Category: China

North Korean defectors say US should do more

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A group of North Korean defectors converged Monday to call on the Obama administration to do more to help them topple dictator Kim Jong-un’s oppressive regime.

Scholte introduced some two dozen defectors at a National Press Club event to kick off the 12th annual North Korea Freedom Week. Their efforts to get information in and out of North Korea—through radio broadcasts, balloon drops, and other means—have led the country into the information age, ignited capitalism that is curbing starvation, and helped some 26,000 persons escape, Scholte said.

The defectors include a variety of organization leaders, prison camp survivors, and eyewitnesses to human trafficking, drug smuggling, propaganda dissemination, and illegal weapons trading. They will participate in various events throughout the week, including providing testimony to Congress on Wednesday, and at the United Nations in New York on Thursday. Twice this week the defectors will gather for events outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, which has refused to treat North Koreans as refugees.

Scholte said defectors have proven highly effective at influencing the regime’s activities, but they don’t have the resources they need to do their jobs. The State Department has ended North Korea programs or severely cut funding over the last five years.

Despite that, he said, defectors refuse to quit: “The North Korean regime continues to threaten the people in this room, but they will not be intimidated.”

[WNG.org]

Addressing North Korean clichés and half-truths: Ignorance about the World

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Excerpts from “North Korea: Markets and Military Rule” by Hazel Smith, as printed in The Guardian:

Perhaps the most pervasive myth is that North Koreans are ignorant of the world outside, and believe everything the government tells them. This is extended by the assumption that North Koreans are educationally backward, and lack the sophistication to understand the world beyond their borders.

North Koreans are anything but ignorant. With almost universal literacy, and despite economic deterioration, school enrolment – for girls and boys – remains near universal. About 35% of high school graduates went on to university education in 2002.

North Koreans are indeed subject to a relentless socialization campaign that glorifies the exploits of the Kim family and inflicts sanctions on those who criticize the country’s rulers. Yet despite the best efforts of the North Korean government, the picture of the DPRK as an absolutely closed society is far from the truth today.

The North Korean government works hard to prevent the free flow of information into the country. Students studying in Pyongyang have access to the major state libraries in the capital, which contain foreign books and films, but are only permitted to access these resources if they can demonstrate a “need” to do so, while access to the internet is limited.

However, a small number of students study abroad – about 500 were in Asia and Europe in 2002; in 2012, 96 North Korean students were studying at China’s Northeastern University alone.

Chinese traders and local trading networks have also provided routes for non-state sanctioned information for nearly a quarter of a century. Many Chinese traders and visitors are of Korean ethnicity, and three of North Korea’s north-eastern provinces border the Chinese prefecture of Yanbian, which is populated by ethnic Koreans of Chinese nationality.

Pyongyang’s population of three million frequently come into contact with foreigners in the service sector – hotels, shops, bars – and workplaces where foreigners also work. Outside Pyongyang, the port towns of Nampo, Chongjin and Rajin also host foreigners; so too has the southern tourist development zone of Kumgangsan, and the South Korea-sponsored free-trade zone of Kaesong.

It’s true that short-term visitors to the country are carefully “minded” by accompanying North Korean officials, but long-term residents have more freedom. They are permitted to obtain North Korean driving licenses, learn Korean and freely operate without permanent watch.

Chinese experts warn about North Korean nuclear arsenal

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China’s top nuclear experts have increased their estimates of North Korea’s nuclear weapons production well beyond most previous U.S. figures, suggesting Pyongyang can make enough warheads to threaten regional security for the U.S. and its allies.

The latest Chinese estimates, relayed in a closed-door meeting with U.S. nuclear specialists, showed that North Korea may already have 20 warheads, as well as the capability of producing enough weapons-grade uranium to double its arsenal by next year, according to people briefed on the matter.

Adm. William Gortney, head of U.S. Northern Command, said this month that defense officials believe North Korea can now mount a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile called the KN-08. U.S. officials don’t believe the missile has been tested, but experts estimate it has a range of about 5,600 miles —within reach of the western edge of the continental U.S., including California.

The latest Chinese estimates of North Korea’s nuclear capability were shared during a February meeting at the China Institute of International Studies, the Chinese foreign ministry’s think tank. The estimate that North Korea may have had 20 warheads at the end of last year—and could build 20 more by 2016—was given during a presentation by one of China’s top uranium enrichment experts, according to people familiar with the meeting. They said it was the first time they had heard such a high Chinese estimate.

[The Wall Street Journal]

On North Korea’s growing economy

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The textile factories of Dandong China, just across the Yalu River from North Korea, producing “made in China” goods offer a glimpse into a hidden world that is helping North Korea’s economy to thrive. Operated by North Koreans, the factories produce clothes and other goods that are exported under foreign-company labels, making it impossible to tell that they have been made with North Korean hands and contribute to North Korean profits.

The thriving operations belie the perception in Washington that U.S. and international sanctions are working to strangle North Korea’s ability to make money. An estimate by South Korea’s Hyundai Research Institute forecasts that the North’s economy will grow this year by a whopping 7 percent.

