Category: Prison Camps

North Korea threatens retaliation if defectors’ leaflets are launched from South

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A group of South Korean activists plans to launch 200,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets slung from gas-filled balloons into North Korea from a site near the border despite retaliatory threats from North Korea. Civic groups in the South regularly float leaflets over the border with messages criticizing the Kim dynasty and urging the North Korean people to rise up against repression.

The North’s official Internet website Uriminzokkiri reads: “We will never sit by idly as a vicious provocative act, openly backed by South Korean authorities, is being committed against us at a time when our athletes are taking part in the Asian Games” [hosted by Seoul].

North Korea’s military warned it would immediately “wipe out” those “provocateurs” and their supporters if they push through with such launches. These were not “simply empty” words, the website warned. “Should puppet authorities instigate so-called ‘defectors’ to push through with the leaflet launch, there would be unpredictable consequences,” it added.

But South Korean activists said they would not flinch at the threats. “Let the North rage in anger and scream. We will do it as planned”, Park Sang-Hak who leads the activists’ group told AFP.

The warning came days after North Korea sent a rare message to the South Korean president’s office, demanding an end to such anti-Pyongyang leaflets. The message, addressed to the presidential Blue House, was sent through a military hotline on Monday by the North’s powerful National Defence Commission (NDC).

It urged Seoul to stop anti-North activists sending leaflets over the border, saying action would have to be taken before the North would consider the South’s recent proposal for high-level talks.

North Korea has sent 150 athletes for the Asian Games, who are being guarded by hundreds of South Korean security personnel.

[AFP]

Matthew Miller’s goal was imprisonment in North Korea to expose human rights violations

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American Matthew Miller ripped up his visa upon arrival in North Korea so he could go to prison and expose human rights violations there, state media KCNA said Saturday. Miller shouted his desire to seek asylum, and was later convicted of committing “acts hostile” to North Korea and sentenced to six years of hard labor last week.

Saturday’s report in the state-run Korean Central News Agency boldly heaped blame on Miller, claiming his acts were a preconceived plan to gain notoriety. State media described him as “rudely behaved,” saying he was sent to infiltrate prison as part of a United States campaign against North Korea.

“He perpetrated the above-said acts in the hope of becoming a world famous guy and the second Snowden through intentional hooliganism,” state media said. (Edward Snowden got asylum from Russia, where he fled last year after leaking classified U.S. government documents.)

Once sentenced, Miller hoped to meet Kenneth Bae, another American detained in North Korea. Miller planned to secure Bae’s release so both can serve as “witnesses” to the human rights violations in the nation, state media said.

Earlier this month, Miller told CNN’s Will Ripley that he “prepared to violate the law of DPRK before coming here. And I deliberately committed my crime.” But Miller didn’t elaborate on what his “crime” was. He said he wouldn’t learn of his charges until he went to trial.

Miller’s family lives in Bakersfield, California. In a July interview, a neighbor told The Associated Press that Miller went to South Korea about four years ago to visit his brother and started teaching English. He then traveled to North Korea this year after arranging a private tour through the U.S.-based company Uri Tours, which takes tourists into North Korea.

[CNN]

Enigma of American Matthew Miller jailed in North Korea

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Not much is known about 20-something Matthew Miller who was arrested in North Korea in April this year for tearing up his tourist visa after entering the isolated country with a tour group. Last week, Miller was sentenced to six years hard labor.

Matthew Miller, the U.S. citizen imprisoned in North Korea on espionage charges, spent months in South Korea posing as an Englishman named “Preston Somerset”, acquaintances who met or worked with him said. The 25-year-old native of Bakersfield, California, did not seem to have close friends, a regular job or means of support during the months he spent in Seoul over a period of at least two years, they said. He indicated no interest in North Korea.

Instead, he spent time and money hiring artists to help create his own anime adaption of Alice in Wonderland, the Lewis Carroll fantasy with which he seemed fascinated. At one point he joined a debating class that helped Koreans converse in English, but rarely spoke.

More and more, North Korea seems to be a magnet for adventurous foreigners drawn to the world’s most isolated nation. On Tuesday, South Korean marines arrested an American man who had been swimming in a river that flows towards North Korea and said he had been trying to go to the North to meet its leader, Kim Jong Un, Korean media reported.

North Korea is open to but suspicious of Western visitors and any out-of-the-ordinary behavior by tourists is quickly investigated. Photographs from Miller’s trial in Pyongyang showed a page from his notebook that said he had been “involved” in WikiLeaks and had attempted to access files from U.S. military bases in South Korea. The Japan-based Choson Sinbo newspaper, which is loyal to Pyongyang and attended Miller’s trial, said Miller had promised North Korean authorities he could reveal U.S. state secrets “as if he was Edward Snowden”.

Miller exhibited some unusual behavior while living in Seoul, but nothing linked to North Korea, his acquaintances said. Those who met him in South Korea only recalled a slightly odd, quiet young man who gave little away.

“It was very curt and very awkward, speaking to him,” said Mike Stewart, a Seoul-based artist’s studio director who met Miller last year, when he received an e-mail from “Preston Somerset”, which Miller later said was a pen name. “He seemed very birdy, like ready to bolt at any minute, like he didn’t know what to say and things like that.”

