Monthly Archives: May 2016

It’s Party time in North Korea

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North Korea will hold a congress of its ruling Workers’ Party starting this Friday–the seventh time in the country’s history such an event has been held, but the first time since 1980.

There are two key institutions in North Korea: the military and the Workers’ Party, the communist structure which controls the state. Its symbols are the usual hammer and sickle, but North Korea has added a brush to symbolize learning.

Kim Il Sung, the founding father of North Korea (and its “eternal president” today, 22 years after his death) was very much a Party man, emphasizing the party and North Korea’s special flavor of communism–called “juche,” or self-reliance–above all else. His son and the second in the dynasty, Kim Jong Il, was more of an army man, putting in place the “songun” or “military first” policy. Kim Jong Un has been modeling himself after his grandfather, elevating the party.  So the congress takes place in this context.

What is a congress anyway? In the communist system, a congress is technically the highest ruling body of the Workers’ Party (although in reality, in North Korea, the highest ruling body is Kim Jong Un’s.) It is a forum to trumpet the importance of the party and sometimes to unveil major new policies. In 1982, Deng Xiaoping used the 12th congress of the Chinese Communist Party to put forward the idea of developing “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” while in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev used the 27th congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to announce his reform and opening policies, perestroika and glasnost.

Whether Kim Jong Un offers more rhetoric or real reforms, well, you’ll just have to wait for Friday for that.

[Washington Post]

Details of North Korean party congress still secret

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What exactly is in store during North Korea’s ruling party congress, which opens Friday and will be presided over by leader Kim Jong Un, remains a well-kept secret. But North Korea’s advances toward becoming a truly credible nuclear power are sure to be touted along with claims of economic advances in the face of the toughest global sanctions it has been hit with in decades.

Also not in doubt: Pyongyang wants the event to grab headlines around the world. The normally well-sealed country has invited a horde of journalists from around the world to give the congress an international spotlight.

Meanwhile, The Rodong Sinmun, mouthpiece of the ruling Workers Party of Korea, said in an editorial Saturday that since the last congress in 1980, North Korea “proudly joined the ranks of advanced nuclear and space powers.”

So while the congress promises to be a big moment in front of foreign cameras for Kim, who has yet to venture abroad or meet with any world leaders, its larger significance may be domestic. The North Koran government has worked hard over the past several months to keep the event foremost in the minds of the nation.

Having said this, details about the congress, the seventh in North Korean history, are frustratingly few. The last congress in 1980 lasted four days. More than 3,000 delegates attended. Representatives from friendly parties abroad were also invited.

[Yahoo News]

Kim Jong-Un to officially cement North Korean Supreme Leader role

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North Korea is set to hold a landmark ruling party congress this week that will cement Kim Jong-Un’s status as the country’s Supreme Leader. This comes after four years of reorganising, reshuffling and executions.

The party congress to be held this week will be the first in 40 years, and will officially make Kim Jong-Un the leader of the country. The congress will start on Friday and it follows a 70-day loyalty drive, in which all workers were asked to work harder to express their loyalty to the leader and the Worker’s Party of Korea.

According to reports, North Korean expert at Yonsei University in Seoul, John Delury said, “This congress means everything for Kim Jong-Un. It is the most public, historic setting in which he can demonstrate that he is fully in charge, and that everyone follows his orders. Nominally, it’s for the party, but really this congress is for Kim.”

[Big News Network]

Efforts underway to release Ohio man sentenced to hard labor in North Korea

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Efforts are underway to help get an Ohio native out of a North Korean prison. Otto Warmbier, 21, from Wyoming, Ohio, is the second American that political activist and NBA agent David Sugarman is now trying to help free from North Korea. North Korea’s highest court sentenced Warmbier to 15 years hard labor after he confessed to trying to steal a propaganda banner.

Sugarman is credited with helping free Kenneth Bae from North Korean imprisonment back in 2014. Sugarman says when he was working to #BringBaeBack, he repeatedly made cold calls to the North Korean ambassador. He says those calls eventually developed into a relationship that aided in Bae’s release and return to the U.S. Sugarman says he’s already had two meetings with the North Korean ambassador about freeing Warmbier.

“Maybe because of who I am and my profession, I have contacts that may be what they’re looking for,” Sugarman said. “We spoke about Otto. They had mentioned to me that they would like me to get basketballs and sneakers and basketball stuff to the children and to the teams of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).”

