March 10, 2014

Open Sources, March 10, 2014

~  1  ~ HE SAYS HE’S NOT DEAD! Choe Ryong-Hae resurfaces. Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un’s half-sister, Kim Yeo-Jong, has been appointed to North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament. ~  2  ~ NORTH KOREA THREATENS THE U.S. AGAIN, in response to U.S. criticisms of North Korea’s ballistic missile launches, in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. For those who track North Korean rhetorical levels, KCNA seems to be going relatively easy on Seoul, but has been cranking out some exceptionally violent anti-American...
Categories Anju Links
March 7, 2014

Look how fast Treasury can freeze assets when it wants to

Yesterday, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) released this advisory to banks around the world to be on the lookout for deceptive financial practices designed to move the ill-gotten wealth of 18 former Ukrainian officials, including Viktor Yanukovich. The chilling effect of this will likely be that banks around the world refuse to move large sums of money for mysterious figures linked to these 18 people, for fear of losing their access to the financial system. Although the advisory says...
Categories Sanctions
March 6, 2014

Open Sources, March 6, 2014

~  1  ~ THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO CAME to this event on Capitol Hill yesterday and helped make it a huge success. We filled the room well beyond its capacity. There was an energy in the room that went beyond the question of numbers. It was who was there — young, old, in-between, conservatives, liberals, and a variety of ethnicities, including a very sizable Korean-American contingent. I don’t have words to express my admiration for the leadership of Suzanne...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
March 3, 2014

Events in Seoul about human rights in North Korea, March 6th and 15th

If you’re in Seoul, there are two upcoming events about human rights in the North. The organizers asked me to get the word out, and I’m glad to oblige. First, Justice for North Korea will hold a special screening of “Apostle,” a film about human rights in North Korea on Thursday, March 6th, at 7:30, to mark the UN COI’s recent report. After the screening, Peter Jung, director of Justice For North Korea, will present his book “Persecution,” which discussed...
Categories Activism/Human Rights
March 3, 2014

Open Sources, March 3, 2014

 ~  1  ~ CHOE PURGED, TOO? Several readers have pointed me to this Korea Herald story, which cites Free North Korea Radio, reporting that Choe Ryong-Hoe has now been purged (see also). We’ll probably have a better idea in a few days (weeks at most) whether that’s true, but North Korea Leadership Watch reports that Choe has made fewer public appearances recently, so the report seems plausible enough. If it is true, Choe was supposed to be Kim Jong Un’s...
Categories Anju Links
March 1, 2014

Kim Jong Un calls for more repression and isolation

Kim Jong Un has delivered a long-winded harangue to a conference of ideological workers. This isn’t the sort of thing I tend to dwell on, because almost all foreign analysis of North Korean speeches is useless, for reasons I’ve already explained here. Perhaps I write this mostly in the interest of preempting the acceptance of even more useless analysis, but I also write this because the plain meaning of the words seems clear enough to me, and what those words...
Categories Kim Jong Un
February 28, 2014

Please attend next Wednesday: House Foreign Affairs Committee to host event on U.N. Commission report

On March 5th at 3 p.m., the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold an event with a panel discussion featuring leaders of prominent human rights NGOs, including Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and Human Rights Watch. The Federation of Korean Associations in the U.S.A. will also participate — they’ve emerged as strong and highly effective advocates for the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act this year. Also present will be Suzanne Scholte, head...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
February 27, 2014

Boston Globe endorses the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act

The Boston Globe, a newspaper with “a long and proud tradition of being a progressive institution,” writes: Nevertheless, there is much the United States can do unilaterally to step up the pressure on this irresponsible regime. Passing the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2013 is a logical step that would ensure that bad behavior faces consequences. Much as Iran was confronted with crippling financial sanctions, the act would punish international financial institutions that do dirty work for North Korea. Under the act, the president of...
Categories Human Rights/Sanctions
February 27, 2014

In latest N. Korean turmoil, Chaz Bono promoted to Supreme Leader

Forget what I said this week — North Korea is still funny. Look what a reader spotted on this apparently official North Korean propaganda video, posted on YouTube at a channel that has always posted authentic North Korean material in the past.   If this is a fake, well, they fooled me. Note the logo on the upper left-hand corner, which appears in some other apparently legit videos posted at the same channel. The video was a compilation of stills...
Categories Unintended Humor/WTF?
February 26, 2014

