The official was responding to media reports that the communist state’s constitution revised in April droped the use of the term “communism” [Yonhap].

If I’m reading this article correctly, the new North Korean Constitution seeks to make song’un (military first policy) more of a priority in North Korean society -> even greater access and first dibs on resources (food, infrastructure, etc.).

Academically, both socialism and communism are based on the principle of goods and services production controlled by a centralized organization and output owned publicly. But under socialism, the output would be distributed according to individuals’ production capacity, whereas under a communist system, the output would be distributed according to individuals’ needs.

Since the military already has the greater means of production, this indicates that the state is actually codifying a system that will not send rations to the peasant population.  This also means that the most vulnerable class, the peasants of the outlying NE provinces will not be getting even less rations from the Public Distribution System now. This may amount to a systemic weakening, and eventual terror famine, of the “hostile” class – coupled with evidence of the negligence and intent to starve the NE provinces during the great famine of the 1990′s, this may amount to classicide, folks.

The question of succession may have caused KJI to make the military even a greater priority to legitimate his rule (and by extension his heir’s).  In any case, the regime can’t even maintain the illusion of an equal, class-free society where everyone’s needs are met. KJI makes the argument that “Western enemies” are causing this re-prioritization, because the Western powers’ policies are causing the North Korean people to starve.  Let’s just forget about the decade of non-transparent aid that was diverted from the most vulnerable, which led groups like Medecins sans Frontiers to withdraw from the country.

I find it deliciously funny that KJI only now makes the argument that Christine Ahn has been making for years!

[edit 10:53AM 09.29.09]

News reports are also citing that the Constitution makes some provisions to protect the human rights.  Let’s not kid ourselves and get excited.  This is a nominal improvement at best.

First, I find that it would be appropriate to acknowledge my two readers from unspecified locations.

Second, I have to apologize for the lack of posts.  There are two reasons for this: 1) Just a general lack of new developments to comment on with regards to human rights in North Korea 2) I am currently in school.  That said, please suggest a topic that you would like to discuss in the comments section of any post..

Okay, let’s talk about something now:

This website appeared in my inbox a few days ago.  http://www.unifykorea2009.com/index.php

This group (?) is calling for weekly demonstrations every Friday – drawing inspiration from the protests that they claim were a significant factor in bringing down the Berlin Wall.  Let’s just forget about the general economic collapse of the Soviet Union for now…oh yea, not to mention that it was the Berliner citizenry that participated in the demonstrations.  Still, I don’t have the heart to hyper-mock (or least to go on mocking) a group that has good intentions and wants to spread awareness of the humanitarian crisis in North Korea.

So while I think this group displays a nice, saccharine sentiment, I still have to point out a few things:

1) The groups claims that there are indications that genocide has occurred and is currently occurring in North Korea.  This is a very bold statement.  Unfortunately,

2a) The group does not back up their figures (really?! 7 million deaths from starvation, 1 million concentration camp deaths, etc.) with any sources or citations.  I don’t want to go through every figure here, but you get the point.

2b) Also, merely listing human rights violations in North Korea does not magically make a case that genocide is occurring in North Korea.  Why and how is it genocide?

3) I didn’t know the UN Refugee Convention was ratified in 1952 – news to me.

I only point these things out because it is inappropriate and dishonest to make the atrocities in North Korea seem more shocking by using inflated numbers and language.  I am not denying that atrocities do occur in a systematic and massive scale, but  this website actually does a disservice to us and North Koreans with some of their frankly outrageous figures.  Obviously, the group is trying to make the case that there is genocide in North Korea to attempt to shame the public into action.  But this is not the way to do it.

Why?  Nick Kristof wrote this:

The truth is that North Korea doesn’t want to negotiate away its nuclear materials. It is focused on its own transition, and this year it has declined to accept a visit from the Obama administration’s special envoy, Stephen Bosworth. The North isn’t interested in “six-party talks” on nuclear issues; instead, it seeks talks with the U.S. conditioned on accepting North Korea’s status as a nuclear power — which is unacceptable.

