with the Kim regime. However, in light of the most recent North Korean nuclear test, it seems we are seeing a more aggressive Russia than before, with some suggesting the country is looking to take a more active role in the situation this time around. From the previously linked Washington Post article:

After an initial, mild expression of “concern” by the Russian foreign minister, the government issued a high-level statement denouncing the underground blast as a “direct violation” of U.N. resolutions.

“Initiators of decisions on nuclear tests bear personal responsibility for them to the world community,” said Natalya Timakova, chief spokeswoman for President Dmitry Medvedev, adding that the test “deals a blow to international efforts to strengthen the global regime of nuclear nonproliferation.”

[...]

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations convened an emergency meeting of the Security Council to condemn the test and pledged to support a strong new resolution against North Korea. Russia holds the rotating presidency of the council this month.

But does this necessarily mean Russia has any leverage in the situation? This tougher Russia may not be able to do much if you believe China holds the key to success, and some don’t even see a more aggressive Russia at all, but rather, a helpless one.

Russia’s influence may just be limited to PR at the moment. It can help produce a more unified voice within the UN and ostracize North Korea, a country it once had friendly relations with. It can also join other nations in putting pressure on China to use its influence and take the lead, assuming China doesn’t feel helpless as well.

Meanwhile, at the grassroots level in Russia, university students and teachers in Vladivostok held demonstrations the other day protesting North Korea’s nuclear test. (They demonstrated under the interesting slogan of “Peace in the Sea of Japan!”) One activist in Vladivostok told a reporter that a nuclear disaster in North Korea would cause Russia’s Primorsky Krai region to suffer, as it is only 150 kilometers away from North Korea.

A resolution signed by the demonstrators urging Pyongyang to end its nuclear tests was sent to the North Korean Consulate in Nakhodka, but one of the protesting students told RFE/RL’s Russian Service that she does not expect the Kim regime to seriously pay attention to their demonstration.

True, the DPRK regime may not bat an eye at a resolution signed by anyone, much less Russian university students and teachers, but I think Russia is very aware of what a nuclear disaster in North Korea would mean for the country.

And I’m assuming China knows as well.

Lisa Ling to Go Public, Demand the Release of Her Sister

May 29, 2009 Abductions, Terrorism (NK) No comments

This just in from the Facebook page for Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two U.S. journalists whom North Korea seized along its border with China back in March, shortly before its long-range missile test:

Subject: Going public

Hi everyone, it’s Lisa Ling.  Firstly, our families are deeply grateful for your support and efforts to try to secure the release of Laura and Euna.  To say that this has been stressful would be to grossly understate how hard this has been. Â Â Our families have been very quiet because of the extreme sensitivity of the situation, but given the fact that our girls are in the midst of a global nuclear stand-off, we cannot wait any longer.

We have to speak out!

Our families will be on the Today Show on NBC  in the 7AM block on Monday morning –3 days before the June 4 trial (taking the time differnce in consdieration).  We will also be on the Larry King show on CNN Monday night as well.  Please help us urge both our government and North Korea’s to resolve this humanitarian issue.  Help us stand up for truth and two girls who just wanted to tell the world a story.

My deepest and most sincere thanks,

Lisa

Obviously, I think this is the right move, Read more

Vigils Called for June 3 in Support of Ling and Lee

May 28, 2009 Activism, Human Rights One comment

The Facebook page for Laura Ling and Euna Lee (which Lisa Ling has now taken over as administrator) is calling for vigils to take place everywhere on June 3, U.S. time, which is June 4 in North Korea – the date of the scheduled trials for Ling and Lee.

So far, vigil locations include Washington, D.C.; New York, NY; Birmingham, AL; Portland, OR; San Francisco and L.A., CA.

Organizers are also asking for help from willing volunteers. Contact information is posted on the group’s Facebook page linked above.

Draft Text of New U.N. Resolution on North Korea

May 28, 2009 "United" Nations No comments

Fred Fry gets a big hat tip for sending this, via the Inner City Press.  And what an predictable disappointment it is — it “deplores” the North Korean tests and calls on U.N. member states to finally enforce the same resolutions they’ve been failing to enforce since 2006.  But to be fair, this is still a draft.

Feel free to insert your own Hans Brix/Team America clip link in the comments.

Update 1: We’d all love to know what’s going into that blank paragraph in the draft resolution, and here are some of the reports on what it may ultimately say.