Open Sources, February 26, 2014

~  1  ~ “N. KOREA LISTED AS ‘HIGH-RISK’ COUNTRY IN MONEY LAUNDERING” shouts this Yonhap headline. So does that mean that Treasury has finally designated North Korea as a primary money laundering concern, something that would severely restrict its access to the global financial system? No. This is actually a non-binding advisory by an international body called the Global Financial Action Task Force, and in fact, the new FATF statement is virtually identical to other advisories that are as many...
Categories Anju Links
February 25, 2014

Royce goes to Seoul, calls for cutting off Kim Jong Un’s cash

So Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was in Seoul last week, and sat down for an interview with Yonhap to talk North Korea: “It seems that the strategy that slows down North Korea the most is not allowing them access to the hard currency which they use in order to create their offensive nuclear weapons capabilities,” said Royce in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul.  Royce is now in Seoul along with a delegation...
Categories Sanctions/Sunshine/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
February 24, 2014

Open Sources, February 24, 2014

~  1  ~ THE NORTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT has finally gotten around to dismissing the U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report with some classic KCNA prose that (sadly) fails to deploy either “madcap” or “brigandish” for this special occasion: The Commission was set up highhandedly at the meeting of the Council last year by the U.S. and its satellite forces out of inveterate repugnance towards the DPRK. The DPRK, therefore, has never recognized its existence as it is no more than a...
Categories Anju Links
February 21, 2014

More Reactions to the N. Korea COI report, including our latest in The Washington Post

~  1  ~ Nicholas Eberstadt has written something for The Wall Street Journal that is so cogent, so poetic, that I envy him for writing it (hat tip: Sung Yoon-Lee). Never again should Western humanitarian aid be given to North Korea to hand out at its own discretion, as if Pyongyang were a government like any other. Never again must Beijing—which like Pyongyang refused to cooperate with the U.N. investigation—be given a free pass for financing, enabling and protecting this most odious...
Categories Human Rights
February 20, 2014

Crowdsourcing the hunt for North Korea’s prisons and prison camps

The world didn’t awaken to the horrors in North Korea in time save Kim Jong Il’s victims or hold him accountable, but it may be doing so in time to give Kim Jong Un some pause as he prosecutes his bloody purges. Various reports from inside North Korea — reports that are impossible to verify — say that he has carried out mass arrests and executions, both in Pyongyang and near the border regions that represent the greatest threat to...
Categories The Camps
February 17, 2014

U.N. Commission finds North Korea committed crimes against humanity, will recommend referral to the International Criminal Court

After years of apathy that not even accomplished appeaser Ban Ki-Moon could enforce, a U.N. Commission of Inquiry has released a devastating report accusing Kim Jong Un and his late father, Kim Jong Il, of crimes against humanity. You can download a summary report, or the long version, here. I will probably have more to say about the report in the coming days as I read it, but it’s clearly having an immediate and profound impact on the public discourse....
Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
February 17, 2014

Breaking: Leftist S. Korean lawmaker gets 12-year sentence for pro-N. Korean sabotage plot

Yonhap is just reporting that a court in Suwon has handed down a 12-year sentence against leftist fringe lawmaker Lee Seok-Ki. Ouch. That’s a very tough sentence for South Korea, whose judicial system compensates for its loose rules of evidence (and the error rate that implies) with light and fluffy sentencing. When I was an Army Judge Advocate serving in Korea, I saw people get less than that for murder. On the other hand, prison conditions in South Korea are, shall...
Categories The Fifth Column
February 14, 2014

Open Sources, February 14, 2014

~  1  ~ SOUTH KOREA’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY STILL HASN’T MOVED on a North Korean human rights law, although I expect that next’s week’s release of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report will likely put pressure to the Democratic Party to stop trying to turn it into the Kim Jong Un Recreational Facility Stimulus Act. The Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights is adding some pressure of its own, by demonstrating at the National Assembly building in Yeoido. ~  2 ...
Categories Anju Links