Monthly Archives: February 2016

North Korean army chief of staff Ri Yong-gil executed?

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North Korean Gen Ri (left) with Kim Jong Un

According to unconfirmed South Korean media reports, North Korea has executed its army chief of staff Ri Yong-gil.

Senior officials in North Korea have previously been absent from view for long periods only to reappear. If true, however, Gen Ri would be the latest of several high-ranking officials to be purged under leader Kim Jong-un.

South Korean media reported that Gen Ri had been executed earlier this month for corruption and “factional conspiracy”.

North Korean leadership expert Mike Madden told the BBC rumors that Gen Ri had fallen from favor first surfaced late last year. However, “when previous chiefs of staff have been removed, they have re-appeared in other positions or been demoted,” Mr Madden said. “That being said, much of the information that South Korean intelligence sources have been giving to the media in the past year or so has turned out to be true,” he added.

[BBC]

Worldwide denunciation of North Korea over latest suspected missile test

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When North Korea ignored U.N. resolutions and launched a rocket this past weekend, it drew worldwide denunciation.  Prominently missing from the voices of condemnation was China.

Senior U.S., Japanese and South Korean defense officials met by teleconference on Tuesday to discuss the ramifications of North Korea’s suspected missile test disguised as a satellite launch.

The U.S., Japan and South Korea all view the launch as a forbidden test of an intercontinental missile that improves North Korea’s ability to deliver a nuclear bomb.

The North Koreans actually moved up the rocket launch so that it coincided with Chinese New Year’s Eve. And you can be sure that was not the kind of fireworks that the Chinese were expecting.

[NPR]

The night I helped my mother escape North Korea

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Extracts from “The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story” by Hyeonseo Lee:

I set my phone to silent, dressed myself entirely in black and walked calmly and purposefully through the hotel lobby in Changbai. Outside I hailed a cab and directed the driver to take me to the point where the town ended, about 200 yards from the river. I crouched down behind an old garden wall and waited. The place was cold and damp and smelled of molding leaves and animal droppings. I peeped over the wall and saw North Korean border patrols passing on the opposite bank of the river.

[My brother] Min-ho had told me he would lead our mother waist-high through the water and help her up one of the ladders on the Chinese bank. The water must be freezing.

After over an hour’s wait, my phone was buzzing. Min-ho’s voice was fast and tense: “We’ve had a problem.” Quickly Min-ho explained that just as he and my mother had been about to cross they had walked straight into a border guard. Luckily he was someone Min-ho did business with.

Min-ho said he and my mother would try again to cross just before dawn. I returned to the hotel and tried to doze for a while in my clothes. I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew the phone was buzzing next to my face. “We’ll be there at six,” Min-ho said. I jumped off the bed. Minutes later, as I was in the taxi, he called again. “We’re across. We’re hiding in the derelict house.”

I was elated. I had not seen my dear mother in 11 years, nine months and nine days. Now I was minutes away from her. … In the half-light I saw a strained, old face and a body moving very stiffly. Min-ho was behind her, protective and guiding with his arm around her. I ran to meet them, but there was no time for a reunion. “We have to go,” I said.

I pulled out the clothes I had brought for them to help them blend in on the Chinese side. “Put these on. Over what you’re wearing. Quick.” Once they were dressed I led them towards the taxi. “Act normal, but don’t speak. He’ll think you’re locals.”

My heart went into overdrive. I didn’t remember there being so many guards. They were just 50 yards away from me

We sat in silence for the 10-minute ride. [Once inside my hotel room] for a moment we looked at each other. Half a lifetime had passed since the three of us had been together. No one could speak. Then my mother broke down, weeping uncontrollably. Over her shoulder, Min-ho’s face looked immensely sad. He’d shared her pain all these years. And soon he would say goodbye to her and probably never see her again. Read more

Here we go again with North Korea

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The North Koreans do something provocative (nuclear test, missile launch, etc.); the world rises as one to soundly and firmly condemn this grave violation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, a demonstration of solidarity that lasts perhaps, if we’re lucky, 24 hours; then the squabbling begins as to how severe the consequences will be. This results in a watered down UNSC resolution with some new (unlikely to be completely enforced) sanctions, an expression of outrage by Pyongyang and then another act of provocation.

The debate goes on at the UN over just how strong the sanctions will be, with Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo promising “painful” sanctions to demonstrate it is no longer “business as usual” and Beijing, not always but this time joined by Moscow, calling on “all sides” to refrain from destabilizing actions, as if “all sides” were at fault for the latest crisis.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang, convinced that such actions ultimately do more to divide than to unite the international community, sits back and dreams up new ways of threatening all-out war.   Read more

 [“Japan Times” Opinion piece by Ralph Cossa,  president of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu]

North Korean defectors now South Korean TV stars

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North Korea is a mysterious place — even to South Koreans. Curiosity about life in the north has sparked a slew of new South Korean TV shows.

  • There is the Amazing Race-type program, in which North Korean women are paired up with South Korean men to take on various challenges.
  • There are the talk shows, featuring panels of North Korean defectors talking about their dangerous escapes and difficult lives.
  • And then there are the dating shows, in which North Korean women are matched up with eligible South Korean bachelors.

Sokeel Park, research director for Liberty in North Korea, an international nonprofit that helps North Korean refugees resettle, says the shows are, “for the first time, exposing South Korean audiences at a mass scale” to North Koreans who aren’t their infamous political leaders. Park says the programs are helping South Koreans get a better sense of the North Korean experience.

“They’re talking about the growth of markets and new technologies in North Korea,” Park says. “So gradually, the South Korean audiences are getting exposed to new kinds of stories or new characters from North Korea that previously there was just widespread ignorance of.”        Read more

[NPR]