Author Archives for Grant Montgomery

Defectors say Christians in North Korea face terrible persecution

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While Donald Trump says there is a “good chance” of reaching a deal on North Korean nuclear disarmament, the plight of Christians in North Korea remains dismal, an Associated Press report revealed this week.

Defectors say Christians in North Korea face terrible persecution. Even Christians who stay deep underground face danger, defectors now living in South Korea told the wire service.

Defectors’ stories include that of Kwak Jeong-ae, 65, who said a fellow inmate in North Korea told guards about her own religious beliefs and insisted on using her baptized name, rather than her original Korean name, during questioning in 2004: “She persisted in saying, ‘My name is Hyun Sarah; it’s the name that God and my church have given to me,’” Kwak said. “She told (the interrogators), ‘I’m a child of God and I’m not scared to die. So if you want to kill me, go ahead and kill me.’”

Kwak said Hyun told her about what she did during the interrogations, and Hyun’s actions were confirmed to Kwak by another inmate who was interrogated alongside her. Kwak said she later saw Hyun, then 23, coming back from an interrogation room with severe bruises on her forehead and bleeding from her nose. Days later, guards took Hyun away for good.

Another defector said she only prayed under a blanket or in the bathroom because of worries of being caught. Another, who was jailed after being repatriated from China, where many Koreans took refuge during a 1990s-era famine, described praying silently in his jail cell after a hungry fellow prisoner shared some precious kernels of corn. “We communicated by writing on our palms (with our fingers),” he told AP. “I told him I was a Christian and asked whether he was too.”

Jung Gwangil, a North Korean defector-turned-activist, and one of the few who allowed AP to use his name in print, said he saw a man praying and singing hymns when they were held together at a detention facility in the northern city of Hoeryong in October 1999. The man was beaten frequently and one day was hauled away, Jung said. “While leaving, he shouted to us, ‘God will save you.’ I hadn’t encountered Christianity before at the time, and [at the time] I thought he was crazy,” Jung told the wire service.

 [Aleteia]

North Korean human rights left behind

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A year ago, the White House was lit with glowing Christmas trees when Ji Seong-ho arrived for a holiday reception, an opu­lence he could not have imagined as a boy in North Korea. In the Grand Foyer, to the strains of the U.S. Marine Band, Ji made a wish that his former countrymen would “be liberated one day” and witness such grandeur.

Ji rose to prominence as an activist after defecting to South Korea and played a key role in President Trump’s risky strategy to build the international pressure that helped bring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table over his nuclear weapons program.

Trump shared Ji’s personal story during his State of the Union address to shine a light on the brutality of Kim’s regime and praise the human spirit to overcome tyranny in a bid for freedom. It was an emotional appeal to the world that, beyond the existential nuclear threat, North Korea’s authoritarian leader was enacting savagery on his own people every day. Watching from first lady Melania Trump’s box in the House chambers, Ji stood and raised a pair of crutches over his head — a reminder of his amputated leg — to a standing ovation from both political parties.

Much has changed. Since Ji’s starring role in last year’s State of the Union, Trump has said almost nothing about the plight of the North Korean people, more than 100,000 of whom are estimated to be held in hard-labor prison camps. Instead, the president has abruptly shifted from a “fire and fury” condemnation of the North to an unprecedented strategy of engagement with Kim, which led to their historic summit in Singapore last June.

Their joint declaration after the meeting made no mention of human rights, and Trump has spoken warmly of Kim since then. He has said Kim has shown “courage” in moving forward with negotiations and often speaks about the “beautiful” letters the North Korean leader has sent him. At a campaign rally last fall, Trump told the crowd that as the two men got to know each another they “fell in love.” “We have a fantastic chemistry,” Trump said in an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday.

Gone are the denunciations of the abuses Kim inflicts on his people. A second summit is tentatively booked for late February. Ji and several other North Korean defectors who visited the Oval Office a year ago remain uncertain whether their partnership with Trump will lead to the human rights improvements that they have sought.

[Washington Post]

US envoy reveals North Korea nuclear pledge

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North Korea has pledged to destroy all its nuclear material enrichment facilities, according to the US special envoy for the country, Stephen Biegun. He said the promise had been made to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when he visited North Korea in October. Biegun added that Kim Jong-un had committed, in his talks with Mr Pompeo, to “the dismantlement and destruction” of all its plutonium and uranium facilities, which provide the material for nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has not confirmed making any such pledge.

Mr Biegun also said that North Korea must provide a complete list of its nuclear assets before any deal can be reached.

President Donald Trump had earlier claimed “tremendous progress” in talks between the countries. Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, the president said he would soon announce the date and location of a planned second summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.

