13 March 2009
THE HANKYOREH IS PLEASED TO REPORT that North Korea has become marginally less hellish in some ways! But read the fine print:
“North Korea’s human rights situation is wholly poor. Economic, social, and cultural rights are growing notably worse, while there have been institutional improvements in civic and political rights. Also, the human rights situation is different by social group and region, with continually deepening disparity.
Wait! It gets better, I swear!
The document notes that there have been systemic improvements in civic and political rights, and that the a weakened regime structure and economic difficulties have led to slight but unintended improvements in the rights of regular North Koreans. Public executions have been become less frequent since the start of the decade, and they have become more common for crimes like corruption on the part of party officials, murder, human trafficking, and narcotics production and sale than for political crimes.
So the good news (though not everyone agrees on this) is there have been fewer public executions, but the bad news is that it’s mostly because of the high cost of bullets (must be those deadbeat widows not paying their bills on time).
Someone remind me again why enriching this regime is so fucking great for the people of North Korea.
BARACK OBAMA, imperialist and warmonger.
THE ADMINISTRATION SHOWS SOME STONES and sends a destroyer to protect its survey off the Chinese coast. I’m sure the Chinese were paying very close attention to how we’d react to this.
SO WHAT WAS THE DEAL WITH THOSE OLYMPIC PROTEST ZONES?
In the end, official reports show, China never approved a single protest application — despite its repeated pledges to improve its human rights record when it won the bid to host the Games. Some would-be applicants were taken away by force by security officials and held in hotels to prevent them from filing the paperwork. Others were scared away by warnings that they could face “difficulties” if they went through with their applications.
Ji has spent the past eight months in various states of arrest and detention. In January, he was sentenced to three years in prison, the maximum penalty allowed, on charges of faking official seals on documents he filed on behalf of his clients. Ji is appealing. [Washington Post]
If you are one of those people who told us that giving China the Olympics would make it a more enlightened place, book an appointment to have yourself sterilized. Your genes are retarding humanity’s advancement.
Engaging North Korea is an exercise in futility. If this report is correct as well as Joshua’s excellent synopsis of the nascent food-free-markets that are arising, perhaps there are significant changes occurring in NK. I somehow doubt that public executions are declining.
Engagement can make a dent in the PRC but not in NK for the simple reason that the Chinese people do not worship their head of state.
More evidence that things are not business-as-usual in the orker’s paradise, from the Chosun-Ilbo: http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200903/200903100020.html
“The military drills North Korea is citing as problems are the “Key Resolve” and “Foal Eagle” exercises, which are annual defense drills South Korea carries out with the U.S. and of which it has given the North ample notice. But North Korea is ratcheting up tensions, with its military issuing a combat readiness stance and severing its only communication link with South Korea, something it has not done before.
Other countries such as China and Russia conduct military drills with their allies. And other neighboring countries, excluding North Korea, are not citing any problems with the latest exercises. The observations of South Korean and foreign analysts — that North Korea is ratcheting up tensions to unite its people under a common cause — gains more credence considering that it is in the midst of a regime reshuffle, launching its 12th Supreme People’s Assembly.”
The reshuffle could be a vulnerable point – who knows? If this analysis is on target and the KWP needs a crisis to unify the country, things may be worse domestically than we imagined. Why else the timing of the [alleged] satellight launch? Some Korea watchers speculated that the 2006 launch was in a large measure intended to placate the generals.