Tag: North Korea

This is pretty amazing that this family actually made across the maritime border without being detected:

A family of five North Koreans, including two children, were found adrift aboard a small barge inside South Korean water across the eastern sea border, military officials said Sunday.

A South Korean coast guard boat spotted the barge carrying the North Koreans sailing across the tightly guarded border in the East Sea on Saturday night and towed it to Goseong, a port on the east coast, they said.

The North Koreans told investigators their boat had drifted for two days before striking a rock, the officials said.

The military and the Coast Guard were jointly investigating whether the North Koreans had an intention to defect, they said.

The investigation should be short, but I’m not sure what else a family of five on a barge would be doing out in the middle of the East Sea in the cold other than defect.

Prior Posting: Carter’s Deal

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With Carter going live on CNN to announce this deal the White House felt they had to circle the wagons with Carter in order to appear to the American public that they were still in control of the situation. You have to remember that at the time the Clinton administration was looked at as foreign policy novices after the fiasco a year prior in Somalia. The administration would have looked really incompetent if they were seen as contradicting against what their perceived negotiator Carter was putting out to the American public on CNN.

Just like that Clinton’s policy making team went from drawing up war plans to defend Korea, to deciding how to implement the White House’s version of a nuclear freeze in order to make it look like that the White House was in fact calling the shots, not Carter or the North Koreans. On June 17th in Pyongyang, Carter received the administration’s version of a nuclear freeze which was slightly different from what he had agreed to with Kim Il-sung on a day prior. Carter objected to the new conditions because he felt it was unlikely that the North Koreans would agree to them. However, the North Koreans quickly agreed to the White House’s version of a freeze thus saving the White House some face and still giving the North Koreans what they wanted.

The fact that Carter was so concerned about the North Koreans not accepting the White House’s version of a freeze just goes to show how little Carter understood of North Korean negotiation tactics. The North Koreans have long been masters at appearing to be overly emotional and for lack of a better term creating an impression of being crazy and unpredictable. However, the North Koreans are in fact quite rational with set goals and objectives they want to achieve and only created the persona of unpredictability in order to convince peaceniks like Carter that they were serious about going to war at a moments notice if they didn’t get what they wanted.

In fact I find it unlikely that the North Koreans would have immediately went to war even if the White House was successful in implementing sanctions. The North Koreans knew all to well that war meant the end of their regime and their way of life because they knew they had no chance of winning a prolonged war with the US and South Korea. For people like North Korea’s ruling elite the only thing they worry about is keeping the money coming in to finance their lifestyles and war was not the way to do this, but the North Koreans had to convince Carter otherwise which they were successful in doing.

When Carter returned to Seoul, South Korean President Kim Young-sam was not very agreeable with Carter’s deal because once again he felt that the future of South Korea was being decided by foreign powers without the consultation of South Korea, which those that know a lot about Korean history can tell you is a point that runs deep in Korean society. One point that President Kim was excited about however, was that Kim Il Sung had told Carter during his trip that he would be willing to hold a summit with Kim Young-sam in the future. This never did come to fruition due to Kim Il Sung’s death months later.

When Carter was making plans to return to the US he wanted to head straight to the White House to consult the administration. However, the White House was still privately furious at Carter and did not want him to go to Washington. Later the administration relented and Carter flew to Washington and met the White House officials but President Clinton decided to go to Camp David and only spoke with Carter by telephone. I think it is safe to say that President Clinton was still pretty pissed off at Carter for undermining his White House policies.

I think Clinton knew Carter had set a dangerous precedent in regards to dealing with countries with weapons of mass destruction by appeasing the North Koreans and in effect causing the world’s most powerful nation, the United States, to bow down and give into the demands of one of the world’s poorest and most destitute nations all in the name of freezing a nuclear program. What signal would this send to the rest of the world’s dictators? If you want respect from the US, build WMD. It is that simple.

Carter could care less though because he felt he had finally made his long lost legacy by bringing peace to the Korean peninsula, however as history has shown which I’m sure President Clinton knew would, the 1994 Agreed Frame Work collapsed in 2002 when North Korea was discovered to be continuing on with a covert nuclear program despite the agreement to build the light water reactors.

The North Korean nuclear crisis continues to this day but has recently been overshadowed by the more clear and present danger Iran which is unsurprisingly playing the same cards that North Korea played so well in 1994 that they only want nuclear energy not weapons. Much like Clinton in 1994 President Bush is preparing to refer Iran to the UN for sanctions which Iran is implying would mean war as well.

Wouldn’t it be something if Carter popped up in Tehran trying to broker another similar peace deal with the mullahs especially when it was the Iranians who ended his presidency in disgrace by sacking the US Embassy and kidnapping it’s diplomats. However, with Carter there isn’t a dictator he doesn’t like as long as it serves his own personal ego to attain the legacy he will probably never receive.

I wonder if the Iranian’s have a hotel room already booked for him?

Prior Posting: Jimmy Carter’s Interference in US Presidential Policy

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In addition to developing nuclear weapons the North Koreans were in the process of a slow but steady build up of forces on the Demilitarized Zone over the past decade. In 1994 the North Koreans had 65% of their military positioned on the DMZ compared to just 45% a decade earlier. The build up included massive amounts of artillery to include 2,400 multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and 8,400 artillery pieces. These weapons could pound the South Korean metropolis of Seoul with 5,000 rounds of artillery every 12 hours. This is why the North Korean referred to turning Seoul into a “Sea of Fire” during this nuclear crisis.

