Category: North Korea

So claims the German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Here is an english language translation of the article. This is the headline paragraph of the article:

“America’s accusations against North Korea are on very shaky ground … A rumor has circulated for years among representatives of the security printing industry and counterfeiting investigators that it is the American CIA that prints the Supernotes at a secret printing facility.”

Yes foks an unsubstantiated rumor that cannot be proven in anyway means that American sanctions on North Korea due to it’s counterfeiting of US currency is on "shaky ground". How can an editor at a major German newspaper agree to print something like this? I heard a rumor that Elvis was secretly living with Kim Jong-il and were set to release a debut duet single together entitled "Don’t Step on My Kaeseong Made Shoes".  Don’t question me the tooth fairy told me.  Will the German media print this as front page news as well?  This FAZ article is even less credible than the AP citing a North Korean newspaper to confirm their No Gun-ri article or using Jamil Hussein to confirm their Iraq reporting.

According to this, Kim Jong-il does:

These concerns will look familiar to those who have followed the WFP’s operation in North Korea.  I strongly encourage you to read every last word of Wallace’s scathing letter, which is packed with specific facts and findings that the UNDP violated its own rules of accountability, and essentially turned over its checkbook to the North Koreans.  I know.  Sounds like an exaggeration, doesn’t it? 

Most of the actual “development” programs the UNDP was funding were actually run by the North Korean government with UN funds.  The UNDP’s “international staff” — ie., the two or three staffers who were not North Koreans – were not allowed to inspect them.  There is no independent evidence, no evidence except for North Korean assurances, that these U.N.-funded programs even exist.  The North Korean government received all of the paychecks itself, a la Kaseong, and its nationals handled all the money — all of it in cash.  It charged the UNDP steep rent, and insisted that the UNDP buy all of its supplies from North Korean state vendors at steep prices.

Make sure you read the rest from One Free Korea.  What continues to annoy me just as much as the continuing UN corruption is the fact that such unbelievable corruption is being given very little media coverage.  Kim Jong-il could fire a missile tomorrow over the Sea of Japan and get a week’s worth of news coverage, but these continuing corruption scandals, that help fund those very missile programs, get little attention from the media at all.

Can the US negotiators with North Korea really be this stupid? 

 Find out here.

HT: Japan Probe

First of all, DPRK studies has a good analysis of the status of the current North Korean nuclear talks.  Basically what is going on is that the North Koreans agreed to the talks in order to get the US to lift the financial sanctions against North Korean Chinese bank accounts.  These bank accounts hold millions of dollars of money gained through the counterfeiting and subsequent money laundering of US currency.  The North Koreans probably think that it is a long shot, but they are trying to get the US to lift the financial sanctions as a sign of goodwill towards working out a final agreement to freezing their nuclear program, though they have no intention of ever freezing their nuclear program.

One Free Korea has an interesting posting on how the North Korean elites are getting around the UN ban on the sale of luxury goods to North Korea, by going shopping across the border in China:

In Dandong, North Koreans, many wearing lapel pins with a picture of North Korea’s founding dictator, Kim Il Sung, stroll through hotels and department stores. Signs are often written in Korean, with storekeepers advertising computers, karaoke machines and the erectile-dysfunction drugs Viagra and Cialis.

A few North Koreans have bought new cars at a Toyota dealership near the Dandong customs checkpoint, according to a salesman. One man paid about $50,000 in cash for a luxury sedan.

Gold is also gaining a following. Wang Xiaoju, a saleswoman at the jewelry counter at Xin Yi Bai Department Store, says North Korean women come in nearly every day, mostly to buy gold chains and other gold jewelry.

Another UN resolution down the toilet.

Finally the Marmot via OFK has a posting about the going rate of getting North Korean defectors out of China:

This being The Wall Street Journal, we went straight to the bottom line. How much, we asked our visitor at a recent editorial board meeting, does it cost to free one North Korean refugee hiding in China?

The Rev. Phillip Buck pauses a moment before replying, apparently making the yuan-to-dollar conversions on the abacus in his mind. “If I do it myself,” he says, “the cost is $800 per person. If I hire a broker to do it, it’s $1,500.”

Imagine if the billions of dollars of aid from South Korea to Kim Jong-il was instead used on buying people out of starvation and despotism. 

The Korea Times has an article about how North Korea will not collapse if current strongman Kim Jong-il dies because the NK military will step in and take over.  This is nothing new, however what was interesting in the article was the claim that China wants Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-nam as the Dear Leader’s successor:

Earlier this year, Rep. Chung Hyung-keun of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) said Kim’s first son, Jong-nam, has been backed by the Chinese government to be the communist North’s next leader.

