Category: Anju Links

THE LIFE IMPRISONMENT ZONE of Camp 14 is described in vivid detail by Shin Dong-Hyuk, who claims to be a survivor (by the way, hat tip to usinkorea for sending this).  Shin’s story of how  another prisoner helped him  survive interrogation in an underground dungeon is particularly touching.  The concern you always have with reports like this is that they come from a single source and can’t be independently confirmed.  Oddly enough, this  report comes by way of the Pattaya...

A HUMANITARIAN SPIRIT that would have seemed unimaginable in Japan half a century ago is taking root: No Fence in North Korea, a Tokyo- based association, started campaigning to release political prisoners from camps in North Korea, where as many as 250,000 people are subjected to torture and summary execution. The group, headed by Shojun Sunagawa, a former Japanese diplomat, held its first meeting in Tokyo yesterday and plans to raise awareness of the camps in North Korea and rescue...

MORE TRAIN WRECKS in North Korea have injured hundreds, according to the Daily NK. Recall that an explosion that may have killed hundreds in the town of Ryongchon in 2006 was triggered by a train accident. SPEAKING OF THINGS THAT SOUND DANGEROUS, I wonder where these North Korean soldiers were getting the scrap iron they were selling to China. Even in the United States, there are idiots who deliberately drive into live-fire zones of U.S. military bases to collect scrap...

NoKo: OPPOSING VIOLENT PROTESTS IS ‘TERRORISM:’ I think they’re referring to this. For the record, here is how North Korea deals with violent protests, and here’s how it deals with peaceful ones. PROTESTORS from Reporters Without Borders disrupted the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony in Athens and interrupted a ChiCom party hack’s speech. The Washington Post has video. Tibetan protestors blocked a nearby road, and several were arrested. In Tibet, the protests continue: In the Chabcha area of Amdo [Hainan/Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous...

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU HAVE TO KILL to get noticed by Amnesty International?  My theory is that it depends on how much you tell people you hate America, but it looks like North Korea may have exceeded Amnesty’s limit.  Let’s hope this turns out to be something sustained. NAMIBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST DENOUNCES North Korea’s human rights record  on the occasion of Kim Yong Nam’s visit: Just about a week or two ago about 15 people were executed publicly...

WE PAY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to get back the remains of our MIA’s, but North Korea lets them lie unclaimed, unmarked, and unmourned. Then again, that’s probably true of plenty of North Koreans today. HARD TIMES FOR BAD PEOPLE: The Washington Post reports from Colombia that the the Marxist, Chavez-backed, coke-dealing FARC guerrillas have suffered serious military setbacks and morale problems. Like Al Qaeda, the FARC has done serious harm to America on its own soil, and also...

BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS: “[D]espite the strong call for government action, South Korea had the largest number of people (41 percent) saying the employers should be allowed to refuse hiring a qualified person because of the person’s race or ethnicity.” The average on this question was 19 percent. Asked if the government should prevent employers from discriminating, 53 percent said yes, below the average 60 percent. [Yonhap, via The Hankyoreh] TIBET’S POLITICAL DEMOGRAPHICS: The Peking Duck explains...

HUMANS  AGAINST HUMAN  RIGHTS!    A group calling itself the Buddhist Human Rights Committee of South Korea isn’t uniformly enthusiastic about human rights: “That the S. Korean government has raised human rights issues of North Korea shows that the government, at the instigation of the U.S., is pursuing a policy of division which fosters mistrust and confrontation between the people of South and North Korea. Denouncing the U.S. as capitalist Yankees who detest and despise human beings, the committee said...

SURVIVOR: SIBERIA: Is this the toughest man alive? Not only did he survive a Siberian logging camp, he escaped from his North Korean overseers, lived off the land, and — most remarkably — survived six marriages. THE NORTH KOREAN FREEDOM COALITION’S LETTER to Lee Myung Bak has hit the Joongang Ilbo. A SENSIBLE APPROACH: Kim Ha-Joong, the nominee to be Unification Minister, has annunciated some of the principles that will guide South Korea’s policy to the North. He referred to...

