Anju Links for 14 August 2008

THE END OF SUNSHINE:  North Korea has begun expelling “unnecessary” South Koreans from Kumgang, presumably meaning everyone but the cashiers and Brinks truck drivers.

The South said 11 personnel including two from the state-run Korea Tourism Organisation and nine in charge of a newly built facility for reunions of separated families in the resort had been asked to leave by early Monday. “One left on Saturday and another two are supposed to leave today,” a spokesman for the South’s unification ministry in charge of cross-border relations, told AFP. “More people will leave the resort by Thursday,” he said. The withdrawal will bring the number of South Koreans staying the area to about 120, the ministry said. [AFP]

The IHT helps us count who stayed and who went:

Even before the Saturday announcement, some of the 260 South Koreans stationed at Kumgang had returned home voluntarily. Most of them are tourism officials and workers affiliated with Hyundai-Asan, a Seoul-based company that runs the resort with the North Korean government. On Sunday, four South Koreans crossed the border to the South. As of Sunday, 146 South Koreans remained at Kumgang. About 20 were expected to return home this week. [IHT]

Given that Kumgang is nothing but  an ATM  for the North Korean military, this has to be one of those rare occasions when I fully support one of Kim Jong Il’s decisions.

SOME SOUTH KOREAN  NGO’s are calling the murder of Park Wang-Ja a terrorist act, although this again puts us on the wrong side of a technicality: presuming the North Koreans killed Mrs. Park with the intent to terrorize or intimidate, this is not sponsorship of terrorism, it is terrorism. A South Korean government simulation has concluded that Mrs. Park was shot from behind while walking slowly or standing still. Infer from that what you will. I’ve suggested before that because of the state’s direct involvement in hostage-taking, murder, and bellicose threats just before South Korean elections, North Korea ought to be listed as a specially designated terrorist entity.

YONHAP REPORTS THAT A 25 YEAR-OLD NORTH KOREAN  MAN  swam from North Korea, presumably somewhere in South Hwanghae, to the waters off Gimpo,  just west of  Seoul.  It may emerge that the first  part of his journey was by boat.  If so, I  hope he was the only one in it.

MONGOLIA, WHICH HAD ONCE SHELTERED small numbers of North Korean refugees, has made an agreement with the North Korean regime  to import slave laborers.

ARIRANG, behind the cardboard.

YOU SAY THAT LIKE IT’S A BAD THING:  Yonhap reports that those in charge of setting up the program to verify North Korea’s disarmament are “hard liners,” … by Yonhap’s standards, anyway.