6 March 2010
So I wasn’t able to make it to Korus House to see the Venerable Pomnyun speak, but the Hankroyeh, of all places, cites him as saying that two thousand people have starved to death in North Korea since The Great Confiscation. I’m tempted to fall back on ordinarily reliable maxim that everything the Hanky publishes is false just because it’s published in the Hanky, but in this case, it’s slightly more complicated than that. First, it’s likely that that many North Korean prisoners or kotjaebi would have starved to death even without The Great Confiscation, but we’ll never know for certain. Second, I don’t doubt that The Great Confiscation has caused the deaths of many North Koreans, whether through suicide, execution, or starvation. Third, I don’t believe either Good Friends or any other organization with contacts inside North Korea has developed those contacts sufficiently to make reliable estimates. Undercounting seems much more likely than overcounting, but both are distinct possibilities. Fourth, I cite Good Friends frequently because they’re a valuable source for reporting anecdotes from which we can infer general trends, but I would caution anyone against relying on them for statistical information.
Axis, Schmaxis: Janes publishes new imagery of an Iranian missile launch site and finds a North Korean connection.
Update: I went on Google Earth, where I found and marked the base camp, but GI Korea does me one better and finds what may be the construction site Janes refers to. Assuming that’s the right place, the similarities aren’t any more obvious to me than they are to GI Korea, but if I’m reading the imagery dates correctly, they’re about a year old. Maybe Janes has newer images and more interpretive skill than me.
The Chosun Ilbo cites a Radio Free Asia report (good luck finding it) that even Pyongyang’s shops and hotels for foreigners are running out of food:
Radio Free Asia on Wednesday quoted a member of an American NGO who recently visited the North to deliver aid as saying shops in Pyongyang are empty, there are few foreigners in hotels, and construction has come to a standstill.
The American recalled that even no kimchi, the staple spicy delicacy of Korea, was found among dishes of Korean food served in the Koryo Hotel. He wondered if the hotel could not afford to make it due to skyrocketing prices. He had visited the North for more than 10 years, but it was the first time no kimchi was served, he added.
RFA quoted a Western diplomat in Pyongyang as saying foreigners travel to the Chinese border town of Dandong at weekends because they cannot find daily necessities even in designated shops in the North.
Hmmm.
Your giggle for today, hat tip to Curtis:
Brookings has released the latest update to its Iraq Index.
LOL!
The Iranian launch sites don’t resemble North Korean sites, says GI Korea at rokdrop.
Axis shmaxis. The NY Times says, “U.S. Enriches Companies Defying Its Policy on Iran.” The article mentions: Daelim Industrial, Royal Dutch Shell, Inpex, Petrobras, Honeywell, Ingersoll Rand, and Halliburton.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/world/middleeast/07sanctions.html?pagewanted=1&ref=global-home
And which of those companies is selling them missiles? I favor effective sanctions on Iran and oppose companies enriching its regime, though I question whether sanctions would be as effective against Iran as they are against North Korea.
Not sure about missiles. But 49 companies do business with both the US government and Iran. They’re active in Iran’s energy sector, “a huge source of revenue for the Iranian government and a stronghold of the … Islamic Revolutionary Guards”. They’re also involved with “auto manufacturing and distribution … with links to the Revolutionary Guards”. And one supplied motors for IRISL, a “shipping line … subsequentyl blacklisted by the United States for concealing military cargo.”
I don’t want to risk exceeding fair use. Anybody that wants to see what the Times has should visit the Times.
I disagree with that those companies are doing and think we should sic Treasury on them under Executive Orders 13224 and 13338 if the links to the IRGC can be proven, but that would still be a pretty far cry from directly assisting their nuclear or missile programs.
In response to Glans, I am not an imagery analyst but using the Google Earth imagery I could not make out any obvious similarities. I assume Jane’s has actual imagery analysts that looked at the imagery and saw similarities. However, whatever those similarities are they are obviously not enough to where the launch site is a complete copy of a North Korean launch site.
If I had to guess the NK personnel at the site were probably more advisers to the Iranian construction personnel who made the site instead of the NK personnel actually designing the site themselves.
>> cites him as saying that two thousand people have starved to death in North Korea since The Great Confiscation
I don’t doubt this, but d’you have a primary reference?
Come now! I said I didn’t doubt you, and I had followed the link to comments attributed to Monk Beopryun. Even if this is true (and I have no doubt it is), it is still hearsay.
I am genuinely interested in this – as a check of a recent piece on my blog should indicate. The difficulty *is* the paucity in resources on North Korea, hence my visit here.
‘Fraid it’s all hearsay, and if I understand your question, my doubts are on open display. That’s the nature of North Korea, and what makes it such a challenge to make sense of what’s going on there.
Hearsay ain’t necessarily bad, but the inherent flaw in blogging is that it tends towards opinion pieces rather than genuine reporting; hence my looking for said primary resources.
I detected a past history between you and the Hankyoreh but maybe, as Orwell said of the Daily Telegraph, what appears there doesn’t have to be false. Two thousand dead in six months sounds quite plausible considering the death toll in the 1990s.
I only have recently started looking for resources on North Korea, so this was an opening question. I don’t know who is whom, and what is what, so can see it’s going to need a great deal of kreminology.