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The Associated Press reported that the ROK's Information and Communication Ministry said on Monday it had reached an agreement with the DPRK to jointly pursue mobile and international phone service projects in the DPRK. "The two Koreas agreed to jointly push ahead with CDMA-based mobile phone service projects in the North," a ministry official announced. "South Korean companies will form a consortium to help avoid any risks arising from doing business in North Korea." The ministry said in a statement both sides would meet again within one month from now in Pyongyang or Beijing to discuss how to move the projects forward. Ministry officials and businessmen from top mobile carrier SK Telecom, the largest fixed-line carrier KT Corp, the ROK's largest telecom equipment manufacturer Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics Inc were in Pyongyang last week to discuss the launch of mobile phone services in the DPRK. "KT will lead a project to upgrade the North's international call services," said the official. ("SOUTH KOREA PROPOSES FORMING JOINT CONSORTIUM TO DEVELOP MOBILE PHONES IN NORTH KOREA," Seoul, 06/10/02) and Reuters ("S.KOREA SAYS AGREES TO HELP NORTH ON MOBILE SERVICES," Seoul, 06/10/02)
Agence France-Presse reported that the DPRK has accused Japan of preparing "a war of overseas aggression" after a senior Japanese official suggested Tokyo could change its non-nuclear principles. "These remarks go to prove that the Japanese reactionaries are going to provoke a war of overseas aggression in which nuclear weapons would be used and are busy making preparations for it," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Pyongyang's official mouthpiece, monitored here, said Friday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's right-hand man, admitted Monday to sparking outrage across Asia by telling a reporter Japan might reconsider its three non-nuclear principles - non-possession, non-production and non-importation of nuclear weapons. He later backtracked, saying: "I made the remark in the hope that young journalists would start seriously thinking about the future," and adding the current government had no intention of changing the policy. Friday's outburst from North Korea was the second this week condemning Fukuda's remarks, and followed harsh statements from South Korea and China. "The Japanese reactionaries leave no means untried to achieve their goal of overseas militarist aggression," the KCNA tirade charged. "The Japanese reactionaries should bear deep in mind that Japan's nuclear weaponization would lead it to self-destruction." ("NORTH KOREA ACCUSES JAPAN OF PREPARING FOR OVERSEAS AGGRESSION," 06/07/02)
Reuters reported that the Bush administration said on Friday it would donate 100,000 tons of wheat, rice and other food to the DPRK in response to the urgent appeals by the United Nations. The UN's World Food Program in late May warned wealthy countries it would be forced to cut food supplies to more than 1 million people in the DPRK due to a shortfall in funds and a slower pace in aid. "This contribution will help to remedy an anticipated break in July of WFP's food aid pipeline for North Korea," the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said in a statement. USAID said the food aid would reach the DPRK by the end of July and help feed 1 million people for six months. North Korea, labeled by the United States as part of an "axis of evil" and as a state sponsor of terrorism, depends heavily on food aid to feed its 23 million people after being ravaged by several years of economic mismanagement, successive flooding and drought, and harsh winters. "We are prepared to feed people in North Korea, in spite of our ongoing concerns regarding the policies of (its government)," USAID said. The US donation includes 76,000 tons of US wheat, 15,000 tons of rice and 9,000 tons of dairy products. Funding for the commodities will come from the US Agriculture Department's Section 416b food aid program, which was created to respond to emergency needs and reduce US crop surpluses. ("US TO DONATE 100,000 TONS OF FOOD TO NORTH KOREA," Washington, 06/07/02)
The Associated Press reported that the DPRK is getting more than their usual state television fare. They're watching World Cup soccer games, some of them played across the sealed, fortified border with the ROK. The broadcasts on state-run television have given North Koreans a rare glimpse of South Korea, which is co-hosting the World Cup with Japan and won its first-ever game at the championship with a victory Tuesday over Poland. The broadcasts, monitored by South Korean authorities, show advertising billboards in the brand-new stadiums as well as signs of host cities such as Seoul and Busan.