Francis Cole – an American who produces Japanese-style erotic art – said on a freelancing website that he was one of several artists, writers and musicians Miller commissioned to help produce his own Alice in Wonderland-inspired fantasy tale in the style of a Japanese anime. Miller, under his Preston Somerset alias, and Cole, with the username ‘Eirhjien’, were members of the deviantArt.com community where people can post and share user-made artwork.

It is still not clear what happened in the months between Miller’s quest to self-publish his own version of Alice in Wonderland, and his decision to go to North Korea.

[Read full Irrawaddy Magazine article]

North Korea unresponsive to offer of a US envoy visit

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North Korea is not accepting American offers to send a high-level envoy to seek the release of three detained Americans:

  • 24-year-old Matthew Miller of Bakersfield, California, who this week was sentenced to six years hard labor, deepening U.S. concern over the cases.
  • Jeffrey Fowle, of Miamisburg, Ohio, who was arrested in May for leaving a Bible at a sailor’s club, is expected to be called to trial soon.
  • Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary from Lynwood, Washington, is serving out a 15-year sentence for alleged “hostile acts.”

North Korea often accuses the U.S. of refusing to talk with it.

Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, would not specify whom the administration was now willing to send, since the offer of him visiting was earlier turned down. But Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said he has been told by the administration that it has offered in recent weeks to send Glyn Davies, who leads U.S. diplomacy on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and Pyongyang has not responded favorably.

Davies has not met with North Korean officials since an agreement on a nuclear freeze in exchange for food aid collapsed in the spring of 2012 after the North tested a long-range rocket. Since then, relations have frayed further.

“The issues that are hampering contact are fundamental issues about, in particular, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. But certainly, releasing the American citizens that are held there is an important step that might lead to broader discussions and contacts in other areas. The real question is whether the North Koreans want anything other than trying to create problems,” King said.

Former President Jimmy Carter on Tuesday criticized what he characterized as a refusal by President Obama to hold direct talks with the North Korean government. “I think they use these three hostages,” Carter said at the Carter Center in Atlanta, “to try to get the United States to talk to them diplomatically.”

[AP]

American about to swim to North Korea ‘to meet Kim Jong Un’

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South Korean border guards arrested an American man who they believe was attempting to swim across a river to North Korea.

The man told investigators that he tried to go to North Korea to meet leader Kim Jong Un, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified government source. It said the man, aged around 29, is a computer repairman from Texas who came to South Korea 10 days ago.

Americans are occasionally arrested after entering North Korea illegally from China, but a U.S. citizen trying to get in from South Korea is unusual.

In 1996, American Evan C. Hunziker entered North Korea by swimming across the Yalu River that marks the Chinese border. Hunziker, 26, who apparently made the swim on a drunken dare, was accused of spying and detained for three months.

Some Americans recently detained in North Korea include missionaries aiming to spread the gospel or draw attention to human rights abuses. On Christmas Day in 2009, Korean-American missionary Robert Park defiantly walked into North Korea from China calling for the dismantling of the North’s prison camps.

[AP]

American Matthew Miller given 6 years of hard labor in North Korea

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North Korea’s Supreme Court on Sunday convicted a 24-year-old American man of entering the country illegally to commit espionage and sentenced him to six years of hard labor.

At a trial that lasted about 90 minutes, the court said Matthew Miller, of Bakersfield, California, tore up his tourist visa at Pyongyang’s airport upon arrival on April 10 and admitted to having the “wild ambition” of experiencing prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea’s human rights situation.

Showing no emotion throughout the proceedings, Miller waived the right to a lawyer and was handcuffed before being led from the courtroom after his sentencing. The court, comprising a chief judge flanked by two “people’s assessors,” ruled it would not hear any appeals to its decision.

Earlier, it had been believed that Miller had sought asylum when he entered North Korea. During the trial, however, the prosecution argued that was a ruse and that Miller also falsely claimed to have secret information about the U.S. military in South Korea on his iPad and iPod.

Miller was charged under Article 64 of the North Korean criminal code, which is for espionage and can carry a sentence of five to 10 years, though harsher punishments can be given for more serious cases.

The Associated Press was allowed to attend the trial.

A trial is expected soon for one of the other Americans being held, Jeffrey Fowle, who entered the North as a tourist and was arrested in May for leaving a Bible at a sailor’s club in the city of Chongjin. The third American, Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, is serving out a 15-year sentence for alleged “hostile acts.”

[Associated Press]

The US strategy concerning its citizens held in North Korea

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American defendants Matthew Miller, Jeffrey Fowle and Kenneth Bae held in North Korea say they have but one hope — for a senior U.S. statesman to come and get them out.

The U.S. has repeatedly offered to send its envoy for North Korean human rights issues, Robert King, to Pyongyang to seek the freedom of the detainees, but without success. Finding a suitable middleman is no easy task, with the Obama administration immersed in bigger global crises and doggedly pursuing a policy of “strategic patience” with North Korea, which essentially means not getting drawn into engagements that might be seen as bowing to North Korean pressure.

