Going commando in North Korea:Daily Kor for Wednesday, May 30, 2012

GI Joe is there! GI Joe is not there!

The top story (#1) is this delicious piece, an example where the news itself makes news. Some story in the Japan-based journal The Diplomat started with the revelation that American commandos were parachuting into North Korea to spy on the North's secretive facilities, rendering them not so secretive:

U.S. Special Forces have been parachuting into North Korea to spy on Pyongyang’s extensive network of underground military facilities. That surprising disclosure, by a top U.S. commando officer, is a reminder of America’s continuing involvement in the “cold war” on the Korean peninsula – and of North Korea’s extensive preparations for the conflict turning hot.

Well, that's got to be having the Nork defense ministry lighting up in pants-crapping terror. It turns out that it's not true or, at least, it has been emphatically denied. Which of course the US would have to do. Even if it were true. (The Diplomat offers an explanation of sorts, while Joshua at One Free Korea takes a close look at the claims and denials.)

And truthfully, I truly hope it is true. But even if it's not, there's value in the North Koreans thinking it's true (though I suspect they've always thought something like this is going on, since they themselves send their folks to the South).

1. Claiming key officer was misquoted, Washington denies report in Asia-Pacific affairs journal that US military commandos have been sent into North Korea to spy on underground facilities (NPR, WaPo, UPI, Yonhap, Joongang Daily)
• Kushibo: Well of course they'd deny it
• AFP story on original news here
2. US State Department says it is concerned about North Koreans' wellbeing in light of reports of drought in DPRK, but says food aid is off the table unless Pyongyang can demonstrate fair and transparent distribution (Yonhap, Korea Herald)
3. United Nations report says family of South Korean Oh Kilnam, who fled North Korea in 1986 after defecting to the DPRK a year earlier, is being forcibly detained (Joongang Daily, Chosun Ilbo, Donga Ilbo)
4. South Korea strongly condemns Syria over massacre of one hundred civilians, by artillery shelling and close-range shots, in village of Houla (Yonhap)
5. Samsung quickly launching Galaxy smartphone in Europe in order to beat iPhone to the punch (AP via WaPo)
6. Korean won rebounds from seven-month low as fears over Greece recede (Bloomberg)
• South Korea's current account surplus shrinks from $2.97 billion in March to $1.78 billion in April (Yonhap)
7. Korean Air denies government antitrust watchdog claims that it colluded with Miat Mongolian Air on Incheon-Ulan Bator route (WSJ, Chosun Ilbo)
8. Seoul National University, KAIST, and POSTECH among the top ten universities in Asia in new ranking (Chosun Ilbo)
9. Raleigh residents celebrate defeat of same-sex marriage in North Carolina with first annual Straight Pride Parade (CNN)

...

Daily Kor for Saturday, May 26, 2012

Regarding story #4, would "bread-and-butter issues" sound better as "rice-and-kimchi issues"? I can't possibly be the first person to entertain that notion, can I?

1. US Treasury report says South Korean intervention in Korean won is keeping KRW undervalued (Reuters, WSJ, Yonhap)
• KRW at seven-month low despite intervention (WSJ)
2. China reportedly launches five-month crackdown on "illegal immigration" from North Korea in Jilin Province's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture (BBC, Chosun Ilbo)
• China sentences ROK national to death for trafficking nearly 12 kilograms of methamphetamine (Korea Herald)
3. South Korea launches "Code Adam" to more quickly deal with missing children cases (WSJ)
4. Ruling party picks twelve "bread-and-butter issues" on which to focus during first 100 days of new session of National Assembly opening this month (Yonhap)
5. ROK President Lee Myungbak hails opening of Ara Waterway linking Han River to Yellow Sea and making Seoul a "waterfront city" (Yonhap)
6. Two "remorseless" men sentenced to five and ten years in prison for raping teenager after smashing into her with their car (Korea Times)
7. ROK Defense Ministry says North Korea "is ready to test" its next nuke (CNN)
8. South Korean shares snap two-week losing streak (Reuters)
9. On heels of open support for same-sex marriage, US President Barack Obama proposes making Stars & Stripes gayer (Fox News)

...

Would most Chinese oppose their government on North Korean policies?

