Open Sources, September 19, 2012

MELANIE KIRKPATRICK’S BOOK ABOUT NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES is out, and while I doubt I’ll have time to read it for weeks (if not months), John Bolton has published a review here, at National Review.

Not only does the ludicrously named Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continue its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs unchecked, but the oppression and misery of its citizens remain unequalled. Not even Kim Jong Un’s recent hereditary accession to power as his family’s third Communist dictator has caused serious rethinking in our media. Instead, reporters have written about higher heels and hemlines for DPRK policewomen, Kim’s attendance at a performance of Walt Disney characters (pirated, of course), and the revelation that he has a wife as signs of impending change in the North. As always, the pundits focus on what Pyongyang wants rather than exploring the kinds of stories Kirkpatrick highlights, such as the newest Kim’s personal order clamping down on refugee escapes.

Through sustained and systematic research and old-fashioned shoe leather, Kirkpatrick uses individual incidents and the available (although usually sparse) official data to describe what the mainstream media have largely missed for decades. She traces the chilling arc of enormous risk North Koreans seeking freedom must be prepared to take in escaping their country-wide prison camp, through cordons of border guards and domestic-surveillance agencies. What follows is as hard or harder: the gruesome travails and dangers refugees face once in China, both from those who would exploit them and from the indifference and overt hostility of the Chinese government. Ultimately, only about 3,000 refugees annually reach South Korea; many fewer end up settling in other countries, including the United States. These successful escapees then face the further arduous task of adjusting to a free society.

It’s worth remembering that while the AP and other usual suspects cheerlead for reform in North Korea, based on evidence that’s wispy to nonexistent, the regime’s behavior toward its own people is, if anything, more oppressive and retrograde than ever.

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NORTH KOREAN REFORM WATCH 4: I may have found the loophole to that agricultural reform in which so many North Korea watchers have invested so much hope. On one hand, the unverified rumor has it that the regime will let collective farms keep a larger share of what they grow. On the other hand it’s seizing land that North Koreans had cleared and cultivated outside the collective farm system:

The North Korean government first seized all the patches of land around collective farms. Then they seized patches of land on which individuals are farming. The sources said that the government is trying to ensure that people are unable to administer patches of land by seizing them.

As the government’s plan has been passed and the seizing of patches has already begun, the North Korean citizens are starting to resist. In the past, when North Koreans had complaints about the government, they could only criticize it secretly and just talked to people whom they could fully trust. However, this time, people showed their true thoughts at the Agricultural Control Committee meeting.

According to the source, at the Rural Management Committee in Musan, the chairpersons of Farm Management and some farmers were saying things like, “Does the New Economic Measure give us food? I am okay if we are given food by distribution or otherwise. I just want them to leave me as I am.” [….]

Also the source said in an interview with a South Korean journalist, “the government ruined collective farms and didn’t even give food to citizens because they didn’t manage agriculture well, so how are they going to get on with the patches that they seized from us? Just reform and opening up is a better way, but they are doing useless work to continue to oppress us.” The source showed resentment to the government throughout the interview. [Open News]

You can spot a lot of these remote cleared patches on Google Earth. They probably produce a substantial amount of the food sold in the markets, and plenty of North Koreans probably depend on them for survival. Does that really look like reform to you?

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NORTH KOREAN REFORM WATCH 5: Not surprisingly, North Koreans’ views of Ri Sol Ju’s fashions vary according to their songbun. Privileged girls in Pyongyang all want to be her, while the poor and underprivileged people everywhere else despise her.

On last August 25th, there was a phone interview between Open Radio for North Korea and North Korean citizens who live in Musan, in the North Korea/China border region. According to one interview, “Many North Koreans are dying from various things, but Kim Jong Un and his wife are behaving magnificently – like something good is happening.”

Also, that same citizen emphasized that, “Many citizens are criticizing Kim Jong Un and his wife because they don’t care about their citizens dying from hunger but participate in events and watch splendid performances.” The source said, “There is a proverb, ‘In the place where laughter is high, there is also high resentment.’ When North Koreans suffer too much, they usually say this proverb.” [….]

The source continued, “We don’t know why he is showing his wife while people are dying from hunger.” Many North Korean citizens near border area are criticizing Kim Jong Un these days.

But where are the fat jokes?

The source also said that when they are captured by the National Security Agency while criticizing Kim Jong Un, they can be taken to prison camps, so people are very careful about that. [Open News]

Oh, right. The report indicates that as far as underprivileged North Koreans are concerned, the economy is “getting worse.” If true, that would be relevant to Korea watchers’ speculations about reform, and about the high expectations the regime created for the return of prosperity in 2012, the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth.

Speaking of broken promises, didn’t the AP promise us that by now, we’d be looking through a new window into how North Koreans live? As in, North Koreans who are representative of the actual living standards and typical perspectives? After all, the AP’s North Korean fellow-journalists have never refused to cover a story. So any day now, we should be seeing some enlightening reporting about how the masses outside Pyongyang are getting along, even if that must be at the expense of Jean Lee’s hard-hitting fashion journalism.

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IT MAY BE HARDER TO GET OUT OF NORTH KOREA since Kim Jong Un’s coronation, but it’s not impossible: The Daily NK reports that a group of 20 North Koreans managed to pull off a group defection across the Tumen River, near Hyesan.

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TO PARAPHRASE CHRIS HILL, they pretend to disarm, and we pretend to believe them:

The former U.S. point man on North Korean diplomacy, Amb. Stephen Bosworth, is making the rounds in Seoul this week with a sharp message: it’s time for the countries pushing North Korea to denuclearize to acknowledge they may never be able to get a verifiable deal…. Instead, he recommends that South Korea, the U.S. and other countries negotiate a “standstill agreement” in which North Korea halts tests of nuclear explosives and long-range missiles – something that could be monitored.” [Evan Ramstad, Korea Real Time]

So what’s the point of having a deal that lets North Korea continue to nuke up and sell their excess to the highest bidders? Worse, it’s hard to believe that Bosworth could get high-level audiences for such a controversial view if President Obama or Hillary Clinton objected to his views, which suggests this is where they want to take our North Korea policy. The President will have more “flexibility” to make that deal after he’s reelected, but we may well see a replay of 1996, in which a Republican-controlled Congress refuses to fund a deal.

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I’M NOT SEEING THE DOWN SIDE OF THAT: U.S. aid package for Egypt stalls; Congress may want to set tighter conditions for debt relief.

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I THINK THIS MERITS A DARWIN AWARD: “Burning an American flag proved fatal for a Pakistani protester, who reportedly died from inhaling fumes from the ignited icon of independence.”