April 5, 2014

If Kaesong “wages” aren’t used to pay workers, what are they used for? (The Unification Ministry won’t comment.)

In yesterday’s post about Kaesong, I argued that by any reasonable definition, its North Korean workers are forced laborers, and that the best evidence we have suggests that the vast majority of their “wages” are probably stolen by the Pyongyang regime, through a combination of direct taxation and confiscatory exchange rates. My argument relied heavily on a recent study by the economist Marcus Noland, who has done an excellent job researching questions that most journalists have overlooked, addressing the ethical...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/North-South/Sunshine
April 4, 2014

At Kaesong, “engagement” teaches S. Korean corporations the dying art of slavery

slavery n 1. (Law) the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune; 2. the subjection of a person to another person, esp in being forced into work; 3. the condition of being subject to some influence or habit; 4. (Industrial Relations & HR Terms) work done in harsh conditions for low pay A good test of whether any particular “engagement” program with North Korea has lived up...
Categories Anju Links
April 3, 2014

AP outraged about free speech in Cuba

Is the AP a cabal of closet Marxist-Leninists or just the supine courtesan of every tyrant who lets it open a bureau in his kingdom? Either way, I really don’t understand what drives its corporate conscience. On one hand, it recently criticized the Obama Administration for “propaganda” photos. On the other hand, it did this not long after putting on an exhibition of actual propaganda photos of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. Now, the AP has released a breathless...
Categories AP Watch/Censorship/Subversion
April 2, 2014

Why would North Korea fly a UAV over the Blue House? Why else?

Arirang News has video of one of the suspected North Korean UAVs (unmanned air vehicles — we didn’t say “drone” in the Army) that crashed on Baekryeong Island. The Baekryeong UAV has a conventional high aspect ratio wing, for greater stability and longer range. According to this report and this one, its engine was made in Japan, and other components were from China. This suggests that if the UAV really did come from North Korea, it’s an indigenous design. The other UAV, which crashed...
Categories NK Military/North-South
April 1, 2014

How to build a guerrilla communications network

Last weekend, while reading Popular Science, I stumbled on this fascinating article about how the Mexican drug cartel known as The Zetas used ordinary two-way radios and hidden antennas to build a sophisticated intra-national and international communications network that stretched from Guatemala to Arizona, facilitating drug smuggling and money laundering across its entire reach. The potential for nobler applications in North Korea is obvious. The prerequisite to the rise of any national resistance movement is the creation of a broad-based,...
Categories Subversion
March 31, 2014

Dear President Park: He’s not that into you (updated with N. Korea’s rejection)

In every successful relationship, there are certain things one must not ask the other party to the relationship. No matter how much you may desire it, the answer will never be “yes.” The request itself will not be received well. Depending on the request, the special equipment it would require, and the identity of the other participants, it may even lead to the destruction of property or violence. In the relationship between North and South Korea, it is apparently no...
Categories North-South/Sunshine
March 28, 2014

North Korea speaker series in Seoul, April and May

At the request of the North Korea Strategy Center (NKSC), a Seoul-based NGO run by “Aquariums of Pyongyang” author Kang Cheol Hwan (nksc.co.kr), I’m passing along this information about a speaker series on North Korea NKSC is holding in Seoul for the international community there. Entitled “Strategies for Change: A Speaker Series on North Korea,” the three month long series features nine speakers talking on a range of topics, from “North Korea basics” (the country’s economy and nuclear issue) and...
Categories Activism/Human Rights
March 27, 2014

Open Sources, March 27, 2014

~  1  ~ CONSEQUENCES: The State Department sends a strong hint that it’s mulling more sanctions on North Korea in response to the North’s recent missile tests, including two medium-range missiles fired toward Japan, but offered no details on the type of sanction or whether they would be unilateral or at the U.N. This separate report, however, says that our U.N. ambassador is talking with other members of the Security Council. If State does press for U.N. sanctions, that would...
Categories Anju Links
March 26, 2014

Breaking: Royce will make an announcement at Subcommittee hearing today, on H.R. 1771

Once again, I apologize for the short notice. If you’re unable to attend in person, the event will be webcast live at this link. The witnesses will include Greg Scarlatoiu of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, and Grace Jo, a very compelling and articulate young North Korean refugee who speaks fairly good English, and who recently founded the group NK in the U.S.A. The topic will be how to respond to...
Categories U.S. Law/U.S. Politics
March 26, 2014