However, the lawmaker, who served in key posts at the nation’s intelligence agency in the 1980s and early 1990s, said his maverick lifestyle has caused him to lose his father’s favor. Kim Jong-nam was arrested on arrival in Japan in 2001 for using a forged Dominican Republic passport.

Kim Jong-il has never been keen on letting Kim Jong-nam take over, but the Chinese may force his hand to declare Kim Jong-nam as his successor as a condition to keep the aid flowing in from China as well as the Chinese government continuing to keep the United States at arms length over the North’s nuclear program.  This is actually a pretty good policy from the Chinese perspective because Kim Jong-nam would more than likely open up the country compared to Kim Jong-il. 

Kim Jong-nam does not have any human rights violation, crimes against humanity, or any other excess baggage hanging over his head if he decides to open up the country and the reality of the North Korean gulags becomes public.  He can blame it all on the old regime and vow that he is working on fixing the problems the old regime created.  Plus the North Korean people wouldn’t have the bitter hatred for Kim Jong-nam like they would have for Kim Jong-il if the country opened up to the outside world and the reality of their situation as one of the poorest and most despotic countries in the world became common knowledge.  The likelihood of Kim Jong-nam getting "Ceausescu"ed by his own people is unlikely compared to if Kim Jong-il tried to do the same thing.  The Chinese figure this is their best way to ensure a soft landing for North Korea that would not create a massive refugee crisis on their northern border. 

The wild card in all of this is if the North Korean military will allow it to happen.  There are plenty of leaders in the North Korean military that would be concerned about their own welfare if the country opened up plus the military would have to give up all their nuclear weapons before any international aid ever came into North Korea. 

The biggest problem I see with this Chinese policy is that it does nothing for the people who are dyeing now due to the Kim Jong-il regime, plus it does not solve the current security concerns created by their nuclear program.  Let’s say Kim Jong-il lives for another 5 years, how many hundred of thousands of North Koreans would die during that time from starvation and the gulags?  The Chinese could probably care less about the welfare of the North Korean people, but I’m sure they are concerned about facing the very real possibility of a nuclearized Japan responding to the North Korean threat.  If they do back Kim Jong-nam that is a sign to me that the Chinese are figuring that the US will not allow the Japanese to go nuclear. 

Keep in mind all of this could be meaningless if Kim Jong-il lives on for the next decade. 

The new South Korean anti-Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung has called for what President Roh must think can be the only thing that would give him any symbolance of a legacy after his presidency ends next year:

 Senior government officials and politicians have been talking up the possibility of a second inter-Korean summit and are concentrating their energies on bringing it about. The new Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said Monday an inter-Korean summit was a long-pending issue. South and North Korean leaders agreed to hold one in 2000, and President Roh Moo-hyun has stressed the need for a second summit several times, he said. Speaking after his inauguration, the minister told reporters arranging the summit was a task for the leaders of both Koreas. But he added it remains to be seen when and how another inter-Korean summit will take place.

Is it any wonder now why the South Korean government would rather better fund North Korea than the US-ROK Alliance by sending a billion dollars of aid to the North next year.  Is it also any wonder why South Korea isn’t going to ignore North Korean human rights violations along with the ruling party doing everything possible to cover up the South Korean spy scandal:

More than half of the Korean public suspect that the government has been less than aggressive in hunting down North Korean spies, while a majority feels that there is a problem with the way that people here perceive national security issues regarding the North.

On a commission from the Chosun Ilbo, Korea Gallup conducted a telephone opinion poll Monday in which 60.3 percent of respondents agreed with the statement “Even though there have been many spies in the country the government has intentionally not caught them,” while only 26.4 percent thought that, “The government has caught every spy it found.”

Looking back, you have to Kim Dae-jung credit; it only cost him $500 million in bribes to Kim Jong-il to secure a summit.  President Roh on the other hand has steadily increased the aid to North Korea throughout his presidency to where now South Korea is giving over one billion dollars in aid to the North a year.  What does President Roh have to show for it?  Let’s see, a weakened US-ROK Alliance, a sluggish economy, a North Korean spy scandal, North Korean missile and nuclear bomb tests, along with a host of other issues that has made President Roh and his ruling Uri Party extremely unpopular in South Korea with a 5.7% approval rating.
Instead of choosing to do things that would leave him some sort of positive legacy after he is gone, President Roh has instead chosen that getting a photograph of him toasting Kim Jong-il is more important.

Let’s hope this is true if North Korea collapses:

Chinese People`s Liberation Army (PLA) Assistant to the Chief of General Staff Zhang Qinsheng said in October, “Even in case an emergency breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, there is little possibility of Chinese military intervention.”

