Category: Kim Jong Un

Scratch Laos off North Korean defector route?

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Over the years, Laos has been a vital safe haven for North Korean defectors, with its Communist government quietly helping thousands reach South Korea. But Laos reversed course with little explanation, recently detaining 9 defectors for traveling without documents, then handing them over to North Korean agents, who whisked them away on a series of commercial flights back to Pyongyang.

The cooperation between Laos and North Korea blindsided aid workers and South Korean officials, who say that North Korea, under leader Kim Jong Un, is taking new forms of recourse against those who escape its borders.

During Kim’s 18 months in power, the North has cut defections nearly in half, according to South Korean government data. North Korea has tightened security on its own borders and sent agents into China to pose as and expose escapees. But until now, escapees who made it to Southeast Asia had remained relatively free from danger.

The case in Laos has sparked fears that the North, as part of that strategy, is also pressuring Southeast Asian governments to return defectors, though “we still don’t know for sure,” said one South Korean government official, requesting anonymity to discuss details of the case.

Analysts say the North views defections as a double-edged threat: Once out, escapees can testify about the country’s gulags and poverty. They can also send back money and information to family members, planting the seeds for others to defect via a labyrinth of safe houses and small churches operated by aid workers and Christian missionaries.

South Korean officials say they have little clue about whether Laos and North Korea will continue to cooperate in stopping defections, or even why they cooperated in this instance.

Either way, the case has prompted new concern among activists for those who escape the North, who depend on the governments of Southeast Asian countries — typically Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos — to help them seek asylum and resettle in South Korea.

[Washington Post]

Sushi chef Kenji Fujimoto meeting Kim Jong-un

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One man, a humble sushi chef from Japan, infiltrated the inner sanctum of North Korea, becoming the Dear Leader’s cook, confidant, and court jester.

In July 2012, Kenji Fujimoto answered the invitation to return to Pyongyang, where he met Dear’s Leader’s heir, Kim Jong-un.

Cynics say Fujimoto returned to North Korea because the Japanese media had grown tired of his decade-old stories; by risking his life with a return, he’d be able to once again command large interview fees.

Fujimoto says he simply wanted to make good on his word.

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During his two-week stay in North Korea, he met with Kim Jong-un once, over lunch with Kim Jong-un’s entourage and his new wife, Ri Sol-ju, herself a former pop singer.

Fujimoto greeted Kim Jong-un with “The betrayer has returned.” Sobbing, Fujimoto dropped to his knees. Kim beckoned him to rise, and the cover image of Fujimoto’s book about the trip shows him weeping, locked in a bear hug with North Korea’s new leader.

Fujimoto was assigned an interpreter and a valet for the event—a lavish banquet that Fujimoto cannot quite remember.

As the party progressed, Kim Jong-un, taking a cue from his father, challenged Fujimoto to a drinking contest. The sushi chef, now 65, drank until he blacked out. He woke later to discover that he was in a guesthouse, in bed, with his clothes removed. He called to his valet, who was sitting in a chair in the dark.

“Did I embarrass myself?” Fujimoto asked him.

“No,” the valet assured him.

–Excerpt of GQ article “Dear Leader Dreams of Sushi”

Dear Leader Dreams of Sushi

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GQ magazine sent Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Adam Johnson to interview Japanese sushi chef Kenji Fujimoto, who for eleven years was Kim Jong-il’s personal chef, court jester, and sidekick in North Korea.

Fujimoto had seen the palaces, ridden the white stallions, smoked the Cuban cigars, and watched as, one by one, the people around him disappeared. It was part of Fujimoto’s job to fly North Korean jets around the world to procure dinner-party ingredients—to Iran for caviar, Tokyo for fish, or Denmark for beer. It was Fujimoto who flew to France to supply the Dear Leader’s yearly $700,000 cognac habit. And when the Dear Leader craved McDonald’s, it was Fujimoto who was dispatched to Beijing for an order of Big Macs to go.

When he finally left North Korea, Fujimoto became, according to a high-level cable released by WikiLeaks, the Japanese intelligence community’s single greatest asset on the Kim family, rulers of a nation about which stubbornly little is known.

Among other things, Kenji Fujimoto reveals present leader, Kim Jong-un’s, birth date. (January 8, 1983.)

Read the interesting 9-page article

Watch CBS interview re: Kenji Fujimoto 

Enter Dennis Rodman maverick diplomat to North Korea

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There are reportedly no plans so far to send an American high-profile envoy to North Korea to act on behalf of US citizen Kenneth Bae, who was sentenced to 15 years hard labor after finding him guilty of unspecified crimes against the state in a move possibly intended to force concessions from Washington.

However, Dennis Rodman, the maverick basketball player turned maverick diplomat, has his own plan going. “I’m calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea, or as I call him ‘Kim’, to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose,” he tweeted.

Kim Jong Un, Dennis RodmanThere can clearly be no doubt about the depth of the rapport between Kim Jong-un and Rodman. A couple of months ago, the two men met in Pyongyang, hugged, watched basketball together and became what Rodman called afterwards “friends for life”.

