North Korea’s Terror De-Listing: Six Months Later

It has now been just over months since President Bush, true to his June announcement, removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  To calm skeptics of the move who noted that North Korea had neither renounced terrorism nor performed meaningfully on its Agreed Framework II obligations, Bush said this:

The six-party process has shed light on a number of issues of serious concern to the United States and the international community.  To end its isolation, North Korea must address these concerns.  It must dismantle all of its nuclear facilities, give up its separated plutonium, resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities, and end these activities in a way that we can fully verify.

North Korea must also meet other obligations it has undertaken in the six-party talks.  The United States will never forget the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans.  We will continue to closely cooperate and coordinate with Japan and press North Korea to swiftly resolve the abduction issue.

This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea.  If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community ….  If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and our partners in the six-party talks will respond accordingly.  If they do not fully disclose and end their plutonium, their enrichment, and their proliferation efforts and activities, there will be further consequences….
[O]ur policy, and the statement today, makes it clear we will hold them to account for their promises.  And when they fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be eased.  If they don’t fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them.

Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said this:

This is a step forward, and there will be many more steps to take in the days ahead. Critical questions remain unanswered. We still have not verified the accuracy of the North Korean declaration. We must confirm the full extent of North Korea’s past plutonium production. We must also confirm its uranium enrichment activities, and get answers to disturbing questions about its proliferation activities with other countries, including Syria….

Sanctions are a critical part of our leverage to pressure North Korea to act. They should only be lifted based on North Korean performance. If the North Koreans do not meet their obligations, we should move quickly to re-impose sanctions that have been waived, and consider new restrictions going forward.  [Barack Obama]

Let’s now take stock of where we stand:  North Korea has just violated two U.N. resolutions with malice aforethought, has continued its proliferation business, has reneged on every one of its Agreed Framework I and Agreed Framework II commitments, and is now holding one more South Korean and two more Americans for “offenses” that would not justify imprisonment in any other country.  But by now, you’re probably saying to yourself that North Korea’s listing isn’t about those things anyway; it’s about terrorism:

[T]he term “international terrorism” means activities that appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and [that] occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum….  [Title 18, United States Code, Section 2331]

This seems like as good a place as any to quote some of what the new, terror-free North Korea has said through its state media in the last six months:

Under the situation prevailing in the Peninsula no one knows what military conflicts will be touched off by the reckless war exercises of the U.S. and the puppet clique for a war of aggression against the DPRK. It is, therefore, compelled to declare that security cannot be guaranteed for south Korean civil airplanes flying through the territorial air of our side and its vicinity, its territorial air and its vicinity above the East Sea of Korea, in particular, while the military exercises are under way.   [KCNA, Mar. 5, 2009]

1. If Japan recklessly “intercepts” the DPRK’s satellite for peaceful purposes, the KPA will mercilessly deal deadly blows not only at the already deployed intercepting means but at major targets.  2. The U.S. should immediately withdraw its already deployed armed forces if it does not wish to be hurt by the above-said strike as DPRK clarified its stand on its projected satellite launch for peaceful purposes.  [KCNA, Apr. 2, 2009]

North Korea issued yet another warning of military action against South Korea on Sunday. The official Rodong Shinmun newspaper in a commentary said war is a possible scenario if Seoul continues to ignore all the recent threats it has been making. [Chosun Ilbo, Feb. 2, 2009]

The commentary cites facts to prove that the policy of confrontation with the DPRK pursued by the group is the root cause of the acts blocking national reconciliation and unity and the reunification of the country and the very source of military conflicts and war between the north and the south.  In Korea in the state of armistice confrontation means escalated tension and it may lead to an uncontrollable and unavoidable military conflict and a war. [KCNA, Feb. 1, 2009]

The pro-American warmongers of south Korea hell-bent on igniting another war had better stop their rash acts, bearing in mind that Korean-style preemptive attack based on striking means unimaginably more powerful than nuclear weapons will prove to be the most decisive and merciless strike based on justice as it will not merely turn everything into a sea of fire but reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to debris and build an independent reunified country on it.  [KCNA, Dec. 23, 2008]

“We clarify our stand that should the South Korean puppet authorities continue scattering leaflets and conducting a smear campaign with sheer fabrications, our army will take a resolute practical action as we have already warned ….  The puppet authorities had better bear in mind that the advanced pre-emptive strike of our own style will reduce everything opposed to the nation and reunification to debris, not just setting them on fire,” the spokesman  said. [Reuters, Jack Kim]

Forget North Korea’s sponsorship of terrorism.  If you want to be clear about it, North Korea’s abductions, proliferation, and threats to everyone within its growing reach make it a terrorist entity itself.  In some parallel universe that’s more principled than this one, North Korea would be designated under Executive Order 13224.