"I've never seen or heard of broadcasts of the World Cup (in North Korea) before. North Korea's principle has been to broadcast only international events in which it participates," said Kim Hyong-deok, a 28-year-old DPRK defector who fled his country in 1994. "North Korea seems to be responding to its people's interest in the World Cup, which is just as high as in other countries," Koh Yu-hwan, a DPRK affairs professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said Thursday. Also Thursday, soccer officials in the ROK said the DPRK planned to send its national soccer team for a friendly match on September 8 in Seoul - the first such game since 1990. The DPRK has not confirmed the match, however. The DPRK did not try to qualify for this year's tournament, and did not take up the ROK's offer for it to host a couple of games. (Christopher Torchia, "LETTING IN A BIT OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD, NORTH KOREA SHOWS WORLD CUP GAMES ON STATE TELEVISION," Seoul, 06/06/02)
The Associated Press reported that the DPRK tentatively agreed to send its national soccer team to the ROK for an exhibition match on September 8 in Seoul. ROK match organizers said Thursday details have yet to be worked out, and the DPRK has not officially announced its participation. But the Korean Football Association, a match sponsor, confirmed the plan. Park Geun-hye, an independent ROK lawmaker, said last month she proposed the match to DPRK leader Kim Jong Il during a visit, and Kim agreed. The DPRK team would fly to Seoul on September 6 for a four-day stay, the foundation said. The match will be played at Seoul's World Cup Stadium. "We are pushing to make this happen. We still need to work out some details, including the number of Northern delegates," said Park Yong-soo, a KFA spokesman. The DPRK and ROK played two friendly matches in 1990 - one in Pyongyang and one in Seoul. The ROK won in Seoul and the DPRK won in Pyongyang. ("N. KOREA TO PLAY SOUTH IN FALL," Seoul, 06/06/02)
Joongang Ilbo reported that ROK telecommunications companies are planning a business trip to DPRK, industrial sources said. Mobile carriers including SK Telecom and telecommunications equipment manufacturers including Samsung Electronics will be part of the group led by the Ministry of Information and Communication, the sources said. Government officials will visit Pyongyang this month, the sources said. "As far as I know, the information ministry is discussing the schedule with Pyongyang," the sources said. "If they indeed visit Pyongyang, the two parties will talk about basic telecommunications issues." ROK government is pressing the visit in hopes of persuading DPRK to adopt the same mobile standard used in ROK. ("TELECOM FIRMS PLAN A VISIT TO THE NORTH," Seoul, 06/03/02)
Joongang Ilbo reported that a UN relief agency reported that it has accumulated US$120 million, or 51 percent, of its goal for aid to DPRK this year. The report was made Wednesday after the agency, the Office for the Cooperation of Humanitarian Affairs, completed an evaluation of its humanitarian activities in DPRK. The agency said that aid to Afghanistan was limiting its ability to reach its funding for DPRK. The agency said it had reached only 39 percent of its total budgetary requirements for 2002. In spite of 8 years' of humanitarian intervention in DPRK, international aid organizations still held hope that relief supplies were helping that nation, the agency said. But it said DPRK should pursue policies for economic stability. The agency suggested that DPRK use aid funds to build an infrastructure for sustained economic development, noting the situation there will not improve with only food and medicine assistance. The agency added that donors will hesitate to provide aid unless DPRK shows tangible changes in how it uses international assistance. (Lee Seo-kyu, "UN AGENCY AT HALFWAY POINT ON GATHERING AID FOR NORTH," Seoul, 05/31/02)
Joongang Ilbo reported that the DPRK forecast Tuesday that inter-Korean relations would return to a Cold War freeze if Lee Hoi-chang, the Grand National Party presidential candidate, comes to power. Lee called last week for a review of the Joint Declaration, signed at the summit in 2000. A spokesman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said Lee had challenged the declaration's Article 2 dealing with reunification formulas. "Negating the second point of the joint declaration means opposing exchange and cooperation between the North and the South and their co-existence and, in a long run, saying no to the joint declaration itself," the statement said. It that said a Lee presidency portended a renewed "state of confrontation." ("PYEONYANG BLASTS LEE ON UNIFICATION," Seoul, 05/30/02)
JoongAng Ilbo, 26 May 2002. North Korea is reportedly actively pushing for religious exchanges with the United States, a South Korean diplomatic source said Sunday. "Reports suggest that Pyeongyang is trying through its UN representative based in New York to arrange a trip for its religious leaders to the Untied States," the source said. "The nation is also looking into inviting American religious leaders to visit its Pongsu Church and other religious institutions in the North to show how they organize their weekly sermons."
