North Korea accepts then rejects aid from South Korea

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It was first reported that North Korea, reeling from a powerful tropical cyclone Bolaven, would accept aid from South Korean government for the first time in two years.

The United Nations World Food Program called for emergency help for North Korea after the cyclone killed at least 48 and left thousands homeless, according to North Korea’s state news agency KCNA.

The storm also destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of crops, according to a report published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). The storm followed widespread flooding in late July from heavy rains, which caused the death of at least 169 people, according to KCNA.

Employees from humanitarian groups that operate inside North Korea have described severe malnourishment on a large scale. A deal earlier this year for the United States to ship food aid to the country fell apart after the authoritarian regime in Pyongyang went ahead with a controversial rocket launch.

South Korea halted aid to the North after it shelled Yeongpyeong Island in November 2010, killing two South Korean marines and two civilians. Pyongyang claimed it was retaliating for South Korean artillery landing in their waters during a military drill.

 

Jang Song Taek increased influence

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A recent photograph of North Korea’s leader and his military entourage is stirring speculation that Kim Jong Un’s uncle, Jang Song Taek, may have a new role.

Jang Song Taek North Korea brown uniformIn a country where the smallest details involving public appearances by North Korea’s leader are choreographed, a uniform change for a key insider is drawing notice. The vice chairman of the national defense commission, Jang Song Taek, has switched his military uniform from light to dark brown. (See front row, 2nd from left) All of the other top brass seen during a ceremony Sunday to mark the country’s 64th anniversary were clad in light brown.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper in South Korea, quoting an intelligence official, says this means Jang, a four-star general who is the uncle of the new, young leader, Kim Jong Un, is now in charge of the most elite bodyguard unit. Analysts say the unit, which is linked to the army but not under its control, has tens of thousands of elite personnel, including intelligence operatives, with control over anti-artillery batteries, missiles, combat tanks and armored limousines. It would also be tasked with fending off any internal coup attempts.

Putting the man in the dark brown uniform in charge would further cement family ties between the elite unit’s leadership and the Kim dynasty. Jang is married to the daughter of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung.

Sixty-six year-old Kim Kyong Hui herself is also a four-star general – the first woman in North Korea to hold that rank – and seen in recent photographs looking comparatively frail. Elite defectors from the North frequently describe the only sister of the late Kim Jong Il as a powerful influence not only over her husband, but her nephew, as well. They say she has a reputation for being ill-mannered and struggling with alcoholism.

An analyst says based on Jang’s recent meeting with top officials in China and being among those to greet a religious delegation last week from South Korea, he can now be regarded as the second-in-command in Pyongyang controlling affairs of state.

Kim Jong Un, who is not yet 30 years of age, is regarded to have firmly secured his grip on power after succeeding his father who died at the age of 69 last December.

Thousands of North Koreans expected to starve

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Information coming in from the grassroots network of Life Funds for North Korean Refugees (LFNKR) indicates that drought and starvation are seriously affecting South Hwanghae Province. The drought is wreaking havoc on the harvest, and threatening widespread starvation.

The Hwanghae region is the rice bowl of North Korea. It is important in providing rice for the military and the capital Pyongyang, but the regional government fears that they will not be able to carry out that function after two consecutive years of natural disasters.

The regional government has issued no official statistics on deaths. According to a Ministry of Agriculture official, however, who was sent to assess the situation, a low estimate would be twelve to thirteen thousand people starved between February and May, just in the Hwanghae region alone. Observers expect to see the number of victims continue rising indefinitely.

In order to address the problem, the government has ordered emergency rations. Although the Chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim Yong-nam, visited Indonesia, Kampuchea, Laos and other countries to request food aid, results are still in question.

The Totalitarianism that is North Korea

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Michael Kleen writes: North Korea is recognized as being one of the most oppressive totalitarian states in the world.

Yet in fact, North Korea has a constitution and holds regular elections with three competing political parties—the Workers’ Party of Korea , the Korean Social Democratic Party, and the Chondoist Chongu Party—all united under an organization called the “Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland”.

In April 2009, North Korea even revised its constitution to include Article 8 which reads, “The State respects and protects the human rights of the workers, peasants and working intellectuals …”

But just because a state maintains the structures and language of democracy and continues to have elections does not preclude it from being totalitarian.

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North Korean totalitarianism

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Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch, speaking at an American Enterprise Institute conference, had this to say about North Korean totalitarianism:

In devising a strategy for addressing the issue, it is important to take into account the unique nature of the North Korean regime. This is a regime that has isolated its people, not just from the outside world, but from all knowledge of the outside world.

This dictatorship has tried to deny its people the ability to even imagine an alternative way of life. Probably no totalitarian government in history has succeeded in doing this to the extent that the North Korean government has.

