North Korea’s Growth Industry: Train Wrecks
Question: What self-respecting tyrannical mass-murderer would admit that he rules a country that’s completely broken? Answer: one that really, really needs the insurance money, even if it’s from a spate of horrific and previously undisclosed disasters:
One of the incidents was the sinking of a passenger ship traveling between Wonsan and Heungnam, both east-coast ports. Half of the ship’s 200 passengers lost their lives, Minjok reportedly told its reinsurers. Industry officials here estimated that the insurance payment would be in the millions of dollars. Another incident was a train accident in South Hamkyong province in April, which resulted in the deaths of 270 soldiers and 400 civilians. Rumors had circulated in Seoul about the latter accident, but those rumors were dismissed at the time by South Korean government officials.
Another train crash occurred near Nampo, a west-coast port, in April. Dozens were reportedly killed in that crash. Little is known about a helicopter crash near Pyongyang in May, these sources said.
“North Korea has been in a bad plight since September 2005, after its assets in Banco Delta Asia in Macau were frozen and the United States announced financial sanctions,” a Seoul official said. “It is my understanding that the North is also trying to press claims linked to flood damage this summer.”
One observer said the North’s rare disclosure of disasters indicates how serious Pyongyang’s cash crunch is. “It means that Pyongyang is more interested in gaining tangible benefits despite the risk of airing its dirty linen in public,” said Yang Moo-jin, a North Korea-watcher at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.
The insurance investigators were even allowed into off-limits areas to substantiate those claims, which makes you wonder what access Kim Jong Il would grant weapons inspectors, food aid monitors, or the International Committee for the Red Cross if he were sufficiently motivated. It’s tempting to let this scheme go forward for a while for the sheer intelligence value of it. One small problem: I see zero basis for exempting re-insurance payments from U.N. Security Council Resolution 1695.
Given how much food aid the North Korean regime has diverted from its starving people, would it be so terrible to suggest that these payments to the regime be diverted to the World Food Program?
The spate of accidents shows that NK’s infrastructure is old and the government doesn’t have enough money to do proper maintenance or upgrades. The result is tragic. Also, the transportation workers are so malnourished that they probably can’t even work right.
That’s really sad. Who are these insurers anyways? I didn’t know N. Korea was that advanced to have the whole insurance thing going on. I surely hope they aren’t American insurance companies. On another note, why aren’t N. Koreans allowed to have missiles to protect themselves? Indians have ’em. Americans have ’em. Israelis probably have ’em. N. Koreans do crazy stuff but so do Americans, like starting a war in Iraq.
Umm, well, they gas whole families, murder babies, keep hundreds of thousands of people and their children in gulags, execute people in public for trying to escape, starve millions of people to death and blow the savings on MiGs and nukes, kidnap foreign nationals from their home towns, deal in dope, print counterfeit currency … in short, demonstrate absolutely none of the moral restraint and regard for human life that distinguishes legitimate self-defense from the malicious ambition to murder and terrorize even more victims. Any weapons they have, they fling toward or point at their neighbors, issuing bellicose threats to remove any ambiguity.
If you can’t draw moral equivalence between that and giving 25 million tyrannized people a shot at democracy and prosperity, I might as well be trying to make a moral distinction between a gas chamber and a fart in a crowded elevator.
Mainly, Jonathan, because they have arguably the most brutal and repressive social, economic and political system on Earth, (resulting in part in the badly decaying infrastructure discussed above,) and because those missiles have been paid for through human malnutrition and starvation. This in contrast to the other countries you cite, which have democracy, rule of law, a system of checks and balances, a free press, tolerance of dissent…well, I’ll stop there.
Other than that, though, I have no idea why so many are opposed to North Korea having missiles, or are oppsed to the KJI regime in general.
There’s no doubt most of us think of N. Korean regime as a horrific dictatorship that has no regard for human lives. well.. a few extreme liberals in Korea probaby beg to differ. I personally don’t buy that “spreading democracy” and “helping the people” argument. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I think spreading democracy is great, and helping the poor is wonderful. But is that really the true reason behind all these sanctions and threats to NK? I think it has more to do with protecting the US’s own interest. Howcome nobody did anything about Rwanda if the US really cared about the innocent victims? Sudan is a mess, too. I think every country is in it for themselves, and the argument “we want to help” isn’t very strong, at least to me. It’s naive to say that we want to spread democracy and help people because of the double standards that countries like the US have shown in the past. Also, what do you say to this: why aren’t S.Koreans allowed to have nuclear missiles? South Korea is a rather well developed democratic country, no?
(gosh it’s kinda hard to proof read cuz this comment box is too small)
“why aren’t S.Koreans allowed to have nuclear missiles?”
It’s because SK is a member of the NPT as a non-nuclear nation, and its Alliance with the US restricts it from having its own nukes.
In regards to the financial sanctions, I agree with you that it’s not helping to reduce the suffering in NK.
Yes, i know about the NPT, and i think that’s unfair. But then again, life is unfair and u can’t beat that argument. But that definitely sucks, especially when the strong isn’t very humble.
Anyways, im probably unrealistic, but I just wish that we could have a strong int’l governing body that can consistently show that they care about human lives. So far, individual states have always acted in their best interest. and yes that includes Korea and France. (how many troops did France commit to Lebanon?) So can we please stop acting like the biggest reason why the US cares about N.Korea so much is to help N.Koreans?
