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Category: Regime Change

February 20, 2011

Is Khaddafy a goner?

He’s lost Benghazi and he could lose Tripoli by tomorrow morning, America time: Libya’s unrest spread to the capital Tripoli on Sunday after scores of protesters were killed in the second city Benghazi, which appeared to have slipped out of control of forces loyal to strongman Muammar Gaddafi. [….] In the first sign of serious unrest in the capital, thousands of protesters clashed with supporters of Gadaffi in Tripoli. Gunfire could be heard and police using tear gas to disperse...
Categories Africa/Regime Change
February 8, 2011

South Korea should close Kaesong and encourage remittances.

The Chosun Ilbo reports that as the North Korean diaspora swells, those who have escaped are forming stronger financial links with their hungry families in the homeland. And this has some people concerned: North Korean defectors settled in South Korea are sending some US$10 million a year to their families back home, it was reported on Sunday. The amount is expected to grow as there are more than 20,000 North Korean defectors in the South and the number is increasing,...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics/Refugees/Regime Change/Subversion
January 31, 2011

North Korea Isn’t Egypt

So in response to some questions I’ve received via e-mail and this, no, what’s happening in Egypt can’t happen in North Korea, at least not in the foreseeable future. The two systems are not remotely comparable. Few of Mubarak’s soldiers would kill civilians if ordered to do so. The Egyptian people know this, which means he’s doomed. Mubarak is a dictator, but he’s merely an authoritarian dictator, not a totalitarian on the model of the leaders of Burma, North Korea,...
Categories Regime Change
December 12, 2010

I wonder if China is pleased with Japan’s new plans to expand defense spending, deploy more PAC-3 Patriot missile batteries, build more submarines to patrol disputed waters, and arm more Aegis cruisers with Standard-3 missiles. Again, there is even talk of acquiring nuclear weapons. China has only its own reckless backing of North Korea to blame for this. Me, I’d be happier if we sold the same types of gear to Taiwan, which as I take delight in repeating, happens...
Categories China & Korea/Japan/Korean War II/Regime Change/Washington Views
November 29, 2010

Rinjingang Video Shows the Misery of the Real North Korea

When you see all of those missiles paraded down the square in Pyongyang, do you ever ask yourself who paid for those missiles? Here are the people who paid for them. As you watch this, remember that Rimjingang‘s brave guerrilla cameramen risked their lives to show you the truth. These are the expendable people of North Korea, the ones who don’t have a place in the propaganda parades, the ones who don’t get to eat the food aid that the...
Categories Inside NK/Resistance
November 26, 2010

Before We Start Bombing North Korea, Let’s Try Turning It into Afghanistan

I don’t know about you, but when North Korea decided to shell South Korean homes and kill South Korean civilians in South Korean territory, my balance of risks shifted. We’ve always known that if U.S. and South Korean forces attack North Korea, North Korea would respond by trying to kill as many American and South Korean civilians as possible. Estimates that this would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties are probably worst-case scenarios, but a toll of several thousand...
Categories China & Korea/NK Military/Regime Change/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 6, 2010

Rimjingang Takes Covert Journalism to the Next Level

The first English language edition of Rimjingang is about to come out. It will be a dead-tree quarterly, and thus far, Rimjingang has very little presence on YouTube. These are strange things to observe in a publication whose survival depends — literally — on its technological sophistication at hiding memory cards and playing cat-and-mouse with the regime’s cell phone trackers: The quarterly Rimjingang has been available in Korean and Japanese since 2008. The English edition will be published about twice...
Categories Inside NK/Resistance
October 27, 2010

You’d think that the perils of responding to public opinion polls in North Korea would be obvious enough already.