They had been building up to the moment for years and the time had come to push the international envelope. With the end of the Soviet Union and communism in China, North Korea was not getting the free aid and good trade deals that they were used to getting from the former communist block countries. With little economic might to fall back on, playing the nuclear card seemed like a good way to get international aid and North Korea was ready to play it.

Washington began a diplomatic approach to solve the crisis but was simultaneously preparing the military option. Apache attack helicopters and PATRIOT missiles were moved into Korea for the first time along with additional Abrams and Bradley tanks. Even with these reinforcements, 52,000 US casualties and 490,000 ROK Army casualties were expected in just the first 90 days if war broke out. The economic damage would total more than one trillion US dollars. The stakes were very high and any mis-step could lead to war.

Next Posting: Carter Enters the Nuclear Crisis

Today the 9th of December is the 38th anniversary of the 1968 death of a young Korean boy, Lee Seung-bok, who was murdered by North Korean commandos who had infiltrated into Gangwon province. On the night of December 9th the communists stormed into the small traditional home that the Lee family lived, in search of food and shelter. The family gave them what food they had and hoped that the commandos would soon leave.

However, things turned tragic when the communists asked the 7 year old Lee Seung-bok if he preferred North Korea or South Korea. The young boy said he liked South Korea. The commandos began to beat him, but he would not change his mind and before being killed he said the now famous line, “I hate Communists!” The North Korean commandos then proceeded to cut out the 10 year old boys mouth and then began to butcher the rest of the family after they tried to stop the killing of Lee Seung-bok.

In total the 7 year old Seung-bok, his 5 year old, brother Seung-su, his 2 year old sister Seung-ja, and his 31 year old mother Joo Dae-ha were killed by the communists and left to die outside. However, his older brother who was also stabbed and had his head smashed with a rock, did survive. Though seriously wounded he was able to stagger to the residence of his family’s closest neighbor once the commandos left and plead for help and warn others of the infiltrators. Also a family friend had arrived at the residence and was attacked by the North Koreans and stabbed in the leg but he was also able to escape and warn nearby ROK Army officials.

The now alerted neighbors immediately began to take up what crude weapons they had and began guard shifts to watch for the North Koreans until local authorities arrived. The ROK Army arrived and began to secure the area and search for the communist spies.  Unfortunately the murderers were never found and escaped, but the words of Lee Seung-bok served as a rallying cry in schools across Korea and continue to resonate to this day. However, these words resonate today not with an anti-communist message but as a myth created by the authoritarian government of then President Park Chung Hee.

So how did this change in perceptions occur? Of course by repeating a lie over and over again until people just assume it is true. This is propaganda 101 for every communist and that is exactly what they did in the Lee Seung-bok incident. Over the past 12 years so called “progressive groups” using names that actually sound legitimate, which in this case the pro-North Korean sympathizers called themselves the People’s Coalition for Media Reform, to disguise who they really are because they just can’t come out and say they are communists because then people would not take them seriously. This is the same tactic being used currently in the General MacArthur controversy raging in Inchon. Anyway this group accused the then Park Chung-hee government and the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reporters who covered the tragedy as fabricating the entire story and not even being at the scene.

This tactic of disinformation in the Lee Seung-bok case has been allowed to simmer in the Korean publics for over the last 12 years where now people take it to be the truth even though last year the Seoul District Court sentenced the leaders of the People’s Coalition for Media Reform to jail terms for fabrication and libel, but the damage has already been done in the publics’s perception of this incident.

It is amazing to me that such blatant disinformation about the incident would be allowed to simmer for this long even though there are numerous eyewitnesses including Lee Seung-bok’s own brother who survived the massacre who verify the accounts of what happened that night. The only reason I can see that this disinformation has been allowed to simmer in the public’s imagination for so long is because more liberal governments who have come to power in South Korea over the last 12 years have been eager to defame the former President Park Chung-hee who still holds a positive image with many South Koreans for turning the country from one of the world’s poorest countries and into an economic power house. There is also the dual reason of appeasing the North Koreans as well in the name of the “Sunshine Policy” even if it means destroying the image and sacrifice of this young boy.

If you want to see for yourself the story of Lee Seung-bok, I encourage you to check out the Lee Seung-bok memorial located near the Soksa interchange on Interstate 50. Just exit off of Interstate 50 on the interchange and head North for about 10 minutes on highway 31 until you see the memorial located to your right. The memorial is quite large and with a huge parking lot, so you can’t miss it.

The memorial is located near where the incident actually happened and includes an accurate replica of Lee Seung-bok’s home, his grave site, a military static display, a park, and a museum with a theater that depicts all the details of the Lee Seung-bok tragedy. The video they play in the theater can also be viewed online by clicking here. I checked the memorial out as part of a side trip while traveling to Odaesan National Park. The memorial is an interesting excursion if you are in the area and the ride up highway 31 features some really gorgeous Gangwon-do mountain scenery.

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.