During years of engagement with the G.W. Bush administration, North Korea has reneged on every single agreement and deal, has run an HEU program to which they recently admitted to, and has been proliferating missile/nuclear technology to other state sponsors of terrorism.  Critics blame the first couple of years of the G.W. Bush administration’s “axis of evil” rhetoric and lack of engagement for North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.  But they fail to point out that the North Korean regime already had nuclear ambitions/programs, since North Korea violated the Agreed Framework of 1994 shortly after it was signed.

Kristof seems to get this – by having a sense of history and current events.  Lamentably, his colleagues at the NYT do not.

He even goes into more detail about the regime’s illicit activities:

In recent months, North Korea has dismantled some economic reforms and economic cooperation projects with South Korea. Meanwhile, it continues to counterfeit U.S. $100 bills — the highest-quality goods that North Korea manufactures — and its embassies in Pakistan and other countries pay their way by smuggling drugs, liquor and currency.

He even went on to say that the US Navy should start interdicting ships!

Too bad he didn’t address victims of sex trafficking, starvation, or concentration camps…

Still, I have to disagree with Kristof again here:

There are no good options here, and a grass-roots revolution is almost impossible. North Koreans, even those in China who despise the regime, overwhelmingly agree that most ordinary North Koreans swallow the propaganda.

So North Koreans believe the only form of information available to them, therefore a grass-roots uprising is impossible?  Sigh.

Do starving North Koreans, those who don’t receive rations, swallow propaganda, too?  Do you think it might be possible that if you exposed the population to some amount of information, there might be the undercurrents of seeking self-determination?

There is a very real option that has not been fully explored here.  Information dissemination.  We have the technological capability, we don’t have American citizens in Pyongyang anymore, there are no negotiations to derail, and sanctions already serve their purpose by forcing the regime back to negotiations.  An information campaign into North Korea could also help push North Korea back to negotiations.  Now is the time to act.

Lastly, Mr. Kristof, again, please do your research:

The Obama administration is now working with allies to reimpose economic and financial sanctions that a few years ago were very successful in squeezing the North Korean regime. China is surprisingly cooperative, even quietly intercepting several shipments of supplies useful for W.M.D. programs.

China has not fully implemented UN Security Council Resolutions 1695, 1718, and 1874.  China is not a substantial part of the international sanctions effort on North Korea.  China stopped a few measly shipments of vanadium.  Whoop de doo…China is also North Korea’s benefactor in oil and food aid.  What ever made you think that China would fully cooperate to sanction its client regime, I’ll never know.

The ultimate irony here is that Amb. John Bolton has been arguing this position for YEARS now – and I predict Kristof will not be shunned for his very similar opinion piece.  While many may disagree with Kristof, the comments for this op-ed will be respectful.  Read the comments section for this John Bolton op-ed…it makes me want to switch my party affiliation to the GOP.

A recent Chosun Ilbo article focused on the difficulties that North Koreans face in coming to the US.

Kim said that out of 28 fellow North Korean detainees who wanted to go to America, only eight were able to make it. The problem is a U.S. policy that allows only a minimal number of North Korean refugees to be accepted, he said.

Kim goes on to say that refugees/asylum seekers give up and go to South Korea, because the US resettlement process takes too long.  He seems to think that the US resettlement process towards North Koreans is intentionally cumbersome so as to only let in a minimal number of North Korean refugees.  This may or may not be true…

I just wish the reporter actually did some more investigatory research instead of basing his piece solely on an interview:

Derek Zoolander: Do you understand that the world does not revolve around you and your do whatever it takes, ruin as many people’s lives, so long as you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied along the way, just so long so you can make a name for yourself as an investigatory journalist, no matter how many friends you lose or people you leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way?

If the reporter actually did a decent job, he might have come up with a more balanced and factual piece.

