Announcing the Jimmy Carter-Kim Jong Il Habitat Foundation*

Hello, Jimmy Carter here. Some of you may remember me for my successful negotiations that preceded the freeing of American hostages from our embassy in Iran, brought peace to the Middle East and free elections to China, and secured the peaceful nuclear disarmament of North Korea.

But of course, you say, I’m remembered for something else, too — for my tireless campaigning on behalf of the downtrodden and oppressed everywhere from 1973 to 1975, and since 1983. As my covenant with you, the American people who values I represent in our global village, I swear that I will not shirk from condemning the greatest atrocities in our world today, such as apartheid in Palestine. I promise you that I will not rest until I tear down the walls between Palestinian children and their dreams of martyrdom, and until any developmentally disabled woman wearing an explosive vest under her burka can sit in any section of a public bus without fear of discrimination.

Today, however, I’d like to speak to you about another subject that’s close to my heart: America’s duty to end poverty and hunger everywhere, starting with North Korea.

Recently, I decided to visit Pyongyang to build on my success at achieving a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, and at bringing a lasting peace and the reduction of tensions between our North Korean friends and their South Korean neighbors. The itinerary for my visit had originally called for a chaperoned tour of the U.S.S. Pueblo and the American Imperialist War Crimes Museum, followed by peace talks over a game of horseshoes with my good friend, Kim Jong Il. Unfortunately, Mr. Kim cited last-minute scheduling conflicts and was unable to find the time to meet with me, which is a striking coincidence, given that the President of South Korea also had a scheduling conflict when I called on him in Seoul just days before. It is widely reported, of course, that I am highly regarded by the government of North Korea. I feel secure enough of this truth that I see no need to “question the decision of a head of state about the priorities they set for their own schedule.”

Having an entire day to spend in Pyongyang before the next scheduled flight out of the country, I decided to use my time productively by investigating whether there was any evidence of human rights violations to be remedied in North Korea. Fortunately, the two North Korean gentlemen assigned to accompany me at every waking moment, and to monitor me through closed-circuit video at every non-waking moment, graciously obliged and eagerly answered all of my questions.

I must say that I undertook my investigation without really suspecting that I would find anything seriously amiss. Sure, as I have said before, “there are some human rights concerns about the North Korean regime’s policies,” although I saw no reason to upset my hosts by raising minor unpleasantness that, unlike the the subjects of the dressings-down I had delivered to Israel or to the South Korean government many years ago, are matters that “cannot be changed by outsiders.”

Besides which, my traveling companion, Mary Robinson, had been the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights for seven years without having felt the need to comment unfavorably on North Korea’s prison conditions, its provision of social justice for all, or its guarantee of everyone’s right to criticize the American government. Most recently, Margaret Chan, the Commissioner of the World Health Organization investigated the North Korean health care system using methods as rigorous as my own, and pronounced it “something which most other developing countries would envy.” To my great relief, she also found “no signs of the obesity emerging in some parts of Asia.”

Lastly, both of the North Koreans I interviewed during my visit spoke most highly of their single-minded devotion to the Sun of the Nation, who provides all that the people require, including meat rations for party members on his birthday. Yet further inquiry revealed something shocking and disturbing — the first evidence of human rights violations in North Korea confirmed by reliable official sources since 1953:

It is at moments like these that I thank our Creator for gifting me with the ability to bravely speak truth to power, a skill I perfected during my brief tenure as President of the United States, in the course of my many written appeals to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s sense of fair play. Just after I spoke these words, Mrs. Robinson swooned, and I had to send Rosalynn to fetch my smelling salts from the pouch in my carpet bag where I keep my topical ointments and my Doctor Horton’s Elixir.

Like a swamp rabbit stalking its hapless quarry, the cruel malaise of Yankee parsimony stalks the people of North Korea. It is therefore my solemn duty to carry home the shocking truth that there are shortages of food in North Korea. And based on the findings of my investigation, the cause of the shortages is none other than the United States. Those of you who know me need no further elaboration on the reticence with which I reached the sad conclusion that our own government was somehow responsible for this injustice. After I returned to Plains, I asked of my scriveners at the Carter Center to take the very next train to Macon, where there is a fine Carnegie library. On his return, he brought me evidence that President Obama had recently signed an Executive Order freezing all assets linked to “the procurement of luxury goods; and its illicit and deceptive activities in international markets through which it obtains financial and other support, including money laundering, the counterfeiting of goods and currency, bulk cash smuggling, and narcotics trafficking.” Did our President give no thought to the innocent children who would suffer the loss of their livelihoods?

