Breaking the Information Blockade

North Korea is losing–indeed, has probably lost–what Mao termed “the political struggle.” I just don’t have time to comment on this NY Times piece in detail now, but it’s an absolute must-read. The system’s hold on the minds of the people has never looked so shaky. So just how easy is it for a North Korean to break the blockade these days?

“He just dials 0082 to get the Korean-speaking Chinese operator, then makes a collect call to here,” Mr. Kim said of one source. The prepaid cellphones are usually paid for by journalists in South Korea, he said, and the North Koreans go along largely out of curiosity or to try to make business deals. He added: “They are getting more and more tech savvy. Now they are asking for cellphones with cameras attached.”At a human rights conference here on Feb. 15, defectors estimated in interviews that about one-third of the defectors in South Korea regularly talk to family members back in North Korea, calling owners of prepaid Chinese cellphones at a prearranged time.

To counter this, North Korea has reportedly started border patrols using Japanese equipment that can track cellphone calls. Reporters tell stories of their contacts who only make calls from their private garden plots in the hills, burying the cellphone in the ground after each call.

If this report is accurate, the conditions for an internal resistance movement are forming. By all means, read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, North Korea threatens and flails at foreign enemies, provoking perpetual crisis, in a vain effort to refract the hostility of its people. Whose hostile policy?

UPDATE: Welcome to everyone pouring in from JustOneMinute! Here’s a little more food for thought on how America can accelerate the “political struggle” in North Korea:

• A proposal for non-violent guerrilla warfare against North Korea’s antiquated, road-bound, underfueled military.
• A novel logistical method for waging this campaign (hey, no crazier than balloons!).
• A preview of the administration’s emerging diplo-economic strategy for putting the regime at a disadvantage in its war against its own people.
• How to privatize economic warfare against the Axis of Evil.
• The use of public diplomacy as a weapon–my report of the day I crashed the Senate press room to hear Senators McCain and Lieberman and Congressmen Wolf and Lantos announce the ADVANCE Democracy Act, a historic bill that the press chose to ignore.

Why are we concerned about North Korea? First, it is the worst human rights catastrophe on earth–the political “cleansing” of entire classes and families suspected of disloyalty to the regime–including reports of millions (perhaps intentionally) starved, gulags . . . even gas chambers in which chemical weapons are tested on whole families. The world has not seen horrors like those in North Korea since the demise of the Khmer Rouge. Second, North Korea, along with Iran, represents one of the world’s two greatest proliferation threats.

If you’re concerned, join us on North Korea Freedom Day, April 28th, or join Liberation in North Korea, or LiNK.

Finally, take a moment to remember our service members in Korea, and to tell your Senators and congressmen how much the way they are treated there concerns you. I’m very proud of my years as one of them, and they need to know how important they are to us.