Kim claims that:

“Right now, the U.S. government contacts defectors seeking to enter the U.S. only after they have undergone security screening by South Korean authorities. This process takes too long,” Kim said. Many of the other North Korean defectors imprisoned with him became critical of the U.S. for this reason, he said.

Kim is correct that the process is lengthy and cumbersome.  But the security screening by South Korean authorities is absolutely necessary to make sure that North Korean refugees are actually North Korean (and not Chosun jok, or Chinese citizens with Korean heritage), North Korean spies, or North Koreans who already resettled in South Korea and go back to another country to try to gain admission to the US as a refugee.

Still, I have to disagree with Kim in his assertion that it is US policy to limit the number of North Korean refugees.  While I can understand your impatience and months in deplorable conditions in immigration detention centers, you’re going to have to wait like every other refugee in the world.

On the other hand the lengthy and cumbersome part enters into the equation because of redundant and backlogged DHS interviews.  No other refugee population, except the Palestinians, face such a cumbersome process.  For more detail, I’ve written about it here.

The Chosun Ilbo reporter finally got something right:

Robert King, who worked as the chief secretary to former House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos, has been designated as the new U.S. special envoy for human rights in North Korea. But the U.S. government has yet to request a Senate hearing to review the designation. With the Senate in recess during the month of August, it won’t be until September at the earliest that a North Korean human rights envoy is appointed.

Removing DHS barriers is really a job for the Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues.  Former Special Envoy Lefkowitz, who has been under fire from every side, actually did a lot to for DHS compliance with US law (North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 and its reauthorization).  Barriers still remain in the resettlement process, and we’re still waiting on a Special Envoy.

“I thought the U.S. was really interested in protecting the human rights of North Koreans, and it has made it look like its arms are open to North Korean defectors, but that’s not the case,” Kim said.

What EVER gave him that idea?  Frankly, I’m becoming more and more inclined to think that we ought to abolish the position of the Special Envoy.  Why give refugees false hope and make false promises that human rights will ever be a part of any US administration’s policy?  The position gives rhetorical and political cover while not doing anything substantial to realize human rights in North Korea.  Let history have unfettered condemnation on administrations that sat back and watched death camps operate.

Finally, to return to the title of the post, a lot of hoopla is being given to Bill Clinton’s surprise visit to Pyongyang.  It’s a surprise to the public, not to the Obama administration, not to the regime in Pyongyang.  It’s ridiculous to claim that Clinton, as an ex-President and husband of our Secretary of State, is going in as a private citizen and not as a representative of the administration.  OFK provides a more than apt assessment here. One can only hope that he does get the two American journalists, as well as the recently abducted South Korean fishermen, and the South Korean man captured in Kaesong a couple months ago.  South Korea is our ally, right?

And perhaps before/after this trip, Clinton could advocate on behalf of North Korean refugees in the absence of a Special Envoy…but no one dares to hope for that much.

Containing that crisis has monopolized the Obama administration’s dealings with North Korea. The camps, for the time being, are a non-issue. “Unfortunately, until we get a handle on the security threat, we can’t afford to deal with human rights,” said Peter Beck, a former executive director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.

I have to disagree with Beck’s quasi-liberal, “realistic” stance here.  The challenge to the human rights community is to integrate human rights concerns with security concerns.

Today, Roberta Cohen of Brookings writes:

The now-defunct six-party talks in which the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China participated focused almost exclusively on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. But with a struggle for succession underway in Pyongyang and some of the country’s internal controls reportedly beginning to erode, it’s time to rethink the near-exclusion of human rights from the U.S.-North Korean dialogue.

I’m delighted that someone of Roberta Cohen’s stature decided to call for more action in bringing about human rights in North Korea.  However, based on this piece, I would not consider Cohen to be a preeminent scholar on North Korea.

Cohen goes on to make the case that since the six-party talks failed by narrowly focusing on security matters, it’s time to consider integrating human rights into North Korea policy.  Fair enough.