Jim Lobe, writing in the Asia Times, claims that “administration officials suggested that Washington may be preparing to re-impose Bush-era financial sanctions against banks and companies suspected of conducting illicit transactions on behalf of Pyongyang.”  Obviously, I’d be all for that, and I predicted before that President Obama would be glad that he decided to keep Stuart Levey around.  I have no doubt that Levey could accomplish more in 60 days than Chris Hill did in four years.  Lobe also writes that Obama feels constrained by the situation of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, something that could not have been inadvertent on the North Koreans’ part.  I swear, they have a word for that.

Yonhap claims that China is being less resistant to U.S. demands for strong financial sanctions, the kind that actually worked:

A draft resolution, distributed to the five permanent members of the council, plus South Korea and Japan, in a follow-up to the meeting held Tuesday, “bans loans to North Korea and virtually suspend all financial transactions between North Korea and foreign financial institutions,” a diplomat based in New York said. “We need to consult our respective capitals about the draft over the coming weekend.”

The draft also toughens the provisions of Resolution 1718, adopted by the council after North Korea’s 2006 nuclear and missile tests, so that the North would be barred from all weapons trade.  [Yonhap News]

This probably means that China’s strategy is to vote for the resolution today and undermine it tomorrow.  The same is probably true of the East Asia Bureau in our own State Department.

The Joongang Ilbo notes that in addition to the financial sanctions, the new resolution could “add more companies to the UN blacklist of those helping North Korea’s nuclear programs, to expand embargoes to cover all arms, to restrict flights to and from North Korea and to freeze assets.”

Update 2:  The signals are mixed as to the degree to which China and Russia are willing to accept tough sanctions against North Korea, but let’s give appropriate credit to the Obama Administration for pushing for the kind of sanctions that really will work:

The administration is also seeking China’s cooperation in a global effort to disrupt the flow of money to North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-il, and his family, officials said. Some of that money is suspected to be held in Chinese-owned banks, making such an effort diplomatically sensitive.

Still, a senior official said he was “pleasantly surprised” by how open China was to cooperating with the United States. China has historically tolerated the erratic behavior of Mr. Kim, worrying more about a calamitous collapse of his government than about his nuclear ambitions. But the recent test and missile launchings, the official said, may have crossed a line with China’s leaders.

“At the level of Chinese irritation, this is historic,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. “Normally, the Chinese urge us not to react. But they are reaching a point where they could be agreeable to using more of their own weight.Â  [N.Y. Times]

According to the unnamed UN diplomat, the proposals for expanded sanctions range from a broader arms embargo to an asset freeze on individuals and additional companies, restrictions on flights to and from North Korea, and restrictions on the country’s financial and banking operations.  [AP]

The Wall Street Journal reports to some more critical rhetoric from the ChiComs, which means no more than China’s vote for past U.N. resolutions — in short, bupkes.  I agree with Marcus Noland that China acts as North Korea’s enabler, and I’ve said before why I think China wants North Korea to be a threat to us.  I did like this quote from OFK favorite David Asher:

“In many ways, the six-party process has allowed China to manage the U.S. as much as it manages North Korea,” said David Asher, a former State Department official who helped initiate the negotiating track during President George W. Bush’s first term.  [Wall Street Journal]

Oddly enough, the Administration does not appear to be leaning toward putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  While I don’t believe that the terror-sponsor list is the most powerful of the sanctions at our disposal, I think the Administration would be making the wrong decision.  First, it sends the wrong message to allow this concession to stand when the North Koreans reneged on the specific promise that induced it.  Second, the Japanese desperately want the designation restored, and if diplomatic reasons justify lifting the designation, then diplomatic reasons justify restoring it.  Reflexive advocates of multilaterialism ought to be more vocal about this — the interests of our allies matter.  Third, the terror sponsor list has some significant consequences, my personal favorite being the exemption it provides under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (28 U.S.C. sec. 1603 et seq.).  If you don’t see the value in this exemption, just ask the survivors of the U.S.S. Pueblo crew.  And certainly Lisa Ling might find some use for it.

Memories of an African Student Forced to Study in North Korea During the 1980s

May 28, 2009 Africa, Inside NK 27 comments

Aliou Niane was born in Guinea West Africa, but due to decisions he had no control over, he found himself in North Korea from 1982-87. He is currently writing his memoir in French about the years he spent there and generously agreed to an email interview. Niane’s story is interesting, if not for the insider’s look he can give into what life was like for a foreigner living in North Korea during the 1980s, but also for the information he can provide about the historical ties between Guinea West Africa and the DPRK, a relationship that has not been sufficiently documented in English.