If they knew about them, that is (a big if). Judging by this pice in this post in Tea Leaf Nation, perhaps the answer is yes (HT to commenter Jeremy at OFK):

A strong majority of netizens on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, alternately begged and demanded that China’s government let the North Korean defectors stay, or at least not repatriate them to a “hell” that means “certain death.” @而而特退热 commented, “I saw a video of North Korea; how scary.” Voicing a common sentiment, @复活的愤怒小马 wrote, “These people will be shot as soon as they are repatriated; how can you take your disdain for human life to this level?”

Such brave viewpoints — the post starts with one netizen calling it "international murder" — are in sharp contrast with China's official view. As Beijing walks the fine line between maintaining a tight grip and not squeezing so hard that they turn the people against them, one wonders how this issue will turn out, or if it will soften Beijing's actions against North Korea defectors in the future.

I'm not holding my breath.

Today, by the way, is March 1, a national holiday called March First Movement Day (depending on how you translate it), though some like me prefer to call it Independence Day. See here for a rundown on what it means. Given the overbearing role China has been taking toward South Korea, and its control of North Korea as a virtual vassal state, today might not be a bad day to go and demonstrate downtown. The weather's nice.

...

Will this get their attention?

A member of the National Assembly who has been staging a hunger strike in front of the Chinese embassy says she will do so until death unless China ends its policy of repatriating North Korean refugees back to the DPRK:

Park Sun-Young, from the conservative opposition Liberty Forward party, said she wants "fundamental change" in China's policy of sending back the North Koreans rather than treating them as refugees.

"Either they change the policy or I die, as I have no intention of stopping (the fast)," Park told AFP in a weak voice.

Activists and Seoul lawmakers say about 30 North Koreans who recently fled to China will soon be sent back. They face harsh punishment or even death in their homeland, according to protesters.

Park appeared fatigued but still took part in a rally -- the latest in a series -- outside the embassy Monday.

The 55-year-old legislator, clad in thick sweaters against the sub-zero night temperatures, is living in a tent outside a church in front of the embassy. ...

A Seoul parliamentary committee last Friday criticised China's policy of repatriating the refugees as economic migrants and urged it to follow international rules.

The resolution followed media reports that nine North Koreans have already been sent back despite pleas from Seoul.

"This isn't a problem just between China and Korea. It is a worldwide issue, a matter of human rights that citizens all over the world must see and mend together," Park said.

Normally, I would think such an act is futile: Hunger strikes might work within a country to get the government to change its action or risk negative local and global press (and whatever consequences that brings), but it's harder to make it work against another country.

However, this being in the global news day after day might eventually cause it to seep through the Great Firewall of China, and more and more Chinese will start wondering what this is all about. One thing I've noticed from my discussions with students from Mainland China here in Hawaii is how utterly ignorant they are of China's policies vis-à-vis North Korean refugees. So in this case, the hunger strike might prove a very useful educational tool.

And now I should call one of my Beijing journalist friends and point her toward this story.

...

A tale of rescue underscores the sordid situation surrounding refugees hiding in China

In the Los Angeles Times, Seoul correspondent John Glionna tells the story of Krys Lee, a Korean-American writer and daughter of a sometimes abusive pastor, who has sacrificed her money and risked her safety to rescue one Mr Kim, a troubled refugee from North Korea who Ms Lee describes as having been held captive in China by a Korean missionary who had different plans (involving returning to North Korea to proselytize) for Mr Kim.

The story underscores the conflicts between and within the various groups along the underground railroad ferrying people out of North Korea and hiding them in China until they can make it to a foreign diplomatic mission or another country. In many cases, missionaries and religious groups are risking their lives to rescue North Koreans, but there are indeed some bad apples among them.

...

Seoul showing some backbone with Beijing on repatriation of North Korean refugees?

It is appalling that Beijing continues to round up North Korean refugees inside China and return them to North Korea, knowing full well they will almost certainly be imprisoned, likely tortured, and possibly even executed. As much as we can criticize China for its own abysmal human rights record, even the PRC authorities (in most cases) wouldn't be as harsh as the DPRK is to its own citizens. And it's no surprise that Chinese netizens are  generally blissfully unaware of their own government's complicity.

So it's refreshing to read news like this that keeps the story on the front burner and makes it harder for Xinhua and other Chinese news services to ignore or obscure the issue:

South Korea's top official in charge of relations with North Korea on Tuesday asked China to quickly send North Korean defectors to South Korea.

