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North Korea Sells Arms to Filipino Rebel Group

The Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported Monday that Southeast Asian security authorities recently discovered that North Korea sold arms to the Filipino extremist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
North Korea’s suspected arms sales to terrorist groups had led the United States to designate it as a terrorist sponsoring-state, and the arms deal with the MILF clearly supported Washington’s claim, said the Yomiuri.

Southeast Asian security authorities found seized documents from the MILF in November last year and learned that North Korea had sold more than 10,000 rifles to the Filipino insurgent group for two years from 1999 and tried to export small submarines, the Japanese daily reported.

What is most disturbing about this is not that the Norks are selling rifles to terrorists, that is something I would expect them to do, but trying to sell them mini-subs is what I find most scary. Why are the terrorists trying to buy mini-subs for? Imagine if Al-Qaida got their hands on mini-subs and used them for terrorist attacks on commercial maritime ports. The weaponry that the Norks can supply international terrorists is truly scary.

I admit it I read the NY Times regularly. While in college I had a professor that got me in the habit of reading the paper daily. I actually bought a subscription to it while in college. If you just ignore the left wing propaganda opinion pieces unless it is by Thomas Friedman, and read the hard news columns it is really a great paper. In a great column today the NY Times has really put some media attention on South Korea for ignoring the plight of North Korean refugees in Russia.

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia – The Russian woman in the cafe was in tears, her tea cooling, her potato salad untouched. She had just endured an hourlong interrogation by a South Korean investigator about her role in sheltering a North Korean defector.

In a new twist, diplomats from South Korea now work to discourage defectors from North Korea.

I’m sure Russian President Vladimir Putin probably reads the NY Times and I’m willing to bet he would not be to happy to see one of his citizens being mistreated by South Korean consulate officials. I bet the South Korean embassy in Russia gets a phone call tonight.

Now why was this Russian women being screamed and interrogated by South Korean officials? Well she did something as horrible as aiding a desperate North Korean refugee. Here is his story:

North Korea’s determination to prevent defections by its contract workers in Russia could be seen in the drama surrounding the escape of Hwang Dae Soo, a 28-year-old translator, from confinement in a North Korean apartment here. In November 2003, he avoided forced repatriation by tearing the photograph off his passport just before he was to be placed on a North Korean plane here.

But with security tightening at the South Korean Consulate, the message is clear in Vladivostok: North Korean defectors are not wanted.

I hope he broadcasts his tape anyway on South Korean radio. It is truly a shame that now even Russians are doing more for North Korean refugees than the South Korean government is. Hopefully the NY Times can keep attention on this issue with more columns in the future exposing this current South Korean policy against North Korean refugees. The Russian woman in the article sums this situation up the best:

“For one year, I feared the North Koreans would try to kill me,” said Katia, still distraught after one hour of talking in the cafe. “It never occurred to me that I would have the South Koreans against me.”

Time Magazine recently ran an article about the conditions with the North Korean labor camps. The conditions within these gulags continues to be absolutely disturbing. Here is a sample:

Constant hunger is a way of life for the prisoners–malnutrition and disease were rampant, well before famine plagued the nation in the 1990s according to former inmates. But if a detainee breaks the rules to get something to eat, their days in the camps will end. One day, says Kim Yong, ripe chestnuts fell from a tree at the entrance to Cutting Face No. 2, and a prisoner named Kim Chul Min stooped to pick a few of them up. Guards shot and killed him for his trouble. Kim Yong says that a friend of his was so desperate for food that he stole one of the prison guard’s leather whips, soaked it in water, and then tried to eat it. Guards beat him to death with a stick smeared with human excrement.

Here is the most disturbing trend seen in these camps:

Among the most troubling claims to emerge from former detainees is infanticide: according to several former prisoners, women who have become pregnant while in China are not uncommonly required to give birth while still in detention and then forced to watch as their own babies are killed. Hawk’s report contains eight eyewitness accounts–including one of a child suffocated with a wet towel in front of its mother’s eyes–and separately, TIME interviewed two women, who did not want to be identified, who claim to have seen either forced abortions or the murder of newborns.

This is pretty sickening and will continue until the world puts pressure on North Korea to end these barbaric practices. Awareness of the situation is on the rise, with the passage of the North Korean Human Rights Act in the US and increased awareness internationally due to the amount of defectors escaping the country. I believe in the next year North Korean human rights will become a major issue in conjunction with the six party nuclear talks, which would force South Korea in a position to do something about it because they cannot continue to turn a deaf ear to it and not suffer major loss of international prestige.

Nothing like starting the New Year with more threats from North Korea.North Korea called on the United States Saturday to change its “hostile” policy toward the communist country, declaring that it is fully prepared for war or dialogue.

Outlining its policy goals for the New Year, North Korea also urged its 22 million people to unite around leader Kim Jong-il and help strengthen the country’s military against a possible U.S. invasion.

The North’s 1.1-million-member military, the editorial said, has the capability to cope with any U.S. threats.

For some reason I’m not to impressed.