The United States Commission on International Freedom claimed in its annual report early this month that religious freedom does not exist in the North and that what little activity is permitted by the government is apparently staged for foreign visitors. North Korea watchers interpreted the news of Pyeongyang reaching out the American religious community as a direct response to the criticism by the freedom commission. Reverend Billy Graham, who is well acquainted with U.S. President George W. Bush and has experience with his crusade project in North Korea, is reportedly tops on the list for an invitation to Pyeongyang along with several Korean-American pastors, the source said. "North Korea is also trying to contact an U.S. foundation very much interested in religious issues and familiar with President Bush," the source said.
The Associated Press reported that the ROK responded for the first time to the US' renewed labeling of the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism. The DPRK stated on said Friday that it does not care about the "trite" US decision. In its annual report to Congress on Tuesday, the US State Department again listed the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism for the past year, along with Iran, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Cuba and Syria. The DPRK's foreign news outlet, Korean Central News Agency, reported that the DPRK's Foreign Ministry denounced the US decision, calling it "ridiculous." "It is a trite method employed by the U.S. for the pursuance of its `big stick policy' to label those countries disobedient to it as terrorists," KCNA quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. "The DPRK (North Korea) does not care whether the US lists it as a `terrorism sponsor' or not, because nobody recognizes the label," the spokesman was further quoted as saying. ("NORTH KOREA ANGRY AT U.S. DECISION TO RE-DESIGNATE IT AS A SPONSOR OF TERRORISM," Seoul, 05/24/02) and Reuters ("NORTH KOREA DISMISSES U.S. TERROR DESIGNATION," Seoul, 05/24/02)
The Associated Press, 23 May 2002. The hospital is a place of healing in name only. Its operating room has no surgical equipment and unreliable power. There is no running water, heating or ambulance. So dire are his needs that the chief doctor, Ham Myong Su, is doing something that hard-line communist North Korea used to consider unthinkable: asking the capitalist West for help. To a visiting group of German lawmakers, he explained his dilemma.
"The main problem is when the electricity goes off during an operation," Ham told the visitors. "Then, we have to stop." North Korea's ruling Workers Party had not meant for it to be this way. It claimed to be building a country that would be master of its own fate, strong and able to stand alone, without outside assistance. "Juche," the North called it – self-reliance.
Monuments were built to it. The 500-foot-tall stone Tower of the Juche Idea, capped by a flaming red torch, dominates the skyline of central Pyongyang, the North's capital. But famine and economic collapse are forcing the North to reconsider. After years of self-imposed isolation, North Korea has begun to acknowledge what the world already knew: its centrally planned economy doesn't work, it can't feed its people and it needs foreign help to survive.
Such was the message North Korea gave earlier in May by taking the German lawmakers and – even more unusually – foreign reporters around the dilapidated hospital in Pyoksong, in South Hwanghae province. The facility was built in 1953, the year the Korean War ended with an uneasy armistice that divided the Korean peninsula into Soviet-backed North Korea and the U.S-backed capitalist South. The two sides are still technically at war, with no peace treaty and a heavily armed standoff at their border.
The hospital has 21 departments, 170 staff members and a catastrophic lack of medicines and equipment to treat its 220 patients. Staff said they need nearly everything – surgical instruments, heart monitoring machines, a stethoscope, blood pressure monitors, bandages, antibiotics, vitamins, hormones, doctors' coats and an ambulance. They even asked for a motorbike, presumably for making house calls.
Lack of power is the most pressing problem. The region gets three hours of electricity a day in winter and one in summer, aid workers say. The hospital has no emergency generator. The head of the provincial government said the situation in other hospitals was similar. The international anti-terror campaign prompted by the Sept. 11 attacks has made North Korea's problems more pressing. Aid organizations say world attention and donations that once kept North Korea functioning have shifted to Afghanistan.
The United Nations said at the end of April that it was suspending food distribution to more than 1 million children and elderly people in North Korea because of a shortfall in donations, sparking fears of a worsening food crisis in the country. Diplomats said the North Korean government has cut rice rations by close to one third.
In March, North Korea said it would "readjust its economic foundations," opening the isolated, hunger-stricken country for joint ventures and cooperation with foreign countries and international organizations. And in April, the North said it would welcome a visit to Pyongyang by a U.S. State Department envoy, apparently opening the way for the first official talks between the two countries in 18 months. The offer came despite Pyongyang's anger that President Bush in January labeled the North, along with Iran and Iraq, part of "an axis of evil," countries with intentions to develop weapons of mass destruction. Also in April, North Korea held talks with Japan for the
first time in two years. It also allowed more family reunions between North and South Koreans separated since the Korean War.