He says he’s not sure if he’ll be able to send those items to North Korea because of U.S. sanctions, but he plans on asking the State Department if it can be allowed.

“I believe that God’s given me the ability, the relationships to help for whatever reason. Now, it’s Otto in the DPRK and it’s important to help an American,” Sugarman said. “I can’t determine what the North Koreans are going to do… I have no idea. All I know is I will fight and I will fight until Otto Warmbier is home.”

He’s started a hashtag campaign on Twitter called #WeWantWarmbier.

[NBC]

Why Kenneth Bae was deemed the “most dangerous American” in North Korea

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In 2014, American Kenneth Bae came home after two years in a North Korean prison. Bae had made 18 trips to North Korea. Before he was “prisoner 103 [in the North Korean penal system],” Korean-born Kenneth Bae was a preacher. But he made a fateful mistake. In 2012, he brought in a computer hard drive loaded with prayers and pictures of starving North Korean children.

Any criticism of the regime is forbidden. Supreme leader Kim Jong Un and his family consider themselves gods. He was arrested, charged with espionage and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

“One of the prosecutors told me that I was the worst, most dangerous American criminal they ever apprehended since the Korean War. And I said, ‘Why?'” Bae recalled. “And they said, ‘Because not only you came to do mission work on your own, you asked others to join.'”

Bae believes he was a political pawn. “All of America really was on trial with me,” Bae wrote in his new book, ‘Not Forgotten.’ “I believe that they blamed everything wrong with their country [on] America. They said the reason for poverty, the reason for their suffering is all caused by U.S. foreign policy against them,” Bae said. “And therefore, by indicting me, they were indicting the U.S.”

Bae spent nearly two years under 24-hour watch by 30 North Korean guards. The conditions were dire – he shoveled coal and worked the fields. He lost 50 pounds and was briefly hospitalized.

“I am looking in the mirror in the bathroom every day, and say, ‘remember, you are a missionary. This is what you are here for,'” Bae said. “I took it more as a blessing, rather than a curse or suffering… Well it is very hard for me to even say that right now, but no one likes suffering, no one will embrace suffering but when suffering comes to you, you have to face it.”

Kim Jong Un finally issued a pardon in 2014, after the White House sent U.S. Intelligence Chief James Clapper to pick up Bae and another prisoner. “I was just overwhelmed that– that after being there for 735 days, I was finally going home,” Bae said.

Bae said he’s not angry about his imprisonment. He believes it was an opportunity to share his faith and teach his guards what life is like outside of North Korea. “I was just there to love the people, let people know that God cares about them, and the rest of the world care about them,” Bae said. “I hope that this book become a reminder to people to not forget the people of North Korea, have more compassion for the people who are living as a prisoner in their life.”

[CBS]

Yearning for North Korea, the nation they fled

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For tens of thousands of North Koreans scattered across South Korea and living underground in China, North Korea is complicated, a memory they wrestle with. It’s home. It’s the place they left behind. And even if there is plenty they hate about it, there is also much that they miss, sometimes achingly.

They miss relatives and friends and the small-town neighborliness that can come, admittedly, in not having many recreation choices. They miss dancing to accordion music in public parks on their days off, and the greasy street food they’d yearn for when they were most hungry.

A convenience store manager in Seoul, whose muscular arms still betray his years as a miner, misses the siblings he left behind, and the nieces and nephews he may never meet. Relatives in South Korea paid smugglers to get his family out, he said, but his siblings wouldn’t go. “They were too afraid,” he said. “Now they regret it.”

Polls of North Korean refugees now in South Korea indicate many still have some fondness for the leaders in Pyongyang. “All three (of the Kim family dictators) really did think of the North Korean people,” said another exile, a former North Korean policeman who acknowledged that he is torn about his feelings.

North Korea, he noted, has spent billions of dollars on its military even as so many of its people have gone hungry. But, he added, his homeland is also a small, poor country that has successfully stood up to the world, surviving international isolation and years of economic sanctions. So when Pyongyang sets off a nuclear test or test-fires a missile, he sees a leader proving he cannot be bullied.

His sometimes-generous view of North Korea is mixed up with his difficulty adjusting to life in South, a common problem among the defectors who live in South Korea. He hasn’t been able to hold a job for more than few months, and constantly worries that he’s being discriminated against. He’s overwhelmed by the South, sometimes talks about wanting to return home. Lost amid Seoul’s dual whirlwinds of consumerism and competitiveness, he yearns for the days when things seemed simpler.

[AP]