Niane’s years north of the DMZ were the result of an agreement between his country’s first president, Ahmed Sekou Toure, and Kim Il Sung. For those unfamiliar with Ahmed Sekou Toure, he was a hardline communist who reigned with an iron fist using fear, hunger and a strong police state where trust did not even exist between friends, family members, students or the military. According to Niane, everybody feared for their lives during his reign as president.

Niane told me that in 1982, Toure attended Kim Il Sung’s 70th birthday celebration in Pyongyang. It was there that Kim offered Toure the opportunity to send 10 Guinean students to be educated in agricultural technologies at Wonsan Agricultural College. There, the students would learn juche ideology on shared community agricultural methods. Guinea had already adopted government controlled farming practices and food distribution in the 1970s but this would be the first time Guinean students would be instructed according to North Korea’s particular system based on juche.

Upon his return to Guinea, Toure asked his Minister of High Education to provide him with a list of his 10 best students from the country’s agriculture universities and faculties. These chosen 10 would be sent to North Korea. Read more

Selected North Korea Commentary

May 28, 2009 Proliferation, Washington Views, WMD 4 comments

The most depressing thing about North Korea’s April missile test wasn’t the test itself; it was the vacuousness of most of the reactions to it.  Many of the writers seemed poorly read on the facts, and conservatives and liberals had both stretched their credibility to defend the Bush and Clinton administrations, respectively, despite the general consistency of the policy through both administrations.  Recent events prove that both policies failed.

This time around, the commentary seems smarter and better informed.  Part of that may be because the crisis itself is burgeoning, and North Korea has how had our attention for enough time for people to educate themselves.  It can’t hurt that as the weeks pass, moot arguments about legacies recede:

We can already hear the response in world capitals that there is “no alternative” to this kind of policy accommodation. That’s what senior Bush State Department officials like Philip Zelikow, Christopher Hill and Condoleezza Rice asserted to win over Mr. Bush. But a concerted effort to squeeze North Korea economically was making a difference before Mr. Bush pulled the plug in 2007. In 2005, the U.S. Treasury took action against a bank in Macau that did business with North Korea, and Japan cracked down on illegal businesses sending cash to the North. Those financial sanctions could be resumed, and if backed by energy sanctions from China would get the North’s attention in a way that U.N. resolutions never will. The U.S. also has a reliable South Korean ally in President Lee Myung-bak, who has cut off aid to the North amid its recent provocations. [Editorial, Wall Street Journal]

Yes! They get it! The editorial, after reminding its readers that thugs everywhere are measuring the stuff of our president’s spine, has a strong finish: Read more

Anonymous Prankster Steals North Korea’s Identity on Twitter

May 28, 2009 Humor/Satire No comments

Forbes reports that the real North Koreans are not amused:

Those 140-character news flashes have ranged from announcements of the recent underground nuclear explosions that are currently testing the rogue nation’s relations with the West, to accusations of Japanese war crimes, to the invention of a new type of North Korean toothpaste with “high medical properties.” (In addition to preventing cavities, it also aids in digestion and can be used to treat insect bites, eczema and colds.)  [Forbes]

What? That Is Your Day Job? (Part 2)

May 27, 2009 Washington Views, WTF? No comments

David Albright, who has spent the last several years discounting the evidence of North Korea’s nuclear cheating and cheerleading for diplomatic giveaways to Kim Jong Il, has joined the coalition of the willing.  Sort of:

“North Korea’s thrown something in our face that we have to deal with now and it could have tremendous ramifications for the ability to stop proliferation in the future,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nuclear disarmament think tank. The former arms inspector said international failure to respond resolutely could embolden Iran in its suspected quest for a nuclear bomb, but also could see nuclear-armed Pakistan mimic the North in a test that might provoke India in turn. [Reuters, Paul Eckert]

Read on, and you’ll see just what resolute action Albright would take:  he’d send Jimmy Carter!