In recent years, 500 people have been sent abroad on study missions, Western diplomats said. In Pyongyang, they said, university students of the German language get almost unrestricted access to German news publications. Diplomats in Pyongyang see other small signs of change. In a recent soap opera on North Korean state television, a young engineer argues with an older colleague about whether their firm should import foreign equipment. The older engineer lobbies for North Korean machinery, but loses the argument – and the young engineer, in an ever-so-subtle bending of the self-reliance ideal, gets his foreign equipment.
The Associated Press reported that the DPRK could plunge back into its deadly famine unless foreign donors urgently send it more food, a leading aid provider said. Grain supplies will run out in July while the autumn harvest will not come in until October, said Kathi Zellweger, who coordinates aid to the DPRK for the charity Caritas. The United Nations says donors have pledged only US$23.5 million of the $US258 million in supplies sought this year. Its World Food Program, the DPRK's biggest food supplier, has been forced to cut rations to some 1 million people. "Without food aid, the DPRK could easily slip back into famine," Zellweger said Tuesday. "We could be back to square one." As many as 2 million people are believed to have died since 1995. (Christopher Bodeen, "AID WORKER WARNS THAT NORTH KOREA IS IN DANGER OF MORE HUNGER WITHOUT URGENT FOREIGN AID," Beijing, 05/22/02)
Joongang Ilbo reported that UNICEF and the World Food Program are working with the DPRK government to conduct a joint nutrition survey of children slated for September, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its April Situation Bulletin. According to the UN report, the most common ailments found among children in the DPRK are pneumonia, diarrhea and radical infections of the respiratory system. Midterm malnutrition stage is most prevalent, while it is also not rare to see extreme cases, and most people cannot afford any medical treatment. UNICEF plans to visit 12 hospitals in 4 provinces and other public facilities such as medical centers, orphanages, day care centers, kindergartens and other institutions responsible for child treatment within this month. Meanwhile, the World Food Program issued an emergency report Friday that it is scaling down operations in DPRK this month due to pipeline shortages, especially for grains. ("UN BODIES TO LAUNCH NUTRITION SURVEY OF NK CHILDREN IN SEPTEMBER," Seoul, 05/21/02)
The Associated Press reported that 10 DPRK nuclear and airport officials arrived in the ROK on Sunday for a six-day study tour, an ROK official said. The visit is part of a program under which a US-led international consortium is building two safer, substitute nuclear reactors in the DPRK, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official, who works for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization consortium, said the DPRK officials will visit nuclear power plants and airports during their stay. The DPRK visit comes two weeks after the DPRK canceled planned economic talks with the ROK. The DPRK delegation this week will visit Ulchin on the ROK's east coast, where four French-built nuclear reactors are in operation, said the consortium official. The delegation was also expected to visit two ROK airports. The DPRK, the official said, is interested in the ROK's proposal that the DPRK's airline, Air Koryo, open direct but irregular flights to the two ROK airports to transport equipment and personnel for the reactor project. The project is only 15 percent complete and is unlikely to be finished by its original target date in 2003 because of funding and other problems, consortium officials said. (Yoo Jae-suk, "NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR, AIRPORT OFFICIALS ON STUDY TOUR OF SOUTH KOREA," Seoul, 05/19/02)
NewYork Times, 16 May 2002, By ROBERTA COHEN (Senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.)
Hunger still threatens millions in North Korea, and one symptom of the harsh conditions is the desperation of North Korean refugees trying in the past few days to elude Chinese police and seek asylum at American and Japanese consulates in China. As the Bush administration prepares to restart talks with North Korea, food, as well as weapons and troops, should be on the agenda. Despite the tense relationship between the two countries, the United States is the leading donor of food to North Korea, which cannot feed its 22 million people. American negotiators should insist on assurances that this aid is reaching those most in need.
Since 1995, the United States has provided more than $500 million in food and other commodities to North Korea up to 350,000 metric tons of food each year. This year this aid is down to 155,000 metric tons because of demands for aid in Afghanistan; other countries are also sending less to North Korea. But American deliveries of food and fuel remain critical to Pyongyang.
Sending food aid has helped the United States persuade the North Koreans to engage in talks on military-strategic issues. The aid also shores up the Pyongyang regime, which Washington would rather see improve than collapse, since sudden disintegration could overwhelm South Korea with refugees and create political and economic turmoil. But there is also an overriding humanitarian imperative. More than 2 million North Koreans are reported to have died from starvation and related diseases between 1994 and 1998, and large pockets of hunger and starvation remain. At least 40 percent of children under 5 are malnourished, according to the World Food Program, a United Nations
agency.
