Open Sources, November 8, 2013

~          1          ~

I HAVE A TERRIBLE FEELING ABOUT THIS: Every now and then, North Korea says something that my gut tells me is more true than false:

North Korea’s security agency said Thursday it arrested a South Korean spy in Pyongyang who intended to rally anti-government forces, a claim that intelligence officials in Seoul quickly called ridiculous and groundless.  [….]

The North Korean security ministry said that the South Korean initially said he was a Chinese citizen living in North Korea and then said he was a citizen of another country. [AP]

It’s funny how people change their stories like that under questioning.

The initial investigation found that the South Korean spent six years in a country bordering North Korea using religion to disguise anti-North Korea espionage activities, the North’s statement alleged. It said the investigation was intensifying, without elaborating.

Seoul denies that this person was on its payroll, which is what you’d expect them to say. A more likely possibility, which the reports suggest, is that the person was a religious missionary.

North Korea claims that the person confessed to being a South Korean, but it’s unlikely that anyone other than a returned North Korean defector would have managed to penetrate the closed city of Pyongyang, where every neighborhood is watched by nosy neighbors and block committees. If he did for any length of time, that would mean that the regime’s control over Pyongyang itself has eroded.

~          2          ~

GREAT NEWS, SPAIN! YOUR CRYSTAL METH SHORTAGE IS ALMOST OVER! News reports claim that the Spanish government will allow North Korea to open an embassy in Madrid. I certainly hope the Spanish authorities are making proper preparations, like training more drug- and cash-sniffing dogs to work the airports, and rereading the Security Council’s latest resolution, starting with the very first sentence of its preamble:

The Security Council today passed unanimously a resolution strengthening and expanding the scope of United Nations sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by targeting the illicit activities of diplomatic personnel, transfers of bulk cash, and the country’s banking relationships, in response to that country’s third nuclear test on 12 February.

You have to wonder if eight months after the U.N. Security Council effectively accused North Korea of using its embassies as fronts for money laundering and proliferation is really an ideal time to invite it to open an embassy in your country. We’ve certainly fallen far since the days when Spanish marines boarded the So San.

~          3          ~

THAT’LL TEACH THE SMUG BASTARDS. North Korea responds to criticism by Canada at the U.N. Human Rights Council by accusing Canada of “racial discrimination, maltreatment of immigrants, psychological and physical mistreatment of native women and children.”

Funny, I was in Canada with my Korean wife and biracial children last summer, and found nothing but stereotypically polite and lovely people, a booming Chinese community in North Toronto, and the best camphor smoked duck I’ve ever tasted. Look, I don’t mean to deny the existence of real atrocities in Canada, but they don’t rise to the same level as gulags or state-enforced mass starvation.

But then, that’s probably because the two official minders assigned to us at the Canadian border made sure we stayed on the approved tourist route between Niagara Falls, the CN Tower, and the Thousand Islands … and far away from the neighborhood where Rob Ford scores his crack.

~          4          ~

THE U.N. COMMISSION OF INQUIRY turns its gaze on China:

A U.N. investigator says he has asked China to grant access to his team as it conducts an inquiry into suspected human rights abuses in neighboring North Korea. In an interview with VOA in Washington Thursday, retired Australian judge Michael Kirby said he hopes his U.N.-mandated Commission of Inquiry will be able to visit China within the next two months.

This will be interesting. Michael Kirby isn’t one to shrink from controversy, and the Chinese government is neither subtle nor sophisticated at responding to its critics.

More COI news here.

~          5          ~

KIM JONG UN’S AUNT, the sister of Ko Youg-Hui, whom Kim Jong Il expropriated from her husband, is said to have defected to the United States.

~          6          ~

NORTH KOREA CONTINUES TO TEST ROCKET ENGINES and work on miniaturizing its nuclear warheads, while the U.S. and South Korean governments do nothing to deter or retard it.

The South Koreans, for all their toughness at the bargaining table, show no sign of having a strategic vision for achieving their objectives, while the U.S. is just trying to pay as little attention to the entire problem as possible. It’s good that the two sides seem to be coordinating their policies, but the coordination of two visionless policies leads to stasis.