Tens of thousands of North Korean defectors are believed to be hiding in China, hoping to travel to Thailand or other Southeast Asian countries before resettling in South Korea.

Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik sought cooperation from Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi to ensure that "North Korean defectors can quickly come to South Korea based on their free will."

As Pyongyang's key ally, China does not recognize North Korean defectors and repatriates them back to their homeland, where they could face harsh punishment and even execution, according to defectors and activists.

Still, Beijing has allowed defectors in high-profile cases to leave for South Korea in an apparent move to avoid international criticism.

Yang told Yu that China will handle defectors in accordance with domestic and international laws as well as humanitarian principles.

The comments come as a stream of North Koreans continues to cross the border into China for eventual defections to South Korea, home to more than 22,700 North Korean defectors, according to defectors and activists.

Like any country, China has the right to round up those who enter the country illegally and expel them. But the case of Korean refugees is not so simple, given not only that these are people escaping famine and oppression, but also that there is a second country that counts them as their citizens and is willing to take them (i.e., South Korea).

There is no excuse for China to repatriate North Korean refugees to North Korea.

...

Hear no evil dictators being deposed, see no evil dictators being deposed (redux)

Welp, if you're a North Korean laborer in Libya longing for some home-cooked Hamhŭng naengmyŏn, you're just s.o.l. for the time being.

Last April, when the Arab Spring was just starting to kick up some sand, we had reports that Pyongyang was in no mood to have workers returning to the Workers' Paradise bearing news that one by one the dictators of the Arab world were falling like dominos as the people in those countries rose up against them. Even though some of them were getting injured in the air attacks.

And now, with the death of Colonel Moammar Kadafi, we see that this policy is continuing:

North Korea has banned its own citizens working in Libya from returning home, apparently out of fear that they will reveal the extent — and final outcomes — of the revolutions that have shaken the Arab world.

Pyongyang had a close working relationship with the regime of Moammar Gaddafi before the popular uprising that unseated him. That revolution was completed with Gaddafi's death at the hands of insurgents last week - leaving Kim Jong-Il as one of a dwindling band of old-fashioned dictators on the planet.

An estimated 200 North Korean nationals are in Libya and previously worked as doctors, nurses and construction workers, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. They had been dispatched to the country in order to earn the hard currency that Pyongyang requires to fund its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Yonhap reported that the North Korean nationals have been left in limbo, joining their compatriots who are stuck in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries with orders not to return home.

North Korean media has so far failed to report that Gaddafi is dead and the government has made no moves to officially recognise Libya's National Transitional Council as the legitimate governing authority of the country.

The decision to ban its own nationals from returning indicates just how concerned the North Korean regime is of the news leaking out to its subjugated people.

An editorial in The Korea Herald stated that the one per cent of North Koreans who are aware of the Arab Spring uprisings will be top-level party and administration officials, as well as the trusted few who are permitted to travel to China on business.

"Pyongyang’s silence about the fall of the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt and the bloody death of Gaddafi reveals Kim Jong-il’s awareness of the vulnerability of his regime in the process of a third-generation dynastic succession of power," the paper said.

And the DPRK nomenklatura are right to think this. With the Great Currency Obliteration of 2009, they have sown the seeds of resentment and may have lodged in almost every North Korean's head the notion that the regime is not on their side. 

This blanket ban on returning to North Korea comes as no surprise to me. I wrote a few days ago that the North Korean workers in Libya are "persona non grata" back home as far as the regime is concerned. Of course, it could be worse: the regime might have welcomed them home only to send them to reeducation camps or worse. Maybe Seoul should be looking into helping these folks stuck in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria gain asylum and eventual residency in South Korea.

Right now "s.o.l." means Sitting it Out in Libya.

...

Kim Jong-un's "Tora! Tora! Tora!" moment?*

The Chosun Ilbo would have us believe that Kim Jong-un, the young general who supposedly is poised to take over for Dad when he kicks the bucket, is the one who ordered the attacks on South Korea over the past year:

A North Korean document supports the conclusion that North Korea attacked the Navy corvette Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island last year to whip up domestic support for the succession of leader Kim Jong-il’s son, Jong-un.

The document, which the Chosun Ilbo obtained from a source in China on Tuesday, claims that Kim junior was deeply involved in both attacks. Titled “Lecture Materials,” the document was apparently drawn up for military propaganda officers early this year.