Concern has also been expressed that North Korea could become defiant, or even implode, if rights became a focus. But a carefully developed strategy to incorporate human rights into talks could avoid the kind of collapse that could overwhelm the South with refugees and rehabilitation costs by seeking to gradually pry open North Korea’s closed society. This would involve identifying the human rights issues where progress might be achievable and moving forward on those areas first.

The rest of the piece is devoted to potential goals reinforced with an unwarranted optimism – something that human rights activists are particularly vulnerable to.  Her goals are neither realistic nor achievable.  For example:

Former ambassador James Goodby, who helped set up the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, has argued, in a paper written while he was at the Brookings Institution, that a comparable framework for Asia could be “a much-needed agent for change” and help to hold governments accountable for the treatment of their people. With Kim Jong Il ailing and the future of the country uncertain, there may now be an opportunity to add human rights to the agenda.

What is it time for?  It’s time we wake up and realize that screaming about the morality of action won’t stop some of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity. It’s time to realize that North Korea has signed on to numerous human rights treaties, and “[for] more than five years, North Korea has refused entry to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea, denied visits by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and barred the Red Cross from seeing prisoners or foreign citizens abducted to the North. Nor has North Korea accepted the standards of the International Labor Organization so that the ILO can investigate labor camps and factories. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has not been able to screen North Koreans who have fled to China or monitor the plight of those forced back into North Korea. It is time for the United States, together with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to mobilize a group of states with influence with North Korea to press for compliance with the goals and programs of the United Nations. A coherent plan would bring together all the disparate U.N. agencies and offices that seek human rights improvements in North Korea.”

In other words, we need to start getting serious about human rights with concrete actions.  Cohen concludes that the US should mobilize influential states to force compliance with UN goals and programs.  This may be important to try, but do I really have to remind you what’s been going on for the past decade with North Korean compliance with UN treaty bodies and human rights conventions?  Also, you point to China and how it recently stopped a North Korean shipment of vanadium.  But this does NOT signal a shift in Chinese policy in supporting its client regime.  I am much more inclined inclined to believe that this was a cynical PR campaign to get the US, South Korea, and Japan off its back for not doing anything to implement UNSC Resolutions 1695, 1718, & 1874.

Lastly, I think we can reasonably conclude that negotiations have failed after more than a decade of good-old college tries.  More attempts at negotiating with North Korea would be telling those languishing in death camps to wait.  But 400,000+ waited and ~200,000 continue to wait.  It’s time to get serious and apply more targeted financial sanctions and aggressively support subversive activities in North Korea.

I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer (couldn’t say that with a straight face), but widespread attention seems to have fizzled out for Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

But this is almost always the case for any “crisis” without an apparent solution: a few weeks of media coverage (you’re lucky if you don’t have to compete with some celebrity death du jour…sorry, activists for fair elections in Iran, the king of pop deserves his homage), the dedicated few stragglers left to work behind the scenes, and the feigned concern of those who jump on the bandwagon.

It’s easy to see why there is no apparent solution in any humanitarian or human rights concerns in North Korea.  As for Euna Lee and Laura Ling, Barnard College posted this on its commencement website:

SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON URGES GRADUATES TO CONDUCT DIGITAL DIPLOMACY AND BE SPECIAL ENVOYS OF IDEALS

The exact quotation from the State Department is:

And you can organize through Twitter, like the undergraduates at Northwestern who launched a global fast to bring attention to Iran’s imprisonment of an American journalist. And we have two young women journalists right now in prison in North Korea, and you can get busy on the internet and let the North Koreans know that we find that absolutely unacceptable.

I don’t want to poke too much fun at this statement.  Of course, Clinton was speaking more about student activism…but this is representative of US impotence and lack of options given the number of months that the two have spent imprisoned in North Korea.  “Unacceptable” is diplospeak for “they’ve got us by the balls.”  But yea, get on twitter, why didn’t we think of that before?

That said, it is difficult/almost impossible to sustain a base of support without any clear options to pursue (also see Darfur).  The facebook group‘s goals were too short-term, creating momentum around a nationwide vigil before the trial date.  This momentum was crushed with an outrageous 12 year sentence to hard labor…more-so with the understandably powerful illusion that these protests for mercy would change the outcome of a North Korean court.

