Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

President Trump’s astonishing words about the people of North Korea

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In his post-summit interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, President Donald Trump said something quite astonishing about how the citizens of North Korea view their supreme leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said: “His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor.”

To believe that the majority of North Koreans, many of whom are teetering on the edge of survival, are happy is nothing less than a gross exaggeration.

According to the latest UN humanitarian appeal, a staggering 41% of the population — or an estimated 10.3 million people — continue to suffer from under-nutrition. So it is equally astonishing that in the joint statement both leaders signed there is no mention of alleviation of the suffering of vulnerable North Korean citizens.

The situation is so dire that hundreds of thousands of children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers don’t have enough to eat on a daily basis. While aid agencies operating in North Korea need to be restrained in their reporting of the situation on the ground, eyewitness accounts from dissidents and others support evidence that many outside privileged circles have difficulty surviving.

The UN’s World Food Program, which has some of the best access in the country, says that about one-quarter of children in nurseries it supports are stunted, meaning that they’ve received such poor nutrition in their first few months of life that their growth has been affected.

While natural factors such as floods, drought and bitterly cold weather set people back, international sanctions have had the knock-on effect when it comes to the health and well-being of ordinary people, too. Earlier this year, an influenza outbreak was blamed on sanctions that prevent easy restocking of basic medicines.

[CNN]

What happened in the Trump-Kim meeting

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A breakdown of 10 major takeaways from the Trump-Kim summit and why they matter.

(1) The simple act of talking changes North Korean and American behaviors and perceptions in ways that make conflict far less likely. That’s a big deal.
(2) The joint statement signed by Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim contains polite diplomatic platitudes but is otherwise largely empty. It doesn’t resolve any issues, but it keeps the countries engaged.
(3) Later, Mr. Trump made a concession with significance: The United States will suspend its joint military exercises with South Korea.
(4) Trump may have made the concession on South Korea’s behalf without its consent or advance knowledge which sends the message that South Koreans cannot always count on the United States.
(5) The United States staged the summit meeting in a way that handed Mr. Kim some symbolic but meaningful concessions. For one, the two countries and their leaders were presented as equals.
(6) It costs the United States little to make those concessions. Still, they can be given away only once, and the United States received relatively little from North Korea in return.
(7) The meeting sends important messages to other adversarial states. Mr. Kim appears to have forced Mr. Trump to the table by developing nuclear weapons and missiles that can reach the United States. But Mr. Kim’s human rights record, considered among the world’s worst, did not appear to be an issue.
(8) If the point of the meeting was to bring the world demonstrably closer to resolving the North Korea crisis, then that didn’t happen.
(9) By tearing up the Iran nuclear deal despite sustained indication of Iranian compliance, and by reneging on agreements even with long-term allies, the United States has deepened suspicion that it cannot be trusted to make arms-control agreements. So don’t expect talks to produce much of verifiable substance.
(10) Still, it’s worth reiterating that first point: Almost any talks, even if they elevate Mr. Kim and grant him concessions for little return, significantly reduce the risk of war.

[New York Times]

The Trump Administration offering Pyongyang the world

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In the above photo, Kim Yong Chol and an unidentified aide gaze out at sweeping view of Lower Manhattan, as a smiling Mike Pompeo points out some highlights.

The Trump administration is arguing that if the North Koreans want security, it cannot come from nuclear weapons. Instead, their pitch is that Pyongyang will gain more security by abandoning its nuclear program, allowing it to escape from the yoke of international sanctions and isolation and concentrate on economic prosperity.

To drive the point home, the State Department released a photo of Pompeo pointing out of the condo’s window to the splendor of the New York skyline, as if to say to the two North Koreans by his side that the same kind of wealth could be theirs, too.

“We are talking about a brighter future for North Korea, if it makes a smart choice,” the State Department official said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin also met with a North Korean team in Singapore on Wednesday and Thursday. Separately, a U.S. delegation led by U.S. envoy Sung Kim met with North Korean officials Wednesday at the demilitarized zone.

But the primary focus is on Pompeo’s meeting with Kim Yong Chol, who is the vice chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee responsible for South Korean affairs. He is also on the State Affairs Commission, the North Korean government’s supreme policymaking organization. His portfolio includes North Korea’s relationship with China and, lately, the United States.

[Washington Post]

Two North Koreans defecting latest upset for diplomatic thaw on Korean peninsula

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Last Saturday morning, two North Koreans, including a military officer, defected to the South. The officer and a civilian defected by boat and were picked up by the South Korean military in the Yellow Sea, near the inter-Korean sea border, after expressing willingness to defect, reported the South’s newswire, Yonhap.

The defection, the first of a North Korean military officer since 2008, is awkward timing for Seoul, which has a longstanding policy of accepting any North Korean defectors who want to live in the South.

Moon Jae-in, South Korea’s president, has been at pains to keep this year’s diplomatic détente between North and South on track. But despite a friendly first meeting between Kim Jong-Un and Mr Moon at the end of April, during which they held hands as they crossed their shared border, the diplomatic thaw that began in January, the latest defections could raise tensions further.

