North Korea Freedom Week Comes to Seoul: April 25 – May 1, 2010

I was very excited when I learned a few months ago that the NK Freedom Coalition’s annual North Korea Freedom Week would be held in Seoul this year. The event was first held as North Korean Freedom Day in 2004. I’ve offered to volunteer during the week, so I’m not sure how busy I’ll be or if I’ll be able to post much. But I hope at least to periodically upload photos from the various events. And there are many!!...

Another Nuke Test in North Korea?

North Korea is preparing for a third atomic test that may come in May or June, South Korean broadcaster YTN reported on Tuesday, an act that could further isolate Pyongyang and complicate already troubled nuclear diplomacy. South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan dismissed the report, saying Seoul had seen no evidence, and the U.S. State Department also voiced doubts about its accuracy. “If North Korea was making such preparations, there would be related circumstances that can be detected … there...

Andrei Lankov on Ajumma Power

Picking up the theme of North Korea’s indefatigable ajummas, Andrei Lankov writes in the Wall Street Journal: A joke making the rounds in Pyongyang goes: “What do a husband and a pet dog have in common?” Answer: “Neither works nor earns money, but both are cute, stay at home and can scare away burglars.” I’ve often thought that one of the most destructive consequences of socialism is the destruction it wreaks on families. That is especially so in Korean society,...

Meet the New Boss, Part 4

The Daily NK claims to have obtained an “exclusive” of a propaganda tract with a quote by Kim Jong Il praising Kim Jong Eun: Entitled “Youth Captain, Comrade Kim Jong Eun Is another Mt. Baekdu Style Great Man to Whom Chosun Has Given Birth,” the material expands enthusiastically on Kim Jong Eun’s outstanding abilities and extraordinary personality in every field, quoting Kim Jong Il on a number of topics related to his son.

Open News: North Korea Increases Use of Public Executions

Open News reports that North Korea is increasing its use of public executions for relatively minor crimes as an instrument of domestic state terrorism, adopting the old Khmer Rouge method of using schoolyards as killing fields, and forcing kids to stand in the front row of the audience: Children suffer from psychological trauma and experience intense fear, because they see and realize what happened to those who resist the government and the Leader. Notwithstanding Open News’s optimistic belief that the...

For North Korean Spies, Sending Refugees to the Gulag Is Entry Level Work

While most of my allotted blogging time has been consumed by following the Cheonan Incident, several other k-blogs covered the story of one “Kim,” a South Korean, who volunteered in 1999 to work for North Korean intelligence, hunt down and rat out defectors hiding in China, and send them blissfully off to death, or a fate worse than. He also agreed to spy on activists helping the refugees, and on the South Korean military. “Kim” has since been arrested by...

Professor Alleges North Korean Plan to Destroy Gulags With Dams

Yonsei University Professor Hong Seong-Phil, quoted in The Korea Times, alleges that “dams are under construction near six gulags in North Korea to destroy evidence of possible genocide there.” I’ve heard this theory repeated for a number of years, but I don’t happen to believe it. Maybe there’s new imagery that Google Earth does has not yet published to support this theory, but I sure don’t see the evidence for it yet. Furthermore, the theory doesn’t sound plausible to me....

As North Korea Emerges as a Prime Suspect, Discussion Turns to How South Korea Should Respond

As my sense grows that the Cheonan Incident could be one of the most consequential events on the Korean Peninsula since the provocations of 1968, it has become the event that eats most of my human bandwidth, and I apologize if I’ve been delinquent in blogging other stories. Here are some updates for today: The Investigation The man heading South Korea’s investigation into the cause of the blast that sank the Cheonan answers one of my first questions about the...

Avoiding the Next Korean War

Of course, it is premature for any government to assign blame for the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan before reviewing the detailed findings of a completed investigation. But for many South Koreans, the conclusion is already inescapable that North Korea did it. That’s my hunch, too. If I had to pick a favorite theory, it would involve North Korea’s semi-submersibles — they operate well in shallow waters, are hard to see on radar, can move quickly on the...

