Category: Humanitarian Aid and Relief

North Korea withdraws permission for visit by U.S. special envoy

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North Korea withdrew permission for a visit by the U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights issues. Robert King had been scheduled to visit Pyongyang to ask the government to grant amnesty to Kenneth Bae. Bae, a U.S. citizen of Korean descent, was arrested in North Korea last year while attempting a Christian mission and sentenced to 15 years hard labor in April.

“We have sought clarification from the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) about its decision and have made every effort so that Ambassador King’s trip could continue as planned or take place at a later date,” the US State Department said.

A day later, in an article published in Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, North Korea stressed that ongoing inter-Korean talks should not be used as a bargaining chip.  The daily also called on countries to not blindly follow the hardline stance taken by the United States.

Washington has held firm to the stance that the North must show tangible signs that it will give up its nuclear program if it wants to hold talks to ease tensions.  Pyongyang so far has balked at such moves claiming its nuclear deterrence is critical for self-protection.

US envoy to North Korea appealing for release of Kenneth Bae

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A senior U.S. envoy who will travel to North Korea on Friday said that he plans to strongly appeal for the release of Kenneth Bae but added that Washington has received no guarantees from Pyongyang the ailing man will be freed.

Bob King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, said that the United States is increasingly concerned about the health of 45-year-old Kenneth Bae, a tour operator and Christian missionary who was arrested last November and accused of committing “hostile acts” against North Korea.

“We’re going to make an appeal,” King said after a meeting with Japanese officials. “He has health problems and we’re hopeful we will be able to make progress on that.”

When asked if he was confident Bae would be released, he said. “We haven’t been told that anything is definite.”

It will be the first public trip to North Korea by a U.S. administration official in more than two years. The U.S. has requested a pardon and amnesty on humanitarian grounds for Bae, who suffers multiple health problems and was recently hospitalized. Washington has been calling for Pyongyang to grant amnesty since Bae was sentenced on April 30.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said Wednesday that the U.S. was hopeful that King would return with Bae, but she would not link that issue with the prospects for renewed U.S.-North Korean dialogue.

If North Korea releases Bae, it will be the second time King has come back with a prisoner. When he last visited North Korea in May 2011 to assess the impoverished North’s food situation, he came home with Eddie Jun. Jun, a Korean-American from California, was arrested for alleged unauthorized missionary work during several business trips to the country. He was released on humanitarian grounds.

North Koreans treated as subhuman

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North Korea’s famine in the 1990s unleashed a Darwinian struggle for survival that swiftly eliminated many of the most vulnerable in an already sharply stratified society, a U.N. panel heard Thursday.

“People are treated without dignity in North Korea ― and in some cases like sub-humans,” said Ji Seong-ho, who was 14 when he lost his hand and left leg trying to steal coal from a moving train to sell for food during the famine years. Ji, now 31, was one of a number of North Korean defectors called to testify before a U.N. Commission of Inquiry into human rights in North Korea that is currently holding hearings in Seoul.

During the 1994-98 famine, which saw hundreds of thousands starve to death, ordinary North Koreans had to focus all their energies on scavenging to stay alive. Food was so scarce that there was little to share and those who could not fend for themselves ― the very young, the elderly, the disabled ― were at particular risk.

“We had disabled people in our town, but by the time the food situation had begun to improve slightly in the late 1990s, we didn’t see them anymore, meaning they must have died,” Ji said.

Unable to walk without crutches and with no job prospects, Ji managed to cross the border illegally into China in 2000 in an effort to find food for his family. Police caught him on his return, held him for a week and, Ji said, beat him severely. Ji finally escaped for good in 2006 and settled down in South Korea, where he now studies law and speaks publicly about life in the North.

[AFP]

A brief history of US economic warfare against North Korea

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The breadth and depth of US economic warfare against North Korea can be summed up in two brief sentences:

• North Korea is “the most sanctioned nation in the world” — George W. Bush
•“There are few sanctions left to apply.” – The New York Times

From the moment it imposed a total embargo on exports to North Korea three days after the Korean War began in June 1950, the United States has maintained an uninterrupted regimen of economic, financial, and diplomatic sanctions against North Korea. These include:
o Limits on the export of goods and services.
o Prohibition of most foreign aid and agricultural sales.
o A ban on Export-Import Bank funding.
o Denial of favorable trade terms.
o Prohibition of imports from North Korea.
o Blocking of any loan or funding through international financial institutions.
o Limits on export licensing of food and medicine for export to North Korea.
o A ban on government financing of food and medicine exports to North Korea.
o Prohibition on import and export transactions related to transportation.
o A ban on dual-use exports (i.e., civilian goods that could be adapted to military purposes.)
o Prohibition on certain commercial banking transactions.

