Tag: North Korea

For those who don’t know yet the Marmot has moved back to his old site and I have since updated my links, but anyway he has a post that links to an interview the Oranckay got to participate in with the lone survivor of the 1996 North Korean spy sub incident:

The guy had been the submarine’s navigator, and had lived on a North Korean naval base since the age of 14. Subsequently he knew very little beyond daily life on the base, and he was unfamiliar even with what the rest of North Korea is like. For example, he didn’t know what money was. He’d never needed any. When the South’s intelligence agency was done interrogating him and it came time to give the poor guy some orientation about South Korean society, one of the questions he asked at the end was how some bills could have more value than others when they’re all the same size. Shouldn’t the paper that you can buy more soju with be bigger?

When I met him we were also in the presence of a lady, yet he frequently reached down and scratched or held his privates. He had a lot of questions for me even though I was there to interpret. Is South Korea so expensive because there are so many foreigners here? Does each star on the American flag representone of the wars it has won? What happens if you don’t have the money to pay for the subway? Do South Korean women like men who wear ties better than those who don’t?

Read the rest on your own but it is an enlightening look into the wonders of Juche.

Is there any doubt now that Ted Turner is a Useful Idiot? Check out this interview with Wolf Blitzer on the Radio Blogger:

And I was really over there to try and persuade North and South Korea to make the DMZ into an international peace park when they sign a peace treaty, which I anticipate will be fairly soon, now that we have these six-party talks. We have agreement there. But I had a great time. I am absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are absolutely sincere. There’s really no reason for them to cheat or do anything to violate this very forward agreement. I think we can put the North Korea and East Asia problems behind us, and concentrate on Iran and Iraq, where we still have some ongoing difficulties.

No reason for them cheat?! They have cheated already on a similar agreement!

WB: But this is one of the most despotic regimes, and Kim Jung Il is one of the worst men on Earth. Isn’t that a fair assessment?

TT: Well, I didn’t get to meet him, but he didn’t look…in the pictures I’ve seen of him on CNN, he didn’t look too much different than most of the other people I’ve met.

What kind of people is this guy hanging out with? This interview only gets better:

TT: Well, hey. Listen, I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin, and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars. But I didn’t see any brutality in the capitol, or out in the DMZ. We drove through the countryside quite a bit to down to P’annumjom and Kaesong. We traveled around. I’m sure we were on a special route, but I don’t see…there’s really no reason…North Korea’s got enough problems with their economy and their agriculture. I think they want to join the Western world, and improve the quality of life for their people, just like everybody else.

Let me guess, they are thin because they ride bicycles unlike us fat slob Americans who drive cars. I guess their thinness has nothing to do with the bad agricultural problems that Turner even mentioned. Plus North Korea can join the Western World tomorrow if they get rid of their nukes and open their country to investment and the outside world.

Wait there is still more:

WB: What about those ground-to-ground missiles, and the…

TT: They can’t reach us.

WB: They can reach Japan. They can reach South Korea. They can reach a lot of our allies.

TT: They can’t reach the U.S.A., and we can pound them into oblivion in 24 hours.

WB: But you don’t want to get to that. There’s some estimates, by the way, they could reach Alaska.

TT: Well, what? The Aleutian Islands? There’s nothing up there but a few sea lions.

I guess the American government shouldn’t care about the security of our allies or the welfare of Americans in Alaska as well according to Turner. Last I checked I thought Alaskans were Americans? Did somebody change citizenship requirements in Alaska and only tell Ted Turner?

Read the rest of your own but this guy is nuts. How in the world can someone be such a pro-commie and be a billionaire? Then again Kim Jong Il is pro-commie and he is a billionaire as well, so they both got something in common there. Just keep in mind what Nomad thinks on this subject; he did marry Jane Fonda.

According the Japundit North Korean cheerleaders are creating more sports fans and corrupting Korean youth at the same time:

According to the Japanese weekly magazine FLASH, this marked the third time that Pyongyang dispatched its bevy of beauties, and each time woman have become progressively younger and more beautiful. FLASH reports that this time around the oldest of the 124 members of the NORK cheering squad are second year university students. Reportedly, this is the first time that attendance at the Asian Athletics Championship hit 130,000, and organizers are admitting that it is the Pyongyang pretties that made the difference.

Event organizers and TV broadcasters are reportedly so eager to have the group attend that millions of dollars in cash and trade are promised to North Korea under the table in return.

But not everyone is happy with the women of the North and what they represent.