Update:  Deep in my archive of half-finished posts, I stumbled upon this Washington Post op-ed by Albright.  As Albright wrote it in January 2008, North Korea had already begun reneging on Agreed Framework II, had missed its agreed deadline to give us a full disclosure of its nuclear programs, had balked at verification, and had been caught building a nuclear reactor in Syria.  Despite all of this, Albright assured us that North Korea was disarming in good faith.  Money quote:

The finger-wagging, told-you-so naysayers in and out of the Bush administration should take a deep breath. There is no indication that North Korea is backing away from its commitments to disable key nuclear facilities and every reason to expect this process to unfold slowly, with North Korea taking small, incremental steps in return for corresponding steps from the United States and others in the six-party discussions.  [David Albright, Washington Post]

For new readers, Albright has left comments here accusing me of attacking him “unfairly” and “slandering” him — by pointing out flaws in his arguments — but he wouldn’t answer questions or address specific points of my criticism of his arguments.

Look:  I don’t want to belabor a disagreement that shouldn’t be personal.  I don’t question Albright’s technical or scientific qualifications.  Unfortunately, he yields too often to the temptation to stray into discussions about policy and diplomacy, where the merit of one’s views is much less about qualifications and much more about good judgment, common sense, and an intellectually honest reading of the facts (I do not accept that being invited to North Korea by its commissars to hear and carry their messages is a qualification; it may suggest that the North Koreans think they’ve spotted an easy mark).  Too often, newspapers accept Albright as an expert in those other fields, too, but I’d only say to those who are reading that Albright’s record for advocating effective diplomacy — much less for for predicting North Korea’s intentions accurately — speaks for itself.

What? That Is Your Day Job? (Part 1)

May 27, 2009 Washington Views, WTF? 4 comments

I never was a fan of Lawrence Eagleburger, and I see no reason to become one now:

VARNEY: Would you — do you believe that the U.S. and/or China should now seriously consider and plan for a military attack?

EAGLEBURGER: I have believed that for some time. So, you’re — you’re call — you are asking the wrong person, I guess, because I have felt, as I say, for the better part of 10 years, that we could see this coming, and we just sat back and tried to talk them out of it. Now, and I think, yes, that military action is one very, very definite option. But I don’t think we should do it alone. [Fox News]

What does Mr. Eagleburger propose to attack now?  The nukes North Korea already has, which are probably two miles under some unknown mountain?  If his goal is to overthrow the regime, does he mean that we should invade?  Does he understand what he’d be getting us into?

And which of the three plausible potential allies could Eagleburger be thinking of?  It would be diplomatic ignorance to believe that China would join with us, it would be regional and historical ignorance to believe that Japan should join us, and it would be strategic and political ignorance to think that the South Koreans would be up for this.  They aren’t.

If we were to come to the point of last resort, after all financial and political options had failed and where only military options remained, it would make far more sense to flood North Korea with Tokarevs, RPG’s, and Chinese AK’s than to attack North Korea directly.  I’m not opposed to that idea in principle.  Certainly it’s an alternative that China must fear so much that it would rather cooperate with us.  But it would take years to work, and it could only succeed if a potential resistance organization had first infiltrated North Korea and established a political underground, supply system, and intelligence network.  The direct military option, however, should be reserved only for imminent anticipatory self defense or to stop a proliferation incident.

So Long and Thanks for All the Cash

May 27, 2009 North-South, Sunshine 2 comments

I’ve seen a number of different estimates of how many South Korean taxpayer dollars Roh Moo Hyun sent to Kim Jong Il and his regime during Roh’s term in office.  Starting from this 2006 estimate of approximately $3 billion (based on an approximate average exchange ratio of 1,000 won per dollar) and extrapolating about subsequent transfers, a rough estimate of $4 billion seems fair.

Now consider: Kim Jong Il, who never actually bothered to visit Roh and granted him just one brief audience in Pyongyang, was thoughtful enough to have one of the minions he pays to compose those verbose paeans to him write this:

On hearing the news that former President Roh Moo Hyun died in an accident, I express profound condolences to widow Kwon Ryang Suk and his bereaved family. [KCNA]

And that is all. Counting the name of Roh and his widow as one word each, that’s $4 billion divided by 24 words, which comes down to exactly one word of thanks for each $1,666,666 His Porcine Majesty received.  And who else thinks that the use of the word “accident” is pregnant with an uneasy vagueness?
Pity Roh Moo Hyun, and remember him as a man who meant well.  If the disruption of his mourning with a nuclear test or two wasn’t enough to clarify the contempt in which Kim Jong Il held him, let the humiliating brevity of Kim’s passing remark be Roh’s epitaph.

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