By now most of you have probably heard about the South Korean defector to North Korea who used to work for the US Army.

North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said Kim Ki-ho, 59, had worked for the U.S. Army’s 6th Ordnance Battalion as a quality assurance specialist at Camp Long, near Wonju, but defected recently to North Korea. The news agency gave no details as to when or how he reportedly defected.

It said Kim “made the bold decision to come over to the northern half of Korea … unable to put up any longer with the disgraceful South Korean society, disillusioned with it where the nation’s dignity, sovereignty and human rights are violated at the hand of the U.S.”

However, I am going to do some speculation here on the motives of why he may have defected. Recently a requirement has been changed that USFK employees that reach the age of 60 years old must retire and they are replaced with younger workers. This guy was 59 years old and approaching the retirement age. Maybe the guy was being forced out of his job at a time when he still had financial debts that needed to be paid and he could not find another job because someone who is 59 years old does not easily find work in this country. So he went over the edge and decided to defect.

Like I said this is complete speculation on my part and maybe this guy was just nuts or one of the North Korean sleeper agents that according to GI urban legend work on all of our military camps here.

Never the less, it would be interesting to see what the investigation turns up on why somebody who worked for 20 years on a US facility decided to defect. I doubt we’ll ever hear about the results though becuase they will probably be classified.

The comments about human rights violations though I found humorous in light of my previous posting about North Korean gulags. I guess a drunk GI getting in trouble with South Korean authorities every 6 months and going to jail is a bigger human rights violation than killing babies in front of their mothers in gulag camps. I guess Mr. Kim Ki-ho, who has knowledge of South Korean prosperity, will have his chance to find out because he will definitely be put into one these camps to be re-educated.

I have successfully been able to teach a few Koreans I know the rules of American football. Though they found the game strange at first they soon actually enjoyed watching football with me and I have in fact successfully converted three people to be Denver Broncos fans. However, watching college football today has really taught me the limits of my ability to teach American football.

Try to explain the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) formula to a Korean. Many Americans much less Koreans can’t figure this thing out. After a long explanation my Korean friend was still confused about the whole thing and wondered why we don’t just have a playoff system? I ended the conversation there because trying to explain the politics and rationale for not having a playoff system would be more difficult then explaining the system itself.

A number of Korean bloggers have been advocating donating money to help the relief efforts in south Asia after the recent tsunami has now killed at least 150,000 people. This number is probably going to continue to rise substantially. The people in south Asia are in desperate need and the American government has now allocated $350 million dollars to help the disaster relief. However, if you want to donate money to help the relief effort, first you should read this article coming out the New York press about fraudulent charities.

While the federal government has made attempts to crack down on charity fraud since September 11, 2001 – the Patriot Act increased the penalty of impersonating a Red Cross member to five years from one – and Internet users have become more savvy, phony charities are trying harder than ever to swindle donors on the Internet.

“It doesn’t surprise me that folks are taking advantage of this tragedy,” said the director of the National Fraud Information Center in Washington, D.C., Susan Grant. “You always see these kinds of things after disasters.”

It is pretty sickening that somebody would establish a false relief site for their own personal profit, but it does not suprise me. We all saw this same thing happen after 9-11 with charities pocketing huge sums of money from donors and spending half the money on the victims and half on “administrative costs.”

That is why I’m a big believer in sending aid such as food and clothes instead of cash. It is to tempting for some people to handle large sums of money. People are less likely to conduct fraudelent activity if no cash is involved. Just do your research before you donate to ensure the aid you are giving is getting to the people who need it.

Korea is located near an active earthquake zone with nearby Japan the source of many earthquakes. With the recent events in South Asia it made me wonder if Korea is vulnerable to a tsunami and if the government could warn its citizens of a tsunami in enough time for an evacution to take place before it would strike. Just imagine the devestation a tsunami would have in a city like Pusan if no warning was given to the people there.

Here are a couple of great graphics that show how tsunamis are formed.

Could Korea be hit by one of these tidal waves? With a little research I found out that Korea has actually been hit by two tsunami in recent history. One in 1983 and another in 1993. This site offers an in depth analysis of the tsunami that struck the eastern coast of Korea near the ports of Samchuk and Imwon.

Tsunamis generated by earthquakes along the Japanese coast on the possible boundary between the Eurasian and the North American plates have caused significant damages to the Japanese and Russian coasts, and damage to the Korean coast as well. For example, at noon on the 26th May 1983, a huge earthquake occurred in the northern coast of Akita and the accompanying tsunami attacked the eastern coast of Korea, after propagating over the in the Japan (East) Sea. Especially at the Imwon port, the most significant damage; two persons killed and twenty houses damaged, was reported.

With Korea regularly vulnerable to tidal waves, does the government have a system in place to warn citizens of potential danger? Judging by the reaction to the 1993 tsunami it appears Korea does have a good early warning system in place.

In the case of 1993 Okushiri Tsunami , the JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) processed data in the very quick way and issued tsunami warning within 5 minutes after the quake. However, it was just the propagation time of the first wave to southern tip of Okushiri Island and to Ota Bay on southwestern Hokkaido that left no time for evacuation and for any other preparedness measures.

