Category: Kim Jong Un

Kirby calls on UN to act on North Korea

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Michael Kirby, a former judge of the High Court of Australia and chairman of the UN Commission of Inquiry into North Korean human rights abuses, has called on the United Nations to show the same resolve and unanimity on North Korean human rights abuses as it did on passing a resolution on downed flight MH17.

He said the last week had demonstrated the UN Security Council’s capacity for agreement and action. “The attention to MH17 was admirable … and I think we can all be proud of the way our ambassadors dealt with it. But in all truth, the case of North Korea is dealing with millions of people,” Justice Kirby told a university audience.

“The question is will the UN find a way to respond? In the last week, on a matter that had great sensitivity, through … strong political action, a consensus was found, and I’m hoping the same sort of spirit will operate in the case of North Korea when the matter comes to the Security Council.”

The Commission of Inquiry, which reported to the UN in March, detailed horrific abuses of human rights in North Korea, including starving political prisoners reduced to eating grass and rodents in secret gulags, schoolchildren made to watch firing squad executions, and women forced to drown their own babies to uphold racial purity laws.

Justice Kirby compared the actions of the North Korean regime to a modern-day Holocaust, and he warned against treating North Korea as a quirky, oddball regime. “Please do not think North Korea is a cuddly, cute sort of a case, with a leader with a bad haircut who is nonetheless loveable and is going to go in the right direction because he’s a young man. This is not a situation where a young person is going to bring a new broom, if his is a new broom it is a violent new broom. Things have not improved.”

The UN General Assembly will consider the commission’s North Korean recommendations next month and is expected to refer the case to the Security Council. The Security Council has the power to authorize the International Criminal Court to pursue a criminal case against the leaders of North Korea (a non-member state), which could see the regime’s rulers, including Kim Jong-un, tried for crimes against humanity.

Veto-wielding China and Russia, historically resistant to any action against North Korea, with whom they both share a land border, are again likely to be the stumbling blocks to any unanimous action. Justice Kirby said countries that resist taking action against North Korea would be judged harshly by the international community, and by “the bar of history”.

[The Age]

North Korea’s threatening unpredictability

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North Korea is a Riddle Kingdom that is simultaneously threatening, bizarre and brutal. The regime’s unpredictability is one of the factors that allow a small, impoverished state, unable to feed its own people, to stand toe to toe with much more powerful rivals.

It is those random, capricious, frequently dangerous behaviors that allow fragile, brittle, bankrupt North Korea to force its dazzlingly successful neighbor, South Korea, to maintain a constant state of alert, to wonder if its capital city can survive an attack across a border that lies just 35 miles away.

With its conventional and nuclear arsenals, North Korea manages to keep the international community, including the United States, scrambling for an approach that might neutralize the danger and send a lifeline to the victims of the cruel regime.

The many quirky, mystifying, baffling developments in Pyongyang make its young ruler, Kim Jung Un, an irresistible target for comedians. It was hard to suppress a laugh, for example, when North Korea severely declared that an upcoming satirical Hollywood movie constituted “an act of war” and filed an official complaint with the United Nations.

Those are two sides of North Korea — deliberately frightening and inadvertently comical. Then there’s a third side — the part that makes us gasp in horror. A yearlong investigation conducted by the United Nations found that North Korea is a country whose depth of brutality “does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

[Read full CNN article] 

The politics of Beijing’s impatience with North Korea

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Senior officials from China and South Korea will hold talks over the coming days to boost their cooperation on regional security, following a landmark visit to Seoul by President Xi Jinping. Xi’s visit indicated Beijing was shifting its attention from North Korea to the South as the Chinese president broke a tradition of his predecessors by not visiting Pyongyang first on an official visit to the Korean peninsula.

There have been no top-level visits between Beijing and Pyongyang since Kim Jong-un assumed power in 2012. Xi’s trip to Seoul is being interpreted as a sign of Beijing’s growing frustration with the volatile hardline state following a series of nuclear tests and missile launches.

An Asia-based diplomat who did not wish to be named said Beijing had been exerting pressure through diplomatic channels to stop Pyongyang launching a fourth nuclear test after it conducted its third in 2013.

Stalled six-nation nuclear talks have been dormant since late 2008. South Korea, the US and Japan demanded Pyongyang show its sincerity to seek denuclearisation before the talks could resume, but Pyongyang demanded there be no pre-conditions.

[Despite these recent actions] Cui Zhiying, a professor of Korean affairs at Tongji University in Shanghai, said China still believed that taking tough action against Pyongyang would create further uncertainties on the Korean peninsula. So Beijing would not go hand in hand with Seoul against Pyongyang, while Seoul still depends on its security alliance with Washington.

The US has urged Seoul and Tokyo to improve their relationship as their worsening ties could play into China’s hands, while Seoul is aware that its strategic value to Beijing will be lessened should Sino-US relations return to a more positive track, Lee Jung-nam, a professor at the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University said.