I know the mindset of americans has changed a lot since 9/11, but I really like this article:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2635
Of course the U.S. has selfish interests in the world. So do all countries. But self-interest and altruistic advancement of ideals aren’t always mutually exclusive. For instance, the U.S. has advanced its own interests through its alliance with South Korea, and look at the result–a prosperous and democratic country. (Though the democracy part took admittedly took a while.) It has been mostly a symbiotic relationship.
As for Rwanda, I can offer a counterpoint to your theory–Mogadishu ’93, of Black Hawk Down fame. I remember reading a quote by an American general mentioning that the operation there might be the first in American history done for purely humanitarian reasons. There was no selfish interest in that case–no gold, no oil, no enemies real or percieved. And we all know how that turned out. Kind of soured Americans on intervention in foreign affairs for solely altruistic reasons–and tragically, helped pave the way for Rwanda. But at least America tried.
By the way, I’m not trying to come across as some mindless jingoistic American here. There are situations where the U.S.’s selfish interests have clashed with its ideals, or the U.S. has made mistakes or done wrong. But it’s pretty hard to see any conflict between self-interest and ideals over North Korea.
“But it’s pretty hard to see any conflict between self-interest and ideals over North Korea.”
I agree with you on that one. I just don’t like it when the US draws itself as having a moral high ground. Listen to what McCain says. “We are better than other nations” blah blah blah. Humility people, humility!
I really doubt even the left-wing in Korea wants North Koreans to suffer. So we have a same goal here, but the difference is how we are going to achieve that. Having been exposed to both Korean and American media, I think I can definitely see both arguments. I can see why prez. Kim came up with his sunshine policy (for which he won a nobel peace prize) and I can also see the reasoning behind the left-wing’s so-called pro-NK policy. As for my personal opinion, I’m a bit skeptical of that sunshine policy.
What I am not happy with though… is arrogance. There’s no right or wrong answer here- just different approaches. You can be an arss about it and say, “you do this, we leave” or we can talk. Most American GI’s I’ve talked to here in Seoul sounded rather.. arrogant. “Why do they hate us? We’re protecting you.” “I don’t give a shit about this country” One even went on to tell me (an officer) “We’re not leaving just because you tell us to leave. That’s not your decision.” So yeah…. I think the bad PR shown by the GIs here definitely affected my views on Americans, more so than my 7 yr experience in the states did. Of course, Koreans being too proud of themselves definitely doesn’t help, either!
I’m sorry to hear of your negative experiences with GIs. I don’t like American arrogance either, when and where it occurs. And I do believe that if South Korea wants us out, we should get out (acutally, I favor a phased withdrawal anyway, but that’s another story).
Its analytical geniuses like Jonathan that make this blog interesting. On the issue of arrogance I have to give kudos to Jonathan cause it is because of arrogance that we have dropped the ball in Iraq. Though this is a Korean blog, and I did support the Iraq war, with better reflection since the invasion when I look at the violence going on over there and then remember that famous quote from Cheney “We’ll be greeted as liberators” all I can do is shake my head in disbeleif.
I really like the articles and people here! Obviously I disagree with a lot of statements made here, but I think it’s wonderful that we have people here who are capable of having intelligent discussions… whereas on some other blogs on Korea, I found bloggers very sarcastic, narrow-minded and arrogant along with commentators who weren’t any better. 😉
I have to admit that I’m really puzzled by this.
The concept of ‘insurance’, I think, would be somewhat alien to the Kim Family Regime … unless it was a scam operation of some sort.
After North Korea’s reneging on its international loans in the ’70s and 80’s, I find it surprising that any legitimate underwriter would even consider discussing it with the Pyongyang regime.
“I can see why prez. Kim came up with his sunshine policy (for which he won a nobel peace prize) and I can also see the reasoning behind the left-wing’s so-called pro-NK policy.”
Dude, the Sunshine Policy is the left-wing’s pro-North policy, even if that may not have been KDJ’s initial intention. And you must have missed the memo about that discredited Nobel prize.
The insurance companies are probably from China or Taiwan. Chinese business people are not stupid, and they probably charged a lot for the insurance and kept their liability to a low amount that matches the low standard of living in NK.
Sunshine policy is obviously by the left-wing here but I wouldn’t really call it pro-NK. Well, actually it depends on what you mean by pro-North Korea. I doubt many of them really wanted N. Koreans to unify Korea. (some do/did though!) As much as I hate to see s. korean gov’t giving monetary support to N.Korea, it’s understandable how some people just don’t want to have such an enormous economical gap between the two, and also a lot of people believe that north koreans might do crazier things when they get really desperate(e.g. start shooing missiles at seoul since they got nothing to lose–> that’s definitely terrifying to ppl in Seoul.Maybe not as much to ppl in DC). It’s kinda like social welfare– we give the poor money that they didn’t work for, but we do it cuz we wanna keep them at least minimally happy and quiet so that they dont do things like stealing, rioting, etc. and then there’s also a group of people who don’t really consider N.Korea as a threat. After all, n.korea’s drug selling, making counterfeit money, kiling their own citizen and other acts didn’t really affect S.Koreans’ daily lives directly. None of these views are right or wrong. I’m rather indecisive when it comes to choosing b/w hardline stance vs.sunshine policy since… well, neither of them seems to work.
Anyways, I haven’t read the memo that discredited the nobel peace prize. could u provide me with a copy?