According to its wording, Kim Jong-un told military leaders that the inter-Korean situation “will become very tense in February and March.” He made the comments around the end of January last year, two months before the attack on the Cheonan. The document claims South Korea and the U.S. “concocted a plot about the sinking of the Cheonan, but it failed.”

The source, who claims to do frequent business with trading companies under the North Korean Workers Party, said that propaganda officers have been indoctrinating North Korean soldiers to show absolute loyalty to Kim Jong-un based on those materials. “They even have to take a test after their indoctrination classes,” he said.

As I noted at ROK Drop, I'm a bit curious about the date. The “2010년 1월” stands out as odd when one sees that in North Korean news sources the “Western” date is typically hand in hand with the 주체 date (주체 99년 or some such). I wonder if anybody who has familiarity with actual North Korean documents could provide insight about whether the above is a reason to find this document suspect.

Of course, dear reader, you may already be aware that I am deeply suspicious of the mountain of evidence, eagerly printed up in the Chosun Ilbo and repeated uncritically in the Japanese and Western press, that comes from what could be described as an Evidence Mill™ run by people who make money and/or enhance their stature from supplying this stuff. While I think most defectors/refugees are genuine people who can give us valuable insight into current attitudes in the regime, it seems to me that a handful of folks might be looking for personal gain à la that Iraqi guy who supplied all of the information used back in 2002 and 2003 to justify going to war against Saddam Hussein.

Of course, from Kim Jong-il not being at death's door, to Ling and Lee having willingly entered North Korea, to Kim Jong-un's coronation not being imminent, my views on North Korea have others viewing me at first as crankily contrarian and out of touch and then later as eerily prescient.

But that doesn't mean I could be wrong on this. Always my caveat.

* And yeah, I know that "Tora! Tora! Tora!" is Japanese. My theory is that a Korean pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy on that fateful day in December 1941 had a bit of prescience himself and had gotten on the radio to warn everybody to turn around. 

What's on Kushibo's iPod: miscellaneous Newshour pieces

All right, this is what's left for now, the stuff that doesn't fit into the economic, military, and political categories. At least not exactly. A lot of environmental stuff and education-related stories (for which I should make their own category in the future).

The first one, about a touching documentary on North Korean refugees and how they escape, is worth looking at as a preview to the actual documentary, which is a must-see.

• 'Kimjongilia' Film Highlights Harrowing Stories of Escape From North Korea

• Classroom Culprits? Invasive Crayfish Threaten Western Waterways

• Laura Bush, Melinda Gates, CARE President on Women's Issues, U.S. Foreign Aid

• Transportation Secretary: Electronic Issue Not Cause of Toyota Recall Woes

• Chicagoland Students See Success Hitting the Gym, Then Hitting the Books

• In California, a Rescue Mission for 'Iconic' Franciscan Manzanita Plant

• Big Sky Country Struggles With Yellowstone Oil Spill Aftermath

• Oil Spill Probe Reveals Need to Balance Precautions, Profits

• After Haiti Quake, Using Science to Build Sturdier Buildings

• Robert MacNeil on Jim Lehrer's 'Stealth' Exit

• The Films Are Alive With the Art of Foley

• Photographer Alec Soth on a Life of Approaching Strangers

• New York Times' Brantley Previews Upcoming Theater Season

• Weekly Poem: 'The Winter's Wife'

• Abigail Washburn Uses Banjo as Tool for Diplomacy

Daily Kor for Saturday, June 18, 2011

Have a great weekend, everyone!

1. Seoul refuses to send back nine North Koreans who crossed into South Korean waters by boat, calling them defectors (AP via WaPo, UPI)
2. United Nations Security Council recommends UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon to second term (Reuters, Yonhap, Korea Herald, Joongang Daily)
3. ROK Marines fire at civilian airplane near tense western border after mistaking it for North Korean military aircraft (Yonhap)
4. IMF asks Seoul to raise interest rates more quickly to ensure soft economic landing and introduce more exchange rate flexibility to curb inflation (Reuters) 
• Bank of Korea members says it may need to slow rate increases (Bloomberg)
5. US Senate Armed Forces Committee seeks to block American military base realignment plans in South Korea and other countries (AP via WaPo, Reuters, Foreign Policy)
6. North Korea says it will begin disposing of South Korea-owned assets at Kŭmgangsan resort (Korea Times)
7. Pharmaceutical Association asks to sell prescription medicines such as Viagra over the counter in order to counter revenue losses after forty-four over-the-counter medicines were opened to sales in supermarkets and convenience stores (Joongang Daily)
8. No Agent Orange but small amounts of dioxin found in waters near South Kyŏngsang Province's Camp Carroll and other bases, said to be not threatening to health (AP via WaPo, CNN)
9. South Korea's soccer league hands down ten lifetime bans over match-fixing scandal (Reuters)
10. With nothing going on over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of Seoulites gather in City Hall plaza to watch World Cup reruns (Yonhap)