No one really knows, however, how much donated food is diverted to the North Korean military, police, Communist Party officials, essential workers and those loyal to the regime. The World Food Program argues that food aid is not going to the military because the military has the first cut from national harvests. But the agency has no evidence because there is no independent monitoring of donated food. As the main conduit of American aid, the World Food Program has managed to increase the number of North Korean counties it can visit to 163, but its staff is barred from more than 40, and its visits everywhere are supervised. It cannot make random spot checks or bring its
own Korean-language interpreters or visit farmers' markets where it could find out whether its food aid is being sold on the black market
Criticism over Japan's alleged mishandling of five North Korean asylum seekers flared up again yesterday, following a media report that the Japanese ambassador to Beijing instructed his staff only hours before the North Koreans stormed another Japanese mission in China that any Northern escapees should be expelled from their compound, diplomatic watchers said.
Chosun Ilbo reported that ROK minister of Unification Jeong Se-hyun said Wednesday that the cabinet was assessing whether to donate W30 billion worth of material, such as railroad ties and rails to DPRK as a means to facilitate the reconnection of the Seoul-Shinuiju, and east coast railways. Jeong told participants at a special lecture held in the Plaza Hotel and hosted by the Korea Chamber Of Commerce and Industry he thought the delay in reconnecting the systems was partially because of a shortage of machines and building materials in DPRK. He added that DPRK has not yet requested aid, but it was worth supplying the material, as the inter-Korean railway connections would be helpful in expanding human and material exchanges. Jeong continued that the estimated cost for reconnecting the Seoul-Shinuiju and east coat railways was about W10 billion and W20 billion, respectively. (Kim In-gu, "RAILWAY MATERIAL MAY BE SUPPLIED TO NOTRH," Seoul, 05/16/02)
The Associated Press reported that the DPRK's economy grew an estimated 3.7 percent last year, the third consecutive year of growth after a decade of contraction, the ROK's central bank said Tuesday. The Bank of Korea attributed the continued growth to good agricultural production including an 8.2 percent estimated rise in the grain harvest. The ROK officials calculated their estimates on the DPRK economy with data collected from international aid groups and other sources. The DPRK's overall agriculture, forestry and fishing industries grew a combined 6.8 percent in 2001, the Bank of Korea said. Its construction sector grew 7 percent, while the mining and manufacturing industries expanded 8.3 percent, the bank said. (Lee Soo-Jeong, "NORTH KOREAN GROWS 3.7 PERCENT," Seoul, 05/14/02)
Agence France-Presse reported that Park Keun-hye, daughter of former ROK President Park Chung-hee, had a surprise meeting with DPRK supreme leader Kim Jong-Il during her landmark visit to the DPRK. Park, who is reportedly preparing a bid to stand in the ROK's presidential election in December, had a "cordial conversation" with Kim over dinner on Monday night, the DPRK's Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. "The dinner proceeded in an amicable atmosphere overflowing with compatriotic feelings," said KCNA. Kim promised to send the DPRK football team to the ROK after the May 31-June 30 World Cup finals, Park told journalists after arriving back in the ROK on Tuesday. She said the supreme leader also agreed to a joint DPRK-ROK inspection of a DPRK dam which experts in the ROK has said is dangerous and could unleash a torrent of water across the frontier.