It may be that Kim is puzzling over the meaning of “do me a solid”, which would even stretch some people who speak English. The phrase appears to have its origins in the 1980s, with “a solid” being any fairly demanding favor that one (usually male) friend might do as a mark of friendship for another.

In January Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico, and the Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, attempted to secure Bae’s release during a visit to North Korea but they were not allowed to meet him.

Last week the US state department called for Bae’s immediate release and said it was working on his case with the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which looks after US interests in the North.

 

Could North Korean economic reform lead to Korean reunification?

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Of all the world’s known unknowns, the future of North Korea is perhaps the hardest to predict and hence presents China with unknown difficulties ahead. Today’s difficulty is mainly one of embarrassment, to have an ally who treats its own people with such contempt, draws communism further into the mire, and creates international incidents with nuclear and missile developments, meanwhile ignoring Beijing’s mild chastisements and sensible advice.

Pyongyang’s latest verbal aggressions as well as missile and nuclear tests are just more of the same tactics it has used for two decades. Creating supposed crises raises its status in the world without really threatening anybody.

The best hope for China now may be that Pyongyang’s new young leader has sufficiently shown his nationalistic credentials with bombs and rockets to satisfy the public and the ageing generals who stand behind the throne. In which case, he may be able to continue the reforms he has hinted at. Mobile phones and some internet access, albeit purely domestic, are opening space for the spread of news from the real world outside.

Trade with China continues to grow and even some investment has arrived. The best news for China would be that economic reform not only continues but is focused on trade with China.

But such economic opening must also make North Koreans aware of the even greater economic advantages they could gain by merging with the South. That cannot be done overnight but the North still has the sinews of a once semi-developed industrial economy, which could easily be rebuilt with the South’s know-how and access to money.

The pull of Korean nationalism is strong. In their different ways, Koreans on both sides are equally nationalistic, with the South being fortunate that it was mentored by the US (and indirectly by post-war Japan) while the North was mentored by Mao and Stalin.

The status quo suits everyone except the suffering North Koreans. Kim Jong-un probably recognizes that he must try to be an agent of change. The risk that he is buried in the implosion of the system is high. Change is dangerous. But maybe he has a long-term game plan; perhaps to bring about reunification and so preserve something of the family name by exchanging power for an honored place in history and fat bank accounts for the leading army and party functionaries?

Read full South China Morning Post article 

Door opening for new talks with North Korea?

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The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks with North Korea if the saber-rattling country lowered tensions and honored past agreements. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find “ready partners” in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program.

The diplomats seemed to point the way for a possible revival of the six-nation talks that have been suspended for four years.

China long pushed has for the process to resume without conditions. But the U.S. and allies South Korea and Japan fear rewarding North Korea for its belligerence and the endless repetition of a cycle of tensions and failed talks that have prolonged the crisis.

At a news conference in Tokyo, Kerry stressed that gaining China’s commitment to a denuclearized North Korea was no small matter given its historically strong military and economic ties to North Korea. But he refused to say what the Chinese were offering to do concretely to pressure the North into abiding by some of the conditions it agreed to in a 2005 deal that required it to abandon its nuclear program.

In remarks to U.S. journalists, Kerry said that under the right circumstances, he even would consider making a grand overture to North Korea’s leader, such as an offer of direct talks with the U.S.

Kerry’s message of openness to diplomacy was clear, however unlikely the chances appeared that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government would meet the American conditions.

Japan is the last stop on a 10-day trip overseas for Kerry, who visited Seoul and Beijing as well in recent days.

China greatest potential leverage over North Korea

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So far Kim Jong Un has refused to listen to the international community, leaving many to wonder if anyone can appeal to the leader, and defuse the crisis.

All eyes are turned on China. Of all the regional powers, analysts say, China has the greatest potential leverage over its traditional ally.

Chinese troops fought side by side with the North Koreans during the Korean War that left the Korean peninsula divided. And over the years it has supplied the North with much of its fuel, food and other resources. China could stop doing this at any time but it has rarely done so.

“Chinese netizens say, ‘if we squeeze it for one week, what do you do the next week? You have to un-squeeze because we can’t let them die,'” explained Sunny Lee, a South Korean writer and scholar. “They think it’s an ineffective strategy from the start.”

China fears the specter of millions of starving refugees crossing into China along its 1,400-kilometer (880 mile) border with North Korea. It also fears a united Korea under the control of South Korea, a close U.S. ally.

To date, none of China’s current leadership has met with Kim Jong Un.

CNN

Pentagon says North Korea could launch nuclear missile

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A U.S. intelligence report concludes that North Korea has advanced its nuclear know-how to the point that it could arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, a jarring revelation in the midst of bellicose threats from the unpredictable communist regime.

The new American intelligence analysis says the Pentagon’s intelligence wing has “moderate confidence” that North Korea has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles but that the weapon was unreliable.

Notably absent from that unclassified segment of the report was any reference to what the DIA believes is the range of a missile North Korea could arm with a nuclear warhead. Much of its missile arsenal is capable of reaching South Korea and Japan, but Kim Jong Un has threatened to attack the United States as well.