“The development of ties between South Korea and China has implications for the relationship between South Korea, the US and Japan.”

[South China Morning Post]

North Korea testing weapons much more than in past

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Officials in Seoul have confirmed nearly 100 missile, rocket and artillery tests by North Korea this year. While North Korea routinely tests short-range projectiles, the number of launches this year has been much higher than in previous years.

The regular test-firings of short-range projectiles, analysts say, are the latest signal that the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, is determined to do things differently than his father, dictator Kim Jong Il, who died in late 2011. And analysts see no end to the test-firings in sight.

Kim Jong Un, who pushed tensions to extraordinary levels last year with threats of nuclear strikes against Seoul and Washington, will likely order his military to keep up the launches, they say, until the United States and South Korea make major concessions such as scaling down their regular joint military drills that Pyongyang insists are an invasion rehearsal. That’s a major contrast to the style of Kim’s father, who sparingly used longer-range missile and nuclear tests more as negotiating cards with the outside world to win concessions.

The continued launches show North Korea’s leader is pushing to strengthen military capabilities because his country feels threatened by U.S.-South Korean military drills even as it pushes for talks with the allies, said Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kyungnam University.

Kim Jong Un’s push for better ties with Seoul and Washington are seen by outside analysts as an attempt to help lure international aid and investment to revive the country’s moribund economy. South Korean and U.S. officials have largely dismissed the North’s overtures, saying the country must first take steps toward nuclear disarmament.

[AP]

North Korea whines to UN about anti-Kim Jong Un comedy

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A soon-to-be-released Hollywood film will mercilessly and hilariously mock the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea. And, therefore, Kim Jong Un and his cronies are very, very upset.

James Franco and Seth Rogen’s latest comedy, The Interview, depicts the pair trying to kill the country’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry had previously warned the U.S. of “stern and merciless” retaliation if it fails to block the release of the film. Now, Kim’s envoy to the United Nations penned a rather alarmist letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging him to block the film’s release, or else.

“The North Korean Foreign Ministry had previously warned the U.S. of ‘stern’ and ‘merciless’ retaliation if it fails to block the release of the film, which is out on October 14.

“Now, in a letter addressed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, North Korea’s UN envoy Ja Song-Nam says allowing the film to be made and seen constitutes ‘the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as a war action.’

“‘The US authorities should take immediate and appropriate action to ban the production and distribution of the film, otherwise it will be fully responsible for encouraging and sponsoring terrorism,‘ the letter says.

Ironically, the United Nations is the same deliberative body that earlier this year found that, among other things, the regime’s “human rights violations” are so barbaric and so evil they are unparalleled in modern times:

“Systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed” by the leaders of North Korea against their own people, the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights declared in a report that goes on to accuse that nation’s communist regime of “crimes against humanity.”

According to U.N. investigators, “the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.” They conclude, for example, that “hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have perished” in prison camps over the past five decades.

The High Commissioner’s report calls on the U.N. Security Council to “refer the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court.”

“The United Nations must ensure that those most responsible for the crimes against humanity committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are held accountable,” the report concludes.

The UN’s first order of business should be dealing aggressively with this murderous regime, not placating it.

[Townhall]

Kim Il Sung still casts a spell over North Koreans

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Kim Il Sung, the founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was revered like a god in life — and after it. Two decades later, mythmaking is as important as ever for Kim’s grandson, dictator Kim Jong Un, who has just led the official memorial to the Great Leader.

North Korean propaganda casts the Kims as protectors of a country under siege. School children learn that Kim Il Sung was an exceptional warrior who, while camping at the base of Mount Paektu with his comrades, defeated a force of Japanese colonialists. He later repelled the imperialist Americans in the 1950–53 Korean War.

According to official history, his heir, Kim Jong Il, was born at the base of the same scared mountain, and the birth heralded by a rainbow. According to North Korean hagiography, Kim Jong Il grew up to become a master tactician, writer and filmmaker. Legend has it he shot 11 holes-in-one in his first ever round of golf.

Young Kim Jong Un prefers to bask in his grandfather’s, rather than his father’s, glow. South Korean analysts believe the young leader consciously emulates his grandfather’s look and public persona. Whereas his father avoided the public, Kim Jong Un, like his grandfather, is often photographed among, even touching, his subjects.

An actual conflict would almost certainly cost him his kingdom. But young Kim knows that for North Korea to survive he must convince his people that the enemy is at the gate — and that he, alone, can stop them. Grandad would have approved.

[TIME]

Kim Jong-un’s siblings in top posts of North Korean government

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North Korea is more than ever a Kim family business, with leader Kim Jong-un’s older brother Jong-chol playing a key role in ensuring the regime’s longevity, while his younger sister Yeo-jong manages its coffers.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s older brother, Kim Jong-chol (left) and sister, Kim Yeo-jong (right)

Kim Jong-chol, who is rarely spotted in public, is rumored to be in charge of Kim Jong-un’s security. There are claims that he led the operation to arrest Ri Yong-ha and Jang Su-gil, two close confidants of executed eminence grise Jang Song-taek, in December last year. And there is speculation that Jong-chol played a key role in bringing about recent negotiations with Japanese government officials to mend ties amid growing international isolation.

