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Category: South Korea

May 4, 2006

Refugees Update

[Update: Richardson picks up several other reports to the same effect. Things seem to be moving, and you have to wonder what could happen next now that the word has started to spread.] The Chosun Ilbo reports fresh signs of progress that the State Department is finally aboard the love train on North Korean refugees. A group of North Korean defectors in Southeast Asia is reportedly seeking asylum in the United States. In an interview with Korea’s Yonhap News, a...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/North Korea/Refugees/Southeast Asia/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 3, 2006

Union Thugs Attack Riot Policemen’s Mothers

[Update: More KCTU follies: “We will unite with the workers of the North to fight against the U.S.” Except these workers, I presume.] The 51-year-old mother of a riot policeman is being treated in the hospital for a serious head injury after being pushed to the ground by union demonstrators while she and a group of other parents were monitoring a protest rally in South Jeolla province, police said. The group demanded an apology yesterday from the Korean Confederation of...
Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
May 2, 2006

Jay Lefkowitz Is Right About Kaesong

The debate about South Korea’s role in (not) improving human rights in the North seems to intensify by the hour. Freedom House is the latest to testify for the prosecution. If you believe the latest report from the Chosun Ilbo, the State Department is reeling from the vitriolic South Korean reaction to U.S. Human Rights Envoy Jay Lefkowitz over labor conditions in North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Park: Another U.S. government insider also said the controversial piece by Lefkowitz had not...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 2, 2006

The Forked Tongue of Lee Jong-Seok, Part 2

“At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has been starving to death,” Lee said. — UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok (ht to Richardson) In sum, although the period of high famine has passed, North Korea continues to experience chronic food shortages that are hitting hard at an underemployed and unemployed urban working class in particular. . . . Moreover, given the political stratification of North Korea and the inability of the WFP to...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Censorship/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/North Korea/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
May 2, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 37: Seoul’s Scorched Earth Retreat on Human Rights

At a comment to an earlier post by James, I listed the following as one of the accomplishments of last week’s North Korean Freedom Week: South Korea has never been more diplomatically isolated in regard to the aforementioned issues, plus on Kaesong, where it sounds increasingly desperate. South Korea’s government is giving some preliminary confirmation of that analysis, in a characteristically disordered way. The first reaction was a tantrum that almost merited a “Death of an Alliance” post. The Korean...
Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 1, 2006

Has a U.S. Embassy Accepted NK Defectors?

[Update: link fixed, thanks!] Via the Chosun Ilbo: Some five or six North Korean defectors are reportedly preparing to enter the U.S. under the protection of its embassy in a Southeast Asian country as Washington prepares to make good on a pledge to grant asylum to more refugees from the Stalinist country. Sources in the U.S. government and Congress said Thursday as soon as procedural matters with the Asian country are resolved, the North Koreans will make their way to...
Categories Activism/Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 1, 2006

DailyNK Makes Newsweek, Sort of

Newsweek’s latest article on South Korea’s “New Right” is a must-read (ht to the Marmot). The New Right, in remarkable parallel to the rise of American neocons, has sprung up in reaction to these changes. They promote American-style capitalism, denounce the type of totalitarian socialism found in North Korea and–unlike traditional GNP conservatives–advocate a more open world view that transcends narrow nationalism.
Categories Democracy/Korean Politics
May 1, 2006

Revealed: The Halliburton Conspiracy to Unify Korea!

A comment to this post implies belief in an old canard of the Korean left that the United States is an invisible hand that keeps Korea divided. That argument depends on any number of dubious lines of reasoning, from control of South Korea’s natural resources (such as . . . ?), to controlling its trade (and yet, China is now Korea’s largest trading partner), to keeping Korea as a client for U.S. arms (a united Korea wouldn’t need arms, and...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/China & Korea/Democracy/Geopolitics/Humor/Satire/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
April 30, 2006

Mixed News on Kaesong

The bad news is that Kaesong-made goods look to be headed toward acceptance into the ASEAN FTA. This comes via Philip Dorsey Iglauer, who has made himself infamous both for awful reporting and awful analysis, so you’ve been warned. I kind of hope Iglauer likes to google his own name, because that’s my cue to point out a story in the Donga Ilbo that’s certain to have him calling for his smelling salts: The Korean government is opposing an article...
Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Human Rights/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
April 30, 2006

‘Barrel of a Gun’

During my recent trip to Korea, I was fortunate to have dinner and moderate quantities of alcohol with several other K-bloggers, including The Marmot, The Flying Yangban, Oranckay, The Drambuie Man (also a S. Dakota native), and Professor Andrei Lankov, who is working on a book on the Korean War, based on material from old Soviet archives. Oranckay picked a restaurant where I had some of the best kalbi I’ve ever eaten, and Robert knew of a beautifully restored old...
Categories Diplomacy/Inside NK/Korean Society/North Korea/Six-Party Talks/WMD
April 30, 2006

USFK Relocation in Trouble

One of the most interesting things I observed during my recent visit to Seoul was the absence of any apparent arrangements to evacuate Yongsan Garrison, in the heart of Seoul. The relocation plan calls for the evacuation of Yongsan by the end of next year, and the movement of all of its facilities to Camp Humphreys, near the shitty city of Pyeongtaek. Yet the only visible changes at Yongsan are improvements — the new bridge connecting Main and South Post,...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
April 30, 2006

The Slavery Candidate

Former Minister of UniFiction / Uri Party Leader / presidential candidate Chung Dong-Young thinks he has found his winning issue: transforming the North into a corporate plantation, with Kim Jong Il as overseer. Chung has the additional disadvantages of being anti-American and having a self-confirmed sub-room-temperature IQ (I’ve never met Chung, but several others who have confirm that judgment). If Chung or someone like him wins the presidency, expect a rapid and mostly complete departure of America’s military contingent from...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
April 30, 2006

Korean Woman Charged in Yongsan Fire

Via the Stars and Stripes. South Korea’s violent, anti-American political subculture found a willing host in the woman, whom the authorities claim to be mentally ill. Although she set the fire to “punish” the United States for its “terrorism,” she ended up burning three Korean workers severely. There were suggestions that the fire had been accidental. At least the Koreans are prosecuting her and asking for hard time, although I doubt that would happen today if this woman were affiliated...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. Military
April 29, 2006

First N. Korean Gets U.S. Asylum, But What Does This Really Mean for NKHRA Compliance?

Updated 4/30; scroll down “We can and will do more to protect North Korean refugees. . . . We hope that very, very soon, we can welcome North Korean refugees here in the United States.” — Amb. Jay Lefkowitz, April 28, 2006 WASHINGTON, April 28 (Yonhap) — The Los Angeles Immigration Court has granted asylum to a North Korean defector after he awaited a decision in the U.S. for the past 20 months, his lawyer said Friday. The final ruling...
Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. & Korea