There are publications in South Korea who are warning that behind the women’s pleasant smiles are sinister plots to conquer the South. They worry that South Koreans, especially the younger generations, may become so enamored with NORK cheerleaders that they will take the side of North Korea should hostilities ever break out.

Maybe this explains the Inchon protesters. They have been brainwashed by North Korean cheerleaders.

Here is an interesting Aritcle in East Asian Affairs about the online radio station, Free NK that was founded by North Korean defectors and now may have to stop their programming because of threats against them by South Koreans:

We’re not talking big time here. Free North Korea broadcasts live for just one hour each evening. And its start-up costs, a modest 30 million won (US$26,000), were financed wholly by other defectors; not South Koreans, much less the government in Seoul. Its seven-strong staff are realistic about their chances of being heard inside North Korea, where Internet access is all but non-existent. But even in megawired South Korea, they have only 3,000 members so far, with only a modest 10,000 logging onto the site.

So, for now Free NK remains a still small voice crying in the wilderness, seeking to lighten the enforced darkness imposed on North Koreans by their benighted leaders. Topics covered include news, literature, and even philosophy, as well as the often dramatic experiences of defectors. Bravo. More power to them. What person with an ounce of human decency could possibly not wish Free NK well?

Alas, these are not rhetorical questions. Fact is, many South Koreans are not sympathetic – and some are downright nasty. From day one, Free NK has been hassled and harassed – to the point where, after less than a month on the air, it now may have to close down: the building’s landlord can’t cope with the pressure, so he’s given Free NK notice to quit by the end of this month.

I have to wonder how many of these threats are coming from Pyongyang hired goons, but the article concludes with an interesting theory:

Even if the actual bullies are a minority, their violence – for that’s what it is – has been nourished in a noxious new soil that is spreading in Seoul these days. I fear I was wrong about democratization in South Korea. At least some of those who fought against dictatorship weren’t, and aren’t, true democrats. What they hated was the generals’ right-wing politics, not authoritarianism per se.

Such self-styled “progressives”, who rule the roost in the new South Korea, seem to me merely to have turned the old values inside out, rather than made true progress. I sometimes think Koreans don’t do shades of gray, but prefer gestalt conversions: a total switch of world view. They flip.

In the bad old days, woe betide you if you said anything good about North Korea in Seoul. Now it’s a mirror image: If you say anything bad about Kim Jong-il, you’re a traitor. Even if, like the defectors of Free NK, you’ve suffered grievously under the Dear Leader – and therefore know whereof you speak, unlike head-in-sand fellow-travellers living safely south of the border.

I never thought of it that way. Maybe today’s progressives really don’t mind authoritism along as they are the ones in charge.

Hat Tip: Asiapundit

One Free Korea is reporting about a large bust in Atlantic City of a Chinese gang that was smuggling both drugs and counterfeit money from North Korea into the country:

The guests thought they were headed to an early afternoon wedding on a yacht docked near Atlantic City. They ended up in jail instead, courtesy of an elaborate ruse by federal authorities hoping to bust up an international smuggling ring.

Lengthy undercover investigations on opposite sides of the country resulted in indictments of 87 Asians and U.S. citizens on charges of smuggling counterfeit money, drugs and cigarettes into the United States, law enforcement officials said Monday.

Authorities said they seized $4.4 million in high-quality fake $100 bills, more than 1 billion counterfeit cigarettes worth $42 million, and ecstasy, methamphetamine and Viagra worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some of the cigarettes were made in China, said acting assistant Attorney General John Richter.

(…)

Of particular concern, Secret Service officials said, was the group’s apparent ability to generate counterfeit U.S. currency that could fool even the most sophisticated detection devices. A government source said the bills, known as “super notes” because they were virtually identical to real currency, had been made in North Korea. The bills were seized before they entered the U.S. money supply, authorities said.

One Free Korea brings up some good questions that need to be answered concerning this bust:

1. Were any North Korean nationals caught or implicated?
2. Were other branches of the same organization operating in third countries? What countries?
3. Will international cooperation be sufficiently swift to snip those branches?
4. Will it be enough to shut down the entire network?
5. Is there a connection to North Korean diplomats, who routinely finance their official functions through illegal activity?
6. Where were the drugs made?
7. Were any of those caught connected to the Chinese government?
8. In the end, how badly will this hurt the finances of the North Korean regime?

South Korean students have begun their annual summer time protests outside Yongsan garrison.

Thousands of South Korean students rallying Sunday against the U.S. military’s five-decade presence clashed with police after trying to enter the American base, and at least 12 people were injured and more than 20 were arrested.

