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Category: Democracy

October 23, 2006

First Act, Last Laugh, Part 2

I have a message  for whomever tried to stop “Yoduk Story” from playing in Seoul:  read, weep, and know that you have failed. “Whomever,” according to producer Jung Sung-San and the daily Chosun Ilbo (which backed YS), is  someone  in the South Korean government.  Eventually, the South Korean government got around to denying this.  Personally, I wasn’t there.  All I can say is that the accusation is  consistent with other things the South Korean government has done to  cover for...

Categories Censorship/Human Rights/Korean Society
October 1, 2006

Everybody Riot!

This week, U.S. forces picked up or put down (I use the term in the veterinary sense) 20 members of an al-Qaeda cell in Baghdad.  It’s always unfortunate when terrorists choose to take shelter in civilian neighborhoods; worse yet when some inhabitants choose to shelter them, thus endangering their families and their neighbors.  As a consequence, a woman and child who didn’t have to die, died.  Observe the reaction of some: Angry men at the scene held up a color...

Categories Censorship/Terrorism/Iraq/Unintended Humor/WTF?
September 29, 2006

Thugwatch

Now, they’re intimidating the opposition press: Chosun Ilbo honorary chairman Bang Woo-young (78) was attacked by two men in broad daylight on his way home from the family graveyard in Uijeongbu. After an event commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the death of former Chosun Ilbo president Bang Eung-mo on Friday, his car stopped to enter a two-lane road ahead and two men in their 20s approached it and smashed the rear window with bricks. S’pose there will be any arrests? ...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/The Fifth Column
September 23, 2006

Waiting for the Ceausescu Moment

History has a strange habit of pivoting on the tempers and moods of ordinary people whom it swallows and forgets, and one of those people is the first angry man in a crowd of thousands in Bucharest, on December 20, 1989.  For some reason, he acted on his urge to shout  blasphemous words at  Europe’s most dreaded tryant.  There were others in that crowd whose anger overcame their fear, and those others also shouted out their discontent.  The tyrant failed...

Categories Democracy/NK Economics/Resistance
September 11, 2006

A 9/11 Demurrer

Every year, I have the same debate with myself: whether the ferocity of my thoughts about this day renders them unfit for public consumption. This year, absent the time or desire to write, save, and then delete my true thoughts, there is just one original thought I will add to so many others today — that for me, 9/11 is at least half the reason I began blogging about this topic. Since then, my greatest fear has been that Kim...

Categories Democracy/North Korea/Terrorism (NK)/Uncategorized
September 3, 2006

Breaking the Blockade

[Update: Andrei Lankov has a must-read piece on radio broadcasting in the Asia Times Online.] Where there is demand, there will be a supply, and the trickle of alternative information to North Korea, though small, shows signs of persistence and of having a receptive market. In addition to Radio Free NK and Open Radio for North Korea, there is now a Japan-based broadcaster, Shiokaze. The DailyNK interviews its director. Although their original focus is on sending messages to Japanese abductees,...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Censorship/Democracy/Japan & Korea/Reconstruction/Refugees/Resistance/Uncategorized
August 10, 2006

The “C” Word

When I see things like this: Sixteen former defense ministers and nine retired generals on Thursday expressed dismay at President Roh Moo-hyun’s remarks in an interview Wednesday that suggested Korea can withdraw wartime control of its troops from the U.S. any time. … and contrast them with things like this: In an interview with the Yonhap news agency, the president said, “The South Korean military’s capability is sufficient and it can get U.S. military support.” The remarks pour oil on...

Categories An Alliance?/Democracy/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 13, 2006

A TKL Re-Run: Winning the Information War

Richardson’s writings on the maintenance of the Cult of Kim, and Matt‘s latest comment on my post on recent acts of resistance inside North Korea turn my thoughts back to the question of what the outside world could do to influence events inside North Korea. The answer: at least something, although the impact is hard to guess before we make a concerted effort. I previously posted my thoughts on the subject at NKZone, in October 2004, and republish them here...

