Is South Korea’s spying apparatus broken?

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When it comes to spying on North Korea, rival South Korea seems to be wrong almost as much as it’s right.

Seoul’s intelligence agents get battered in the press and by lawmakers for their gaffes, including one regarding Ri Yong Gil, the former head of North Korea’s military. Officials in Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country’s main spy agency, reportedly said Ri had been executed, but at this month’s ruling-party congress, he was seen not only alive but also in possession of several new titles.

While spying on perhaps the world’s most cloistered, suspicious, difficult-to-read country is no easy task, repeated blunders raise questions about whether South Korea’s multibillion-dollar spying apparatus is broken.

South Korean spies are thought to closely monitor Pyongyang’s media for details, to talk to defectors in Seoul, especially those who claim sources in North Korea, and to cultivate contacts in the North. The problem is that it’s unclear how reliable the sources are.

The NIS gives closed briefings to lawmakers, who then relay what they hear to South Korean press. Foreign media commonly cite those local reports, but by that point the information has passed through several hands. That makes it difficult to gauge the NIS’s level of certainty, understand how the information was obtained or determine how reliable its sources are.

When spies leak information directly to the local press, they usually demand that reporters refer to them only as “a source familiar with North Korea affairs.” This allows the NIS and other South Korean spy agencies to deny they were the source if the information is bad, which is what’s currently happening in the Ri case.

[AP]

North Korean Congress does little to win over a frustrated China

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Beijing played along with North Korea’s political theater: Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a letter to Kim Jong-un, congratulating him on adding another title to his name – chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said China hopes to enhance its ties with the North.

However, in an editorial Wednesday, the state-run China Daily opined that North Korea’s economic and nuclear goals conflict with each other, and that Kim Jong-un doesn’t seem to care.

“He appears unaware that his nuclear ambitions are poison for his country’s economy,” stated the strongly worded editorial.  “They will not only exhaust his country’s very limited resources, but will further isolate his country from the rest of the world, politically and economically.”

Fearful that economic collapse in North Korea could dangerously destabilize its own border regions, China is wary of squeezing the errant Kim too hard. Shi Yinghong, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University, says that China’s leaders have no choice now but to recognize Kim as North Korea’s unchallenged leader.

China’s reasons for opposing North Korea’s nuclear program have only partly to do with fears of an accident or rogue attack. China worries that North Korea’s nuclear weapons give the United States an excuse to bolster its military presence on the Korean peninsula, part of a larger policy of “containment.”

Since Kim came to power in 2011, Beijing and Pyongyang have barely been on speaking terms. Neither Kim nor China’s Xi have paid state visits to each other’s country. China last week did not send a delegation to the congress, as it did in 1980, apparently because it was not invited.

[Christian Science Monitor]

North Korea expels 3 BBC journalists

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North Korea on Monday expelled three BBC journalists it had detained days earlier for allegedly “insulting the dignity” of the authoritarian country, sending them off on a flight to Beijing. Correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team had accompanied a group of Nobel laureates, and were stopped at the Pyongyang airport, detained and questioned.

O Ryong Il, secretary-general of the North’s National Peace Committee, said Wingfield-Hayes’ news coverage distorted facts and “spoke ill of the system and the leadership of the country.” He said Wingfield-Hayes wrote an apology, was being expelled Monday and would never be admitted into the country again.

North Korea did not reveal which of the team’s reports it was upset with, but in one of the segments, North Korean officials are seen arguing with Wingfield-Hayes over video shot in front of a statue of national founder Kim Il Sung.

“They clearly felt that we said stuff that was not respectful to the great leader,” Wingfield-Hayes said in the segment. He said they were ordered to delete the footage or they would not be allowed to leave the university campus where they were filming.

Another segment included a tour of a modern-looking hospital that Wingfield-Hayes expressed doubts about. “The children we’re shown look remarkably well, and there isn’t a doctor in sight. … Everything we see looks like a setup,” he said.

[AP]

No major reforms in Kim Jong Un’s five-year plan

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In a three-hour speech broadcast on North Korean TV Sunday, Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un set a five-year plan to revive his country’s struggling economy. But the speech included no major policy changes or economic reforms.

Kim delivered the speech during the 7th Congress of the Workers Party of Korea, the highest-level political gathering in the isolated, one-party state. More than 3,400 party members are in Pyongyang for the congress that began Friday and continued through the weekend.

Kim’s economic plan, the first of its kind in decades, was short on specifics. Kim repeatedly referenced North Korea’s “Juche” ideology of self-reliance, but also spoke of a desire to increase foreign trade. He pledged North Korea would not use its nuclear weapons “unless its sovereignty is encroached upon by any aggressive hostile forces with nukes.”

