Bittersweet longing: Fighting for North Korean human rights in South Korea | Glimpse. “South Koreans will especially face these questions from North Koreans–what did you know, and what did you do to help us?” Declares Suzanne Scholte, Chairman of the North Korean Freedom Coalition. Her voice sounds assertive and confident, the aural equivalent of her blonde bob on an outdoor screen. A Korean woman standing to the right interprets on her behalf.
For a national rally, we are a small number, no more than 200 or so, gathered in the plaza at Seoul Station to commemorate North Korea Freedom Week. It’s drizzly and damp out, though I suspect weather alone isn’t reason enough to explain the lack of supporters. Stacks of white plastic chairs stay piled high, while streams of evening shoppers leaving Lotte Mart and businessmen carrying briefcases walk past, tossing casual glances our way. Other groups of non-profits that have traveled from the U.S. for the week’s events are scattered throughout the square, draped in ponchos. “I care about human rights in North Korea,” he said. Can North Korea Come in From Cold? Will North Korea ever abandon its nuclear program? And who is it helping acquire weapons? The Diplomat speaks with leading North Korea analyst Mark Fitzpatrick.
According to a report last month in Die Welt, Syria built a secret missile assembly line with the help of North Korea and Iran. How likely is it that North Korea has indeed been involved in such work? It’s no secret that North Korea has been providing missile technology to Syria, to Iran and to other countries, typically in the form of local assembly, although several of Pyongyang’s former missile customers have stopped their business.
With regard to Syria, It’s very clear that North Korea provided the basis for Syria’s plutonium production reactor at Al Kibar, which Israel bombed in September 2007. The reports of a three-way North Korea-Iran-Syria missile or nuclear co-operation are unconfirmed. What about North Korean co-operation with other countries? U.S. Peril or Promise in North Korea? - Javier Solana. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space MADRID – Two days after Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s leader, died in a train in his country, South Korean authorities still knew nothing about it. Meanwhile, American officials seemed at a loss, with the State Department at first merely acknowledging that press reports had mentioned his death.
The South Korean and US intelligence services’ inability to pick up any sign of what had happened attests to the North Korean regime’s opaque character, but also to their own deficiencies. American planes and satellites watch North Korea day and night, and the most sensitive intelligence-gathering equipment covers the frontier between the two Koreas. The leadership change is occurring at the worst possible time. The economic situation, which is still very precarious, with many people living close to starvation, constitutes another key challenge. My personal memories of North Korea, now almost ten years old, are of a poor and depressed country. The Last Kim of Pyongyang? - By Daniel M. Kliman. For more than two decades, Myanmar was a pariah state ruled by military generals that suppressed political dissent, straitjacketed the media, persecuted ethnic minorities, and -- despite resource riches -- failed to improve its people's living standards. The United States continuously sanctioned Myanmar and subjected it to regular rhetorical whippings in Congress.
It was, for want of a better parallel, the North Korea of Southeast Asia. But the transformation of the past few months has been nothing short of remarkable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's landmark visit late last year underscored the changes within Myanmar, and on Jan. 13, the United States restored full diplomatic ties with the country after it made good on its pledge to release a significant number of political prisoners and signed a cease-fire with ethnic Karen rebels. At the moment, the world is rightly focused on whether North Korea's 20-something leader, Kim Jong Un, can hold the country together. More Hollow Threats from North Korea? On Monday, South Korea conducted two hours of live-fire exercises near its disputed boundary with North Korea in the West Sea, despite Pyongyang’s promises of “merciless retaliatory strikes” and “total war” for infringing waters it considers its own.
The consensus is that these particular threats were “empty,” as the Associated Press termed them, but it’s far too early to say the matter is closed. Why? Because the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as the North calls itself, apparently—and for good reason—believes that attacking South Korea and killing its citizens advances its national interests.
First, Pyongyang has been trying for years to move its West Sea boundary with South Korea, known as the Northern Limit Line, farther south to give it control of additional islands and waters. Second, the North needs food, and the Kim family has traditionally provoked incidents to blackmail the international community into coughing up food aid. The North will strike the South. Leap Day in North Korea - By Mark Fitzpatrick. When North Korean leader Kim Jong Il died late last year, analysts had no clear idea what the accession of his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, might mean for the Hermit Kingdom. On Feb. 29 this leap year -- appropriately enough -- we got an initial hint, when Pyongyang agreed to suspend work at the state-of-the-art uranium-enrichment plant at Yongbyon that it had suddenly revealed to a visiting U.S. nuclear scientist in November 2010, to halt nuclear and missile tests, and to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency back into the country after a three-year absence.