Categories Democracy/NK Economics/NK Military
June 28, 2006

Getting What They Pay For

No, I don’t believe that a government gagging its own state-funded think tanks through the employee disciplinary process is a freedom of speech issue. Call this one a quality of speech issue. A government is an inherently political creature, and if it wants to exert political control over the publicly expressed views of its officials, then so be it. There’s always the private sector…. But you have to wonder exactly what a government is getting for its money if it...

Categories Censorship/Korean Politics
June 27, 2006

The Law of the Street

Look what happened yesterday when the Korean government tried to engage its citizens in public discourse on a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. The hearing, organized by the Trade Ministry, had just begun at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry building in central Seoul when the protesters interrupted a speech by Kim Jong-hoon, Korea’s chief negotiator, in its opening moments. Catcalls rained down on Mr. Kim, and several protesters approached the podium, scuffling with government officials who...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
June 27, 2006

Report: N. Koreans Will Allow Lefkowitz into Kaesong

If true, interesting. He should be prepared for an ambush before dozens of cameras, since recent visits make it apparent that North Korean guides at Kaesong are pre-loaded with approved harangues. The disadvantage of those is that the haranguer can’t adapt flexibly to questions like, “have you ever wanted to wander the streets of Rome, eat a mango, hear reggae, drive, or vote against the President?” Still, Lefkowitz will be set up as the overdog, and should not underestimate the...

Categories Appeasement/Democracy/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
June 7, 2006

Yodok Story Coming to Washington

Confirmed by a reliable source: the U.S. debut for Yodok Story will be Wednesday, September 27th at the National Theater. There will be seven shows, through Sunday, and the plans (still not final) are to move to New York and the West Coast, probably L.A., after that. Freedom House and Sen. Sam Brownback both helped bring the production here. I had a chance to meet the director, very briefly, in April. My impression was that he’s physically very small, stylishly...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Human Rights/Korean Society
May 28, 2006

The Dictator on My Bar Napkin

Two recent news stories again raise the one of the most difficult questions free societies face: what role should governments play in limiting the expression of views that are tasteless, offensive, or which might even be lies designed to strip that society of its freedom? Let’s begin with some context. If the first casualty of prosperity is taste, a corollary to this rule is that the depth of affliction is proportional to the speed with which a society achieves prosperity....

Categories Anti-Americanism/Censorship/Democracy/History/Korean Education/Korean Society/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 14, 2006

Links of Interest

Richardson has already linked it, but I want to add is that this one could be very, very important to what happens in North Korea. The United States is considering economic sanctions on Chinese banks which have business transactions with North Korean companies allegedly implicated in the development or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a news report said Sunday. ================= Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde,...

Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Censorship/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Democracy/Diplomacy/History/Human Rights/Korean History/Korean Law/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 9, 2006

Roh Moo Hyun, Imperialist Flunkeyist Lackey!

Remember the good old days when only right-wing regimes would call out the Army to battle protestors or haul North Korean sympathizers before military courts? Chew this one slowly. You owe it to yourself to savor this delectable irony. President Roh Moo-Hyun (of the squishy left) is marshaling the power of the state against the radical unions and students (of the bomb-throwing left), many of whom undoubtedly contributed to this razor-thin election in 2002. It seems so very long ago...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Democracy/Korean Law/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 7, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 3: Reestablishing the Rule of Law

[Updated below; S. Korean prosecutors are seeking to court-martial civilian demonstrators, and I’m not entirely comfortable with that.] There are some encouraging signs that the government and Korean society are losing patience with violent protests. Violent attacks on U.S. troops in Korea are old news, of course, but now that the red guards have attacked Korean troops (and even the mothers of riot policemen) the soldiers’ parents have had it. Have a look at the ineptitute and weakness of this...

Categories Democracy/Korean Law/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea
May 2, 2006

The Forked Tongue of Lee Jong-Seok, Part 2

“At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has been starving to death,” Lee said. — UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok (ht to Richardson) In sum, although the period of high famine has passed, North Korea continues to experience chronic food shortages that are hitting hard at an underemployed and unemployed urban working class in particular. . . . Moreover, given the political stratification of North Korea and the inability of the WFP to...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Censorship/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/North Korea/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views