Tag: North Korea

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.

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:

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?

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?

Via One Free Korea comes news of just how stupid former North Korea detainee Jeffrey Fowle is:

An American who is back home after being detained in North Korea says he left a Bible in a nightclub hoping it would get into the hands of the underground Christian church.

Jeffrey Fowle said Friday that he left the Bible under a trash bin at a nightclub in the northern port city of Chongjinin in an effort “to spread the Gospel out to the remote corners.”

Fowle arrived in North Korea on April 29. He was detained after North Korean officials found the Bible.

Fowle said he had left his name in the Bible and hoped a Christian would find it.

Fowle was detained for nearly six months. He returned to his home in Ohio last week after negotiations involving retired diplomat and former Ohio Congressman Tony Hall. [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link and according to this interview he did he is not sorry for his action as at all.

I think One Free Korea sums up quite well at his site Fowle’s stupidity.

The balloon activists have appeared to have given into not North Korean threats, but rather South Korean governmental pressure for the vague hope that North Korea will agree to Inter-Korean talks:

South Korean activists pledged Monday to continue their anti-North Korea leaflet campaign in a low-key manner for the time being, despite a growing inter-Korean feud over the sensitive issue.

A number of activist groups, including the key player Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), have often launched balloons carrying propaganda leaflets across the border to spread anti-Pyongyang messages targeting the North Korean leader and the country’s dictatorship.

The propaganda campaign, often preannounced and widely covered by local and overseas media, has recently been at the center of the inter-Korean row, with North Korea threatening not to hold dialogue with the South unless it is stopped.

“In the future, the spreading of anti-North leaflets by defector groups will be conducted behind the scenes, taking into consideration more effective methods (of campaigns) as well as the safety of residents (at the border area) and direction of the wind,” the activist groups said in a statement.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It is probably not a good business model for an open ski resort to have more employees than guests, but then again this is North Korea where such logic does not apply:

When a photographer took a trip to one of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s pet projects – built to bring in thousands of foreign tourists to the country – he discovered a sparkling clean ski resort… with barely another person or drop of snow in sight.

The communist enclave’s one and only ski destination, on top of Taehwa Peak, boasts a hotel with wood cabin style rooms, complimentary toiletries, and spa facilities and 110 kilometres (70 miles) of multi-level slopes.

However, photographer Aram Pan, from Singapore, who took the photos while on his fourth trip to North Korea from 16-20 October, did not find any other tourists to mingle with.

‘I saw one western tourist on a “private tour” at the Ski resort. I’m not sure who he was. I didn’t ask,’ Mr Pan told Daily Mail Australia.  [Daily Mail]

#DPRK foreign ministry warns #EU not to adopt an anti-N. Korean human rights resolution or it will face "unpredictable consequences."

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 30, 2014

The fact that watching South Korean dramas was added to the charges of these officials likely had nothing to do with their purge, it was just something throw in as a point of emphasis to everyone else not to watch these dramas that the Kim regime views as subversive media:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seeking to erase the remaining influence of his dead uncle, executing about 10 senior Workers’ Party officials on charges from graft to watching South Korean soap operas, according to an aide to a South Korean lawmaker.

The deaths by shooting are part of Kim’s latest round of purges, said Lim Dae Sung, a secretary to ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker Lee Cheol Woo who attended a briefing at the National Intelligence Service yesterday in Seoul. Kim had Jang Song Thaek, his uncle and de facto deputy, killed in December last year. Lee didn’t say when the executions took place, or who the officials were. [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link.

The South Korean intelligence is probably pretty accurate on this:

South Korea’s spy agency said Tuesday it has solved the mystery of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s 6-week public absence, which set off a frenzy of wild speculation around the world.

The National Intelligence Service told legislators that a foreign doctor operated on Kim in September or October to remove a cyst from his right ankle, according to Park Byeong-seok, an aide for opposition lawmaker Shin Kyung-min. The aide said the spy agency also told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that the cyst could recur because of Kim’s obesity, smoking and heavy public schedule.  [Associated Press]

So I wonder if we will see a number of retractions from all the people claiming a coup happened or other theories that were floated around with no evidence to support them?

Some in the Korean government are concerned that a secret deal for the release of Jeffrey Fowle was reached with cutting USFK as one of the bargaining chips:

There is speculation about secret talks between Washington and Pyongyang, especially given the abrupt release of Jeffrey Fowle, one of three Americans detained in the North.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Roh Kwang-il here struggled to downplay the issue. Roh said Kerry “made the remarks to urge the North to implement denuclearization in a substantive way. As far as I know there is no discussion at present about whether to cut the size of the USFK or maintain its current size.”

He added that the two countries agreed in 2008 to maintain the size of the USFK at the current level of 28,500 troops. “And this has been reaffirmed continuously through the annual Seoul-Washington Security Consultative Meeting.”

Roh ventured that Kerry “may have meant that this is an issue that can be discussed when the North is denuclearized.”

On a visit to Washington, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se tried a similar line. “The reduction of the USFK will be discussed in the distant future when the denuclearization is realized,” he said.

“Despite Pyongyang’s release of Fowle, it’s too soon to conclude that there’s been a sea change in the attitude of the North. And U.S. officials also maintain that there’s no change in the U.S. policy,” he claimed.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but everyone knows North Korea is not going to denuclearize and any promises of reducing USFK to get Fowle released was probably a demand from North Korea to try and create a rift between the two allies. It seems like having to answer questions about a rift between the two allies was a small price to pay to get Fowle released if that is what happened.

Now can we please take efforts to keep these idiot tourists out of North Korea to prevent having to deal with these detainee negotiations in the first place?