Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

U.S. envoy calls for break in North Korean information control

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Robert King, the special U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights, has called for more efforts to bring the people of North Korea in contact with the wider world by weakening the regime’s information blockade.

In a lecture at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, King said, “We must work to break down North Korea’s government monopoly on the control of information and work together to increase North Koreans’ exposure to ideas, conditions and reality of the world beyond the borders of North Korea.”

Only some 15,000 people are allowed access to the Internet and need to obtain permission to visit different websites.

King cited a survey among North Korean defectors in South Korea and abroad, which revealed that 34 percent of people in North Korea regularly listen to foreign radio broadcasts.

He said he heard that a busy and rowdy restaurant in Pyongyang suddenly went silent when news of the execution of Jang Song-thaek came. With so much fear instilled in their minds, North Koreans are very “cautious about rising up and doing something” about their human right situations, he added.

[Chosun Ilbo]

North Korean government purge continues

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North Korea has sacked its commerce minister, according to state-run media, as its young leader Kim Jong-Un apparently seeks to sideline supporters of his once-powerful uncle who was executed last year.

North Korea’s radio broadcaster Pyongyang Broadcasting Station said that new Commerce Minister Kim Kyong-Nam took part in a food festival marking the birth anniversary of the country’s founder Kim Il-Sung. It was the first time that North Korean media introduced him as commerce minister, but it was likely that his predecessor Ri Song-Ho was replaced last month.

It remains unclear why Ri was replaced but his ouster comes as Pyongyang has reportedly been purging officials linked to Jang Song-Thaek, once the North’s unofficial number two and Kim’s political mentor. Ri is the latest North Korean cabinet member to be sacked since Jang’s execution. North Korea reportedly replaced its mining minister and metal industry minister in January.

Jang was executed in December on an array of charges including treason and corruption, marking the biggest political upheaval since the young ruler took power after the death of his father and the former leader, Kim Jong-il, in 2011.

[MSN]

North Korea tells world to ‘wait and see’ on new nuclear test

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North Korea said on Friday that the world would have to “wait and see” when asked for details of “a new form” of nuclear test it threatened to carry out.

On March 26, North Korea fired two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles into the sea. Its first firing in four years of mid-range missiles that can hit Japan followed a series of short-range rocket launches over the past two months.

“[North Korea] made it very clear, we will carry out a new form of nuclear test. But I recommend you to wait and see what it is,” North Korea’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Ri Tong Il said on Friday during the normally reclusive state’s third U.N. news conference this year.

Ri accused the United States of being “hell bent on regime change” in North Korea by blaming its leaders for human rights violations. He also said Washington was blocking a bid for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula by ignoring North Korean proposals, so it can maintain military presence in the region.

Nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the United States, said North Korea’s reference to a new form of nuclear test could mean simultaneous detonation of two or more devices as part of a program of more intense testing expected over the next few years. Lewis said he thought it unlikely North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would move for the moment from underground to atmospheric testing – something he might do to demonstrate an ability to deploy nuclear armed missiles or artillery – for fear of inflaming Chinese public opinion.

“He’s only likely to do that … if he no longer cares what Beijing thinks,” Lewis said. “Still, it is useful to remember that Kim Jong Un has a number of other unpleasant provocations from which he might choose.”

[Reuters]

Former North Korean intelligence officer reveals coup and assassination attempts against Kim Jong-il

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A North Korean defector, a former intelligence officer now living in South Korea, has revealed details about assassination attempts on North Korea’s former leader and plots to overthrow him. Plots to kill Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, who ruled North Korea from 1994 to December 2011, have involved a lone gunman, a 20-tonne truck and even missile strikes, he said.

The defector said that in one assassination attempt a lone gunman plotted to murder Jong-il with machine gun fire, but he was arrested before he could carry out the attack.

Another attempt came a bit closer to succeeding. Jong-il’s motorcade was rammed by a 20-tonne lorry, but the driver was fooled by Jong-il’s tactic of deploying decoy cars and he struck the wrong limousine.

There were also two attempted coups, both plotted by members of the Korean People’s Army that had been trained at Moscow’s Frunze military academy and established strong links with Russia. Both plots were uncovered before they had a chance of being put into action.

While difficult to verify these revelations, two incidents do seem to back-up the defector’s claims. In 1994 officers that had studied in Russia were arrested in what was known as the ‘Frunze Affair’, and in 1997 a firefight erupted at the headquarters of the North Korean Army’s Sixth Corps when soldiers stormed it to make arrests.

[Daily Mail]

More on the father of Choe Ryong-Hae having done what Kim Il-sung claimed

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According to sources quoted in South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo, one of the most powerful figures in Pyongyang is expected to fall victim to Kim Jong-un’s purges, as the North Korean leader trains his sights on a rival who could expose a lie about a key moment in the communist regime’s history.

