Tag: North Korea

Time Magazine had an article about the kidnapping by North Korean agents of South Korean preacher Kim Dong Sik.

Friends and family members have long insisted that he was kidnapped by North Korea, but couldn’t prove their claims. South Korean prosecutors may have solved the mystery–and also created a diplomatic headache for Seoul. Earlier this month, they indicted a suspected North Korean agent for alleged involvement in a kidnapping ring that is suspected of seizing at least 16 people in China, including Rev. Kim. According to a copy of the indictment obtained by TIME, the suspected abductors operated under instructions from a senior North Korean state-security official tasked with “kidnapping defectors and others working against the interest of the North Korean state and the Party.”

According to prosecutors, the captured agent told how he and five other men were waiting for Kim when he left the restaurant after lunch. When the pastor got in the front seat of a taxi, two of them allegedly jumped in the back and forced the cabbie to drive off. “Who are you guys? Where are you taking me?” the pastor demanded to know. That night, they are believed to have taken him to North Korea.

What is the Korean government doing about this? Well not much.
Last week, under pressure from opposition lawmakers, Seoul asked Beijing to reopen Rev. Kim’s case. Kim Mun Soo, a lawmaker from the opposition Grand National Party who visited Yanji earlier this month, says China has information about the pastor’s disappearance that it hasn’t shared with South Korea. Kim said Seoul should also get tough with Pyongyang, which still holds an estimated 468 kidnapped South Koreans. Says Kim: “It is the fundamental duty of a state to protect its citizens. South Korea has been terrible at this.” Friends of Rev. Kim are losing hope that he is still alive after five years. “He may have become a martyr,” says his brother-in-law, Chung Se Gook. “But the government should officially confirm whether he’s dead or not.” Either way, the evidence strongly suggests that Pyongyang hasn’t kicked its kidnapping habit.

South Korea should be embarrassed for taking such a weak position on trying to discover the status of the preacher. I doubt the North Koreans would ever try to kidnap another Japanese national again due to the hard line the Japanese government is taking against the North Korean kidnappings by possibly leveling sanctions on the impoverished country. Seoul needs to take a similar hard line approach or South Korean citizens will just continue to get kidnapped whenever the North Koreans want too. Is appeasing the North more important than protecting Korean citizens?

Why are Koreans so “shocked” by the allegations that China has been aiding North Korean kidnapping teams in China? Why should China care about the refugees when the South Korean government doesn’t?

There was shock in South Korea Wednesday at the revelation that the North runs a kidnapping squad that freely crosses the Sino-Korean border and raids safe houses on Chinese territory, often in the guise of Chinese security forces, and apparently with the tacit consent of China.
By contrast, Chinese authorities habitually imprison South Korean activists who operate in China’s border areas trying to help North Korean defectors.

National Intelligence Service (NIS) records from the interrogation of 36-year-old Ryu Young-hwa, a North Korean operative involved in the kidnapping of South Korean pastor Kim Dong-shik, reveal that North Korean agents dress up as Chinese police to raid defector hideouts and kidnap their occupants. Even if the kidnappers smashed windows to break into houses and caused commotions as they dragged away handcuffed victims, the Chinese authorities did not lift a finger to stop them.

Prosecutors confirmed that Ryu’s squad kidnapped and returned to North Korea 16 people including the Rev. Kim in nine operations between 1999 and 2000, mostly from Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. Chinese authorities either made no attempt to stop the abductions or were unaware of them.

Meanwhile, the Japanese media is focusing on a Japanese woman who was among a total of some 40 defectors abducted by the squad. Both the Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun quoted a Chosun Ilbo report that the woman, who had moved to North Korea in the 1960s after marrying a North Korean, had been taken back to the North in handcuffs after escaping to China.

China has just as much reason to want to get rid of the defectors as North Korea does. China does not want a refugee crisis to flood its borders so they are going to do everything possible covertly to prevent mass defections such as allowing Nork kidnapping teams free access in the country. China cannot take action themselves because they do not want human rights allegations involving the refugees to tarnish the upcoming Olympic Games. The Nork kidnapping teams make a good proxy force to take care of the refugee problem and leaves the Chinese with plausible deniability. It’s a great arrangement that works for everyone involved, unless you are one of those refugees, but who cares about them anyway.

I just finished reading an article in this month’s Foreign Policy magazine about North Korean hackers. The article is written by well known North Korea watcher Rebecca MacKinnon formerly of CNN which some of you probably know from her website North Korea Zone. The Foreign Policy website doesn’t have this article posted yet on their website so I will just type it here for you to read.

Hermit Hackers

South Korea’s National Assembly Defense Committee recently reported that North Korea has trained an army of 500-600 skilled computer hackers. According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, North Korea’s hackers attend a special five year college called the Automated Warfare Institute. Tucked away in the mountains, the South Koreans say, this military academy produces 100 cyber warriors per year, with degrees in subjects such as automated reconnaissance.

News that North Korea is developing cyberwarfare capbabilities on par with those in advanced nations came as a surprise. Short on cutting-edge computer technology (not to mention reliable electrical grids), the Hermit Kingdom still depends on other nations for it’s internet bandwidth. As of October 2004, there were reportedly 43 official North Korean or pro-North Korean web sites on the Net. Yet none of these sites is actually housed on a North Korean computer server. Seventeen, including North Korea’s official news agency, KCNA exist on Japanese servers. Servers in the United States, China, Singapore, and Germany host North Korea’s remaining sites. By: Rebecca MacKinnon

The first thing that jumped to mind when reading this is not the obsurdity of North Korea training computer hackers in a country with no ISP or little electricity but that they are wasting money on training people when they could easily hire some young South Korean sympathizers to come and hack for them. The next time these sympathizers are protesting at the front gate of of our camp I can let them know the Norks are hiring. I they still don’t want to go to North Korea, than they can just kidnap them. The Korean government won’t care. I also wonder if Japan places sanctions on North Korea if they will shut down their internet service as well? I would hate to lose such a great hard news service as the KCNA. What I am I going to do about not being able to read about the latest obscure third world dictator praising Kim Jong Il?