Daily Kor for Friday, June 17, 2011: The blog ate my homework!

Son of a biscuit eater! I had done all the work for today's Daily Kor and then when I hit PUBLISH, it all disappeared. That has never happened before, that I can recall, with the new Blogger setup.

All right, I really don't have time to do it all over again, so I'll just point out that the big story was Pyongyang demanding that the nine defectors who crossed the NLL by boat be returned to North Korea (BBC, AP via WaPo, Reuters, Yonhap, AFP).

Yeah, right. And that they would even be a part of that request makes North Korea's Red Cross the most evil Red Cross in the world.

Daily Kor for Thursday, June 16, 2011

Who says the Cold War is over? It's déjà vu all over again, as the US criticizing not just Pyongyang but Beijing over human rights in their respective countries. And then there is the latest in a ripple-turning-into-a-wave of Boat People™ risking their lives to cross the disputed NLL that divides north and south off the west coast. Expect some testy times ahead.

1. Nine North Koreans in a small boat cross the Yellow Sea's Northern Limit Line, the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, in effort to defect (AP via WaPo, CNN, Yonhap, Korea Times, Joongang Daily)
2. US tells UN Human Rights Council it wants to hold North Korea, China, and twelve other nations accountable for alleged human rights violations (AP via WaPo)
3. Chairman of Presidential Commission on Green Growth says ruling and opposition parties agree to approve an emissions trade bill in a upcoming parliamentary review (Reuters)
4. Hyundai says increased production capacity will allow it to sell a record 600K cars and light trucks in US this year (Bloomberg)
5. South Korea's unemployment rate drops to six-month low in May (WSJ)
6. Prime Minister Kim Hwangsik calls for stricter discipline of public officials in wake of growing bribe-taking and influence-peddling scandal from troubled Busan Savings Bank (Yonhap)
7. South Korean tax agency tracking 1.8 trillion won moved to Swiss accounts from 2006 to 2008 (Bloomberg)
8. LNG imports jump 22 percent from a year earlier in May due to rising crude oil prices (Reuters, Bloomberg)
• Coal imports increase 33 percent in same period (Reuters)
9. US Chamber of Commerce announces fresh plans (and website) to push through free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama (USA Today, Reuters)
10. Seoul to install 10,430 outdoor wi-fi hotspots by 2015 (Yonhap)
11. Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi enlists help of Ultraman to take back Tokto once and for all, plans to install Yasukuni Shrine annex on East Islet (Yonhap)

Hear no evil dictators being deposed, see no evil dictators being deposed

China has taken up the challenging of blocking information about the so-called Jasmine Revolution, even going so far as to block Internet searches for those terms. North Korea has a bit of an easier time, since it has a far tighter control over the far fewer percentage of its population that has access to the Internet, which is more like an intranet.

But we GenXers remember a time when pixels and bytes were not the only means by which information flowed. There was television and radio, of course, and the Pyongyang regime has long been on top of that. But there are also those fleshy biological units known as people, and they have been known to pass along uncomfortable facts that undermine faith in their despotic government.

For the Kim Jong-il, the take-away message is that if you give up your nukes and play nice the US will invade; he doesn't want the North Korean people's take-away message to be that the only way you'll get rid of a dynastic regime that has ruled with an iron fist for decades with no end in sight is to rise up and start shooting at the rulers' soldiers.

And it is against that backdrop that North Korea has told its worker in war-torn Libya not to come back. Stay where you are.

From Yonhap:

North Korea has ordered its people in Libya not to return home, apparently out of fear that they will spread news of the anti-government uprisings in the African nation, a source said Sunday.