Kim Yeo-jong is reportedly in charge of an agency known as Room 38 under the Workers Party which manages the regime’s coffers and businesses that earn foreign currency. The agency used to be overseen by Jang’s widow, Kim Kyong-hui, who is also Kim Jong-un’s aunt, but Yeo-jong gained control after Jang was executed.

One bureau in the agency exports herbal medicine, rare plants and high-quality lumber, while another oversees a glitzy new department store in Pyongyang as well as 124 other department stores across North Korea. Due to Kim Yeo-jong’s influential position, business is booming, and modern coffee shops in these stores are apparently packed with customers.

North Korea experts say Kim Jong-un, who used to depend heavily on his uncle and aunt, feels he is safer entrusting his siblings with influential jobs.

His half sister Sol-song also apparently holds a key post. Kim Sol-song is the eldest daughter of former leader Kim Jong-il’s second wife, Kim Yong-suk, and majored in economics and politics at Kim Il-sung University. She has served in the Politburo as well as other key posts including the propaganda department. Ken Gause of CNA Corporation said recently that Sol-song has taken charge of the Workers Party secretariat, which would put her at the apex of the organization that controls information flow.

Only Kim’s older half-brother Kim Jong-nam was sidelined in the power struggle early on and lives in lavish exile.

[Chosun Ilbo]

Predictions for Kim Jong Un’s North Korea

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The Chosun Ilbo and the Ilmin International Relations Institute at Korea University questioned 135 North Korea experts — 86 from overseas, including the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and Europe — and 49 from South Korea.

Almost half the experts predict that Kim Jong Un will consolidate his grip on power within the next three to five years, but about one-third predict he will face increasing internal instability. But the chances of a coup d’état or regime collapse are seen as slim.

Asked to guess how much longer the Kim Jong-un regime will last, over one-third said five to 10 years, and one-third 10 to 20 years.

Consequently about half expect reunification to happen in the next 10 to 20 years, and one-fifth between five to 10 years from now.

Most say that an internal power struggle in the North would be the most likely agent to trigger a regime collapse in the North. Only one-third see economic failure as a more likely cause, and very few a public uprising.

The majority of experts believe that the North Korean regime will press ahead with reforms at the same timid rate, while one-fifth expect them to speed up. Yet there is little confidence that the reforms will help improve the North Korean economy.

Almost half of the experts feel it is China rather than the U.S. that holds the key to improving the North Korean economy, while some believe Washington’s and Beijing’s policies will have an equal impact. About equal numbers forecast that North Korea’s economic dependency on China will remain the same or get worse.

The limits of China’s patience with North Korea

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[Excerpt by Scott A. Snyder from Council of Foreign Relations site]

A major foreign policy achievement that has thus far been credited to South Korean President Park Geun-hye during her first year in office has been the establishment of a stronger foundation for good relations with China.

Park and China’s president Xi Jinping have routinely made time for each other at multilateral summits, most recently on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit at The Hague. The hospitality afforded to Park stands in stark contrast both to the tensions that had characterized Sino-South Korean relations under Lee Myung-Bak and China’s treatment of Kim Jong-un, who remains in the dog house with Xi following nuclear and missile tests.

It will be interesting to see whether Beijing revises its assessment of Park following her Dresden speech and whether an improved Sino-South Korean relationship will influence China’s policies toward Pyongyang in the event of new North Korean provocations such as a fourth nuclear test or another inter-Korean clash in the West Sea.

What will Park and Xi be able to gain from a warming Sino-ROK relationship that thus far, symbolically at least, seems primarily to have developed at the expense of Kim Jong-un? And to what extent does Kim’s likely pique with Beijing carry costs, possibly including to stability in North Korea itself, that remain the sine qua non of China’s policy toward the peninsula? Read more    

Reportedly executed North Korean singer makes surprise TV comeback

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A North Korean singer said to be Kim Jong-un’s former girlfriend and reported to have been executed by firing squad last year has appeared on state television. Hyon Song-Wol was shown delivering a speech at a rally of national art workers in the capital Pyongyang on Friday.

The 31-year-old North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and the performer were said to have been teenage lovers but had been forced to break up by Kim Jong-il, Mr Kim’s father and predecessor.

The singer was reported to have been caught up in palace intrigue last summer having incurred the displeasure of Ri Sol-ju, Mr Kim’s wife. (Shown in photo below, sporting a new, shorter haircut.)

Undated photo released by KCNA on May 11, 2014 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (front C) and his wife Ri Sol Ju (front L) inspecting an Air Force Combat Flight Contest.

In August, Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper with close links to its country’s intelligence services, reported that Hyon and 11 other well-known performers had been caught making a sex tape and executed.  The reappearance of Hyon came after months of speculation about whether she was alive.

[National Post]