The new deal with the United States, concluded in exchange for 240,000 tons of food aid, will not eradicate the North Korean threat. It augurs well, however, for Kim Jong Un's foreign-policy smarts and will be seen internationally as a diplomatic victory for U.S. President Barack Obama. North Korea's agreement to suspend nuclear and missile tests is also significant. JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images. North Korea’s Tears - Ian Buruma. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space HO CHI MINH CITY – Can an entire people go mad? Sometimes it certainly seems so. Images of North Koreans in their hundreds of thousands howling with grief over Kim Jong-il’s death suggest something very disturbing. Kim was a brutal dictator, who pampered himself with the finest French brandies (allegedly $500,000 a year’s worth), fresh sushi flown in from Tokyo, and the best chefs money could buy, while millions of his subjects starved to death. Granted, the people publicly mourning in Pyongyang belong to the most privileged class, and dramatic bawling is a traditional Korean way of expressing grief.
First of all, North Koreans are not unique. Clearly, North Koreans who refuse to show deep sadness on occasions of public mourning risk serious trouble – children expelled from school, careers blocked, perhaps even time in a slave-labor camp. We often suppress real pain, such as that caused by the loss of a family member. Korea’s Third Kim: Will Anything Change? The death of Kim Jong-il and subsequent dynastic transfer of power in North Korea caused a spasm of hope in the policy community that the secretive and totalitarian nation might embark on economic and political reforms.
As the new leader, Kim Jong-un, was exposed to Western affluence while receiving his education in Switzerland—so the wishful thinking goes—surely he would realize the benefits of opening up his country. In fact, the young and inexperienced scion of the Kim dynasty derives his legitimacy solely from his family heritage. He has every reason to perpetuate the oppressive system built by his grandfather and buttressed by his father.
In fact, how much Kim Jong-un’s ideas and beliefs matter will remain questionable, at least over the short term. There is little that is known about Kim Jong-un, apart from the fact that he is the third son of Kim Jong-il, is in his late twenties, and spent some time at a school in Switzerland. Related Essay The Future of North Korea. Food for thought: Will the Obama administration’s strategy on North Korea backfire? Yesterday the United States and North Korea issued separate and conflicting statements regarding a way forward in the Six Party Talks. While this should come as no surprise, the most notable policy change is the administration's willingness to move forward with 240,000 metric tons of food assistance to North Korea.
Linking humanitarian assistance to progress or even the resumption of six party talks is a bad precedent and until recently the Obama administration and the State Department have never stated this new position publicly. Many would say that this would be an attempt to bribe the North Koreans to the table taking advantage of a dire humanitarian situation. During the Bush administration the U.S. and other six party member states agreed to provide assistance in the form of Heavy Fuel Oil as a condition for North Korea to halt its nuclear activities and missile tests. While this created some controversy, there was no link to the humanitarian needs of North Korea. "The Young General’s Old Tricks" by Yuriko Koike. Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space TOKYO – Brinkmanship seems to be congenital in North Korea. Under the late Kim Jong-il’s pudgy young successor – his third son, Kim Jong-un, dubbed “the Young General” – threats and mendacity still mark the Hermit Kingdom’s diplomacy.
With North Korea’s announcement of plans to use an Unha-3 rocket to launch its Bright Star-3 satellite into earth orbit in mid-April, the newest threat is a continuation of an old one. The decision to launch the satellite, which had been planned by Kim Jong-il, is clearly intended to provide a “heroic” martial achievement for a new leader who lacks any military experience. And, no surprise, North Korea’s leaders also claim that what they propose to launch is a “peaceful” satellite.
Despite the international community’s almost unanimous demand for restraint, North Korea is highly unlikely to roll back its launch plans. The regime uses food as the currency of its domestic power and foreign policy. The Death of Kim Jong Il and North Korea's Broken Dynasty. North Korea today constitutes a unique political edifice: a Marxist-Leninist state that adheres to hereditary succession. For more than six decades, dynastic politics have determined Pyongyang's behavior and prospects.
With the death of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, understanding the country's succession process is central to divining the future of this anachronistic, frustratingly cryptic, and often deliberately menacing government. Kim Jong Il may be the Madame de Pompadour of his dynasty. With the "après nous le déluge" spirit of a true solipsist, he postponed the anointment of a successor until he was deathly ill. Kim Jong Il's fecklessness is all the more surprising considering that his rise to power was smoothed by the careful and methodical preparations of his father, Kim Il Sung -- the de facto founder of the modern North Korean state.