A lot of that growth comes through Dandong, a hive of North Korean and Chinese managers and traders, with middlemen helping them all cover their tracks. One local Chinese businessman estimates that one-quarter of this city’s population of 800,000 is involved in doing business with North Korea in some way.

In a typical clothing factory, the women work 13 hours a day, 28 or 29 days a month, and are paid $300 each a month—one-third of which they keep. The rest goes back to the government in Pyongyang. North Korea is thought to have at least 50,000 workers outside the country earning money for the regime, with 13,000 of them working in Dandong.

North Korea’s economy is still a basket case, barely more than one-fiftieth the size of South Korea’s. But in talking about the changes underway, the businessmen described a North Korean economy that is increasingly run according to market principles, where people want to be in business, not the bureaucracy, and where money talks.

Reports from inside North Korea suggest that even state-run companies are increasingly operated according to market principles, with managers empowered to hire and fire workers—previously unimaginable in the communist nation—and conduct businesses the way they see best.

Nevertheless, there are frustrations in China. A huge development project is on ice, partly because of the demise of Jang Song Thaek, the businessman and uncle of Kim Jong Un who was executed at the end of 2013, because of his “decadent capitalist lifestyle.” Since then, Jang’s colleagues have been recalled to Pyongyang or have disappeared—sometimes with millions of dollars in Chinese money, according to businessmen in Dandong. Beijing is clearly none too happy about this.

[Washington Post]

Christian missionaries accused of human trafficking by North Korea

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North Korea has accused Christian missionaries of human trafficking, according to the Christian Post.

“There are in the northeastern area of China so-called churches and priests exclusively engaged in hostile acts against the DPRK,” said So Se Pyong, North Korea’s ambassador to the U.N. “They indoctrinate the illegal border crossers with anti-DPRK ideology and send them back to the DPRK with assignments of subversion, destruction, human trafficking and even terrorist acts.”

Pyong’s remarks come on the heels of an official report released by Kim Jong Un’s government that called the U.S. a “living hell” where rights are ruthlessly violated.

“Such poor human right (sic) records in the U.S. are an inevitable product of the ruling quarters’ policy against humanity … Its chief executive, Obama, indulges himself in luxury almost every day, squandering hundred millions of dollars on his foreign trip in disregard of his people’s wretched life.”

North Korea is considered the worst persecutor of Christians by numerous human rights watchdog groups, notably Open Doors. “Forced to meet only in secret, they dare not share their faith even with their families, for fear of imprisonment in a labor camp. Anyone discovered engaging in secret religious activity may be subject to arrest, disappearance, torture, even public execution.”

[Worthy News]

Skirting North Korean sanctions at the grassroots level

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Since the start of the Korean War in 1950, when it included North Korea in the “Trading With the Enemy Act”, the United States has sought to restrict North Korea’s ability to bank and trade. This has tightened markedly over the past decade, with the United States imposing rounds of sanctions designed to curtail North Korea’s ability to procure materials for its nuclear weapons program by shutting the country out of the international financial system.

The restrictions hurt at first, but North Korea wised up. It uses small banks in China or Russia to transfer money—several banks in Dandong, a Chinese  city just over the border from North Korea, said it was possible to wire money to Pyongyang, for a hefty commission—or simply reverts to old-fashioned suitcases full of cash, which are much harder to stop with sanctions.

There is a sense in the Chinese border town of Dandong that sanctions are an issue for Washington and Beijing but that they don’t apply here on the border. “I’m just a local businessman,” one Chinese businessman said, adding that sanctions “apply to big, international companies, not to private individuals like us,” clearly considering his business with North Korea domestic. “Anyway, we find ways to get around them.”

For North Korean individuals who make money on the Chinese side of the border, one question is how to get it back. Everyone interviewed said that it is entirely possible to send cash to North Korea—people usually just carry it in bags over the bridge—and that while there might technically be limits on how much a person can carry, in practice there are no checks, or at least no checks that cannot be overcome by greasing a few palms.

Politics and economics are not entirely intertwined. “China and North Korea are like lips and teeth,” said a North Korean factory manager, repeating an old saying about the neighbors.

[Washington Post]

Yeon-mi Park the tiny woman facing the wrath of North Korea Part 2

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As Yeon-mi’s “collaborator” – a publishing term for a writer who helps an author find her voice and turn her story into a narrative – I was immediately taken with the power of Yeon-mi’s testimony, as well as the warmth of her personality and her playful sense of humor. It was hard to fathom how this vibrant young woman could have suffered such an ordeal.

As soon as we began working together, I noticed there were some minor discrepancies in the articles written about Yeon-mi, a jumbling of dates and places and some inconsistent details about her family’s escape. Most of these issues could be explained by a language barrier – Yeon-mi was giving interviews in English before she was fully fluent. But Yeon-mi was also protecting a secret, something she had tried to bury and forget from the moment she arrived in South Korea at age 15: like tens of thousands of other refugees, Yeon-mi had been trafficked in China. In South Korea – and many other societies – admitting to such a “shameful” past would destroy her prospects for marriage and any sort of normal life.

