It is amazing to me that people continue to think humanitarian aid will be distributed in North Korea transparently and to the people who really need it:
Kenneth Bae, the president of Nehemia Global Initiative, speaks during a session of the International Forum for One Korea in Seoul Dragon City, Thursday. From left are Ahn Chan-il, head of the World North Korea Research Center; Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea; Kang Young-sik, the secretary-general of humanitarian aid group Korean Sharing Movement (KSM); Lee Young-jong, the director at Unification Research Center of JoongAng Daily; Bae; Kim Hun-il, the secretary-general of Unitas; and Joo Hyun-lip, head of projects at the North Korea Service for Peace Foundation. / Courtesy of Global Peace Foundation
Humanitarian aid for North Korea should continue to better connect the people in the country with the outside world despite heightened missile threats by its regime, civic activists said Thursday.
“North Koreans should be informed that the outside world actually cares about them,” said Kenneth Bae, president of the Nehemia Global Initiative who was once detained in a North Korean labor camp. “Helping North Koreans open their minds to the outside world is critical to prepare for a unified Korea.”
Kang Young-sik, secretary-general of the humanitarian aid group the Korean Sharing Movement (KSM), added, “Humanitarian assistance still does the role of enhancing North Koreans’ human rights. As long as transparency of the distribution process is secured, it should be further facilitated.”
These views were shared during the International Forum for One Korea sponsored by the Global Peace Foundation (GPF) and the U.S.-based think tank the EastWest Institute. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but any aid to North Korea will be considered tribute to Kim Jong-un. Additionally every dollar of aid to North Korea is one more dollar they can invest in their military.
Is it just me or does anyone else find it distasteful that someone who willfully allowed himself to become detained in North Korea and become a bargaining chip for the Kim regime is now trying to profit off of his infamy?:
Kenneth Bae, a U.S. citizen who was detained in North Korea for two years before his release last November, plans to tell his story in a book.
W Publishing Group, an imprint of the Christian publishing firm Thomas Nelson, says “Not Forgotten: The True Story of My Imprisonment in North Korea” will be released next spring.
Bae, a Christian missionary and pastor, has family in the Seattle area but moved to China in 2006. He began leading tours to North Korea in 2010. He was arrested in 2012 while leading a tour group to a special economic zone and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for alleged anti-government activities. [Washington Post]
The New York Times has a long article published about the release of the two American detainees in North Korea this weekend:
North Korea released two Americans who had been accused of trying to subvert the secretive state, after the director of national intelligence for the United States flew to the country on a secret mission and left on Saturday with the men aboard his aircraft.
The plane carrying the Americans — Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller — and the national intelligence director, James R. Clapper Jr., landed at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Wash., about 9:15 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday.
Mr. Bae walked off the plane and into the embrace of relatives on the tarmac. Mr. Miller, his head shaved, sprinted down the steps into the arms of his parents, who were waiting for him at the bottom.
Securing the releases was an unusual role for Mr. Clapper, the nation’s most senior intelligence official, whose job is to coordinate policy and operations among the nation’s 16 spy agencies. Gruff, blunt-speaking and seen by many in the Obama administration as a throwback to the Cold War, the retired general is an unlikely diplomat but, in the words of one American official, “perfect for the North Koreans.” [New York Times]
You can read more at the link, but the release of all the American detainees in North Korea has got me wondering what was the backroom agreement for their release? Could the Obama administration be trying to copy the Bush administration by trying to manufacture a foreign policy success with North Korea at the end of their Presidency? The Agreed Framework 2.0 deal that the Bush administration agreed to with North Korea was predictably a failure and I do not see any change in the nature of the North Korean regime that would indicate any future deal would be any different. Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
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