In the highly secretive country, where the government controls information even among its own officials, foreign journalists and their government minders had a confusing and frustrating day on Sunday. After being told to dress formally, more than 100 journalists were driven to the People’s Palace of Culture in Pyongyang. Reporters were told to bring their passports and equipment inside for a security check. But after members of the media waited in the lobby for around an hour, an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced “the program has changed” and the journalists were driven back to their hotel, where they stayed for the remainder of the day.

[CNN NewSource]

A stark reality of life inside North Korea

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As North Korea embarks on its first party congress in 36 years, ‘supreme leader’ Kim Jong-Un is set to announce a number of economic reforms and tighten his iron-clad grip on power. It is likely to be accompanied by mass choreographed fist-pumping rallies and spectacles.

Jihyun Park has firsthand experience of the “hermit kingdom”. Born in North Korea, she lived through the famine of the late 1990s. “Three and a half million North Koreans died of famine in this period.” she tells The Independent. “I lived only worrying about what I would eat that day, and then the next day. My family died from starvation. My uncle lived alone in a rural area and because of food shortage and problems with food distribution he starved.”

Unable to afford a coffin, Ms Jihyun says her family wrapped his corpse with rice straws and carried him on an ox cart to be buried. According to Ms Jihyun, stories such as these are common in North Korea.

Education in the totalitarian state was wholeheartedly centred around and devoted towards the Kim dynasty . “The words of the Kims – both father and son – are on the walls of the classroom and we have to memorize them. Such mantras are repeated by every teacher, every hour,” she explains.

This indoctrination transcends the classroom. Jihyun says that in the 1990s, a poem written about former leader Kim Il Sung was ordered to be hung on the walls of every single home. “Everyone, man, woman and child, had to learn the poem by heart,” she recalls.

At the age of 30, Ms Jihyun and her brother escaped to China from her hometown Chongjin by the border to China. Although she had been promised a well-paid job once there, she was instead brought to a trafficking establishment. “Between 1998-2004, I spent six years in northeast China as a slave to a Chinese man. I gave birth to a son”.

But everything suddenly changed when she was arrested and repatriated back to North Korea and her son remained in China. There she spent a year in one of the country’s most harrowing detention camps. “Although I fled the North due to economic reasons, my crime was considered political betrayal,” she said. “I was imprisoned, tortured, and re-educated for six months, after which I could no longer work because of severe malnutrition, and an injury in my leg was so bad that I was released on sick bail to have it amputated.”

After a year she escaped yet again to China and there she took her son from the father’s family. She then traveled to Mongolia, and against all odds, arrived in Manchester England with her son in 2008. On the way she met her husband, a fellow North Korean defector, in China.

[The Independent]

It’s Party time in North Korea

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North Korea will hold a congress of its ruling Workers’ Party starting this Friday–the seventh time in the country’s history such an event has been held, but the first time since 1980.

There are two key institutions in North Korea: the military and the Workers’ Party, the communist structure which controls the state. Its symbols are the usual hammer and sickle, but North Korea has added a brush to symbolize learning.

Kim Il Sung, the founding father of North Korea (and its “eternal president” today, 22 years after his death) was very much a Party man, emphasizing the party and North Korea’s special flavor of communism–called “juche,” or self-reliance–above all else. His son and the second in the dynasty, Kim Jong Il, was more of an army man, putting in place the “songun” or “military first” policy. Kim Jong Un has been modeling himself after his grandfather, elevating the party.  So the congress takes place in this context.

What is a congress anyway? In the communist system, a congress is technically the highest ruling body of the Workers’ Party (although in reality, in North Korea, the highest ruling body is Kim Jong Un’s.) It is a forum to trumpet the importance of the party and sometimes to unveil major new policies. In 1982, Deng Xiaoping used the 12th congress of the Chinese Communist Party to put forward the idea of developing “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” while in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev used the 27th congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to announce his reform and opening policies, perestroika and glasnost.

Whether Kim Jong Un offers more rhetoric or real reforms, well, you’ll just have to wait for Friday for that.

[Washington Post]

Details of North Korean party congress still secret

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What exactly is in store during North Korea’s ruling party congress, which opens Friday and will be presided over by leader Kim Jong Un, remains a well-kept secret. But North Korea’s advances toward becoming a truly credible nuclear power are sure to be touted along with claims of economic advances in the face of the toughest global sanctions it has been hit with in decades.

Also not in doubt: Pyongyang wants the event to grab headlines around the world. The normally well-sealed country has invited a horde of journalists from around the world to give the congress an international spotlight.

Meanwhile, The Rodong Sinmun, mouthpiece of the ruling Workers Party of Korea, said in an editorial Saturday that since the last congress in 1980, North Korea “proudly joined the ranks of advanced nuclear and space powers.”

So while the congress promises to be a big moment in front of foreign cameras for Kim, who has yet to venture abroad or meet with any world leaders, its larger significance may be domestic. The North Koran government has worked hard over the past several months to keep the event foremost in the minds of the nation.

