Category: North Korea

This story about North Korean diplomats not sending their children back to North Korea as virtual hostages is turning out to be quite interesting.  OFK and DPRK Studies have great postings on the possible reasons and ramifications for this. 

Well maybe this explains the high quality juche cartoons coming out of North Korea now a days:

North Korea is well known for its nuclear ambitions. But it is relatively little-known fact that the country is a hidden outsourcing mecca for the international animation industry, producing such well-known movies as The Lion King.

Even while North Korea has been under US-led sanctions that include a ban on commercial trade, several US animated films have allegedly been outsourced to the country, according to Beijing-based businessman Jing Kim, who says he was involved with American animation producer Nelson Shin’s filmmaking business in the Stalinist pariah state.

(…)

After seven years of cooperation with North Korea’s state-owned SEK Studio, employing as many as 500 North Korean animators out of its staff of 1,500, and 18 visits to the country, Shin finally completed Empress Chung in 2005, a famous Korean folk tale about a daughter who sacrifices herself to a sea monster to restore her blind father’s eyesight. It was the first cartoon jointly produced by the two Koreas.

Any guesses on how the animators were paid?  Very predictably:

Kim said he didn’t pay the North Korean artists in person for their work. Rather, he wired US$170,000 to North Korea directly for their 2006 assignments.

If true, this is another example of the outsourcing of slave labor from North Korea. 

HT: reader

This article from the Asia Sentinel is a must read for anyone remotely interested in the North Korean counterfeiting of US currency. The reporters travel to China to see if they find North Korean supernotes. This is what they found:

These days there is also a reasonable facsimile of another famous American crossing the river in the opposite direction  Benjamin Franklin. If you’ve got the connections here, and they aren’t hard to find, you can easily encounter Franklin’s enigmatic face for about US$50 on a reasonable copy of a US $100 bill. These presumably Pyongyang-printed Big-Head Benjamins are known worldwide as “supernotes.

We know. We bought one.

So where did these reporters buy these supernotes, right in the open of course:

Our supernote purchase  $100, US Series 2003, serial number DI03120777A (acquired strictly for purposes of this story) took place literally within the shadow of the China Bank of Communications. The bank is directly across the street from the Dandong office of China Customs, which in turn is next to a People’s Liberation Army facility as is the Dandong Police headquarters. Coincidentally, the transaction also took place on the afternoon of Kim’s 65th birthday, February 16.

So where did the supernotes come from you may ask?:

At first he said he got them accidentally from various foreign tourists who were changing them for yuan. Were the tourists from North Korea? He shrugged and smiled and said perhaps some had relatives or friends over there across the mighty Yalu. But after asking if he could sell one or two more, he quickly left on his bicycle after taking a brief mobile phone call.

Make sure you read the whole article, very interesting read about this illegal activity happening quite openly in China with little effort by Chinese authorities to stop it. Maybe it is time someone starts printing Chinese yuan to start spreading around and see how the Chinese government likes that.

HT: Simon World

UPDATE #2: You can watch the video here.

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UPDATE #1: YouTube has pulled Inside North Korea from their site due to copyright reasons. For those interested you can click the link to buy the Inside North Korea DVD from Amazon.com.

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Living overseas I wasn’t able to watch Lisa Ling’s National Geographic Explorer’s, Inside North Korea, but fortunately Nomad posted links to two You Tube postings here and here of the show. Lisa Ling travels with a Nepalese eye doctor and secretly films what she can of life inside North Korea during her trip. It was amazing to watch the eye doctor restore eye sight to people who had been blind for years and they immediately walk up to pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il to thank them for giving back their eye sight without a word of thanks to the Nepalese doctor. The most chilling scene was when one old woman pledged to work harder in the salt mines for the glory of Kim Jong-il for returning her eye sight.

Lisa Ling rightfully points out how a system of fear governs the country. If these people didn’t give thanks to the Kim regime they and their whole families would have been sent to one of the massive concentration camps that Lisa Ling spent plenty of time covering. The funniest portion was when Lisa Ling visited a North Korean family and asked them if there was anything wrong with Kim Jong-il. The North Korean interpreter kept pretending he didn’t understand the question. Overall, definitely a must see documentary about life in North Korea. I’m definitely going to purchase a copy of the complete program once it is available on DVD.