In recent years, US sanctions have been complemented by “efforts to freeze assets and cut off financial flows” by blocking banks that deal with North Korean companies from access to the US banking system. The intended effect is to make North Korea a banking pariah that no bank in the world will touch. Former US president George W. Bush was “determined to squeeze North Korea with every financial sanction possible” until its
economy collapsed. The Obama administration has not departed from the Bush policies.

Washington has also acted to sharpen the bite of sanctions, pressing other countries to join its campaign of economic warfare. This has included the sponsoring of a United Nations Security Council resolution compelling all nations to refrain for exporting dual-use items to North Korea (a repeat of the sanctions regime that led to the crumbling of Iraq’s healthcare system in the 1990s.) Washington has also pressured China (unsuccessfully) to cut off North Korea’s supply of oil.

[Excerpt of article by Stephen Gowans]

Deteriorating Kenneth Bae moved to hospital

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Kenneth Bae, the American citizen sentenced to 15 years in a North Korean labor camp, has been moved to a hospital after a serious deterioration in his health, his sister said.

Detained in North Korea in November and sentenced in April for “hostile acts to bring down its government,” Bae is now suffering from severe back and leg pain and has lost more than 50 pounds, his sister Terri Chung told CNN late Sunday.

Chung said she received the information from the U.S. State Department, which told her the Swedish ambassador to North Korea had visited Bae in the hospital on Friday. Sweden represents U.S. interests in North Korea because the United States has no diplomatic presence in the secretive state.

Kenneth Baeimprisoned Kenneth BaeDetention in North Korea has taken a heavy toll on Bae, who has already been dealing with other health problems, including diabetes. In a video released early last month, Bae had stated, “Although my health is not good, I am being patient and coping well,” his head shaved and face noticeably thinner than in earlier photos. in that interview, he spoke of health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver and a back problem.

“I think the last three months in the labor camp have certainly been very trying on both his mental and physical health,” Chung said by phone from the Seattle area. The eight hours per day of farm labor, which Bae had never done before, appear to have worsened his symptoms, she said, adding that “he’s also under a tremendous amount of stress.” Other problems he’s suffering from include kidney stones, dizziness, blurred vision and loss of vision.

The family is “extremely concerned” about the situation and is pleading with the U.S. government to help Bae’s case, Chung said.

North Korea has so far showed no sign of budging on the case of Bae, who they call Pae Jun Ho, his Korean name.

 

North Korean defector meets Australian benefactor

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Hyeonseo Lee fled North Korea three years ago, making the treacherous journey through China to South East Asia. Her family crossed into Laos, but Hyeonseo’s mother and brother were detained at the border and put in prison.

Desperate, in tears and with no money she was spotted in a café by Australian backpacker Dick Stolp, who gave her £645 ($981) to pay prison officials to get her family released.

They went their separate ways, but Hyeonseo has always wanted to thank Mr. Stolp in person.

An Australian TV program looking at North Korean issues recently brought the pair back together in an emotional surprise reunion. The associate producer of SBS Television’s Insight program, Luan McKenna, explained, “It was worth it to see her face when she met Dick in the SBS foyer. … After all, not only did his money get Hyeonseo, her mother and her brother to safety – it was also an act of kindness that restored her faith in humanity.”

Hyeonseo now lives in Seoul where she helps other North Korean refugees, and gives lectures around the world about the difficulties facing the friends and family she left behind.

Stolp says he is happy to see her making a difference. “I’m meeting someone who is now doing good things, and inside I can’t help but feel ‘Hey! I helped this lady to go out and change her life’,” he said. “People have been touched (by the story) and hopefully they will go and do something.”

Sky News

UN provides food aid to North Korean flood victims

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The World Food Program (WFP) spokeswoman Nanna Skau said corn is being provided to North Korean households that have been hit hard by recent flooding caused by torrential rain, Radio Free Asia reported. She added that assistance is being offered because flooding has caused extensive damage to farmlands and irrigation systems.

The WFP also said support will be provided to 38,067 people in 10 cities and counties in Pyongan, Hwanghae and Hamgyong provinces.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said torrential rains that caused flooding and landslides left 33 North Koreans dead and displaced roughly 50,000 people from their homes. In places such as Anju in South Pyongan Province, some 80 percent of the city was flooded, resulting in extensive damage to homes and buildings.