15 April 2010: Birthday Balloons

On Kim Il Sung’s birthday, North Korean defectors defied the threats of their former masters and launched leaflet balloons: In a South Korean town just south of the heavily armed border, about 150 activists floated balloons containing leaflets denouncing the Kim dynasty, a thousand U.S. dollar notes and DVDs showing life in the more affluent South. The move came after North Korea threatened last week to take unspecified “decisive measures” if the South does not stop the activists from flying...

Obama Outflanks GOP on North Korea Policy

Here is President Obama, talking about North Korea, nukes, and sanctions yesterday: “I think it’s fair to say that North Korea has chosen a path of severe isolation that has been extraordinarily damaging to its people,” Obama told a news conference at the end of a summit on nuclear security. He said that as pressure builds, Pyongyang will want to break out of its isolation and “we’ll see a return to the six-party talks and … we will see a...

Rest in Peace

South Korea has raised the stern section of the Cheonan at last: As tearful families looked on, the South Korean military recovered the bodies of 23 crewmen from the stern of a sunken warship that salvagers raised Thursday from the floor of the Yellow Sea. Officially, five bodies have been identified and 39 are still considered missing until they’re identified, but it appears that only 21 bodies are still missing. At a time like this, all I really have to...

China Helps North Korea Import Infant Formula New Cars Despite U.N. Sanctions

I dedicate this post to John Feffer and Christine Ahn, who may now rest in the security of knowing that U.N. anti-proliferation sanctions aren’t causing starvation in North Korea: Around 100 Chinese-made cars have been brought into North Korea through a checkpoint on the border with China, probably for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to give to favored officials. The delivery was made on Tuesday, two days before former leader Kim Il-sung’s birthday, which is the biggest holiday in the...

Götterdämmerung Watch

The Wall Street Journal has two must-read op-eds on the decline of North Korea’s capacity to control the flow of food, money, and information within its territory. Marcus Noland, sounding very much like Kushibo, sees a “tipping point” after The Great Confiscation: Once broken, the economy may prove difficult to repair. Prices for goods such as rice, corn and the dollar rose 6,000% or more after the reform. And while prices have come down from their peak as the government...

Nothing to Offer, by Glyn Ford

Glyn Ford was a socialist member of the European Parliament until, under even its fringe-friendly rules, he lost his seat by placing fifth in the EP elections. Ford, an early defender of North Korea’s right to possess nuclear weapons, now finds himself with one less demand on his time, and so he reviews Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy. I’m not sure whether Ford himself or the Tribune Magazine is responsible for the headline under which his review is published: “North...

A Bulb Comes on at The Washington Post

There’s debate over whether such Chinese aid would be useful in restarting diplomacy or unhelpful in easing the pressure that alone might someday spur a deal. What’s most likely is that it doesn’t matter: that the North Korean regime will never give up its nuclear weapons, because it has nothing else — no legitimacy at home or abroad. As in Iran, the problem is the regime more than the weapons. That’s not an argument against engagement with Kim Jong Il...

Manna from the Think Tanks

Over the last several days, the think tanks have rained down more interesting reports than I’ve had time to pick through, so I’ll just link them for your reading. – Criminal Sovereignty: Understanding North Korea’s Illicit International Activities, by Dr. Paul Rexton Kan, Dr. Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., Mr. Robert M. Collins. – China, Iran, and North Korea: A Triangular Strategic Alliance, by Christina Y. Lin – Audio of Hwang Jang Yop at the Center for Strategic and International Studies...

Just for the Paulbots: Why the U.S. Army Should Leave South Korea

Even an imbecile like Ron Paul accidentally happens on the truth now and then. And while the election of Lee Myung Bak has reduced the degree to which South Korea actively undermines U.S. policy toward North Korea, the continued existence of Kaesong and Kumgang up to this moment refutes any suggestion that South Korea has really joined it, either, or restored South Korea as a bona fide U.S. ally on a global or regional scale, or tapped into South Korea’s...