She had hoped that by changing a few details about her escape she could avoid revealing the full story. But after she decided to plunge into human rights activism, she realized that without the whole truth, the story of her life would have no real power or meaning. She has apologized for any discrepancies in her public record, and is determined that her book be scrupulously accurate.

With Yeon-mi’s cooperation, I have been able to verify her story through family members and fellow defectors who knew her in North Korea and China. Sometimes Yeon-mi had forgotten or blocked out graphic details from her childhood, only to have the memories return in all their horror as we reviewed her recollections with other witnesses. It seemed that she wasn’t just remembering these things, but actually reliving them.

Dr Judith Herman, clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard tells me: “Traumatized people don’t give you a perfect, complete narrative on the first go-round. You see this all the time with refugees seeking asylum. That doesn’t mean their story isn’t credible, because the gist of their story is consistent.”

[Journalist Maryanne Vollers, writing in The Guardian]

Bios of North Korean defectors attending UN Human Rights session in Geneva

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Ahn Myeong Cheol was a prison guard in the North Korean regime’s brutal gulag, who escaped to South Korea and became a human rights activist. Born in North Hamgyong Province in North Korea, he was the only one chosen in his district, at age 18, to become a political prison camp guard. Throughout his service, Ahn was subjected to heavy brain-washing into believing that political prisoners were enemies of the state unworthy of sympathy. He worked for a total of eight years in four different camps. These camps were all designated as total control zones, which prohibit the release of prisoners under any circumstances. Since his escape, Ahn has become a North Korean human rights activist. He has provided testimony at the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK and is now the executive director of the organization NK Watch.

Gim Gyumin was born in Hwanghae Province in North Korea in 1974. In North Korea, he witnessed many human rights violations such as public executions, arbitrary detention, sexual violations, famine, etc. He fled North Korea in 1999 but was arrested in China and repatriated to North Korea. He escaped from North Korea again in 2000 and finally entered South Korea in 2001. In South Korea, he majored drama and film in Hanyang University and started his career as a film director. He directed many films about North Korean human rights. Since he is an eye-witness and victim of human rights violations in North Korea, he has integrated these real tragedies into his movies.

Mr. Kim was dispatched to Russia as a North Korean overseas worker in 2000. While he was working at the logging site in Russia, he received only $130 as a monthly salary since the North Korean government took almost 95% of his salary for the state fund to strengthen the dictatorship. He worked every day from 8am to 12am or even to 3am without having any breaks or rest. The only holiday he could have was the New Year’s Day. Since he could not endure this inhuman treatment by the North Korean authorities any more, he escaped the work site in 2002 and finally entered South Korea in 2013.

[UN Watch]

US, China, South Korea should prepare for North Korea’s collapse, American ex-envoy says

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Former U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill said he doesn’t know when or how the demise of the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will come about, but he believes it is inevitable. When it happens, he said, “we need to make sure that China, [South Korea] and the U.S. all understand what we’re going to do.”

Mr. Hill spoke Wednesday at a regional security conference hosted by The Washington Times in Seoul, where officials from the South Korean government office for reunification say they are pursuing small steps and confidence-building measures with North Korea.

Relations between the two Koreas occur mainly through the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex, which is inside the demilitarized zone that has divided the two nations for more than 60 years. Lee Duk-haeng, a senior policy officer in the ministry, said, “Our view is that if we reconnect the ecosystem between the two Koreas, it will channel into peaceful exchanges.”

Kim Jong Un has made overtures in recent months suggesting an openness for diplomatic engagement with Seoul, but he has spent much of the past three years threatening the South militarily.

Mr. Hill said that Washington and Seoul should be finding ways to convince Beijing that its support of North Korea is a barrier to wider international integration. He also said efforts should be made to draw Japan into the conversation as well.

For some, the comments felt like a throwback to the late 2000s. As U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the time, Mr. Hill headed the Obama administration’s first effort to breathe life into stalled six-party talks aimed at steering North Korea away from developing nuclear weapons. The effort foundered in 2009 when Pyongyang carried out an underground nuclear test, defying warnings from the international community.

[Read more of this Washington Times article]

The North Korean Residents Society of southwest London

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Joong Wha Choi, 48, was formerly a government business consultant in North Korea who defected and is now president of the North Korean Residents Society, an organization aimed at helping refugees settle into their new lives in the UK, as well as informing the public about the human rights offenses taking place in North Korea.

After Joong Wha defected to China, he would send money he earned back to family in North Korea through a network of brokers happy to undertake the illegal transfers for a hefty commission. However, he soon realized that all the money in the world wouldn’t change life for his relatives, that the government in North Korea had to change for anything to become truly different.

I asked him if many North Korean defectors feel a duty to bring about change in their home country. His response: “I sometimes say to myself that it would be great if there was somebody else who risked their life to escape and could be the one to get things done.”

He paused, and then continued, looking weary. “In the past, there have been systems run by kings and queens, and even these monarchies would give some acknowledgement to the welfare of their people. But not the North Korean government—all they want to protect is their own power. I live a comfortable life now here in the UK, but this is a society that somebody else has worked hard for, and I have come to enjoy somebody else’s sacrifice.”

[Vice.com]