Demonstrators marched through Seoul before attempting to enter the main Yongsan U.S. military base in the city center. They called for the withdrawal of the 32,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War.

What the article failed to report was that the protestors were from the Hanchongryun student group that is backed and financed by North Korea. The group used to be illegal under South Korea’s National Security Law but since President Roh Moo Hyun took office he has allowed the outlawed group free reign to conduct their criminal activities. In fact their leader Ms. Song Hyo Won last week traveled to North Korea fully approved by the South Korean government no doubt to get her marching orders from the Norks before this weekend’s protests.

Hanchonghyun Leader Song Hyo Won.

Here is an excerpt from an interview with the Hanchongryun spokesman that will give you a good indication of their ideology and thinking.

Dae Sik Yoo, the student body president of Kyung Hee University, is on the lam. Since police can arrest him anywhere but here—they’re not allowed on university grounds—Yoo never leaves campus for more than 12 hours. For a wanted man, he looks wholesome, with wire-rimmed glasses, baseball cap, and khaki pants. He could pass for a preppie American student. But when asked about the political opinions that got him into trouble, he sounds more like a North Korean Communist affiliate than a college student in a U.S.-allied country.

“Kim Jong Il is an outstanding leader,” says Yoo. “No other country can stand up to the U.S. Only North Korea can.”

Yoo landed on the wanted list for his role as spokesperson for the Hanchongryun, a left-wing student organization notorious for its pro-North Korean views. Hanchongryun spearheaded demonstrations and sit-ins for 11 years, pushing for reunification of the North and South—but on Korean terms and without any U.S. interference.

(…)

“Kim is just another leader and not a despot or a dictator,” he says. “If he really is a dictator, the North Koreans wouldn’t have tolerated that and overthrown him. They’re not that brainwashed. They must see something in the system that’s right.”

By saying the North Koreans are “not that brainwashed” he is admitting that at least some brainwashing is going on. What he doesn’t understand is that the North Korean people cannot see anything wrong in the system because if they did they would be sent to the gulag or shot. If the system is so great then why are defectors trying to jump the fences of every embassy in China. This is how Hanchongryun explains these facts:

North Korea’s violent crackdowns at home counted for little here. “The U.S. has been giving false propaganda about the North,” said one Catholic university student. “There is no proof that the North commits human rights violations. I think the U.S. is misbroadcasting information about North Korea killing its own people.”

That’s right folks the gulags and famine are all US propaganda though evidence of these gulags come from the governments of other countries plus from the mouths of North Korean defectors themselves. The American CIA must of brainwashed all of these people to speak badly of the Dear Leader. It only gets better:

He is careful to emphasize that he’s not a radical and prefers to stay out of student protests. Still, he feels little reason to be threatened by Kim Jong Il’s regime: “Maybe it is dangerous for North Korea to have nuclear arms. I think, though, when reunification happens, their nukes will be our nukes and give us a higher international standing.”

Their nukes will be your nukes when they land on Seoul. Plus if he is so eager to see Korea possess nuclear weapons, South Korea is more than capable right now of manufacturing nuclear weapons. The government chooses not to due to treaty obligations. Now what about human rights in North Korea? Hanchongryun could care little about that:

Activists who try to denounce Kim Jong Il for human rights violations complain that South Korean government officials have sabotaged their efforts. Human rights activist Norbert Vollertsen, a German, once spent 18 months in Pyongyang working for Doctors Without Borders and witnessed the devastating effects the famine and gulags have had on North Korean citizens. Now residing in South Korea, he complains that he is followed and harassed and says surveillance is so strict, he feels like he is in Pyongyang again.

“The youth are quite interested in human rights issues in Iraq, racism in America. They’re eager to do something and make changes. But when it comes to North Korea, they are so ignorant and uninformed of human rights violations,” Vollertsen says. “When I do college tours, it’s quite shocking because first of all they don’t want to believe my stories. When I showed them pictures of children starving, they thought the pictures were from Dachau or Auschwitz. They didn’t want to believe it was in North Korea. They kept challenging me and saying, ‘Are you sure they’re starving and dying? Are you sure you’re a doctor?’ “

I’m sure Hanchongryun members comfort each other by saying Vollertsen is a CIA agent or something to that effect because famine cannot possibly have happened in the Worker’s Paradise.

Experts and activists, like Vollertsen, claim North Korean agents steer groups such as Hanchongryun, newsrooms, even Roh’s administration. But Yoo denies that Hanchongryun has official ties to North Korea, and is quick to defend the country. “Everywhere in the world, there are prisons. North Korea is nothing special,” Yoo says, with a sigh. “But if there are human rights problems, then Hanchongryun will help them.”