Assistant Chief Zhang, who ranks third in power order within the General Staff Office and has the deep trust of President Hu Jintao, made the aforementioned comment during a closed seminar carried out from October 22 to 24 in Beijing.

Being asked whether the Chinese military will intervene in case an abrupt situation arises in North Korea, he answered, “The Chinese military prefers the matter be solved by international bodies, especially the UN. If you see Chinese military involved, it would be in the form of a party to a UN force.”

Like I said before, let’s hope this is true, but I have a hard time believing that the Chinese will stand by doing nothing if North Korea collapses, especially if it is before the 2008 Olympics.  The only way the I don’t see the Chinese getting involved in a collapsed North Korea is if the South Koreans do not quickly occupy the North.  The South Koreans need to occupy and seal the borders before either the Chinese or Russians can organize a force to move into North Korea.  As far as the US involvement in a collapsed North Korea I have long maintained the US should not deploy troops to North Korea for a variety of reasons.

If the Chinese do get involved they have no plans of creating a unified, democratic Korean peninsula, but to avoid foreign intervention into Korean affairs that would continue the division of the peninsula the South Koreans need to have a viable and quickly implementable plan to quickly occupy North Korea.  However, no such plan exists due to South Korean governmental incompetency that unless reversed, will ensure the peninsula will remain divided well into the future.

The indictments are in and it isn’t looking good for those indicted:

The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office in interim results announced Friday said it indicted Chang Min-ho, a 44-year-old ethnic Korean businessman from the U.S. and alleged leader of the ring; Sohn Chong-mok, a former student activist; Lee Jung-hoon, a former member of the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party; Lee Jin-gang, an employee in Chang’s firm; and Choi Ki-young, the DLP vice secretary general.

The office said the spy ring dubbed Ilshimhoe consisted of four cells. One of them was tasked with promoting the North’s Songun or military-first ideology and led by Lee Jung-hoon, who was in charge of targeting the Seoul area in the DLP. Another led by Lee Jin-gang was in charge of targeting civic organizations. Prosecutors described the scandal as an attempt to establish a fifth column by infiltrating political parties and converting activists to North Korean ideologies.

Members allegedly got instructions form the North directly or by e-mail to organize anti-American activities, such as protests against the planned Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and the move of U.S. Forces Korea headquarters to Pyeongtaek. It also allegedly spied on leading DLP members and passed confidential documents including one on the disposition of U.S. troop bases to Pyongyang.

The communist country tried to cement its influence in the DLP by ordering members to get a certain unidentified person elected as party chairman, prosecutors said. In e-mails, North Korea reportedly assured members that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il treasures them “like very precious gold.”

Most interesting is how little money the “precious gold” betrayed their country for:

Chang Min-ho allegedly described North Korea as “my country” and South Korea as the “enemy’s rearguard” in a report to the North, while Choi Ki-young allegedly pledged allegiance to Kim Jong-il saying the military-first ideology “is the only best answer.” Chang allegedly received US$16,500 in operational funds, Lee Jung-hoon $2,000 and Lee Jin-gang $3,000.

All this spy scandal does is confirm what everyone already knew, that the anti-US activities in South Korea are organized by North Korean agents in order to drive a wedge between the US and South Korea. I can accept the fact that North Korea is conducting anti-US activities in South Korea; that is to be expected, but what I can’t accept are the politicians in South Korea that jump on any anti-US issue in order to demagoge the issue to their own political advantage. That is what gives the anti-US groups legitimacy in the Korean public when they see the politicians taking up the anti-US causes. Then again the political demagoguery of anti-US issues was enough to get one them elected President.
Go check out One Free Korea for a great analysis of the indictments.

One Free Korea has the scoop on the latest update on the North Korean spy ring uncovered within the South Korean government that President Roh has tried his best to cover up. The Donga provides this update:

It was confirmed on November 26 that among the documents found at Jang Min-ho’s residence, the name of a Cheong Wa Dae secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Security, was brought up several times. Jang, the key member of the “Ilsimhoe” spy case, was arrested by the National Intelligence Service on charges of involvement with student activists. [OFK links on U.S. citizen and former U.S. soldier Jang Min-Ho here and here, and here]

In accordance to this, the Public Security Department is reviewing ways to summon the presidential secretary as a reference and investigate how his name ended up in reports to the North Korea.

A public security official stated, “Secretary “A” worked as a student activist before with Sohn Jung-mok (42), who was recently placed under the arrest. As matters stand, Jang has sent a lot of information to North Korea based on Son’s statement which he attained through Secretary A.”

Check out OFK for more on who he thinks “Secretary A” may be.