North Korea Loots KEDO Site (Updated)

North Korea has been stealing trucks, cranes and other equipment from the site of a nuclear power plant where an American-led consortium stopped construction four years ago in a dispute over the North’s nuclear weapons development, the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported Wednesday. [N.Y. Times]

It gets better:

“There is even suspicion that the North Koreans used the equipment when they conducted a nuclear test in October 2006 and in May,” the paper quoted a source as saying.

North Korea may have used some of the more than 200 pieces of heavy equipment taken from the site in the country’s northeast to stage a nuclear test in May, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, quoting government officials.

“The removal of equipment without taking steps to settle financial issues is a clear violation of the agreement and can be construed as theft,” one official was quoted as saying. [….]

Equipment left behind at the site is valued at 45.5 billion won ($39 million), including cranes and bulldozers and nearly 200 trucks and other vehicles, the JoongAng Ilbo said. [Reuters, Jack Kim]

It’s really hard for me to work up too much outrage over this. Rather, it seems like a case of our own gullibility leading to predictable results. I wonder how much of KEDO’s equipment and materiel was shipped in after we already knew that the North Koreans were cheating on Agreed Framework I.

As a practical matter, KEDO was a dead letter by 2002, when President Bush called the North Koreans on their cheating. In 2004, the North Koreans “nationalized” most of the construction equipment at the site. In 2005, the Bush Administration terminated the contract of KEDO’s executive director, Charles Kartman (no relation to Eric). Then, in 2007, KEDO presented the North Koreans with a bill for $1.9 billion, which the North Koreans don’t seem to have even bothered to laugh off.

You can peruse some of the stacks of materials left behind in these satellite images, taken on March 19, 2004. Click for full size:

Update:

According to the Unification Ministry and other sources, North Korea has taken 190 vehicles from the site in Kumho, South Hamgyong Province, and 93 pieces of heavy equipment, including cranes and excavators, and is likely using them for military purposes. [….]

In December 2005, North Korea asked KEDO workers to leave the country and said they would not be allowed to repatriate equipment and construction materials.

At the time, KEDO and North Korea had agreed to leave materials at the site. Most belonged to South Korean subcontractors, and they had planned to sell off some of it to make up for financial losses stemming from the halted work.

In 2003, after the KEDO first suspended construction, the North said it would not allow the transfer of equipment unless it received compensation. A government official here said, “The North moved the equipment before we could even address the compensation issue, and that’s clearly in violation of our agreement. It can even be regarded as stealing.

In January 2006, the Roh Moo-hyun administration in Seoul said the North had pledged to store the materials and that it expected the North to honor its word. Despite suspicions that the North had used some of the equipment in preparation for their second nuclear test this year, the current Lee Myung-bak administration has also remained silent.

But intelligence sources tell a different story.

They said the North started using equipment almost immediately after KEDO’s withdrawal and that the North Korean military was involved.

“North Korea is trying to keep South Koreans or KEDO officials from going near the construction base,” one source said. “Recent satellite photos of the site show that hundreds of the black covers that were used to conceal materials are mostly gone.

Sources estimate equipment and materials are worth about 46 billion won ($39 million). South Korea, one of the founding members of the KEDO, spent $1.1 billion on the construction project. [Joongang Ilbo]