In turn, Kim Jong Il had years of on-the-job training. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register Have an account? Pyongyang's Options After Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Il was a man responsible for imprisoning hundreds of thousands of his countrymen; testing two nuclear devices; deploying hundreds of ballistic missiles aimed at Tokyo and Seoul; and masterminding international drug, kidnapping, and nuclear weapons rings.
A world without him, at least in theory, should be safer and more stable. What comes after Kim, however, might deliver neither. Kim Jong Il did everything he could in the last two years of his life to groom his successor and son -- the 28-year-old Kim Jung Un -- to ensure continuity. Moreover, North Korea's generals and party leaders have every incentive to sustain the Kim family's cult of personality and make his son a success, since their own power and survival depends on it. The hazards of the power transition will not be immediately apparent. As the hermit kingdom retreats into its shell, the Obama administration will be desperate to know what is happening. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register. After Kim Jong-il - Christopher Hill.
Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space DENVER – In one sense, the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il changes everything. It is by no means clear, for example, that Kim’s coddled youngest son, Kim Jong-un – now hailed as the “Great Successor,” but singularly unprepared to lead – will ultimately succeed his father in anything but name. Working in Kim Jong-un’s favor is his striking resemblance to his grandfather, Kim Il-song, who, strangely, held a certain charisma for North Koreans. Looks aside, Kim III will need a lot of help; in the meantime, we can expect further consolidation by the Korean People’s Army of its leadership of the country. Even more than in the past, we must expect the unexpected in North Korea. Above all, the West must work closely with China.
Any conversation with Chinese officials nowadays leads to the same conclusion: China wants to restart the Six-Party Talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons program. Meet Kim Jong Un's New Team. North Korea-watchers have been anticipating this day for years. According to the state news agency, on December 17, at eight-thirty in the morning North Korea time, on a train somewhere on the outskirts of the Pyongyang, Kim Jong Il "suffered an advanced acute myocardial infarction, complicated with a serious heart shock. " Nearly 50 hours later, the North Korean propaganda apparatus sprung into action, informing the world of Kim's passing and proclaiming his son, Kim Jong Un, the "great successor. " A close reading of the North Korean media suggests that Pyongyang is carefully orchestrating a succession plan.
Kim Jong Un's placement at the top of the funeral committee list -- a device that the North Koreans use to publicly establish formal rank hierarchy -- leaves little doubt that he now heads the formal leadership structure. To continue reading, please log in. Don't have an account? Register today for free. Register Register now to get three articles each month. Have an account? Kim Jong Un Takes the World’s Worst Job. Pity Kim Jong Un. In one day, he lost his father and inherited the worst job in the world. Yes, pity is far more appropriately bestowed on the millions of victims of his scurrilous family (think just of the one to two million North Koreans who perished during the famine of the mid-1990s), but there is no question that the new leader of North Korea finds himself in an uneasy place.
As I wrote in my 2010 Foreign Affairs article, "The Once and Future Kim," powerful forces will help Kim Jong Un consolidate his power. But the suddenness of Kim Jong Il's death has sparked fears of instability, with dangerous implications for the peninsula, East Asia, and the world. Writing off the Kim family would be foolish. Kim Jong Il was a skilled dictator who survived the brass-knuckle politics of an impoverished and imperiled country. The Kim family created a set of policies and bureaucracies to "coup-proof" their government, a program that sustained the regime through famine and poverty. Register. North Korea's Choice: Collapse or Reform. North Korea’s Samurai Rules - Yuriko Koike. North Korean Aid and American Interests. North Korea Prepares for a Milestone Year - In Focus.
"North Korea’s Nuclear Parable" by Jaswant Singh. The Rocket in Kim Jong Un's Pocket - By Nick Hansen. North Korea missile launch poses no serious threat to the United States. Why North Korea Gets Away With It. Breaking News – Controversial North Korean Rocket Launch Apparently Fails in Flight. North Korea's Lessons for (Not) Building an Atomic Bomb. Security Council slaps Pyongyang on the wrist over rocket launch. North Korean missile launch torpedoes Obama’s engagement strategy. North Korean defectors: Escaping the reign of Kim Jong-Il. Born in the Gulag: Why a North Korean Boy Sent His Own Mother to Her Death - Blaine Harden - International. Why North Korea's Hidden Gulag Matters. Could North Korea Have Struck It Rich? - By Stephan Haggard. North Korea: Economic System Built on Forced Labor. Women Facing Harsh New Pressures in North Korea.