In a letter sent to the North Korean embassy in Libya, Pyongyang ordered its people to "follow the measures of the Libyan government" and not return home, said the source familiar with North Korea affairs.

As AFP notes, Libya and North Korea "have maintained close diplomatic ties." Consequently, there are hundreds of North Koreans in Libya, performing duties as doctors, nurses, and construction workers, as well as in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Frankly, if this is the kind of thing Pyongyang is worried about, the North Korean workers may be better off in Libya even as things get out of hand there. Were they to return and the DPRK authorities decided they were a contagion, God only knows how they might be "contained." Perhaps South Korea, the US, and Japan should work on helping the North Koreans find a safer place to go.

Disturbing video snuck out of North Korea

Frequent One Free Korea commenter and occasional Monster Island visitor Theresa sent me a link to this The Shanghaiist post which contained the following video (put together by the guerrilla journalists at Rimjin-gang) snuck out of North Korea:



Seeing the emaciated and dazed twenty-three-year-old woman is just heart-wrenching. But the pugnacious youngish ajumma in the next scene gives hope that there are more like her who are willing to stand up to authority (and that there are authorities like the guy in the picture who don't automatically fight back when challenged).

I direct you to One Free Korea, where Joshua also put up a post on this video, with some very good commentary. A sample:

These are the expendable people of North Korea, the ones who don’t have a place in the propaganda parades, the ones who don’t get to eat the food aid that the regime either refuses or steals from them. I’d be surprised if that woman were still alive today.

One day, these people are going to hold their oppressors accountable. The more I see, the more convinced I become that we should teach them how, and then arm them. North Korea needs a revolution, and no peaceful revolution can possibly succeed in such a place. When governments become destroyers of humanity, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them. I see no other way.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if that were sooner rather than later?

At what point do we stop calling the "refugees"?

South Korea has just welcomed its 20,000th North Korean refugee, a forty-one-year-old woman who arrived this past Thursday with her two sons. Her mother is already in the South.

You can thank this man for the fact that there are so many:

Meanwhile, Kim Daejung deserves credit for allowing in more North Korean refugees than all his predecessors combined, a feat which included his future-oriented decision to establish Hanawon, a facility designed to process and integrate the newly arrived North Korean refugees. Funny how his critics twist all this around.

Here's hoping that this new ROK citizen will have a better life, and that tens of thousands more — at least that many — follow in her footsteps.

AFP reports on North Korean defectors caught up in insurance fraud

Agence France-Presse has an interesting article on folks from North Korea being targeted by insurance fraudsters:

North Korean refugees struggling to adapt to a bewildering new life in South Korea are increasingly getting sucked into insurance frauds as their first taste of capitalism.

Insurance scams have for years been common in the South, and fraudsters in recent years have targeted the refugees as sometimes unwitting accomplices.

"Sometimes defectors get involved because they don't know how the insurance system works. They just have no idea what they are doing is wrong," an official at the Hanawon resettlement centre told AFP. ...

Newly arrived refugees get government financial help but often must repay big debts to the brokers who arranged their escape via China.

This makes them susceptible to taking part in frauds, which focus on bogus medical insurance claims.

After the refugee has bought a private policy or enrols in a state scheme, or both, insurance company workers typically conspire with hospital administrative staff to issue fake certificates of treatment.

When a refugee has been reimbursed by the insurance company, and sometimes by the government, he or she hands over a portion to the accomplices.

"I received about three million won (2,700 dollars) and used the money to pay debts when I came to South Korea," one woman in her late thirties told the JoongAng Daily newspaper.

The article takes pains to depict the North Korean defectors as victims of this, a view I'm sympathetic to. After all, both survival in North Korea and the process of escape and then hiding in China would necessitate living by hook or by crook for many of them, and it may be hard to turn that off that attitude and behavior. An attitude of doing what you can to survive mixed with a perception drummed into their heads by the fraudsters that the only ones who get hurt are these big, bad corporations, and you've got an easy accomplice.

Sadly, I fear that this kind of thing looms large in any post-reunification future, as the two versions of Korea clash in ways we cannot even begin to fathom now.

NPR on "an unusual private school" for North Korean defectors

NPR has an interesting piece on a school in Seoul that is designed to help former refugees from North Korea who have made it to the ROK close the gap between what they learned in North Korea and what they need to know to live in South Korea:

In a nondescript building in central Seoul, an unusual private school is trying to teach young North Korean defectors how to survive in the South. The problems suffered by its students adjusting to life in a democratic state offer a window into life in the totalitarian North.

