May 4, 2006

Source: First N. Korean Refugees to Arrive in U.S. Within Days

Via a trusted source, the first group of North Korean refugees will arrive at an undisclosed U.S. airport, escorted by personnel from an American embassy in Southeast Asia, within the next few days. There will be six refugees in the initial groups. Larger numbers are expected to follow in the next few weeks. All are currently under the protection of a U.S. consular facility in Southeast Asia. Among those expected to arrive later are concentration camp survivors. The refugees all...

Categories Refugees/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 4, 2006

Battle at the Hump: You Can Keep the Place

“During the May 1 North-South Workers’ Rally in Pyongyang, the workers of North and South agreed to unify to carry out the anti-American struggle”¦ The center of that struggle with the United States is Daechu-ri, Pyeongtaek. — Kim Tae-Il, “General Secretary” of the Korea’s largest labor group, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions As predicted, South Korean police have cleared out a group of several hundred local area residents and violent anti-American activists — many from the radical KCTU — who...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 4, 2006

NGO Warns of New Famine in N. Korea

In the wake of North Korea’s decisions to kick out the World Food Program and reassert state control over food distribution, Human Rights Watch is warning that North Korea can’t feed its people, and that attempts to reconstitute its broken and discriminatory Public Distribution System could trigger a new famine. “Only a decade ago, similar policies led to the famine that killed anywhere from 580,000 to more than 3 million,” the group said in a statement released to reporters in...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/U.S. & Korea
May 4, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 38: Chairman Lee’s Little Red Book of Quotations

[Update and Clarification: Non-geek readers with lives may not realize that Lee Jong-Seok is actually South Korea’s Minister of Unification. One reader reasonably assumed that he was a North Korean, which is certainly an understandable assumption, based on some of the things Lee has been saying this week.] “[Kim Jong Il is] one of the figures in the North we can get [an] agreement from and who can make proper decisions. . . . The two [Kim and South Korean...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 4, 2006

Refugees Update

[Update: Richardson picks up several other reports to the same effect. Things seem to be moving, and you have to wonder what could happen next now that the word has started to spread.] The Chosun Ilbo reports fresh signs of progress that the State Department is finally aboard the love train on North Korean refugees. A group of North Korean defectors in Southeast Asia is reportedly seeking asylum in the United States. In an interview with Korea’s Yonhap News, a...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/North Korea/Refugees/Southeast Asia/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 3, 2006

Union Thugs Attack Riot Policemen’s Mothers

[Update: More KCTU follies: “We will unite with the workers of the North to fight against the U.S.” Except these workers, I presume.] The 51-year-old mother of a riot policeman is being treated in the hospital for a serious head injury after being pushed to the ground by union demonstrators while she and a group of other parents were monitoring a protest rally in South Jeolla province, police said. The group demanded an apology yesterday from the Korean Confederation of...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
May 2, 2006

Jay Lefkowitz Is Right About Kaesong

The debate about South Korea’s role in (not) improving human rights in the North seems to intensify by the hour. Freedom House is the latest to testify for the prosecution. If you believe the latest report from the Chosun Ilbo, the State Department is reeling from the vitriolic South Korean reaction to U.S. Human Rights Envoy Jay Lefkowitz over labor conditions in North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Park: Another U.S. government insider also said the controversial piece by Lefkowitz had not...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Uncategorized/Washington Views
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
May 2, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 37: Seoul’s Scorched Earth Retreat on Human Rights

At a comment to an earlier post by James, I listed the following as one of the accomplishments of last week’s North Korean Freedom Week: South Korea has never been more diplomatically isolated in regard to the aforementioned issues, plus on Kaesong, where it sounds increasingly desperate. South Korea’s government is giving some preliminary confirmation of that analysis, in a characteristically disordered way. The first reaction was a tantrum that almost merited a “Death of an Alliance” post. The Korean...

Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 1, 2006

Has a U.S. Embassy Accepted NK Defectors?

[Update: link fixed, thanks!] Via the Chosun Ilbo: Some five or six North Korean defectors are reportedly preparing to enter the U.S. under the protection of its embassy in a Southeast Asian country as Washington prepares to make good on a pledge to grant asylum to more refugees from the Stalinist country. Sources in the U.S. government and Congress said Thursday as soon as procedural matters with the Asian country are resolved, the North Koreans will make their way to...

Categories Activism/Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 1, 2006

What’s the Deal With Kim Jong Nam?

I found this report interesting on two levels. First, a certain “East Asian intelligence agency” is either running a disinformation campaign or needs to shoot whoever leaked a good source of intel on North Korean kremlinology, specifically, “occasional drunken conversations that last more than an hour.” Isn’t that always the best kind, too? Second, the role of Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Kim “Goofy” Jong Nam, whom I’d though had landed safely on the ash-heap, looks like it’s back in...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/North Korea
May 1, 2006

DailyNK Makes Newsweek, Sort of

Newsweek’s latest article on South Korea’s “New Right” is a must-read (ht to the Marmot). The New Right, in remarkable parallel to the rise of American neocons, has sprung up in reaction to these changes. They promote American-style capitalism, denounce the type of totalitarian socialism found in North Korea and–unlike traditional GNP conservatives–advocate a more open world view that transcends narrow nationalism.

Categories Democracy/Korean Politics