Looking on the National Geographic webpage for purchasing information, I began reading through some of the comments left by people about the show. I really shouldn’t have been surprised about this, but there was people comparing North Korea to what America is today under President Bush. There were also people condemning Lisa Ling for filming the show because the Nepalese doctor could never be allowed back into North Korea to help more people and the North Korean minders with them would probably be sent to labor camps for not clamping down on the filming. I for one thank Lisa Ling for presenting an accurate picture of North Korea which is a personality cult that many people just don’t understand. It is one thing to read about it in a book or newspaper, but when you see what North Korea really is staring you right in the face on television, it is hard to ignore.

You can read more over at OFK.

Robert Neff from the Marmot’s Hole has posted an interesting article in the Korea Times about the 1982 defection of PFC Joseph White to North Korea.  PFC White would remain in North Korea for only three more years until he supposedly died while drowning in a river.  The reason for PFC White’s defection has been a matter of controversy for years.

Here is the theory from the article that I would put money on:

There is another theory. One American soldier claims that White fell in love with a North Korean agent in a club in the village of Bongilchon and that she disappeared on the same day White did. Allegedly she either guided him to the North Korean positions or she met him in the North.

PFC White was an introvert and when he enlisted in the military and was posted in Korea; he became a big fan of the ville culture.  PFC White probably never had such attention showered on from women before and enjoyed the attention from the Korean women in the ville so much that he even wrote letters home to his mom about it.  I don’t think it is too far fetched of an idea that a woman is the reason he defected.

I have seen soldiers do many stupid and criminal things due to juicy girls in the ville, so the possibility that PFC White defected due to juicy girl is definitely plausible to me.  Anyway interesting read and I encourage everyone to check it out.

Note: You can read more GI Flashbacks articles by clicking on the below link: 

It looks like some sectors of Korean society are getting desperate to support the Kumgang resort in North Korea:

Hana Bank is trying to fix up 20 of its employees between the ages of 29 and 33 with 20 single South Korean men selected by a top matchmaking agency in the country, an official said.

"This trip will offer them a chance to easily meet men," said Yang Jae-hyeok in charge of the bank’s division offering life services for employees.

"As our bank tries to help our employees balance their work and personal lives, we are putting more effort into improving their personal life," Yang said.

Hana Bank will pay half the fare for its employees for the two-day trip this weekend to a mountain resort in North Korea run by an affiliate of the South’s Hyundai Group, which more than a million South Koreans have already visited.

If anyone actually gets married due to this, they can tell their kids in the future how they met in North Korea by paying Kim Jong-il money to further subsidize his regime’s ability to develop nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and to wage war against South Korea all the while ensuring 250,000 people remain in concentration camps and that the people of North Korea remain in utter poverty.  Yes, a very romantic time indeed.  Who wouldn’t want to sign up for this?

HT: FM

How?  By banning Japanese cars of course:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has ordered most Japanese cars in the communist country seized in a sign of his growing discontent with Japan imposing severe sanctions after the North’s detonation of a nuclear bomb last October, informed sources said Monday.

"After he paid tribute to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace on Jan. 1, he saw a Japanese car that wasn’t working blocking the road and gave a National Defense Committee edict to seize Japanese cars," a source familiar with the North Korean situation said, asking to remain anonymous. North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il-sung’s embalmed body lies in the memorial in Pyongyang.

I’m willing to bet Hyundai’s ownership wishes they could do this in South Korea as well.  Notice the wording "most Japanese cars" which probably means all Japanese cars accept all those that Kim Jong-il and the rest of his mafia regime owns.

HT: Japan Probe

According to this book, life in the North Korean army isn’t so bad:

Contrary to rumors of brutality among the ranks, according to a book by a North Korean defector, there is no corporal punishment and detention within the North Korean Army.

Instead, ranked officers draw a square on the practice grounds and have the rule-breakers do a "formal march" (the North Korean parade walk) along the outline of the square. The military detention system was also abolished in the 1960s. In other cases, a soldier who disobeys the orders of his/her squad leader will be pressed to assume responsibility for their action, and then faces a ‘mutual verbal critique’ during the daily assembly.

The book, Would North Korean Soldiers Have Hardtacks? by Lee Jeong-yeon, a 38-year old ex-DPRK soldier, was written to give "a more accurate and objective information on the DPRK armed forces to the South Koreans," Lee said. The work highlights many of the details of North Korean military life.

For example, you are expected to call your fellow soldier ‘comrade’ rather than by name, which could seem to signify mutual respect, somewhat in contrast to South Korean culture, where soldiers address each other based on rank and on the fact that addressing others by name is considered rude in Korean culture. Vacations and visitation are very rare commodities. You get a 10-day vacation if your parents pass away, but whether you can actually take the leave depends on timing and luck. The rule says you can have visitors in the barracks, but the reality is that no parents or girlfriends can visit. Thus, most DPRK soldiers do not get to see their families, friends, or loved ones during their 10-year compulsory service, the book said.