Stephen Biegun has been Washington’s top envoy to North Korea for five months but he gave a detailed public accounting of his approach for the first time in a speech at Stanford University in California.

Mr Biegun said President Trump was “ready to end this war”.

“We’re not going to invade North Korea. We are not seeking to topple the regime,” he said.

But Biegun reiterated that the US would not lift sanctions until denuclearisation was complete, demanding “a complete understanding of the full extent of the North Korean WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and missile programmes through a comprehensive declaration”.

He also admitted that North Korea and the US did not have a shared definition of what denuclearisation actually meant.

[BBC]

Kim Jong Un has played Donald Trump ‘like a fiddle,’ Ex-CIA Chief says

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Former CIA Director John Brennan has blasted President Donald Trump’s criticism of his own intelligence community, claiming it has allowed foreign leaders like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to play him “like a fiddle.”

The assessment from Brennan, who has been a fierce critic of the president, came on a day in which the president launched an extraordinary attack on United States intelligence chiefs. Responding to the attack, Brennan said the president’s actions posed a danger to the U.S.

“Your refusal to accept the unanimous assessment of U.S. Intelligence on Iran, North Korea, ISIS, Russia, & so much more shows the extent of your intellectual bankruptcy,” Brennan wrote on Twitter. “All Americans, especially members of Congress, need to understand the danger you pose to our national security.” Trump, Brennan said, “should be ashamed of himself” over the comments, “but I know he knows no shame.”

Brennan later appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball and was asked for specific ways that Trump’s ignoring of intelligence concerned him. “I don’t think he understands the complexities of the problems associated with North Korea’s nuclear program,” he told host Chris Matthews. “We have not gotten anything from the North Koreans.

“Kim Jong Un has demonstrated just how easy it is to play Donald Trump like a fiddle, which is what he has done, and there’s going to be another summit, and I think he has been duped by Kim Jong Un,” Brennan added.

North Korea has not conducted any missile tests since Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to sit down with a North Korean leader last June. However, experts have noted that Trump emerged from the historic summit with no firm commitment for North Korean denuclearization. Trump and Kim are set to sit down for a second summit next month.

[Newsweek]

Trump disputes US intelligence on North Korea

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President Trump continues to plan a second summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – date and location to be determined – and expresses confidence that Kim is committed to junking his nuclear weapons programs.

The U.S. intelligence community does not share that optimism.

During her Senate testimony, CIA Director Gina Haspel said the evidence shows that North Korea “is committed to developing a long-range nuclear-armed missile that would pose a direct threat to the United States.”

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said that, while Kim is expressing “openness” to the idea of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, “we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities, and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities.”

In tweets, Trump said the U.S. relationship with North Korea is “the best it has ever been.” He said they have stopped nuclear testing, and claimed a “decent chance of Denuclearization.”

Saying “I look forward to seeing Kim Jong Un shortly,” Trump claimed “progress (is) being made-big difference!” 

[USA Today]

Defector surprised how little South Koreans know about North Korea

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Geum Hyok stood by himself in an empty apartment wondering if he made a mistake. He had no friends and no family to reassure him.

Feeling lonely but determined to make a life for himself, he started classes at Korea University where he met people who were kind to him and checked on him regularly. Their friendship helped him not feel as lonely.

Except for the couple times he was turned down for a job because they didn’t want to hire a North Korean, most people were welcoming to him.

But what surprised him most was how many South Koreans didn’t know what was happening in North Korea. Geum Hyok didn’t blame them, he knew humans rights was complicated. But it was still disappointing.

Now, Geum Hyok is studying politics and diplomacy and enjoys having the freedom to do what he wants. He no longer questions his choice to escape but he does think about his loved ones still in North Korea. He especially misses his mother whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to in eight years. He is waiting for the day North Korea finally opens so they can be reunited.  

[LiNK]  

North Korea reminds citizens they will be killed for watching South Korean TV

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North Korea has been trumpeting its thawing relations with South Korea, with images of Kim Jong Un meeting his counterpart Moon Jae-in shown in state-controlled media. But that doesn’t mean its punishments will be any less harsh for citizens who dare to watch TV programs from across the border. People who commit that crime can still face prison, labor camp, or death, as police officials have been reminding residents during lectures in the South Hwanghae province this month.

Radio Free Asia recently reported on the lectures, in which officials demanded that residents “abstain from watching decadent video materials of capitalism … that have found their way in from the South,” according to one source.

Those materials can reach North Koreans in a variety of ways, including via black markets and even the skies above. South Korean activists have long used balloons to carry leaflets deriding North Korea’s government and USB flash drives loaded with South Korean soap operas. Such shows can reveal to North Koreans how much better off their southern counterparts are.