Tsunami Warning Center in Yuzhni-Sakhalinsk (Russia) issued warning within 20 min for the coast of Primorie, Sakhalin and South Kurile Island. The first wave came to Primorie in about 50 to 70 minutes with maximum observed run-up height of 4 meters.

The Korea Meteorological Administration issued a Tsunami Warning signal 33 minutes following the earthquake origin time putting into mobilization of 7,000 disaster personell. The waves propagated to Korea in approximately 100 min which allowed enough time for preparedness activities to be accomplished.

Korea does have an early warning system in place but the early warning system is dependent on how close the originating earthquake is to the coast line. In the case of the 1993 quake Korea was able to issue an advisory in 33 minutes and the wave struck over an hour later. This was enough time to evacuate the affected areas to prevent casualties.

It is probably safe to assume Korea has an even better system in place by now and should be able to serve up a public advisory in half the time. But it would not matter if the tsunami originated near the Korean coast line and struck the coast in under 15 minutes. This should be warning to people here in Korea that if they feel an earthquake they should immediately take tsunami precautions because the warning may not reach you in time. Judging by past events it is unfortunately a possibility.

Picture from the 1993 tsunami

My Christmas was quite outstanding with me getting a new computer for Christmas. This computer is 2.8 ghz Gateway computer with 512mb of ram, 80gb hard drive, 17 inch flat screen monitor, and a 128mb graphics card. What is really nice is that the computer and the monitor are combined in a very space efficient design that frees up a lot of desk space. You can also see my 160mb external hard drive adjacent to the computer. These external hard drives are awesome and definitely worth purchasing. All my files and games from my old computer I can continue to use by hooking this external hard drive to my new computer. A 160gb external hard drive will run you from $150-$180 depending on the brand.

The best thing about this new computer is that I picked it up for $843! My wife wanted to buy a computer for me for Christmas so we priced this same computer just two weeks ago at the Camp Casey PX and it was $1399. We almost bought the computer then but we decided to wait until we checked out Camp Stanley’s PX in Uijongbu. They had a special sale going on for the same computer for $843 last week. I asked the sales person if he was sure this was the correct price and he said yes. So that made our decision easy and we bought it. I have definitely learned through experience that if you shop around for major purchases at the PX’s here in Korea you can usually find some great deals. Shopping around this time save me over $550 this Christmas.

Look how thin the entire computer is.

The New York Times today is reporting that the Korean government has begun a crackdown on brokers for North Korean refugees. The government believes the brokers located in China are extorting money from the desperate North Korean refugees.

South Korea says it plans to crack down on people who demand money for organizing mass defections of North Koreans desperate to leave their country. But human rights groups worry that the move is aimed at appeasing North Korea and China – North Korea’s last major ally and the way-station for many North Korean intending to defect.

These so-called brokers – often ethnic Koreans in China, South Korean entrepreneurs or North Korean defectors in the South – select defectors from the tens of thousands of North Koreans who flee North Korea and hide in northeastern China. They then help the North Koreans to force their way into foreign embassies in Beijing and other Asian capitals, in the hopes that they will eventually be allowed to travel to South Korea.

Nearly 83 percent of the 1,850 North Koreans who reached South Korea this year came with the help of these brokers, who received an average of $3,800 per person, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said. As the trickle of defectors from North Korea has swelled into a torrent in recent years, the debate over the brokers has intensified.

They say that their motives are to promote human rights, helping people escape North Korea’s totalitarian government. But some critics say that they appear to be driven by profit rather than compassion. China calls them human traffickers and sentences them to prison, while North Korea accuses South Korea and the United States of kidnapping its people.

Some defectors have complained that the brokers charge too much for their services – and in some cases hold their families for ransom. Some of the brokers also abandon the escapees after being paid.

To stop the brokers the Korean government is planning on preventing the brokers from being allowed to leave Korea and also reduce the amount of relocation compensation that is paid to North Korean refugees from $26,600 per person to $9,500. Many brokers use the relocation money to pay for their fees. I cannot say I am an expert in regards to these brokers but I’m sure some of them probably are dirty, but for some reason I feel the Korean government is probably just using this as a convenient excuse to stop the flow of refugees from North Korea.

If the South Korean government cared for human rights at all, they would try to assist these people themselves. This would eliminate the need for brokers or NGO’s to fill this current need. I won’t hold my breath waiting for this to happen though. Plus reducing the relocation allowance will not stop people from wanting to come to South Korea. $9,500 is still going to sound like a fortune to someone who is starving.

I think the best way to get any action out of the Korean government would be to shame them into action. I hope people will keep publishing stories from the defectors. The Chosun Ilbo recently ran this story about some North Korean defectors trying to make their way to a Southeastern Asian country in order to get to South Korea. This group of North Koreans traveled 8000 kilometers over the course of a month to make it to the country which is presumably Vietnam to get passage to Korea. Isn’t something that countries like Mongolia and Vietnam are doing more for North Korean human rights than South Korea?