In the Absence of Facts, Rumor Overtakes the Injustice of Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s Captivity

I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought of Laura Ling and Euna Lee when I heard about the escape of David Rhode from the Taliban.  An unpleasant quirk of human nature occurred to me:  by virtue of his escape, Rohde had instantly transformed himself from “stupid” to intrepid.  I’m glad Rohde lived to bring the story home.  Oddly enough, the minute I heard the report on the radio, I remembered Rohde’s name, because being captured isn’t a new experience for him.  Long ago, I was as interested in events in Bosnia as I am in North Korea today.  Rohde, then reporting for the Christian Science Monitor, infiltrated through Serbian lines alone to verify reports of a massacre at Srebrenica.  He found it.  He also found the Serbs, who took him prisoner.  But Rohde also provided some of the first and best confirmation that something truly horrible had taken place at Srebrenica, leading to a forceful NATO intervention that supplanted a feckless U.N. and ended the slaughter.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, by virtue of their very captivity, are also bringing much needed attention to a great and underreported humanitarian crisis.  Ironically, no report they could have provided would likely have brought the North Korean regime such infamy.  Yet   more reports seem to suggest that they intentionally took a big risk in the course of their reporting, perhaps to bring attention to their fledgling organization. Here is the latest of those:

It took just under three months, but we finally have the first reliable confirmation that Laura Ling, Euna Lee, Mitchell Koss and guide Kim Seong-chol did indeed cross into North Korean territory on that fateful March morning. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Venice) during a June 12th phone conversation that the U.S. government has established that the quartet did step across the border, although it is unclear ““ after being chased and captured by North Korean border guards ““ whether those border guards entered Chinese territory to effect the capture of the two journalists. The entire episode occurred within “a few dozen meters” of the North Korea ““ China border.  [Liberate Laura Blog]

This post goes on to speculate that Ling and Lee were either lured or driven across the border by North Korean guards.  The basis for that speculation is that Ling, Lee and Koss were too smart to have crossed the border intentionally, but the jury is still out on that.  Obviously, we need to know what Mitch Koss knows, but Koss isn’t talking.

This is still hearsay within hearsay, but if it’s true, it would be just the latest example of how too many in the media completely fail to understand North Korea, and how truly different its pathology is from any other place on earth.  That — and North Korea’s past practice of luring people into abduction — also tell us that it’s reasonable to speculate that North Korea might have lured Ling and Lee to a prearranged place.  There’s just no solid evidence to support that yet.  Neocon conspiracy theory?  Not necessarily:

Another possibility, which I incline to, is that Ling and Lee may have been sold to North Korea by a local guide. If the guide said that it was safe to cross, or that they were still on Chinese territory, they would have believed him. Moreover, by some accounts they were working on a story about human trafficking — there’s a good deal of trafficking of North Korean women and girls into China, into prostitution and to be wives of peasants — and the traffickers could well have tricked them in exchange for a reward from North Korea.  [Nicholas Kristof Blog, N.Y. Times]

I tend to agree with Kristof that Ling and Lee could not have crossed the border without knowing it.  Indeed, I find nothing to disagree with in Kristof’s entire post, which is a rare thing.  I am surprised, however, at the amount of cross-border reporting that Kristof describes:

That said, people often do cross over deliberately, just inside the border, and there are usually no consequences at all. In 1997, a Times correspondent based in China, Seth Faison, stepped across stones in the Yalu River (a different part of the border with China) to reach a North Korean island.

In the end, no matter what Ling and Lee did, there is no justification for North Korea’s captivity of these women, and the State Department has again called for their release. The North Koreans have also allowed another visit from the Swedish Embassy.  Another vigil for Ling and Lee is also being planned.

There should be no ransom, and no propaganda gift to the North Koreans, who must instead be made to understand that holding Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee will mean severe financial consequences, and more of the intensely adverse publicity they seek to deter with this unjust punishment.