COST-SHARING ISN’T GOING AWAY as an issue between the United States and South Korea. Ambassador Vershbow continues to make an issue of it even after President Lee’s inauguration. LEAST FAVORED NATION STATUS: North Korea may have the world’s worst dictatorship, but it’s only the second least liked nation in America. Iran, always a strong and deserving contender, is liked the least. A HUMAN RIGHTS DEPARTMENT in the Unification Ministry? I GUESS YOU COULD CALL THAT AN IMPROVEMENT: North Korea, which...

YOU DON’T SAY: Actual North Koreans don’t think the New York Phil’s visit will mean much. “Most people…are busy trying to make ends meet and put food on the table, and what they truly need is rice and money, so they have little freedom to think about music . . . . Rather than sit around and listen to classical music, people have to spend that time to go out and pluck another bunch of weeds to sell or boil...

SUSTAINING THE CHARADE: She can’t pretend that the six-party scheme is working, so Condi Rice wants a timetable for North Korea to comply with its agreements. Had Secretary Rice insisted on and gotten a well-structured deal back in 2005, there would have been some chance to accomplish something, though we should remember that unless non-performance has harsh consequences, deadlines mean little to the North Koreans. Too late, she realizes that the original deal was too amorphous to accomplish much of...

DO NOT MISS NK Econ Watch’s recent postings (here and here) analyzing whether a recent North Korean anti-corruption drive is just another purge or a signal of a policy change. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY? As the regime’s economic power fades, the regime’s once-treasured Kim Jong Il birthday gifts can no longer compete with the items available in the markets. The source relayed the public sentiment as “Goods more valuable than his gifts are all over the place...

“SIX PARTIES, ZERO PROGRESS:” The Weekly Standard aptly describes the current state Bush Administration’s Korea policy: The real state of play, then, is that North Korea will not fully declare, much less disable or dismantle, its nuclear weapons programs, and it has continued to proliferate. To mask this noncompliance, the State Department will talk optimistically of the next phases of diplomacy, continuing to provide North Korea with heavy fuel oil, removing it from the list of state sponsors of terror,...

MY, WHAT BIG BRASS COCONUTS YOU HAVE: North Korea fires missiles toward and over Japan, Japan builds a missile shield, and then North Korea has the chutzpah to say — Their extreme hostile policy toward the DPRK is heightening the hatred of the army and the people of the DPRK toward Japan. Should the Japanese reactionaries persist in their moves for reinvasion, accelerating the building of missile shields targeted against the DPRK, this will entail catastrophic consequences. The Japanese reactionaries...

I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN THEY SEE IT: The New York Times reports that the N.Y. Phil’s concert in Pyongyang will be broadcast live on North Korean TV. I doubt it. North Korea has perfected pulling away the football an instant before Charlie Brown kicks it. That would be as easy as letting the power go out. Then there’s this question: how will anyone really know? Does the fact that something shows on TV in the Koryo Hotel means that North...

MINISTER OF SILLY TALKS: Chris Hill is seen entering the North Korean Embassy in Beijing to try to rescue the deadlocked Agreed Framework 2.0. I’d say hopelessly deadlocked, except that we have no idea what Hill is prepared to offer in exchange for more of Kim Jong Il’s lies. Be very afraid. So far, however, the talks seem to have been unproductive. YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: The Chosun Ilbo links and quotes Pajamas Media’s interview with John McCain. Really,...

MAY IT BE HIS LAST: It’s Kim Jong Il’s birthday: The North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper ran a lengthy editorial full of praise for Kim for making the communist nation an “undefeatable strong country” by strengthening its “political and military force.” “We have to unite and unite again around the leadership, upholding the slogan ‘Let’s safeguard the revolutionary leadership led by Comrade Kim Jong Il with our lives!’” the paper said, according to the North’s Korean Central News Agency. It...