Open Sources, March 21, 2013

THE PIANIST KIM CHEOL WOONG, whom Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote about in “Escape from North Korea,” will be here in the D.C. area to play two performances this weekend.  One will be at the “home theater” of conductor Lorin Maazel, of all people, in Castleton, Virginia, on Saturday evening.  The other will be on Sunday, March 24th, and will be sponsored by a new group, NKUS (site in Korean only).  Henry Song of the North Korean Freedom Coalition calls them the “first [North Korean] defectors-led organization in the US.”

Korean language links here, and on Facebook, on Facebook.  Unfortunately, plans have already been made for me this weekend, but if you go, kindly drop a comment.

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BECAUSE SAYING IT ONCE ISN’T ENOUGH, let me just restate that this nonsense about importing North Korea-made goods from Kaesong into the United States duty-free while we’re supposed to be coordinating financial pressure against Kim Jong Un–and while he’s threatening Baeknyeong–is crazy talk.  We don’t know how much (if any) of the wages the workers receive.  They have no rights to strike, organize, or get a full paycheck.  We have no idea how the money stolen from them is used. Kaesong should be shut down yesterday, and the person who suggested this idiocy should be caged and poked with sharp sticks.

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THAT’S RIGHT, COORDINATING FINANCIAL PRESSURE:  “U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen visits South Korea on Tuesday. He will meet with officials in the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade and of Strategy and Finance on Wednesday to discuss how to implement sanctions against North Korea under UN Security Council Resolution 2094.”

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MEANWHILE, IN BEIJING:  “In his first meeting with any foreign official as China’s new president, Xi Jinping discussed trade issues with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Tuesday, underlining the importance of U.S.-China economic ties….  The 45-minute meeting in Beijing marks the first trip abroad for Lew since taking his position. In an e-mailed statement afterward, a U.S. official not authorized to speak by name, described Lew as ‘candid and direct in his comments.’ The meeting also covered North Korea …, the official said.”

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YOUR HUMAN RIGHTS INDUSTRY AT WORK:  Amnesty International picks up on Curtis Melvin’s Camp 14 find, yet the Reuters and CNN reports on Amnesty’s “discovery” somehow fail to credit Curtis as the original source.  I don’t know for certain where the fault lies for that–with the press or with Amnesty–but this and this suggest that Amnesty ripped Curtis off. The oversight would be more understandable if Amnesty really devoted more attention to what is, after all, the world’s worst human rights crisis, and led rather than followed in addressing it.  (Don’t even get me started on Human Rights Watch.)

It’s sad enough that the big names in the Human Rights Industry conduct less useful original research on the world’s worst human rights crisis than tiny NGOs and self-funded, independent bloggers writing in their pajamas (or in Curtis’s case, in a frilly pink nightgown and a feather boa, not that there’s anything wrong with that).  It’s sadder to see them get splashy press and publicity because of the hard work that others have done. Amnesty has done some good work on North Korea, and more publicity for this issue is certainly a good thing, but Amnesty’s work compares poorly to what HRNK, Rimjingang, and the Daily NK, to name just a few examples, have done with a fraction of the resources.  This wasn’t a very classy move, and Amnesty should make it right.

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NORTH KOREA’S FORESTS HAVE SHRUNK more than 30 percent in the two decades since the Great Famine.  And remember, this is a country where a lot of people depend on wood not only for heating and cooking, but also as a motor fuel.  You have to wonder how accessible the remaining forest are.

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Update:  The item on Amnesty, above, received a speedy response, pointing me to this other report, which does credit Curtis, way down in endnote 2, for what that’s worth.  For extra fun, see this statement from the inside front cover of Amnesty’s report:

All rights reserved. This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee for advocacy, campaigning and teaching purposed, but not for resale. The copyright holders request that all such use be registered with them for impact assessment purposed [sic]. For copying in any other circumstances, or fur [sic] reuse in other publications, or for translation or adaptation, prior written permission must be obtained from the publishers, and a fee may be payable. To request permission, or for any other inquiries, please contact copyright@amnesty.org.

My thought was that maybe Curtis might like to do his own “impact assessment.”  I know I get satisfaction from that sort of thing.