I would now like to submit a quotation from the New Yorker:

This is the insight that makes Arendt a thinker for our time, when failed states have again and again become the settings for mass murder. She reveals with remorseless logic why emotional appeals to “human rights” or “the international community” so often prove impotent in the face of a humanitarian crisis. “The Rights of Man, after all, had been defined as ‘inalienable’ because they were supposed to be independent of all governments,” she writes in “Origins,” “but it turned out that the moment human beings lacked their own government and had to fall back upon their minimum rights, no authority was left to protect them and no institution was willing to guarantee them.” This is exactly what happened in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and what is happening now in Darfur. Genocide is a political problem, Arendt insists, and it can be solved only politically.

And with fizzling momentum comes a fizzling hope for this:

I pray Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling will come home soon. But if the Americans’ ordeal raises international awareness of the horrors of North Korea’s gulag, it will not have been in vain.

The ultimate irony and insult here is that there are clear policy options for an American administration to undertake to improve North Korean human rights.  In fact, it is already US law.  We just lack the high level attention from people who have “Secretary” in their title or whoever has the NE Asia portfolio in the NSC to actually implement it.  Maddening, frustrating, but not impossible to change.  Get on twitter, folks.  Let the administration know that this is unacceptable.

Much of what Andrei Lankov so deftly outlines here is already codified.  And if I may, the solution to the North Korean problem is sanctions, subversion, internal market reforms working in concert with one another…I have said this before, but subversion is always the most lacking in funding and effort.

Sonagi said,

June 25, 2009 @ 11:31 am

They did a brave thing IF they had a clear goal of getting new and important information and weren’t just looking to get some footage and IF they weren’t carrying sensitive information like recordings of interviews with refugees and their helpers.

A missing concern is the footage/documentation that Euna Lee and Laura Ling might have carried into North Korea.  This could lead authorities to the locations of trafficking victims and the activists who help them.

Reckless endangerment.  Why?  Repatriated refugees actually face concentration camps.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Whether they were “lured” into North Korea is a moot point for me.  If they were indeed reporting on North Korean victims of trafficking in China, they should have been nowhere near the border. Yet, they crossed a conspicuously identifiable border, presumably on their own volition.  This move was reckless and unnecessary, risking their own lives and the lives of the aforementioned countless refugees and the underground networks they belong to.

As an afterthought, the North Korean judicial system is a joke.  There is no legitimate reason for the continued imprisonment of the two American citizens save the obvious political motivation.  My prediction is that the North Korean regime will not release them until they extort some kind of concession (their dream: removal of sanctions)…which is what a political bargaining chip is.  Why would they give these gems away without a fight?  US officials have repeatedly stated that it will not pay any sort of ransom for their release.  It’s going to be a long haul.

In any case, Lee and Ling are reportedly not in the worst of North Korea’s prisons.  Refugees are.

Also, I just wanted to put this out there.  Obama doesn’t have the most solid record, you know, acting on behalf of his constituents.  There’s a lot more attention being paid to this case, but it just speaks volumes about the moral fiber of the campaign.  From this blog’s inaugural post:

We didn’t have to wait for Obama to have his 100 days in office to judge where he stood on human rights issues.  On January 28, 2005, he and members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation signed a letter stating that they would “NOT support the removal of [North Korea] from the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism” until North Korea came clean about Kim Dong Shik, a pastor who aided North Korean refugees in China and was abducted into North Korea.  On the campaign trail, Obama supported Christopher Kim-Jong-Hill/Condi/Bush’s removal of North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

I’m kidding of course — I’m a fan of Nick Kristof…sometimes.  I’m ambivalent about his most recent posting.  He adequately addresses the egregious human rights situation in North Korea, as well as the vague conditions of the capture of the two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

On the other hand, Kristof makes some very…well, stupid observations:

Another possibility, which I incline to, is that Laura and Euna may have been sold to North Korea by a local guide. If the guide said that it was safe to cross, or that they were still on Chinese territory, they would have believed him….A couple of years ago, I set up an interview with a trafficker in that border area, but then backed out when he demanded money; the traffickers may realize that the people to demand money from aren’t the journalists but the North Korean officials. And at a time of crisis, when it is undergoing a leadership transition and a confrontation with the West, North Korea would probably pay well for a few extra bargaining chips in the form of American journalists.

