Open Sources, August 9, 2012

I’D LIKE TO BELIEVE THIS:

An underground, democratic movement is active inside North Korea, a human rights advocate claimed Monday, surprising many observers skeptical that any organized opposition could exist in one of the world’s most secretive, totalitarian states.

Kim Young-hwan said he and three other South Korean activists were arrested in Dandong, China, near the North Korean border, on March 29 after they met with North Korean dissidents who had slipped into China. The North Koreans were later deported and one was arrested by North Korean security officials, who forced him to confess to anti-regime activities, Mr. Kim said.

Mr. Kim told reporters in Seoul that Chinese authorities held him and his South Korean colleagues for nearly four months, tortured him repeatedly with electric shocks and deprived him of sleep for six days. He accused the Chinese of interrogating him on behalf of the North Koreans to gain information about “individuals or groups supporting democratization in North Korea.” [Washington Times, Andrew Salmon]

Maybe this is a matter of how you define “movement,” but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a multitude of small, isolated circles of trusted friends who meet in secret to talk about forbidden political and religious ideas. Koreans put a high premium on loyalty in their friendships, and I have to suspect that in a society as repressive as North Korea, the fear of nosy strangers who might denounce and criticize must cause people to shy from casual friendships and cling tightly to their closest ones. After all, what friendship means more than the one in which you entrust not only your own life, but all the lives of the people you love?

What I have more reason to doubt is that those groups are interconnected or engaged in active resistance against the regime, but then, who really knows? We tend to become so comfortable in our skepticism about things we can’t know that many people still didn’t believe in the existence of the Free Syrian Army weeks after it declared its existence.

——————————————–
I WONDER IF ANYONE HAS WRITTEN A HISTORY OF WRONGLY spelling Andrei Lankov’s name. Look, it’s an easy thing to criticize 15 year-old predictions that predated recent and significant developments, such as the massive infusions of regime-sustaining aid from South Korea and China, and Armin Rosen has the apparent advantage in not having written about North Korea until relatively recently.

It has been an article of faith to some (like Wendy Sherman!) that the regime would eventually collapse, and an article of faith to others that it never will — hence we must have another Agreed Framework to not disarm them. As a former adherent to the former view, I can say with moderate-to-high confidence that first, the Kim Dynasty will reject all efforts at peaceful evolution, negotiated disarmament, or fundamental reforms except under extreme duress, and only with the objective of sustaining dynastic rule. I’m just as confident that without the active technical and logistical assistance of some foreign power, a popular bottom-up resistance movement stands no chance of challenging the state’s power. For the time being, only a faction within the regime itself can do that, and unless U.S. or South Korean clandestine services* have spent years cultivating that faction, there’s little reason to think that it would be any less oppressive or aggressive than the status quo.

* as opposed to China’s.

——————————————–
A TRADING COMPANY RUN BY THE NORTH KOREAN MILITARY has been shut down by the regime, according to a report sourced to the Chosun Ilbo:

“Taepung, when it first opened, had an ambitious goal to solicit foreign investment of $10 billion in 2010 and $120 billion within five years but made little progress,” said the source quoted by Chosun.

The shutdown was also intended to curb the military that had grown too powerful under the late ruler Kim Jong-Il, it said, adding the Committee of Investment and Joint Ventures under the cabinet would be given greater power. [Defense Talk]

The firm was put in charge of efforts to lure foreign investment into Kumgang after the South Koreans pulled out, following the shooting of housewife Park Wang-Ja by a North Korean soldier. If the closure was part of an effort to curb the economic power of the military, that could also point toward Stage Four, at least with respect to certain disfavored factions in the military. And of course, the very word “faction” would spell grave danger for this regime.

——————————————–
LET THEM WEAR CHANEL:

In a country that still has trouble feeding all its people, Ri Sol-ju, the wife of the country’s young leader, was pictured this week with what appears to be a luxury many North Korean women have probably never heard of, much less owned: a Christian Dior handbag. If it is not a knockoff, the bag’s going price in Seoul is the equivalent of $1,600, about 16 times the monthly wage of some of North Korea’s best-paid workers. [N.Y. Times, Choe Sang Hun]