At a separate hearing, U.S. officials offered their assessment of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong UN. They told the House Intelligence Committee that Kim, who took control after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in 2011, is trying to show the U.S., the world and his own people that he is “firmly in control in North Korea,” while attempting to maneuver the international community into concessions in future negotiations.

“I don’t think … he has much of an endgame other than to somehow elicit recognition” and to turn the nuclear threat into “negotiation and to accommodation and presumably for aid.”

AP

Meet the political elites of North Korea

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North Korea Chang and Kim Kyong huiKim Kyong-hui (right) is the younger sister of Kim Jong-un’s late father, Kim Jong-il. She and her husband, Chang Song-taek (left) have been central to North Korean politics for four decades and hold multiple titles in government.

When the inexperienced Kim Jong-un became the new leader in 2011, the couple were widely thought to be acting as his mentors. The couple were pictured flanking Kim Jong-un recently when he vowed to keep nuclear weapons as “the nation’s life treasure”.

Chang Song-taek was a trusted friend of Kim Jong-il’s, and rose through the ranks of the Korean Workers Party (KWP) after joining in the early 1970s and was elected to the Central Committee in 1992. But sometime in 2004, he suddenly disappeared from politics and was believed to have been arrested and sent for political “re-education”. Some observers said that despite his close relationship with Kim Jong-il, Mr Chang was considered to have become too influential with too large a personal support base and hence deemed a threat to the established order.

He emerged two years later to be seen regularly alongside Kim Jong-il, becoming more prominent after the leader’s suspected stroke in 2008. In June 2010, South Korean news agency Yonhap described Mr Chang as “guardian of Kim Jong-un”. North Korea watchers often consider him to be the real power behind the throne.

North Korean HyonHyon Yong-chol was promoted to the post of vice-marshal in the North Korean People’s Army on 17 July 2012. KCNA news agency later confirmed his as the chief of the general staff of the Korean People’s Army.

The previously little-known general rose to sudden prominence, replacing the powerful former army chief, Ri Yong-ho. Analysts said at the time that the reshuffle appeared to be an attempt by Kim Jong-un to stamp his authority on the army – and the apparent purge of Mr Ri suggested he is not averse to employing well-worn North Korean tactics to ensure loyalty to the leadership.

Very little is known about Mr Hyon, but he is believed to have been a general since 2010 and is a member of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. In a clear sign of his growing influence, he served on the committee for Kim Jong-il’s funeral in December 2011. 

North Korean choe ryong haeChoe Ryong-hae (pictured to left of Kim Jong-un) is seen as the chief image-maker of Kim Jong-un as a military leader, along with Mr Chang.

Mr Choe has for a long time been known to be close to the Kim family. An economics graduate, Mr Choe became a four-star general in September 2010.

In April 2012, at the major Workers’ Party conference which followed Kim Jong-un’s appointment, Mr Choe was suddenly made a vice-marshal despite having no military background – an unprecedented move in North Korea.

He is something of a toy soldier, says North Korean analyst Aidan Foster-Carter, seldom, if ever, spotted in military uniform but with a high-ranking military role. There is speculation that Mr Choe’s rapid rise could be behind the fall from grace of the top army official Ri Yong-ho, and that the pair may have fallen out. 

North Korean Choe Yong rimChoe Yong-rim is an elder statesman figure in North Korea. He was described by Yonhap as being a “long-time confidant of the late leader Kim Il-sung”, and he appears to have remained in favor with both his successors.

North Korean leaders have traditionally placed great importance on visiting and being photographed at factories, farms and industrial plants. In recent months, Mr Choe has regularly been seen on such visits, a sign of the trust placed in him and his level of influence. 

North Korean Kim Yong namKim Yong-nam is the chairman of the presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly – the highest political machine in the country – and is in effect the head of state, although the position does not in practice exist in North Korea.

The 85-year-old is technically responsible for foreign relations, and has been on several foreign trips, including to the Beijing Olympics in 2008. North Korea analyst Aidan Foster-Carter says those tours show he has some influence and is clearly listened to by the regime, but he is more a survivor than a key holder of power.

BBC

Kim Jong Un moves force boost in US missile defense

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Excerpts of an opinion piece by Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review:

Kim Jong Un has done the near-impossible. He has forced the Obama administration to admit that the United States needs more missile defense.

Opposition to missile defense constitutes one of the most treasured books of the Democratic arms-control gospel. Since it was introduced by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Democrats have reflexively denounced the idea of a defense against incoming ballistic missiles as wholly unworkable, impossibly expensive, and dangerously destabilizing.

Upon taking office, the Obama administration promptly nixed additional interceptors planned for deployment on the West Coast against the budding North Korean missile threat. George W. Bush had already put 30 interceptors at two sites on the West Coast, a symptom of his “Cold War mindset” that the supple and sophisticated Obama administration had no use for.

Rather than simply trust that a lunatic North Korean regime running its country like a vast prison camp will rationally calculate its self-interest as we would hope, the Obama administration says it is going to add back the 14 canceled interceptors. This will take the number of West Coast interceptors from 30 to 44, though with unnecessary expense and delay. The new interceptors should be online in 2017, or by the end of the president’s second term.