Having said this, details about the congress, the seventh in North Korean history, are frustratingly few. The last congress in 1980 lasted four days. More than 3,000 delegates attended. Representatives from friendly parties abroad were also invited.

[Yahoo News]

Kim Jong-Un to officially cement North Korean Supreme Leader role

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North Korea is set to hold a landmark ruling party congress this week that will cement Kim Jong-Un’s status as the country’s Supreme Leader. This comes after four years of reorganising, reshuffling and executions.

The party congress to be held this week will be the first in 40 years, and will officially make Kim Jong-Un the leader of the country. The congress will start on Friday and it follows a 70-day loyalty drive, in which all workers were asked to work harder to express their loyalty to the leader and the Worker’s Party of Korea.

According to reports, North Korean expert at Yonsei University in Seoul, John Delury said, “This congress means everything for Kim Jong-Un. It is the most public, historic setting in which he can demonstrate that he is fully in charge, and that everyone follows his orders. Nominally, it’s for the party, but really this congress is for Kim.”

[Big News Network]

Efforts underway to release Ohio man sentenced to hard labor in North Korea

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Efforts are underway to help get an Ohio native out of a North Korean prison. Otto Warmbier, 21, from Wyoming, Ohio, is the second American that political activist and NBA agent David Sugarman is now trying to help free from North Korea. North Korea’s highest court sentenced Warmbier to 15 years hard labor after he confessed to trying to steal a propaganda banner.

Sugarman is credited with helping free Kenneth Bae from North Korean imprisonment back in 2014. Sugarman says when he was working to #BringBaeBack, he repeatedly made cold calls to the North Korean ambassador. He says those calls eventually developed into a relationship that aided in Bae’s release and return to the U.S. Sugarman says he’s already had two meetings with the North Korean ambassador about freeing Warmbier.

“Maybe because of who I am and my profession, I have contacts that may be what they’re looking for,” Sugarman said. “We spoke about Otto. They had mentioned to me that they would like me to get basketballs and sneakers and basketball stuff to the children and to the teams of the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).”

He says he’s not sure if he’ll be able to send those items to North Korea because of U.S. sanctions, but he plans on asking the State Department if it can be allowed.

“I believe that God’s given me the ability, the relationships to help for whatever reason. Now, it’s Otto in the DPRK and it’s important to help an American,” Sugarman said. “I can’t determine what the North Koreans are going to do… I have no idea. All I know is I will fight and I will fight until Otto Warmbier is home.”

He’s started a hashtag campaign on Twitter called #WeWantWarmbier.

[NBC]

Why Kenneth Bae was deemed the “most dangerous American” in North Korea

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In 2014, American Kenneth Bae came home after two years in a North Korean prison. Bae had made 18 trips to North Korea. Before he was “prisoner 103 [in the North Korean penal system],” Korean-born Kenneth Bae was a preacher. But he made a fateful mistake. In 2012, he brought in a computer hard drive loaded with prayers and pictures of starving North Korean children.

Any criticism of the regime is forbidden. Supreme leader Kim Jong Un and his family consider themselves gods. He was arrested, charged with espionage and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

“One of the prosecutors told me that I was the worst, most dangerous American criminal they ever apprehended since the Korean War. And I said, ‘Why?'” Bae recalled. “And they said, ‘Because not only you came to do mission work on your own, you asked others to join.'”

Bae believes he was a political pawn. “All of America really was on trial with me,” Bae wrote in his new book, ‘Not Forgotten.’ “I believe that they blamed everything wrong with their country [on] America. They said the reason for poverty, the reason for their suffering is all caused by U.S. foreign policy against them,” Bae said. “And therefore, by indicting me, they were indicting the U.S.”

Bae spent nearly two years under 24-hour watch by 30 North Korean guards. The conditions were dire – he shoveled coal and worked the fields. He lost 50 pounds and was briefly hospitalized.

“I am looking in the mirror in the bathroom every day, and say, ‘remember, you are a missionary. This is what you are here for,'” Bae said. “I took it more as a blessing, rather than a curse or suffering… Well it is very hard for me to even say that right now, but no one likes suffering, no one will embrace suffering but when suffering comes to you, you have to face it.”

Kim Jong Un finally issued a pardon in 2014, after the White House sent U.S. Intelligence Chief James Clapper to pick up Bae and another prisoner. “I was just overwhelmed that– that after being there for 735 days, I was finally going home,” Bae said.

Bae said he’s not angry about his imprisonment. He believes it was an opportunity to share his faith and teach his guards what life is like outside of North Korea. “I was just there to love the people, let people know that God cares about them, and the rest of the world care about them,” Bae said. “I hope that this book become a reminder to people to not forget the people of North Korea, have more compassion for the people who are living as a prisoner in their life.”

[CBS]