A case of reverse-trafficking?  Highly unlikely.  Great, you’ve been to the North Korean border a couple of times.  That doesn’t give you legitimacy on the subject matter.  Do your research.

Why would traffickers risk revealing their identity to North Korean officials?  Do you know what happens to forcibly repatriated North Korean women who become pregnant with half-Chinese babies?  Torso’s are beaten to induce miscarriages, gruesome forced abortions, etc.  North Korea probably regards traffickers as co-conspirators in adulterating the purity of the Korean race…maybe that’s why we hear accounts of traffickers being punished in North Korea.

Then there’s the problem of North Korea proliferating ballistic missile and nuclear technologies:

The problem is that a North Korean freighter is now steaming on the high seas, apparently to Burma, and reputedly carrying weapons. The U.S. should stop it and search it or turn it back, since Burma obviously won’t, but that could easily lead to bullets flying — either at sea or in an incident at the DMZ, or both. If there is such an incident, North Korea may be less likely to release Laura and Euna for the time being.

Well put, Mr. Kristof.  Insightful and compelling.  Is he on the payroll of some other news corporation?

In the epilogue to “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” his 2000 book about growing up in the infamous Yodok prison camp, Kang Chol-Hwan expresses his anger at the world’s indifference to the human-rights abuses in the North. “We’re told that this debate would be better left until another day,” he writes. “But by then we’ll all be dead.”

I pray Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling will come home soon. But if the Americans’ ordeal raises international awareness of the horrors of North Korea’s gulag, it will not have been in vain.

I have written this before, but such mentions are sentimental at best.  As far as I can tell there is no substantial national discussion on North Korea policy, specifically on how to incorporate human rights improvements in North Korea into overall policy.  Kirkpatrick’s hope is that the situation of Lee and Ling would help raise awareness and consequently public pressure for such a policy discussion to take place.

I am ambivalent about this.  While I am thrilled at growing public support and awareness of North Korea’s crimes against humanity, the lack of support amongst Koreans gives me no hope.  Bear with me and my loose analogy: imagine if there were another Jewish Holocaust (which is not too far fetched with anti-Semitism becoming commonplace).  If American Jews and Israel were relatively silent about the deaths of millions of Jews, would governments around the world really see a political cost in not acting?

The best among us, and by that I mean those who have an unparalleled vast and nuanced knowledge of events surrounding North Korea, have made the leap from a priori notions of and faith in diplomacy to recognition of empirical evidence.  They have concluded that there is an immutable correlation between how a country treats its own citizens and how it treats its neighbors, which has devastating consequences when you consider that that country is on the road to acquiring “fully operational” nuclear weapons.

Joshua Stanton of One Free Korea writes:

Brownback’s point, which was lost in the conventional narrative, was that we ignore any pathology capable of such evils at our own peril. Recently, it has become vogue not to speak of peril to the soul and the values of our nation, except perhaps in defense of Khalid Sheik Mohammad. As Hill put it, “Each country, including our own, needs to improve its human rights record.” In the event this logic has some appeal to you, it should be clear enough that ignoring these atrocities has brought us no closer to realizing our dispassionate security interests, either. Each offer of reasonable compromise we extend, each new North Korean demand to which we accede, seems only to make its regime more cruel and belligerent (The Weekly Standard).

Inexplicably, this is an unpopular and unsavory argument to put forth — history has shown that these voices were ignored until it was too late to stop the past century’s genocides and, in the case of North Korea, nuclear proliferation/bombs going off.