I really don’t mind people protesting against the US military because it is their right to do so but they shouldn’t be allowed to beat the heck out the riot police like they do. The young mandatory service draftees that make up the riot police get the crap beaten out of them every time there is a major protest. I can’t believe how these people get away with assaulting police officers.

What bothers me the most about these protestors is that the media will not tell you who they are. You read the news and the reports tell you students protested against the US military. Why doesn’t the media say Hanchongnyun protestors instead of student protestors? Well, that would mean admitting to who you are and from what you have read above, who they are is nothing to be proud of.

The US has stopped recovering the remains of soldiers killed during the Korean War in North Korea.

The Pentagon on Wednesday abruptly suspended U.S. efforts to recover the remains of American soldiers from North Korea, accusing the Koreans of creating an environment that could jeopardize the safety of U.S. personnel performing the work.

The work has been proceeding since 1996, resulting in the recovery of more than 220 soldiers’ remains. Thousands more are still missing, and a large number of those are believed to be recoverable.

The move came just one day after the Pentagon announced that a number of remains of U.S. soldiers had been recovered during the first of what had been scheduled to be a series of missions this year at two former battlefields in North Korea. That announcement gave no indication there was a problem with safety.

This is interesting, I wonder if the North Koreans are demanding more money? The recovery of the remains is a nice little money maker for the North Koreans because they make a lot of money for allowing the US authorities to recover the remains. I don’t think the US government would suspend this type of mission unless the money demand was completely unreasonable.

I have actually seen one of the repatriation ceremonies at Panmunjom in the JSA. It really is a solemn moment to see the coffin being brought across the MDL (military demarcation line) at Panmunjom. It kind of brings home the ultimate sacrifice that 53,000 American soldiers made in the hills of Korea 50 years ago and we continue to make today in the deserts of Iraq. It has to mean a lot to the families that the US government is so vigorously pursuing the recovery of their family members. Hopefully this program will continue again once the North quit doing whatever they were doing.

A New York Times article recently featured Dr. Andrei Lankov who we all know from North Korea Zone and other publications as an expert on North Korean affairs. The article focused on the changes of Kim Jong Il’s regime in North Korea due to the expansion of technology such as video players and cell phones.

The construction of cellular relay stations last fall along the Chinese side of the border has allowed some North Koreans in border towns to use prepaid Chinese cellphones to call relatives and reporters in South Korea, defectors from North Korea say. And after DVD players swept northern China two years ago, entrepreneurs collected castoff videocassette recorders and peddled them in North Korea. Now tapes of South Korean soap operas are so popular that state television in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, is campaigning against South Korean hairstyles, clothing and slang, visitors and defectors have said.

“In the 1960’s in the Soviet Union, it was cool to wear blue jeans and listen to rock and roll,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian exchange student in the North at Kim Il Sung University in 1985, who now teaches about North Korea at Kookmin University here in the South. “Today, it is cool for North Koreans to look and behave South Korean, as they do in the television serials. That does not bode well for the long-term survival of the regime.”

However, don’t expect the almighty cell phone to cause regime change any time soon:

Analysts are debating the importance of Mr. Kim’s visits to military bases, which accounted for almost two-thirds of his 92 publicly divulged appearances last year, compared with one-third in 2003. With North Korea closed to American journalists, it is hard to decipher whether Mr. Kim is shoring up his power base in the army out of fear of a foreign attack or of an internal coup.

Past predictions that Mr. Kim’s power was ebbing have not been borne out.

“We have very meager intelligence resources, and we’re sort of flying blind,” Howard H. Baker Jr. said on Feb. 16 in Tokyo, in his final news briefing as American ambassador to Japan. “My country has no alternative but to assume that Kim Jong Il will continue in power. There won’t be any significant change in the governance of that country.”

Reviewing North Korea’s political elite, “we see no big change,” said Noriyuki Suzuki, director of Radio Press, a Japanese government monitoring service that focuses on the North Korean media.

Things look better in the long run though:

Inside North Korea, social, political and economic controls have been eroded by two other changes over the past decade: private markets and a breakdown in travel restrictions, Dr. Lankov said.

“You have private money lenders, you have inns, you have brothels, you have canteens,” he said, adding that most North Koreans survive through a combination of foreign aid and a fledgling private economy.

Draconian controls on internal travel and on travel to China have been breaking down, he said, and hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have traveled to and from Korean-speaking areas of China, exposing them to a thriving market economy and more South Korean television broadcasts.

