May 8, 2012

Nobel Prize Winning President Ignores World’s Worst Human Rights Violations

Most of the people reading this blog probably have no idea who Robert King is, and that is a sad comment in itself.  King’s title is Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, a position that was created back in 2004, under a mostly forgotten and disregarded law called the North Korean Human Rights Act. In the Bush Administration, the office was initially filled by Jay Lefkowitz, a well-meaning man who initially came to Bush’s attention for his opposition...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights
May 7, 2012

Refugees: Thousands Die at Jeungsan Prison, N. Korea

It’s been about a month since I attended an event here in Washington for the publication of the new edition of The Hidden Gulag, a report that documents North Korea’s prison camp system in agonizing detail with witness testimony and satellite imagery. The report added many pages of valuable testimony and data to our knowledge of these camps, which are probably the worst human rights violation anywhere in this world today. Yet almost as soon as the report was published,...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
May 4, 2012

Anju, May 4, 2012

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Our U.N. Ambassador’s proposed response to North Korea’s missile launch was to add 42 companies to the sanctions list. China proposed two, and we compromised at … three. All of those entities — Green Pine, Amroggang Development Bank, and Tanchon Commercial Bank were already sanctioned by Treasury for their involvement in WMD proliferation. Back when John Bolton was at the U.N., the Security Council was passing tough and potentially effective resolutions against North Korea. People bitched...

Categories Anju Links
May 3, 2012

The Chen Guangcheng Disgrace

By all accounts, Wang Lijun, who was Bo Xilai’s police in Chongqing, was also a thug. Under the right circumstances, he might have been eligible for relief under the Convention Against Torture, but as a persecutor of others, he would have had a difficult job proving his eligibility for asylum. It was disturbing to see our consulate in Chengdu seem to snooker Wang back into the loving arms of the ChiComs, but it wasn’t tragic. Wang might have provided valuable...

Categories Anju Links/China
May 2, 2012

Kim Jong Il’s Testament Leaked?

Say it with me: this report could not be verified independently. This document could easily be as fake as the Hitler diaries, but it does make for interesting reading: These instructions casually referred to Kim family business, indicating that ‘the teachings should be executed by Kim Kyong-Hui’ (Kim Jong-Il’s sister), that ‘Kim Kyong-Hui and Kim Jong-Un should take care of the family,’ and that ‘Kim Kyong-Hui should handle management of all assets inside and outside the country.’ Foreign media often...

Categories Anju Links/Kremlinology
May 1, 2012

Anju, May 1, 2012

PRESIDENT OBAMA, in a joint news conference with the visiting Prime Minister of Japan, says North Korea’s provocation are a sign of weakness, and this: “The old pattern of provocation that then gets attention and somehow insists on the world purchasing good behavior from them, that pattern is broken,” Obama said in a joint news conference with Noda at the White House. Let’s check back on that after November, when Wendy Sherman runs to the Oval Office with the blueprint...

Categories Anju Links
April 30, 2012

In Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, China Helps a Few Get Richer

Who would have thought that a reporter could go to Pyongyang and bring home some news in spite of the minders? The economy of the isolated North — where famine killed hundreds of thousands in the 1990s — is widely believed to be battered and stuttering, but the luxury shops of the showcase capital tell a different story. According to expatriates living in the city, there are ever more cars on the roads and traffic in the centre is increasingly...

Categories China/Sanctions
April 29, 2012

What an Interesting Coincidence: China Arms N. Korea, We Arm Taiwan!

Shortly after the disclosure that China sold missile transporters to North Korea, in violation of UNSCR 1695, 1718, and 1874, the White House decides to reconsider a decision about weapons sales to Taiwan: Taiwan said it welcomed the pledge by the United States to reconsider a proposed sale of new fighter jets to the island, a defence deal likely to upset Beijing. Taiwan has been pushing for the purchase of 66 new US-made F-16 fighter jets, but the deal has...

Categories China & Korea/Missiles/Proliferation/Taiwan
April 27, 2012

Anju, April 27, 2012

EX-MILOSEVIC PROSECUTOR SAYS U.N. SHOULD “PUT NORTH KOREA ON TRIAL:” Unfortunately, this would require Security Council approval, so the precise means and moment of failure are completely predictable. This isn’t to say that the effort is unworthy. It would make a great thought experiment: The situation in North Korea is a clarion call for the Security Council and other U.N. members to show courage in a case of political complexity. There can be few places in the world where the...

Categories Anju Links
April 25, 2012

Anju, April 25, 2012

THE ECONOMIST on North Korea’s gulag: Perhaps the scale of the atrocity numbs moral outrage. Certainly it is easier to lampoon the regime as ruled by extraterrestrial freaks than to grapple with the suffering it inflicts (The Economist is guilty). Yet murder, enslavement, forcible population transfers, torture, rape: North Korea commits nearly every atrocity that counts as a crime against humanity. A world that places any value on the idea of universal human rights should no longer overlook North Korea’s...

Categories Anju Links
April 25, 2012

AP Photographers Finalists for the Walter Duranty Prize

Via the AP’s exclusive reporting from Pyongyang, we learn today that North Koreans are happy people who love to dance and sing, and who have lots of bread to eat at picnics! So what’s all this nonsense about starvation and food aid I keep hearing? As you can can see, no one needs food aid here, except when they do! I feel sorry for the less fortunate people who live in places without their own memorandum of understanding with the...

Categories AP Watch/Famine & Food Aid
April 24, 2012

So is it terrorism this time?

North Korea threatens to destroy Seoul and reduce its elected government “‘to ashes’ in three or four minutes,” apparently for “defaming” its menacing Kim Il Sung birthday parade: North Korea’s military Monday threatened “special actions” soon to turn parts of the South Korean capital to ashes, accusing Seoul’s conservative government of defaming its leadership. The North has for months been criticising the South’s President Lee Myung-Bak in extreme terms and threatening “sacred war” over perceived insults. There have been no...

Categories Anju Links/Terrorism (NK)
April 23, 2012

See Kim Run!

It’s very rare that an election in any country is anything but a choice between the lesser of two evils. For a brief moment at least, South Korea’s election will be an exception to that dreary rule, because Kim Moon Soo has said he will run for president. Years ago, before he was elected as Governor of Kyonggi Province, I profiled Kim here and here. On Saturday morning, while conversing with my wife, I was lamenting that Park Geun Hye,...

Categories Korean Politics
April 23, 2012

AP Exclusive: Another Great Moment in North Korean Agriculture!

What’s all this I keep hearing from fringe organizations like the World Food Program that North Korea isn’t agriculturally self-sufficient? To mark what would have been Kim’s 100th birthday, thousands came to central Pyongyang to view elaborate displays, mostly of the violet orchid Kimilsungia named in his honor and the red begonia Kimjongilia named for his son and successor, Kim Jong Il. The Kimilsungia, named after Kim by the late Indonesian dictator Sukarno, has become an integral part of the...

Categories AP Watch/Humor/Satire