North Koreans close to the border with South Korea can also receive broadcast signals from the south by manipulating frequencies on their TVs.

The police, in their lectures, have reminded people that anyone, regardless of their status, will be punished. In 2014, 10 officials of the ruling party were reportedly executed for watching South Korean soap operas.

[Quartz]

Listening to South Korean radio could send you to a political prison camp or even execution

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Ill Yong opens Google Maps, trying to find a satellite image of his childhood house. This always makes him homesick. When he zooms in on his house, a blurry gray square surrounded by snow, he remembers the nearby waterfall and the summer days he spent playing there. But he also remembers how hard it was living in North Korea.

His family listened to illegal South Korean radio every night but had to keep it hidden from friends and neighbors. If caught, they could have been sent to a political prison camp or even executed.

Ill Yong resettled to South Korea in 2009 and, even though his family was with him, starting over in a new country was challenging. The everyday moments took adjusting to.

His first time at a buffet, Ill Yong was so overwhelmed by the massive amount of food that he just took a small bowl of rice.

The first time he tried to use an escalator he was so confused about what to do that he jumped on at the bottom and then jumped off at the top.

Ill Yong is studying to become a Human Rights lawyer. A lot has changed since he first arrived (he now knows how to get on an escalator) but he still thinks about his old home in North Korea and hopes to see it again in person one day.

[LiNK]

No further word about North Korea’s top diplomat in Italy who went into hiding

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There has been no further word about North Korea’s top diplomat in Italy who went into hiding along with his wife in November before his posting to Italy ended late that month. Media reports indicated that Jo was under Italian government protection as he seeks asylum in a Western nation.

A high-profile defection by one of North Korea’s elite would be a huge embarrassment for leader Kim Jong Un as he pursues diplomacy with Seoul and Washington and seeks to portray himself as a geopolitical player. North Korea, which touts itself as a socialist paradise, is extremely sensitive about defections, especially among its elite diplomatic corps, and has previously insisted that they are South Korean or U.S. plots to undermine its government.

In this case, North Korea has publicly ignored Jo Song Gil’s possible defection and held back harsh criticism to avoid highlighting the vulnerability of its government as it tries to engage Washington and Seoul in negotiations.

“It could be difficult for some diplomats to accept being called back to the North after enjoying years living in the free West. They could want their children to live in a different system and receive better education,” Thae Yong Ho, a former minister at the North Korean Embassy in London who fled to South Korea in 2016, told The Associated Press.

Jo seemed comfortable moving around Italy. In March 2018, accompanied by another embassy official, Pak Myong Gil, he visited two factories in Italy’s northeastern Veneto region with an eye on eventual trade, according to La Tribuna di Treviso, a local daily.

Jo comes from a family of diplomats, with his father and father-in-law both serving as ambassadors.

Opinion on second North Korea summit

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North Korea has forgone nuclear tests, missile tests and rhetorical attacks for more than 400 days. That’s an important development. At the same time, however, it continues to produce nuclear fuel, weapons and missiles. It has not denuclearized, as Mr. Trump has demanded.

So, as President Trump and Kim Jong-un prepare for their second summit (reportedly next month in Vietnam), the pressure is on the Trump administration to articulate a realistic strategy for achieving a mutually agreed upon outcome.

After their first meeting, Mr. Trump declared that North Korea, which possesses 20 to 60 nuclear weapons, the missiles to deliver them and the facilities to make even more, was “no longer a nuclear threat.” Saying so didn’t make it so.

A new report this week about a previously secret North Korean missile base at Sino-ri, 132 miles (212 kilometers) north of the Demilitarized Zone, is a reminder of how sprawling and hidden the country’s nuclear program is and how challenging any sort of outside inspections regime might be to carry out.

Publicly, the two sides still hew to staunch positions: The Trump administration insists that tough sanctions will stay in place until North Korea completely gives up its nuclear arsenal. North Korean officials insist on sanctions relief early in the process.

But small signs of movement led to plans for the second summit. Mr. Trump backed off his insistence on immediate disarmament, and his administration recently eased travel restrictions so American aid workers and humanitarian supplies could once again enter the impoverished country.

Mr. Kim’s annual New Year’s Day speech presented a somewhat more positive view of United States-North Korea relations, an encouraging sign.

One potentially significant change is that Mr. Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, last August appointed Stephen Biegun, a retired business executive with years of experience as a Republican foreign policy adviser, as the day-to-day negotiator. He is regarded by people in both parties as having a nuanced and pragmatic view of negotiations and diplomacy.

[Read full New York Times Opinion]