North Korea has been likened to a steel box with a few holes through which light can shine. The strategy must be to punch more holes into the box and let more light through. Until there is more awareness inside North Korea, there is very little the outside world can do in the ways that dictatorships are traditionally pressured to change.

Any dialogue with North Korea needs to have some human rights content. Talks with North Korea about nuclear issues should not preclude other security issues or human rights issues and reform.

A tourist description of the Korean Demilitarized Zone or DMZ

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After meeting up in Seoul with a tour group, we traveled North along the Han River on the recently constructed Freedom Highway. Looking out of the window I could see that the side of the river was lined with barbed wire and there were military posts every few hundred meters. Some with soldiers in them and some, interestingly, with cardboard cut-outs of military personnel in them, to give the impression of them being manned.

The tour began at Injingak Park, which is located just south of the DMZ, some 50 km north of Seoul. This is the furthest point north that civilians can go without permission and was built in 1972 in the hope that one day, Korea would become reunified and reconcile those who were separated from their families in North Korea.

The main building is the North Korean Hall and there are exhibits and photos here relating to life in North Korea, its politics and history. Standing opposite this is Mangbaedan, a large granite and marble altar constructed by the government. It is a place where people who cannot visit their homes and families in North Korea can gather, to perform ancestral rites on holidays at New Year and Chuseok.

Lying just beyond this is the Freedom Bridge. It gained its name from events during the ceasefire between North and South Korea in 1953 when a total of 12,773 South Korean prisoners of war crossed it, when they returned from the North. The end of the bridge is blocked by a fence and surrounded by barbed wire entanglements. People come here to pray and leave messages for a unified peninsula and peace between the two nations.

There is also an open air museum here with planes and tanks from the Korean War, as well as memorials dedicated to those who lost their lives fighting.

After looking around Imjingak, we then boarded a bus with other tour groups and headed into the DMZ. We then crossed the Imjin River over the Unification Bridge which was constructed in 1998 to replace the Freedom Bridge, previously the only entrance point into the DMZ. Along the way we were forced to slow down because of the huge metal tank barriers which the bus had to snake in and out of, like a skier going down a mountain slalom.

We then passed through a checkpoint where our passports were looked at by South Korean soldiers and we were warned not to take photographs for security reasons. Out of the window, I noticed signs explaining the danger of landmines in the area.

Once through the civilian checkpoint, we passed an army barracks where there were South Korean soldiers playing basketball and football, before we finally arrived at the Third Infiltration Tunnel. This was discovered on Oct. 17, 1978, after the South Korean government was informed of its existence by a North Korean defector. One of four tunnels discovered in the 1970’s, it is believed that there may be as many as 20 in all constructed by the North as part of an invasion strategy. Situated some 73 meters below the surface, the Third Infiltration Tunnel is 1,635 meters long, and averages two meters in height and diameter. It is the nearest of the tunnels located to Seoul, and would allow a total of 30,000 troops to pass through it an hour.

Before descending into the tunnel we had to put on hard hats, and then we walked down a 400 meter decline which intersected with the tunnel. Upon entering, it was possible to walk into it another 400 meters, to where the edge of the DMZ exists above ground.

Upon returning to the surface, we boarded the bus once again and headed to Dorasan Observatory, which sits atop a small mountain overlooking the DMZ. From here it is possible to view the North Korean propaganda village Gijong in the DMZ and see even as far as the city of Gaeseong, North Korea’s second largest city.

Gijong was built as a tool to show the prosperity of North Korea to those living in the South and until recently also broadcast North Korean propaganda through the huge speakers installed there. Strangely, no one lives there, only soldiers are present. The streets are empty. There are no cars or people. At night lights come on in the buildings, yet no one is in the buildings.

It is also home to what is believed to be the world’s largest flagpole at 160 metres. Displaying the North Korean flag, it was built in response to the South Korean government erecting a 100 meter tall flagpole in the nearby village of Daesong in 1981.

After a short time we then all got back on board the bus for our final destination, Dorasan Station. Dorasan Station is a place which provides hope for the future but also shows the reality of the divide that exists today. It lies on a track known as the Gyeongui Line, which is slowly being repaired after a summit between the two Koreas in 2000. It is the northernmost station in South Korea and it is hoped that one day it will eventually provide a connection with the North and the rest of Asia. Presently, three trains arrive here from Seoul each day and it doesn’t currently serve much more real purpose than this, apart from providing people with tangible hope that things will one day change.

A South Korean soldier on duty stood in front of a ticket barrier, just below a sign that points the way for the track to North Korea’s capital Pyongyang. He had little to do except pose with tourists eager for a photograph. As bands of happy, smiling snappers stood beside him to have their photos taken, he remained motionless throughout with a cold icy stare.