“They are gradually learning about South Korean prosperity,” Dr. Lankov said. “This is a death sentence to the regime. North Korea’s claim to legitimacy is based on its ability to deliver the worker’s paradise now. What if everyone sees that it is not delivering?”

Like Lankov I don’t see the cell phone causing any revolution in the North but the video tapes have to be of big concern to Kim Jong Il because the regime is centered around the lie of the “worker’s paradise” and their supremacy to South Korea. These video tapes of Korean dramas are exposing these lies that will in turn one day expose the regime. Interesting reading worth checking out.

Andrei Lankov continues to crank out great articles. The latest article over at Asia Times is about Kim Jong Il possibly being ready to name a successor:

Now, at long last, we know what North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, told his wife more than 60 years ago about his intentions for dynastic succession – or at least what a Korean broadcast says that he said. Korea watchers are parsing this purported political pillow-talk – or some other private conversation or fabrication – stitched together by propagandists. And it comes on the eve of current Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s 64th birthday on February 16, with no known plans for his succession.

North Korean radio cited comments that Kim Il-sung, the dynasty’s founder, allegedly made when talking to his wife in 1943 (in all probability, these comments are pure invention – like more or less the entire “history of the Great Leader” as taught in North Korea). The Great Leader reportedly told his wife: “I would obey my father’s instruction to struggle for Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule and establish the communist country … if I fail, the tasks should be carried out by my son and grandson.” This was broadcast on January 27.

So, for the first time we have Kim Il-sung’s grandsons in the picture. Or have we? After all, many analysts interpret this as yet another propaganda exercise aimed at promoting Kim Jong-il, not his sons. But the majority seem to believe that these remarks do have some hidden meaning, indicating that Pyongyang leaders finally have decided to move ahead with their succession plans.

I tend to agree with this statement here:

It is widely believed that a dynastic succession is the only way to save the regime from collapse after Kim Jong-il’s death. If a new leader came from outside the ruling family, he would have too much incentive to negotiate surrender to the prosperous and powerful South, likely sacrificing the lives and property of the current elite in exchange for his own security. He would also probably lack the legitimacy necessary to keep the country and populace under control. Frankly, this writer believes that nothing short of Chinese intervention will save the regime one way or another, but if the Pyongyang royalty does not want to go down without a fight, it makes sense to appoint a new leader from the incumbent royal family.

You can read the rest on your own. It is an interesting read.

North Korea doesn’t necessarily need to name someone from the Kim family to be the successor. Anyone with blood on their hands would be suitable. They cannot name someone with a clean record because that person would have to much incentive to broker for peace with the South which means all the perks of the communist elite in Pyongyang is gone. So it is in their interest to name someone with a shady background.

However, they would not want to name someone to despotic because that would cramp their luxurious lifestyles also if they have a Stalin like person hovering over them which they have to be afraid of. At least with Kim Jong Il he is reported to be a likeable party guy in private.

So naming his oldest son Kim Jong-nam may not be a bad choice because he seems a rather layed back guy, heck he tried to go to Tokyo Disneland, but he also has a lot of baggage because he is Kim Jong Il’s son after all. So if the elites name him the successor they need to get him quickly involved in the intelligence service and have him order some airplane bombed like Kim Jong Il reportedly did in the 80’s to make no doubt that he has no choice but to keep the North Korean system functioning. This is probably the elites best bet to stay in power. However, it is becoming obvious that their days are numbered and no North Korean leader can do anything about that.

North Korea is trying to get the Czech Republic to ban the recent movie Team America.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic – North Korea (news – web sites)’s embassy in Prague has demanded that the film “Team America: World Police” be banned in the Czech Republic, saying the movie harms their country’s reputation, a report said Saturday.

In the film by “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, a team of marionettes rushes to keep North Korean leader Kim Jong Il from destroying the world, reducing world capitals to rubble along the way.

“It harms the image of our country,” the Lidove Noviny daily quoted a North Korean diplomat as saying. “Such behavior is not part of our country’s political culture. Therefore, we want the film to be banned.”

The Czech Foreign Ministy said the film would not be banned in the Czech Republic.

“We told them it’s an unrealistic wish,” ministry spokesman Vit Kolar was quoted as saying. “Obviously, it’s absurd to demand that in a democratic country.”

Obviously Kim Jong Il must of forgot the Czech Republic gave up Communism 15 years ago and will not be pushed around by another Communist bully. If North Korea wants to bully someone to ban Team America they should demand South Korea ban the movie. The South Korean government already gives North Korea everything it wants anyway, so banning a movie is no problem. Who cares about freedom of speech when you have North Korea to appease.