The first thing that is immediately noticeable at Yeomyung school is the disconnect between the age of the students — mostly in their 20s — and the simple subjects they're studying. In one classroom, two students are struggling to understand simple fractions, an elementary school subject.

Woo Kee-sup is the school's president.

"They missed many years of schooling because they [fled North Korea and were hiding] in a third country like China," he says. "And the education system in North Korea is basically demolished."

Formal education in North Korea is largely dedicated to extolling leader Kim Jong Il through songs and ideological classes, and even math problems may use political examples as teaching aids. Its aim: to teach obedience at all costs to maintain the regime, rather than teaching students how to think for themselves.

The piece notes its not just the three R's that require attention:

In drama class, clad in baggy jeans, students fool around, pretending to be robots.

But what may look like goofing off is actually therapy. These students are damaged, from years of hunger and the ever present fear of living in a society where neighbors inform on each other. Add to that the dangerous journey out of North Korea, which can take years living in conditions close to slavery.

"In some sense," says Woo, "their human nature was destroyed and their identity was lost, so we help them find their identity again through classes like this."

As the students laugh and shriek, one girl is noticeable for her lack of participation. She sits alone, lost in thought, her expression bereft, a tissue in her hand. Young defectors suffer from shockingly high rates of depression.

"Ten percent of our students need medicating because they're seriously depressed," says Cho, the teacher. "More than 50 percent have been diagnosed as clinically depressed but don't need medication."

Perhaps it's good that these folks have a built-in reason for having depression, which gives them an excuse to visit mental health professionals, get diagnosed, and get treatment without fear of being stigmatized (a big problem for the general SoKo population).

It breaks my heart to hear about all these horror stories, and I always find it heartening to learn about groups helping them. I can't imagine what they have gone through to get to South Korea or what they're going through after they arrive. But it does give us an inkling of what we're in store for when and if the two Koreans eventually reunify. Imagine a whole country with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Oh, and if you're one of those who doesn't like my use of the word defector, please note that it was in the original NPR piece and, even if it weren't, I don't really see a problem with the word.

LiNK launching new documentary on North Korean refugees brought to safety

Esther Lee, the communications manager at LiNK (Liberty in North Korea), a highly worthy organization aimed at assisting North Korean refugees hiding in China that you may remember from Pepsi's "Refresh Everything" campaign, passed along some information for me to share with my readers.

From their website's announcement:

This year, we've rescued 20 North Korean refugees from hiding in China, thanks to the help of our incredibly generous supporters.

"Hiding" will follow the story of five individuals whose recues you have helped to fund. The documentary will highlight what life in hiding is really like and the risks that must be taken to escape.

LiNK's Nomads will be taking the film on the road this fall so if you are interested in seeing it, please book a screening to secure a date on our tour. We’ll be traveling to colleges, high schools and churches.

Here is a link (ha ha!) to the teaser. They've also got a list of planned screenings, and a way for folks to host their own screening. Their "tour" doesn't seem to include Hawaii, so if anyone out there would like to join me in co-hosting a screening here in Honolulu, shoot me an email.

Esther also informs that LiNK is doing an eight-week webisode series, with considerable cooperation from the Ford Motor Company, to follow a North Korean defector whom LiNK helped rescue:

We were ecstatic to learn today that we were selected by Ford in a project called The People's Fleet, a two-month program in Los Angeles that will help five influential and socially-conscious organizations drive their unique missions forward with a Ford Fiesta, Flip HD video camera, and a professional cinematographer. Ford will highlight LiNK's work by following us with a film crew for the next eight weeks and promoting our work to Ford's network. This will all be done behind the wheel of the brand new Ford Fiesta!

The Fleet will follow North Korean defector Danny, rescued by LiNK in 2006, as he lives his resettled life in Los Angeles, as well as capture LiNK's headquarters operations.

Some of the webisodes for that can be found here, along with those of several other of Ford's worthy projects (including Habitat for Humanity in Orange County).

Robert Park comes around in Christianity Today

It should come as no surprise to my readers that I sometimes feel that Robert Park — he who traipsed into North Korea with the demand that Kim Jong-il resign from his position and unshackle the North Korean people on his way out, only to be followed by his friend, the equally quixotic Aijalon Mahli Gomes — really sticks in my craw.

