All Quid, No Quo

If Andrei Lankov is right and most North  Koreans secretly  know that they don’t really live in an earthly  paradise, these must be confusing times.  Any of them who mull the oddities of the wider world in the privacy of  their own minds must be asking themselves:  “Why do they pay us?” 

If North Korea has few natural resources and a  dwindling population of a few million, why does it seem that  everyone on earth lines up to pay tribute to the Dear Leader  unless the official propaganda contains some truth?  Eliminating all else, a rational North Korean thinker is left with no other conclusion than  that extortion works, and that the world  supplicates at the barrel of a gun.  Who would be stupid enough to preserve a sworn enemy, even abdicate  one’s dignity and principles, of his own free will?  The world’s inexplicable desperation to engage with this regime is  refused on all  terms — even humanitarian ones — except for the unconditional payment of tribute.  The vanishing quo of eventual change always remains  beyond the horizon.  That’s why engagement with North Korea will always be as it was under the initiatives of South Korea and U.N. —  all quid:

“Every morning from 8 to 10, we would issue checks” in euros for staff and projects, Mr. Shkurtaj says. “Then the checks, instead of going directly to the people or institutions by mail, as they should go [as specified by U.N. rules], the checks were given to the driver of our office.” The driver would take them to the Foreign Trade Bank, where he would “exchange them into cash and come back to the office.” North Korea did not permit Mr. Shkurtaj to have access to the UNDP’s accounts at the Foreign Trade Bank, which refused even to keep his signature on file.

Then, every day at noontime, “North Koreans saying they represented U.N.-funded projects would come to receive cash at the UNDP offices.” Mr. Shkurtaj says he was not allowed to require the North Koreans to sign receipts for the money or even to present IDs. “I had to trust them,” he says. “But, hey, if headquarters tells me to give the money away, I’ll give the money away.”

[….]

 

As the recent U.N. audit confirmed, the North Koreans who worked at UNDP were selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which also collected their salaries; both practices were violations of U.N. rules. Mr. Shkurtaj notes, too, that North Koreans selected by the government performed “core” functions such as dispensing cash–another violation of the rules. All communications tools–fax and telex equipment, computer servers, the local area network–“were in the hands of the North Koreans.” “All the backup data [for the office’s computers] were in a storage place completely isolated with a North Korean the chief of it.” When Mr. Shkurtaj wanted to file a secure report, “I would go use the telex and communications satellite at the German Embassy or other embassies in the compound.”

A North Korean–Li Kum Sun–controlled the office safe in her job as “finance officer.” “Damn it,” says Mr. Shkurtaj, “you had security-evacuation plans in the hands of a North Korean. It’s unbelievable.” One of his few on-the-job successes was to get control of the safe and petty cash taken away from Ms. Li and handed over to him in March 2006.

A simple question:  how can anyone possibly believe that a shipment of GPS devices is a better humanitarian investment than its equivalent in corn?

Another inspection charade involved GPS equipment supposedly going to an agricultural project on flood control. “They didn’t allow us for 3  1/2 months to see the GPSs that we gave them,” Mr. Shkurtaj says.

Finally, he says, “they took us to the outskirts of Pyongyang, to an empty building, completely empty–no desk, no chairs, no nothing. We come in and go to the first floor. Empty. We go to the second floor. Empty. On the last door of the second floor, we enter. There is only one desk in the middle of the room, and on the desk are the GPS devices that we provided. Now, you’re telling me we are providing GPS devices for an empty building, without people working inside?”   [Wall Street Journal]

Hwang Jong Chol glanced at the golden gift-watch.  It was already 5:42.  He quickened his pace and tried to distract his mind from the headache from last night’s drinking.  To be late to  another demonstration would not be good for him.   

He thought of how the Leader had triumphed over  the Americans and the U.N.

The outsiders say that they  wish to cooperate and “engage” with us, and I hear that some of them even support our system.  Once, we suspected a trick, but after all  they money  they have given us, how could this be a trick?  They support our system with their money.  The Leader prevents them from polluting the purity of our culture and always preserves our deterrent power.  We demand  and they comply, just as I comply with their demands each day — because I must, not because I  would choose to  walk to a political demonstration each day, even through bitter cold or on days of hunger or sickness.  No one complies so meekly without being forced.  Surely our  Leader has outwitted them.  Surely, they fear him … and us.

At least the Leader made us strong.   Our suffering will end when the war comes, one way or another.  A blast of cold air pierced his jacket.  As he felt the skin over his  ribs contract from the cold,  Hwang Jong Chol realized that he no longer cared which way it would end, as long as it ended soon.