Category: North Korea

North Korea Reportedly Kidnaps Son of Jang Song-taek Aid in France

| November 21, 2014

It looks like the North Koreans are still up to their old ways by kidnapping people in foreign countries:

A North Korean college student in Paris has been missing for more than two weeks, sources here said Wednesday, amid speculation that agents from the North are attempting to forcibly take him back to the communist nation.

The student, only identified by his surname Han, is a son of an aide to Jang Song-thaek, the once powerful uncle of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un. Jang was executed in December last year on treason charges.

Han’s father is known to have been purged recently as part of the Kim regime’s continued work to clear the remnants of the Jang era.

A senior official at Han’s school told Yonhap News Agency that, “I asked other students and faculty members about Han’s whereabouts but nobody has seen him at least for the past 15 days.”

Local police came to the school last week in search of Han, added the official.

A source said Han had been picked up by North Korean agents dispatched to Paris.

He dramatically escaped while being taken to an airport and he is now staying at a certain location, the source said.

If confirmed true, the case could cause a diplomatic rift between North Korea and France.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I really hope the French government takes a harsh stance against this type of activity in their country by foreign agents.

James Clapper Reveals Details of His Trip to North Korea

| November 18, 2014

Interesting interview in the Wall Street Journal from US intelligence chief James Clapper in regards to his trip to North Korea to get the two detained Americans released:

At 3 p.m. last Saturday, a North Korean official went to the State Guesthouse in Pyongyang to instruct U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and his small team to pack their bags. On a secret mission to secure the freedom of two Americans imprisoned by the regime, Mr. Clapper thought at that moment that he might be sent home empty-handed.

Instead, he emerged from the trip with the Americans in his custody. He also got a glimpse into a closed country the U.S. has for years struggled to understand. He is the only U.S. intelligence official ever invited to North Korea.

Mr. Clapper revealed details of the trip in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The North Koreans seemed disappointed when he arrived without a broader peace overture in hand, he said. At the same time, they didn’t ask for anything specific in return for the prisoners’ release.

U.S. officials say the mission, which few officials within the Obama administration knew about until Mr. Clapper was returning, wasn’t meant to signal any change in the U.S.’s approach to the reclusive North.

Mr. Clapper’s earlier conversations with older North Korean officials on his one-day trip had been contentious. He heard what he called a far more “tempered” tone from a younger North Korean whom he described as an interlocutor and who accompanied him on the 40-minute drive back to the airport at the trip’s end. He said the interlocutor expressed regret that the North and South remained split and asked Mr. Clapper if he’d return to Pyongyang. (Wall Street Journal)

You can read more at the link, but Clapper’s revelation about the younger North Korean in the article I am surprised by because it could get this person in trouble with his superiors if he was not supporting the regime narrative.

I also found of interest the fact that Clapper never spoke with Bae or Miller while flying back on the airplane. I bet he was probably disgusted with what they had done to put the U.S. Government in such a position to get them released.

North Korea Apologists Attack Witness Testimony of North Korean Defector

| November 17, 2014

The interview with North Korean defector Yeon-mi Park I featured here on ROK Drop last month.  Here testimony ended up getting a lot of international attention and now the North Koreans have brought out their biggest western apologists to claim she is a liar in regards to her testimony of seeing dead bodies in North Korean rivers:

Dead North Korean refugee in the Tumen River.

[T]here may have been floating bodies in rivers in the terrible crisis years of the 90s when 600,000 people starved to death according to an estimate by the U.N. official who was then supervising foreign aid during the famine in the country.” (Abt’s sentences are as long as tapeworms.)

Bassett accuses Park of “sensationaliz[ing] the narrative to make everybody think that, you know, this is the ‘90s North Korea. It’s not.”

That is to say, Abt and Bassett insist that Park must be lying because there haven’t been “any” (Abt’s word) bodies found in North Korean rivers since 2000. Well, now…. If only some journalist who would rather inform his readers about a serious story than make a carnival sideshow of it would do some minimal research and conclusively establish just who’s really full of what here:  [One Free Korea]

You can read the rest of One Free Korea’s take down of the North Korean apologists at the link, but it is just amazing to me these apologists make such claims when pictures of bodies floating along the border with China have been quite common in the South Korean media for the past decade.  I highly recommend reading the comments over at One Free Korea that include a response from the journalist and one of the North Korean apologists.  Not one of them was able to address One Free Korea’s specific criticisms.

Tweet of the Day: Kang Chol-hwan on Situation in North Korea

| November 16, 2014

North Korean Near Slave Labor Being Used to Construct World Cup Sites

| November 14, 2014

The North Koreans have been using near slave labor for decades now in places like the Kaesong Industrial Complex or Siberian logging sites. So this latest news is nothing new:

Thousands of migrant labourers from North Korea are toiling for years on construction sites in Qatar for virtually no pay – including on the vast new metropolis that is the centrepiece of the World Cup – in what may amount to “state-sponsored slavery”.

According to testimonies from workers and defectors, labourers from the reclusive state said they receive almost no salaries in person while in the Gulf emirate during the three years they typically spend there.

They work in the expectation they will collect their earnings when they return to North Korea, but according to a series of testimonies from defectors and experts, workers receive as little as 10% of their salaries when they go home, and some may receive nothing. One North Korean worker at a construction site in central Doha told the Guardian: “We are here to earn foreign currency for our nation.” (The Guardian)

You can read more at the link.

Shin Dong-hyuk Advocates for International Inspections of North Korean Gulags

| November 11, 2014

Former North Korean prison camp escapee and now human rights activist Shin Dong-hyuk recently had an editorial published on the CNN website that provides this idea in regards to holding North Korea accountable for reported human rights violations:

Shin Dong-hyuk

The North Korean dictatorial regime should not just emptily deny that these political prison camps exist. If they are truly honorable and fair they should immediately allow an international inspection delegation, comprised of myself and organizations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, or the United Nations, to be able to conduct on-the-ground visitations to the political prison camps. These delegations must include political prison survivors like myself and other defectors.

READ: Defectors describe horror, heartbreak of labor camps

Only recently did they concede that “labor detention centers” exist, but solely for the incarcerated to have their lives improved “through their mentality and to look on their wrongdoings.”  [CNN]

You can read more at the link, but the concern I have about Shin’s idea is that the North Koreans would empty these camps through executions before allowing anyone to inspect them.  So this idea is not viable.  However, Shin also offers the idea of the international community preventing the free travel of Kim regime family members.  This actually seems more viable though many countries like China and Russia will likely not enforce it.  Does anyone else have any ideas on how to address North Korean human rights violations?

Why Did the North Koreans Release the Two American Detainees?

| November 9, 2014

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?

Tweet of the Day: Fatman in A Lab Coat

| November 9, 2014

Tweet of the Day: Fatman Photo Shoot

| November 8, 2014

Tweet of the Day: Fatman Feeling Better?

| November 7, 2014