Worse, America pressured our beloved United Nations into passing a resolution that bans some of North Korea’s most vital industries, namely “items, materials, equipment, goods and technology, determined by the Security Council or the Committee, which could contribute to DPRK’s nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes,” and inhibits its right to free commerce in “battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems.”

Like you, I weep that President Obama, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, could have allowed his U.N. Ambassador to support a Security Council Resolution resolution that deprives North Korean children of such fundamental necessities as “all arms and related materiel, as well as to financial transactions, technical training, advice, services or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of such arms,” and “financial transactions, technical training, advice, services or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of such arms or materiel.”

How could a U.N. resolution so indiscriminately deprive innocent children and nursing mothers of their basic needs, yet so disingenuously include an exemption for “humanitarian and developmental purposes directly addressing the needs of the civilian population?” How many more children must suffer before America ends this unjust blockade? I implore you to look into the eyes of this pitiful, emaciated waif and give generously:

As Americans, we can no longer deny that the sanctions our own government imposed from 2006 to 2010 are the reason why millions of North Koreans have been starving and dying since 1993. It is simply no excuse for our government to respond that it has donated $1 billion in food aid to North Korea between 1995 and 2009, when the North Korean government “abruptly suspended the aid program … ordering our humanitarian personnel to leave the country and leave behind 20,000 metric tons of U.S. food.”

My fellow Americans, I am outraged, and you should be, too! But together, we can make a difference. I have decided, therefore, to establish a foundation to petition President Obama to lift these unjust sanctions and help the Leader of North Korea provide for his people. Naturally, I am announcing this new campaign right here on OFK, a site that has been informing literally dozens of concerned citizens, resident aliens, and undocumented immigrants about North Korea’s humanitarian challenges for a half century of dog-years.

I ask you today to join with me. Together, we shall lift this dastardly union blockade and provide affordable housing for North Koreans in need — like this habitat along the North Korean seaside. Today, the people of North Korea struggle to build additions to their palaces and rows of luxury seaside villas for the hard-working officials who struggle each day to provide for the people:

The shortage of heavy equipment in North Korea not only prevents the government from mechanizing the nation’s agricultural system, it also means that the horse track in this sprawling palace complex could only be built with the generous assistance of 10,000 class enemies who hand-carried tons of rocky soil by using those buckets they balance on the end of poles, just to prove their devotion to their leader and their fitness to reenter society.

And to think that all of this affordable housing was built in a neighborhood with no Home Depot! Just imagine all of the children the North Korean government could feed with the money it’s spending on shipping costs and special-order surcharges. Together, we can help the people of North Korea overcome their desperate material needs and build more housing for its rural population, so that the authorities can again afford to purchase the essential foodstuffs we all enjoy each day … like grits, hard-tack, molasses, and side meat:

Sanctions have also affected the government’s efforts to provide affordable housing for the urban poor, including this 105-story, 3,000 room public housing project that could also host some of the thousands of tourists who flock to Pyongyang’s annual Robotic Obedience Festival each year.

Sanctions imposed in our name have done grievous harm to North Korea’s key industries, like WMD development, WMD concealment, WMD production, and WMD proliferation. These are industries on which millions of ordinary North Koreans depend for their livelihoods. And because no nation can afford not to invest in its economy, sometimes consumerism had to be sacrificed for the greater good. Even so, sanctions delayed the completion of this underground runway …

… this new missile satellite launch facility …

… and this powerplant, which my North Koreans friends inform me will be employed for the peaceful generation of electricity …

Sanctions nearly ruined Kim Jong Il’s birthday celebrations for his late father. Because he is a generous man, Kim Jong Il gives things to other people on his father’s birthday! And because nothing says “democratic peoples’ republic” like a new S-Class, last year, he wanted to give a trainload of cars to some of his best friends. Some would have ruined the whole celebration by saying that U.N. sanctions prohibit the import of “luxury goods,” but fortunately, the Chinese government was understanding enough to let them across the border.

Because of U.N. sanctions, the Italian government even seized two of these lovely fishing boats that the North Korean government had arranged to purchase.

Why, in North Korea, dads coming home from a hard day of risking public execution for stripping copper wire out of abandoned factories can’t even get the sweet release of a refreshing glass of cognac! My fellow Americans, can there be any question of who is responsible for scenes like these on the streets of cities across North Korea?

Please send your tax-deductible contributions here.

* Achtung, consigliori! The Jimmy Carter-Kim Jong Il Habitat Foundation is not associated with the Carter Center, Habitat for Humanity, or Jimmy Carter. It is not tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Also, it is not an actual foundation.