[The Telegraph]

President Trump cancels June 12 North Korea summit

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President Donald Trump today called off the planned summit with North Korea, writing in a letter to Kim Jong-Un that he didn’t want to go forward with the meeting because of “tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement.”

In the run-up to the proposed summit, Mr. Trump had said that if North Korea cooperated and relinquished its nuclear weapons, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, could expect that his regime would remain intact and the country would experience an economic revival.

But increasingly combative statements from North Korea’s leadership in recent days dimmed prospects for the summit.

On Monday, Vice-President Pence suggested that Mr. Kim would be overthrown like Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi if he doesn’t make a deal on U.S. terms. “This will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn’t make a deal,” Mr. Pence told Fox News.

North Korea’s senior envoy for U.S. affairs threatened to cancel the summit and warned that the country could inflict on America an “appalling tragedy that it has never experienced nor even imagined.”

One official said that it was “wise” of Mr. Trump “to walk away for the time being.” Even after the U.S. and North Korea agreed on a summit date and venue, it was clear that substantial gaps remained. A major gap, according to experts, is whether the U.S. and North Korea shared the same understanding of “denuclearization.” The Trump administration envisioned a rapid process—perhaps taking less than a year—in which important sanctions relief would come only at the end. Mr. Kim spoke about a prolonged process in which sanctions relief would come earlier.

On Tuesday, South Korea’s president met with Mr. Trump in a bid to keep the summit planning on track. China’s foreign minister said Wednesday that he also hoped the summit would take place. On Thursday White House officials said the summit could be revived at some point, suggesting that Mr. Trump’s letter was only the latest turn in a continuing negotiation.

[CNN]

Restaurant manager reveals he tricked North Korean waitresses into defecting

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When 13 North Korean workers defected en masse from a restaurant in China in April 2016, it was a propaganda boost for South Korea and a huge embarrassment for their homeland.

Heo Gang-il, the manager of the restaurant in the Chinese port city of Ningbo has told CNN that the young women didn’t defect — he tricked them into going to South Korea at the bidding of South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS).  He says he had become an informant for the intelligence agency after becoming disillusioned with Kim Jong Un’s regime.

The South Korean government maintains that the 12 young women defected of their own free will, and took the unusual step of publicizing their decision stating it was the largest group defection since Kim took power in 2011.

Heo says the NIS told him to lie to the waitresses and bring them to South Korea. He told the workers they were relocating to better accommodations.  The 12 waitresses and Heo flew to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, with tickets, he says, were paid for by the NIS.

Heo says they were given South Korean passports with false names and they flew to Incheon, South Korea’s main international airport. A journey that takes months for most defectors took these North Koreans just two days.

[CNN]

North Korean defector hung upside down and/or water-boarded for ten unbearable months

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North Korean defector Jung Gwang Il was accused of collaborating with a South Korean while on business in China, and arrested as he returned home to his wife and two young daughters.

Detained without trial, he was tortured daily by electrocution, and put in the “pigeon position” where a prisoner’s hands and legs are tied before being hung from the ceiling.

For ten unbearable months, Jung Gwang Il was hung upside down or waterboarded until he confessed to being a spy. He was then forced into hard labor at North Korea’s notorious Yodok detention camp for another three years.

“In that first ten months, I dropped from 75kg (165 lbs) to 36kg (79 lbs). I tried to hold out for my family as I knew they would be punished if I confessed,” he said.

But after almost a year he could bear it no longer. His torturers promptly shipped him to Yodok, a grim camp about 65 miles north of Pyongyang.

While others died due to the hard labor, Mr Jung fought to survive. “We willed each other not to die, to believe that we might make it out,” he said of his fellow inmates. Three years later he was released, and casually told he had been found ‘not guilty’.

By that time his home had been destroyed and his family hounded into hiding. They were finally reunited in China after he swam across the Tumen border river to escape.

[The Telegraph]

Trump greets 3 American hostages freed by North Korea

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Three American prisoners freed from North Korea arrived in the US  early Thursday to a personal welcome from President Trump, who traveled to an air base in the middle of the night to meet them.

Waving their hands and flashing peace signs, the freed prisoners — Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kim and Kim Hak-song — descended the stairs of their plane, flanked by the president and senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who had flown to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, to secure their release.

Their return to the United States removed a delicate obstacle as the president prepares to sit down with the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for a landmark nuclear summit meeting on June 12 in Singapore.

But as Mr. Trump basked in the glow of floodlights and TV cameras, he indicated that the most difficult part of the negotiations, which include persuading North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, still lies ahead.

North Korean defectors challenge the ban on border propaganda

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During the historic inter-Korean summit last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in pledged to end all hostilities and work towards peace on the peninsula.

North Korean defectors in South Korea have decided to challenge an agreement between the two Korean leaders banning the launch of propaganda leaflets across the border and have called for a day of action on May 5. Police presence is expected at the event, with officers instructed to break out the protest if needed, the South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh reported.

The North Korean defectors do not trust Kim’s intentions and want to keep fighting for the rights of their former compatriots. “We will keep doing this for the people of North Korea,” Fighters for a Free North Korea leader Park Sang-hak told Yonhap news agency.

The launch of balloons filled with propaganda leaflets or other media content banned in North Korea has been a source of tension between the two countries.

[Newsweek]