On the bus heading home I had time to reflect on everything that I had seen throughout the day. One of the last remnants of the Cold War which still exist today, it’s a place of intense emotion that seems a world away from the comfort zone of my apartment in Seoul, an unbelievably short distance away. It really puts in perspective much of the sadness that Korea has experienced throughout its turbulent history and the tragedies and hardships that people have had to endure here.

Maybe, just maybe, Dorasan Station will one day not just be the last stop on a railway line at the border of North and South Korea, or somewhere people visit on a tour looking for something that little bit different, but a place where families are finally reunited after years of separation.

[Excerpt from article by Stephen M. Little, The Seoul Times]

Why is North Korea holding a parliamentary session this month?

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North Korea will hold an unusual second session of parliament on September 25, state-run media reported on Wednesday, amid signals that the country under new leader Kim Jong-un is preparing to approve laws which can support economic reform programs.

The North’s parliament normally meets annually to adopt the state budget, approve important appointments and amendments, and to make formal announcements. The parliament last met in April. During the seventeen years Kim Jong-il was in power, the Supreme People’s Assembly held double sessions only twice, in 2003 and 2010.

“The unusual gathering of the Supreme People’s Assembly means there is a decision to be made through consent from all the citizens,” Chang Yong-suk, a researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies of Seoul National University, told the Yonhap news agency. “Economic reform measures or reshuffling power groups like the National Defense Commission could possibly be [such decisions].”

North Korea rolling out agricultural policy changes

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Several media outlets that employ North Korean defectors, including Washington-based Radio Free Asia, have reported that Pyongyang is rolling out agricultural policy changes that mark a significant break from the state-controlled economy.

Those measures, according to the reports, reduce the size of cooperative farm units from between 10 and 25 farmers to between four and six. The decrease is critical because it allows one or two households, not entire communities, to plan and tend to their own farms. Farmers still must hit production quotas, but they can keep 30 percent of their crops, up from less than 10 percent. They can sell the rest to the government at market prices, not state-fixed prices, and they can keep (and sell privately) anything exceeding the quota.

The changes do not apply to the entire country; they have been introduced in three rural provinces and took effect in July, according to reports.

It remains unclear what is driving the government to allow farmers more personal control. The North could be trying to wring more production from its farmers “out of necessity, not out of virtue,” because its centrally planned rationing system is broken, said Victor Cha, a former White House director of Asian affairs. If and when the North’s food shortages ease, he said, the country is likely to retreat.

“Having said that, the more time they have to do this and let the economy function on its own, the better off we all are,” Cha said. “You can say to farmers, ‘Okay, for six months, you can keep 30 percent,’ but the more times you do this, the harder it will be to pull back.”

Few foreign government officials or scholars on North Korea expect a big-bang economic makeover or official announcements about reform.

Kim Jong Un has shifted North Korean rhetoric to emphasize the economy rather than the military

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The Washington Post emphasizes that North Korea, under Kim Jong Un, has shifted its rhetoric to emphasize the economy rather than the military, and is introducing small-scale agricultural reforms with tantalizing elements of capitalism, according to diplomats and defector groups with informants in the North.

The changes, which allow farmers to keep more of their crops and sell surpluses in the private market, are in the experimental stage and are easily reversible, analysts caution. But even skeptical North Korea watchers say that Kim’s emerging policies and style — and his frank acknowledgment of the country’s economic problems — hint at an economic opening similar to China’s in the late 1970s.

Analysts and outside government officials say it depends on the ambitions of its 20-something supreme leader, who can either bring his destitute country out of isolation or keep it there, figuring it too risky to loosen state controls.

Analysts emphasize that it could take years for a clear answer, but they point to early indications that Kim is willing to run the country differently than his father, who died eight months ago.  It is not known whether the Swiss-educated Kim has a worldview different from that of his dour and militant father.

Typhoon Bolaven leaves thousands homeless in North Korea

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Typhoon Bolaven, one of the most powerful storms to strike the Korean Peninsula in recent years, made landfall in North Korea on late Tuesday with torrential rains and maximum sustained winds of 90 kilometers (55.9 miles) per hour and gusts up to 129.6 kilometers (80 miles) per hour, according to Choe Tong Hwan, the director of the North Korean Hydro-meteorological Management Office in North Hwanghae province.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said at least three people were killed and around 110 public and factory buildings were destroyed. The typhoon, which weakened quickly after making landfall, also destroyed more than 490 houses in Paekam County of Ryanggang province and 100 in Sinpho City of South Hamgyong province. More than 3,300 people were left homeless by the destruction, KCNA reported.

North Korea has been hit hard by floods this year, killing hundreds of people and leaving nearly a quarter of a million people homeless. Tropical storm Khanun hit in July and was followed by torrential rains just days later, killing at least 169 people and leaving more than 400 others missing. Torrential rains hit the impoverished nation again between August 17 and August 20, killing six people and destroying hundreds of buildings.