“North Korea’s strategy may have worked in the past, but its brinkmanship with the American hostages is occurring against the backdrop of so many other crises that North Korea cannot use this issue to elevate itself as Washington’s primary concern,” said Scott Snyder, director of the program on U.S.-Korea policy at the Washington D.C.-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

While having a senior U.S. statesman take detainees home has been used by the North to enhance the prestige of its leadership on the domestic stage, he said, “it causes headaches for sitting administrations, who do not want to risk losing control of the policy by having outsiders to their administration step into the picture.

The North has not officially demanded a senior representative visit to release the Americans, but it has made no secret of its growing frustration with Obama’s cold-shoulder treatment.

In the meantime, the three Americans caught in the middle say they are running out of hope.

[AP]

American Matthew Miller to be tried in North Korean court Sept 14

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Detained American Matthew Miller will be tried next Sunday, North Korean state media said, less than a week after the detainee made a rare foreign media appearance to plead for help.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch Sunday that the Supreme Court decided to “judge” Miller on Sept. 14. It did not elaborate on specific charges against him, although past reports have accused him of hostile acts.

Miller, 24, was detained after entering the country April 10, when he tore up his tourist visa at the airport and shouted that he wanted to seek asylum, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency has reported.

In a brief interview with The Associated Press in Pyongyang last week, Miller and two other Americans held by North Korea, Jeffrey Fowle and Kenneth Bae, called for Washington to send a high-ranking U.S. representative to make a direct appeal for their freedom.

Miller said he has met with the Swedish ambassador and been allowed to make phone calls to his relatives.

[AP]

No new insights from former U.S. special representative for North Korea policy

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Americans Kenneth Bae, Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Fowle are all imprisoned in North Korea on different charges. It’s unclear what it will take to secure their release. Visits from high-level officials have worked in such situations in the past. David Greene of NPR spoke with Stephen Bosworth, who served as U.S. special representative for North Korea policy during President Obama’s first term. Some excerpts from their conversation:

NPR: So what is your take on the tactics being employed by North Korea? They presented the Americans to the media in carefully staged interviews. What are they up to?

Bosworth: Well, first I think we don’t know very much about what they’re really up to – we have suspicions. But dealing with this government in North Korea is not easy. It’s very complicated, and we frankly don’t know much about their decision-making process under the current leader Kim Jong Un. We understood his father a little bit, but with him we’ve had much less experience.

NPR: So they appear to be using these Americans as bargaining chips.

Bosworth: That’s right. I think this is a way for them to try to get our attention. They’ve clearly been trying to get the attention of the Obama administration to reengage in some form of dialogue over the last several months. And so far the administration has not been willing to do that. They’ve been insisting that North Korea has to, in advance, demonstrate that it’s serious about its commitment to denuclearization.

NPR: And is there any reason to believe it’s possible to negotiate with the current leadership there? You have some experience dealing with them on these issues.

Bosworth: Yeah, I think it’s always possible to negotiate. It depends on what your objective is and what their objective is. As I said, in this case I think they want to get our attention. I feel very sorry for these people who have been detained in North Korea. It’s not a pleasant place to be if you’re a prisoner, but it’s not clear to me that the North Koreans are at this point prepared to negotiate seriously on this. And I don’t know who they would find acceptable to go there. In the past, that sort of high-level visit has worked, but it’s probably some political risk.

NPR: Given all that, what’s your sense of the U.S. strategy to secure the release of its citizens at this point?

Bosworth: Well, I think we’ve tried to send Bob King, the special representative for human rights in North Korea. He was ready to get on a plane in Tokyo and go there and presumably bring them back when, for reasons that are not clear to me at least, the North Koreans cancelled his trip. This was four, five months ago.

What North Korea wants in return for 3 American hostages

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North Korean officials whisked a CNN team away in a van, and hours later, they were presented with three Americans held captive in the reclusive country.

Like virtually everything in Pyongyang, the interviews were carefully managed by the regime. Each man had exactly five minutes to speak. Some of their statements seemed eerily similar.

Kenneth Bae - Matthew Miller - Jeffrey FowleSo what was the government’s motive in letting Kenneth Bae, Matthew Todd Miller and Jeffrey Edward Fowle address the world?

“First of all, their motivation always behind these interviews has been to gather U.S. attention and then try to pave a way for high-level dialogue with Washington,” said Ellen Kim of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Their negotiating ploy with the U.S. is to try to get us to agree to nuclear arms control, to sort of accept them as a nuclear weapons state — which we can’t do,” said Michael Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Another possibility: That North Korea wants sanctions against the regime lifted.

Victor Cha, the North Korea adviser to former President George W. Bush, said the presentation of all three Americans at once could be telling. “My guess is the fact that all three of them were put on tape for an American audience on Labor Day as a signal from the North Koreans that they’re looking for some sort of package deal to try to get them all out,” Cha said. “Whether they’re trying to connect this to the long-style nuclear negotiations is anybody’s guess.”

It’s apparent the three men are now being used by North Korea as “bargaining chips,” said Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has traveled to the isolated country. “They’re sending a signal, saying, ‘We’re ready to bargain for the three hostages.'”

[CNN]