Related to the international food effort underway, Korean Sharing Movement, a South Korean non-governmental organization, said it wanted to send emergency food aid to the North and requested permission from Seoul’s Ministry of Unification, which oversees inter-Korean affairs.

[Yonhap News]

Don’t forget incarcerated American Kenneth Bae

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Kenneth Bae, an American man from Washington State, has spent more than nine months imprisoned in North Korea. That’s longer than any other American recently held there.

While the US has called for Bae’s immediate release, North Korean scholar Charles Armstrong explains part of the dilemma for US officials dealing with the situation. “They don’t want to encourage this type of behavior from North Korea,” said Armstrong, professor of Korean studies at Columbia University and director of the school’s Center for Korean Research. “They don’t want to be seen as giving in to pressure from the North Korean government, but there’s also a strong humanitarian interest in getting an American citizen released.”

Since 2009, North Korea has detained at least six Americans, then released them only after visits from prominent US dignitaries. Armstrong suspects that’s what the reclusive Asian regime is after.

Based out of China since 2006, Kenneth Bae traveled frequently to North Korea as a tour operator and Christian missionary. In November, he was arrested, then later convicted of “hostile acts” against the North Korean government. Details about his alleged crimes are still unclear.

“All I know is my brother is a good man,” his sister says.  “He has a huge heart to help people in the nation of North Korea. He is religious, and his religious convictions may have been overzealous and may have been deemed, and seen, as hostile against the state.”

His sister adds they try to stay hopeful, through the dark moments. One of the darkest came in May, when CNN aired a video of Kenneth in prison. He appears in a stained prison uniform, his eyes downcast and tearful. “He looks so sad and panicked,” his mother Myunghee Bae said. “He’s not my son I remember. He looks totally broken. It’s the worst moment of my life.”

From the video, Myunghee Bae noticed her son had lost a lot of weight. He’s since told her that his health is failing, possibly from diabetes-related complications.

In recent months, Kenneth Bae has been able to call home four times and send several letters.

KUOW 

 

No trace of North Korean refugees held near Burma border

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Burmese government officials said they are unable to confirm reports that 64 North Korean refugees are being held by rebel groups near the border town of Tachilek in Shan State.

“The last we heard of North Koreans on their way to Thailand was four years earlier,” a security officer was quoted as saying. “They had mistaken the Burmese shore north of Tachilek for Thai territory and had embarked there. We told them to return to where they came from.”

A South Korean activist claimed recently that the refugees had been held for years and were subject to forced labor and prostitution.

[Irrawaddy]

An Orphan in North Korea

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Hyuk Kim lost his mother when he was 6, then his father when he was 11. After his father died, he lived with a group of six other orphan boys in North Hamgyong province, located at the northern most tip of North Korea.

“We started a fire together, but we still couldn’t sleep because it was so cold,” he said. “We just warmed ourselves with the fire at night and we mainly slept during the day when the sun was shining.

In the punishing winters, Hyuk and other orphans would break into sheds containing electric transformers near factories and markets to find a warm place to sleep.  “Many children accidentally end up touching the transformers while sleeping and die,” said Hyuk, who asked that his real name not be used for the safety of family members still in North Korea. As Hyuk dozed off each night curled next to a transformer, he would try to stay as still as possible — willing himself not to move in his sleep. “During the night, we needed to find food to eat. We sometimes stole food from others and gathered food from here and there.”

When something went missing in the neighborhood, the blame automatically fell on Hyuk and his friends, even when they had not been involved. The children would be taken to the police station and tied to chairs, he said. “The police would then automatically accuse us of stealing because they assume we would have stolen since we don’t have parents. They hit us, tie us up, and torture us. There was no one to defend us.”

Hyuk Kim fled North Korea in 2011, nearly a decade after becoming an orphan. Hyuk, now 21, attends Hangyeore Middle-High School in South Korea, where he sleeps in a bed inside a heated dormitory. The school serves three warm, buffet-style meals a day, and students can pile as much food as they’d like on their metal trays. The school, set up by the South Korean government, does not charge tuition.

Most North Koreans escape by crossing the river on the northern border to China. Some street children who flee to China become easy prey to traffickers, according to human rights activists. The girls are sold into the sex trade, or as wives for rural Chinese men. China sends back those escapees they catch, so defectors live in hiding — fearing they’ll be imprisoned and tortured back home.

 CNN