Evidence suggests that it was the father of 64-year-old Choe Ryong-Hae, the joint chairman of the all-powerful Politburo Presidium who led an attack against the Japanese later claimed by Kim’s grandfather to legitimize the ruling dynasty.  Whereas North Korea’s version of the struggle against the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula claims that Kim Il-sung, revered as the founder of the nation, led the June 1937 assault.

Ken Kato, a researcher and human rights activist, said that the stories undermined Kim Il-sung’s reputation as the heroic father of the nation.

North Korean history about to change –again?

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New evidence from the 1930s indicate that it might have been someone else other than the grandfather of Kim Jong-Un who led a famous attack against the Japanese, an attack that has been claimed by Kim’s grandfather Kim Il-Sung that he led, so they could be the ruling family of North Korea.

If accurate, it would mean that someone else  — not the son of Jong-il — would be the rightful heir to the communist North Korean state.

A report in the Asahi Shimbun dated June 7, 1937 says it was Choe Hyon, the father of Choe Ryong-Hae current joint chairman of the powerful Politburo Presidium and political director of the North Korea People’s Army, who actually led the attack. The report reads in part: ‘A little more than 100 men lead by Communist bandit Choe Hyon attacked Pochonbo. ….”

The grandfather of Kim Jong-Un, Kim Il-Sung, is documented in North Korea’s official history as the leader of this 1937 attack on the Japanese base defending the town of Ponchonbo, which helped him gain a foothold of legitimacy in the claim of leadership of the country.

So Choe Ryong-Hae has been singled out because of these newly-revealed records, amidst rumors that Kim Jong-Un is planning another purge to rid North Korea of some of its most powerful figures.

North Korea regularly changes its own country’s history, with children in the North being taught that the Korean War was started in 1950 by an invasion by the South, and that Kim Jong-il was born in a cabin on the slopes of Mount Paektu, when historians claim that the late leader was actually born in a refugee camp in the Soviet Union.

Earthquake off North Korea prompts nuclear test fears

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An earthquake off the coast of North Korea today sparked fears Kim Jong-Un may have carried out his threat to conduct more nuclear tests.

The magnitude-five tremor was detected 80 miles from the Korean Peninsula at around 3.48am local time, according to the United States Geological Survey.

It comes just two days after the sabre-rattling state threatened to launch a ‘new form’ of nuclear power tests – and hours after the North and South exchanged artillery fire near a disputed sea boundary in a heightening of tensions on the peninsula.

The force of today’s earthquake was similar to the 5.1-magnitude tremor registered in a North Korean mountain range from a previous nuclear test in December 2012. But its location at a depth of nearly 10 miles in the sea did not immediately suggest nuclear testing was the cause this time, it was reported by the Daily Telegraph.

 

North Korea fires on South Korea

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A day after raising the possibility of further nuclear tests, North Korea has engaged in provocative live-fire exercises near the South Korean maritime border, leading to an exchange of fire between the neighbors.

South Korean news agency Yonhap reported Monday that the North had begun the drill just after noon. The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that some North Korean ordnance landed in South Korean waters and that the South responded with fire.

Yonhap reported that the North fired “several” artillery shells, to which the South Korean military responded with self-propelled artillery fire. The South Korean K9 howitzers have a 24-mile (40-kilometer) range.

 

South Korean proposal to North Korea to bolster humanitarian aid and bilateral exchanges

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Uncertainty lingers as to whether South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s proposals to bolster humanitarian aid to North Korea and bilateral exchanges will lead to a turnaround in the strained ties, given high military tensions and mutual distrust.

Aimed at laying the groundwork for reunification, Park’s proposals for “humanity, co-prosperity and integration” included extending aid to mothers and their babies; building infrastructure in the North in return for rights to develop underground resources; and increasing bilateral exchanges in various sectors.

“At this point in time, Park’s proposals are likely to be perceived by Pyongyang as a ‘poisonous apple’ ― a package that ultimately seeks to achieve reunification by absorbing the North,” said Cheong Seong-jang, a senior research fellow at the think tank Sejong Institute.

Pyongyang maintains its bellicose stance toward Seoul. On Sunday it threatened to conduct a “new type” of nuclear test and continued its verbal criticism of President Park.

Amid annual South Korea-U.S. military drills, the North has fired off dozens of ballistic missiles and short-range rockets in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

[The Korea Herald]

Religious Persecution in North Korea

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The Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the report issued by the United Nations Human Rights Council, has a section dealing with “Religious Persecution” that also gives the history of Christianity in the isolated Communist country, where churches had thrived before the events of 1950-1953 civil war that left it a divided land.

As of 1950, Christian Solidarity Worldwide quoted an estimate of more than 28 percent of Korea’s population that had a religious belief. The 1950 Yearbook of the Workers’ Party of Korea placed the figure at almost 24 per cent.

The Korean War and pre-Kim Il Sung-ism movement periods have been described as the most vicious in the persecution of religious believers. “Religious people were killed, exiled and imprisoned. Christians were said to have been targeted the most as the movement of Christianity was much more organized than the other religions and because of its supposed connection with the USA.”

[Ecumenical News]