Frankly, although he and I are both deeply troubled about the plight of people stuck under Pyongyang's thumb and the North Koreans who have escaped but remain in hiding in China, I have made no secret that I think his consternation is fatally muddied by an apparent Messianic complex (or at least a Mosaic one).

Moreover, like daytrippers Euna Lee, Laura Ling, and the aforementioned Mr Gomes, I think Mr Park's exploits have generated considerably more detriment than benefit.

And according to this article in Christianity Today, Mr Park seems to be coming around to my point of view on the futility of his media whoring publicity stunt:

"My hope was, through sacrifice, that maybe there would be repentance and people could come together to address issues in North Korea," he said.

But Park said that did not happen.

"It takes work, and the church and human rights groups have to realize the most important thing is that we come together," he said. "This generation has to be captivated and compelled because this is the most systematically intentional genocide since the Holocaust."

Park says he is not angry with God, but he is frustrated with the church.

"My wish and my hope and prayer is for the church to rise and spearhead the move for liberation," he said.

That first paragraph still sounds a bit like it's all about him, but at least he recommends something that I've been saying all along is the best way for those feeling the need for personal sacrifice (of the monetary or bodily variety):

Park says one of the best ways for Christians to help North Koreans is to redirect money to refugees and North Koreans assisting refugees.

"North Korean people know how to get money to hard-hit areas that can lead to family reunification and food going to inaccessible areas when other organizations are not quite as urgent or knowledgeable," he said. "The North Korean people themselves love their homeland and they desire liberation more than anyone else—their hearts are in North Korea."

Here we agree as well.

Nevertheless, my opinion that Mr Park may be both Messianic and suicidal remains strong. In an earlier Christianity Today article, he actually talks about his motivations to commit suicide:

Park says his concern for Gomes and frustration over the lack of media coverage and response to his friend's imprisonment have led him to speak out—and were the cause of his plans for a July 16 suicide demonstration.

Park said he was ready to end his life because nothing was being done, "but God stopped it through the intervention of a friend."

"I was planning to kill myself with a suicide note to bring attention to Aijalon—I feel responsible for him being there," Park said. "He is one of my best friends, and I prayed for my life to be taken and not his."

A suicide demonstration?! Clearly this is a troubled man, and it is incumbent on organizations like Christianity Today that trot him out before the media to also keep a watchful eye on his darker side. Sure, let's highlight him singing the praises of getting real work done to help North Koreans in the PRC and the DPRK, but keep him away from the soapboxes.

Federal appeals court allows ethnic Korean from China to stay in US

The New York Times tells the story of Jinyu Kang, a woman who feared torture if she returned to China, because she had been helping North Korean refugees in the PRC:

Saying that government lawyers let their zeal for victory in a deportation case outweigh their responsibility to be fair, a federal appeals court last week ordered the United States to provide a haven for a woman facing the likelihood of torture in China.

The woman, Jinyu Kang, an ethnic Korean citizen of China who now lives in New York, had fled a Chinese arrest warrant for giving food and shelter to Korean refugees. Others named in the same warrant and caught by the Chinese police had described beatings, suffocation, electric shocks, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture to get them to disclose details about the human rights group to which they all belonged.

“It is disappointing, even shocking, that the government fails to acknowledge that the evidence is not only strongly in Kang’s favor, but, indeed, compels the conclusion that she will likely be tortured,” said the decision, issued by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the United States Virgin Islands.

The decision details “the horrific experiences” suffered by members of the group, and cites testimony that Ms. Kang’s son, who is still in China, was also tortured by the police during interrogation about his mother’s whereabouts. (Ms. Kang declined to talk about the case with a reporter through her lawyer, Man C. Yam.)

When I hear of stories like this, it makes me wonder what is behind the thinking or apparent cruelty of the bureaucrats or lawyers involved. Do they simply not believe Ms Kang? Do they not realize the seriousness of her plight? Do they wish to avoid having the US turn into a safe haven for more such people? Do they simply not care about the people whose lives they are so adversely affecting (ditto here)? The article presents other bewildering examples that will have you scratching your head.

At any rate, good on the Court of Appeals for figuring this out. I hope the government lets it go.