So is this enough to convince anyone to sign up?

Will US negotiators fall for the NK freeze tactic:

North Korea expressed its readiness Thursday to discuss initial steps of its nuclear disarmament, raising hopes for the first tangible progress at international talks on Pyongyang’s atomic weapons program since they began more than three years ago

“We are prepared to discuss first-stage measures,” the North’s nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on arriving in Beijing for the six-nation negotiations set to start later Thursday.

Media reports have suggested the North may agree to freeze its main nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors in exchange for energy aid as a starting step to disarm.

But Kim said any moves by North Korea would be determined by the United States’ attitude.

“We are going to make a judgment based on whether the United States will give up its hostile policy and come out toward peaceful coexistence,” he said, adding that Washington was “well-aware” of what it had to do.

This statement from US chief negotiator Christopher Hill is a little comforting:

On arriving at Beijing airport on Wednesday, the chief U.S. delegate Christopher Hill told reporters, “I want to emphasize the real success is we complete the joint statement of 2005” whereby the North agreed to dismantle the program in return for aid and security guarantees. “So we are not going to finish that this week. We will maybe just make a good first step,” he added.

I have said this before and I will say it again, Kim Jong-il has no intention of giving up his nuclear weapons.  He developed nuclear weapons in order to appease his military eager to join the prestigious nuclear club and to ensure regime survival.  He is using the current six party talks to buy time to perfect his nuclear weapons program.  Once Kim Jong-il has successfully created a half dozen nuclear weapons he will be able to fully implement what fellow K-blogger Richardson at DPRK Studies calls Strategic Disengagement.  Before strategically disengaging, if Kim can get the US to drop its financial sanctions and return the $24 million dollars frozen in a Macau Bank and any other goodies the US is willing to throw in for a nuclear freeze Kim will take it.  Why not when he already possesses the weapons?

That is why I advocate that US negotiators should only accept nothing but verifiable nuclear dismantlement in return for any financial incentives that may be offered.  The only way the Kim regime would accept total dismantlement is if they don’t have as much nuclear material or their nuclear program isn’t as advanced everyone thinks.  Last year’s low yield nuclear test by North Korea suggests that maybe they don’t have much material to build a nuclear program around.  I sure hope someone in the government much smarter than me has figured that one out.

At any rate I’m just getting the feeling that the Bush Administration is eager for the appearance of a foreign policy success and a nuclear freeze by North Korea would appear to be one, when in actuality it would be a defeat if Kim is allowed to keep the weapons he already has.  Kim will in one year have gained everything he wanted if this nuclear freeze deal is signed. Kim will have his nuclear weapons which ensure his regime’s survival, his frozen $24 million will be given back, and North Korea will international energy assistance.  Don’t forget the over one billion dollars worth of assistance Kim is getting this year from South Korea and his fifth column in South Korea has successfully stopped the USFK transformation in that country. Is it 1994 all over again?

The United States has decided to cut funding to the United Nations Developmental Aid program due to the misuse of funds going directly to North Korea:

The United States said Thursday it would withhold all contributions to the United Nations Development Program. It alleges that the UNDP mismanaged its North Korea operations, leading to a large influx of cash into the authoritarian regime.

Washington is also considering a proposal that the U.N. stop all programs in the North except those for humanitarian assistance, the Yonhap New Agency quoted Alejandro Wolff, acting U.S. envoy to the United Nations, as saying.

The Japanese are actually taking an even stronger stand by recommending ending all non-humanitarian UN aid programs in North Korea:

Yonhap reported that Japan went further, its envoy suggesting that the U.N. stop all programs in North Korea except for direct humanitarian aid.

The South Korean news agency quoted Wolff as saying the Japanese argument “is quite compelling” and the U.S. will consider the proposal.

A whole lot of background information on this scandal can be found here, but basically a lot of the UNDP aid going to North Korea was unaccounted for hard cash.  New UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has authorized an investigation into this.  What is going to be most interesting about this is how vigorously Ban will investigate this.  This  is really his first test to see how serious he is about cracking down on UN corruption.  The Wall Street Journal has been so bold to even declare this Ban’s first UN cover up.  It is actually a pretty good article that is worth reading, but I agree with One Free Korea that we need to give Ban some more time before we declare him just another corrupt UN bureaucrat interested in only keeping things business as usual, but the clock is ticking.