After the veto: A Cambodian model for prosecuting Kim Jong Un

“At the end of the Second World War so many people said ‘if only we had known… if only we had known the wrongs that were done in the countries of the hostile forces’,” he said. “Well, now the international community does know… There will be no excusing of failure of action because we didn’t know,” he said, at a news conference at UN headquarters in Geneva. “Too many times in this building there are reports and no action. Well...
Categories Anju Links
March 25, 2014

Samantha Power, North Korea is your Rwanda

Now that anyone who cares has digested the U.N. Commission of Inquiry’s report on North Korea, the conversation has turned to a more practical question: So what? The E.U. and Japan are reportedly drafting a resolution for consideration by the Security Council that would (1) condemn North Korea for its crimes, (2) call “for its leaders to face international justice,” (3) impose travels sanctions on specific leaders deemed responsible, and (4) refer the COI report to the International Criminal Court....
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks
March 24, 2014

For China, holocaust denial substitutes for diplomacy

It’s offensively obtuse things like this that convince me that Chinese will eventually be as despised in North Korea as Japan is despised in South Korea, and that its profiteers won’t be safe to walk the streets of Rajin:  “The inability of the commission to get support and cooperation from the country concerned makes it impossible for the commission to carry out its mandate in an impartial, objective and effective manner,” said Chen Chuandong, a counselor at China’s mission in...
Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Human Rights
March 23, 2014

Event tomorrow on the COI report

I apologize for the short notice, but tomorrow at 2:45 p.m., the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the Foreign Policy Initiative will co-sponsor an event: “North Korea’s Human Rights Violations – What Next After the U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report?,” at Room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Melanie Kirkpatrick and Christopher Griffin will moderate, and panelists will include Hyeonsoo Lee, Roberta Cohen, and Greg Scarlatoiu.
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights
March 20, 2014

Open Sources, March 20, 2014

~  1  ~ SO U.S. NAVY SEALS HAVE BOARDED that North Korean-flagged tanker in Libya, and we may soon find out if the ship was connected to North Korea after all, Pyongyang’s denials notwithstanding. If North Korea was up to something fishy, disavowing it wasn’t a smart move. That gave us grounds to call the vessel stateless and board it. Update: Marcus Noland has a possible explanation, but my intuition says this isn’t the whole story. ~  2  ~ IF...
Categories Anju Links
March 19, 2014

The U.N. Panel of Experts is starting to follow Kim Jong Un’s money.

The main headlines that will come of the U.N. Panel of Experts’ new report on the enforcement of North Korea sanctions will mostly cover the Chong Chon Gang incident — the large amount of weapons seized, the brazenness of its deception, and the complexity of its corporate and financial links to entities operating from Russia, Singapore, and China. There has been relatively little attention paid to the newly revealed evidence that North Korea has helped Syria and Iran arm terrorists....
Categories "United" Nations/Money Laundering/Sanctions
March 17, 2014

POE Part 2: Terrorist rockets that landed in Israel may have had N. Korean fuses

When the Syria collapsed into civil war in 2011, Hamas and other Sunni Palestinians broke with their sponsors in Damascus for sectarian reasons, while Hezbollah sent troops to defend the Assad regime. But in 2009, before the civil war, Assad and his own backers in Iran armed both Hamas and Hezbollah. The year 2009 was a big one for interceptions of North Korean weapons bound for Iran and its terrorist clients. The UAE found rocket propelled grenades and explosives inside...
Categories "United" Nations/Terrorism (NK)
March 12, 2014

Open Sources, March 12, 2014

~  1  ~ I’LL HAVE MUCH MORE TO SAY ABOUT THE U.N. PANEL OF EXPERTS REPORT later this week as I read through it during my spare time, but I can’t resist telling you that there is such a thing as “The Gorgeous Bank of North Korea.” ~  2  ~ MICHAEL KIRBY ANSWERS HIS CRITICS on the left, thus illustrating the widening difference between “liberal” and “progressive.” I miss liberals. I didn’t always agree with them, but I almost always...
Categories Anju Links
March 11, 2014

U.N. Panel of Experts releases new report on N. Korea sanctions enforcement

The report, which you can find here, publishes photographs and a detailed description of the weapons seized from the Chong Chon Gang. I had not realized how big the shipment was: 72. The Panel found that the hidden cargo (see figure XI, a complete list at annex VII and detailed analysis at annex VIII) amounted to six trailers associated with surface-to-air missile systems and 25 shipping containers loaded with two disassembled MiG-21 aircraft, 15 engines for MiG-21 aircraft, components for...
Categories "United" Nations/Sanctions