Open News is reporting that discontent with the “feudal” succession of Kim Jong-Eun is so great that people are even expressing their dissent publicly, with the presumed exceptions of the anjeonbu and bowibu. These agencies are now so concerned about the spread of dissent that they’re adopting an unusual method to reveal the heretics: “After the meeting of party representatives, public sentiment of North Korean citizens is low. The National Security Agency and party institutions have even ordered companies, village...
Categories Resistance
September 3, 2010

Lee Myung Bak, History, and Korea’s National Conversation

Nearly five years ago, before Lee Myung Bak was even a candidate for his country’s presidency, I expressed my reservations about his pushy style of governance and his history of gaffes. I do not share his love of grandiose and costly projects of questionable merit (something about water seems to unhinge him). But Lee has performed admirably at governing a nation that often seems ungovernable, and during some very difficult times. Competently. Lee’s first real test stuck shortly after his...
Categories Reconstruction
August 16, 2010

President Lee Drags South Korea Toward Its Destiny (Updated)

If there is such a thing as cautious enthusiasm — particularly for something that’s implausible on its face — that describes my reaction to President Lee’s proposal for phased unification with North Korea: Lee’s plan, similar to proposals from previous South Korean leaders, calls for North Korea’s denuclearization. If North Korea meets that demand — and years of international persuasion have not succeeded — Lee’s plan calls for a “peace community,” improved economic cooperation and then the establishment of a...
Categories North-South/Reconstruction
July 15, 2010

RFA: Leafleter(s) in Hoeryong Got Past Tight Security

Radio Free Asia has published more details about those dissident leaflets that showed up in Hoeryong recently. According to sources, the leafleting occurred just 150 meters away from the Hoeryong Historic Pavilion, a site in Osanduk-Dong guarded by security agents, where the statue and birth house of Kim Jong Suk, Kim Il Sung’s first wife, are located. Near Osan Elementary School, School Village has the lowest crime rate in Hoeryong city due to round-the-clock patrols and surveillance by law enforcement,...
Categories Resistance
July 10, 2010

If there was ever any cognizable justice in holding Gomes in a prison cell for peacefully presenting a petition to North Korean border guards, it ended months ago. North Korea says an American man being held for illegally crossing its border has tried to kill himself. A statement issued by the regime’s official Korean Central News Agency says Aijalon Mahli Gomes’ suicide attempt was “driven by his strong guilty conscience,” plus disappointment and despair that the U.S. government “has not...
Categories Aijalon Gomes/Anju Links/Deprogramming/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/NK Military/Propaganda/Reconstruction/Refugees
July 9, 2010

Yet Another Report of Anti-Regime Leaflets in N. Korea

It’s the second such report I’ve seen this week, which is pretty extraordinary for North Korea: North Korea’s National Security Agency (NSA) has launched a hunt for the individual or organization responsible for scattering 5,000 won bills scrawled with words criticizing the Kim Jong Il regime in Chongjin, North Hamkyung Province. A source reported on Thursday that around the Kim Il Sung statue in Pohang and parts of Shinan district in the city, large numbers of 5,000 won bills inscribed...
Categories Resistance
July 7, 2010

Son Jong Nam, R.I.P.

It is a terrible thing to say, but I will say it: it is better that Son Jong Nam is dead than that he still endures torture in North Korean captivity. Truthfully, I had long assumed that Son had died, even by the time I wrote this post in late 2007. Now, Son’s brother has told an AP reporter that his brother is dead. Like most North Koreans, Son Jong Nam knew next to nothing about Christianity when he fled...
Categories Deprogramming/Religion/Resistance/Subversion
May 24, 2010

Overthrowing Kim: A Capitalist Manifesto

[Originally published at The New Ledger, May 2010; edited for brevity in October 2017] Within the next 48 hours, South Korea is expected to announce that North Korea torpedoed and sank the warship Cheonan and killed 46 of her crew.  Among the evidence the multinational investigation will cite will be the North Korean serial number on the torpedo’s propeller, recovered from the ocean floor.  The sinking of the Cheonan may be the most serious North Korean provocation since 1968 — unless...
Categories Capitalism/Regime Change