But the main surprise was the way Kim rolled out the red carpet for Park. The DPRK welcomed Park, referring to her as Lady and airing her story daily, while Workers Party Secretary Kim Yong Sun hosted a welcoming banquet on her arrival. Park said at the banquet the principle for unification was established in the July 4 joint statement, adding that ROK and DPRK can achieve peace on the peninsula and mutual development by gathering forces and implementing the June 15 Joint Declaration, according to domestic broadcasters and newspapers. Park returns to the ROK on May 14. ("STALINIST RED CARPET FOR SOUTH KOREAN DICTATOR'S DAUGHTER," 05/14/02) and (Chosun Ilbo'S Heo Yong-beom, "LAWMAKER PARK MAY MEET KIM JONG," Seoul, 05/14/02)
Agence France-Presse reported that the daughter of former ROK President Park Chung-Hee received a warm welcome on the first day of her five-day trip to the DPRK. Park Geun-Hye, 50, was invited to a dinner, attended by high-ranking DPRK officials, soon after she arrived in Pyongyang Saturday. Kim Yong-Sun, a key associate of the North's supreme leader Kim Jong-Il, hosted the dinner. Park Geun-Hye, a possible candidate in this year's presidential election in ROK, has said she would seek to meet the DPRK's leader. ("EX-DICTATOR'S DAUGHTER RECEIVES WARM WELCOME IN NORTH KOREA," 05/12/02)
Joongang Ilbo reported that the Arirang festival has been a foreign currency-spinner in Pyongyang. The leadership's expectations for the festival were high, the number of currency exchange booths has increased and competition between souvenir shops has become more fierce. A reporter told his guide that the US$300 price tag for special seats to watch mass gymnastics at the May 1 Stadium, was the equivalent of the price tag for a first-rate opera in ROK. The guide remarked that the price of the tickets was reasonable because 100,000 people prepared for the event for months. A Korean-American who said he spent US$1,700 for a six-day tour remarked that the price was in line with his perception of international standards. (Lee Young-jong, "A BIT OF CAPITALISM INVADES NORTH," Pyongyang, 05/13/02)
Joongang Ilbo, 11 May 2002. PYEONGYANG - The shadow of economic hardship still hangs over Pyeongyang, despite the excitement of the Arirang Festival. North Korean media repeatedly broadcast that "the march of suffering has ended," but signs of the continuing economic crisis are on every corner of the North's capital city. A North Korean passenger jet took off from Shenyang, China, Saturday afternoon. The plane was an antique Soviet-built TU-154 with 136 seats and a red-crowned crane on its tail; the paint was peeling and the aged engine roared lustily. There was no life jacket under the seat. When the airplane landed at Pyeongyang's Sunan airport, an airport crew dashed to the plane and sprinkled water on the tires to cool them.
The food supply in the North has not yet improved significantly, despite Seoul's estimate to the contrary. "In Pyeongyang, citizens are given food supplies twice a month. We receive about 145 grams of food a day," a North Korean man in his 50s said Sunday. In the North, a laborer is supposed to receive 700 grams of rations a day. Seoul estimated that Pyeongyang distributed 100 to 200 grams of food a day in 1996 and 1997 when the North was in the grip of famine, but now says Northerners are receiving 300 grams per day of food.
Power shortages were apparent throughout the North. The tomb of Dangun, a famous landmark, charged a $20 admission fee. After he entered the tomb, the manager started up a generator to light the indoor exhibition hall. The four incandescent lamps on the ceiling flickered throughout the tour. In contrast, Botonggang Hotel was decorated with lighted chandeliers; Japanese-made Hitachi television sets and Sanyo stereos were in evidence and CNN and NHK were on the air. The hotel's supermarket sold mostly Japanese food and drink and domestic Yongseong beer.
Despite the services available to foreigners, North Koreans are surly. Anti-American sentiment is rising because they blame their hardships on the Bush administration. "While Americans are running wild, it is difficult for a small country like North Korea to grow strong," said a fisherman along the Botong River. At a shooting range for elementary students, target boards bore anti-American slogans such as, "Exterminate American invaders!" North Koreans on the streets said "Although we are poor, we do not fawn on Americans like South Koreans do," implicitly admitting that they know the South is more prosperous than the North.
The economic hardships were worse outside Pyeongyang. Cattle in the countryside are gaunt, and the tour guide barred tourists from taking pictures of the farms. The Arirang Festival has brought an influx of foreigners, and some persons said the signs of a more open North Korea are obvious. "I have visited North Korea 16 times," said a Korean-American tourist. "Every time I come to Pyeongyang I notice small changes, but this time I sense a major change."
Joongang Ilbo reported that more than 100,000 students and citizens of the DPRK were busy at the May 1 Stadium Monday, preparing their performance for the Arirang Festival, a two- month extravaganza of mass gymnastics and the arts designed to attract foreign tourists. The performance started at 8 pm with a popular DPRK song, "Glad to Meet You," gushing from the loudspeakers. Spectators praised the highly artistic level of the mass gymnastics performed by 40,000 students. Some performances, such as the "Star of Joseon," which gave an account of the life of the late DPRK leader Kim Il-sung, drew political controversy by featuring the flag of the DPRK. (Lee Young-jong, "'GLAD TO MEET YOU,' ARIRANG SINGS, BUT FOREIGNERS ARE FEW," Pyongyang, 05/10/02)
This is a transcript of AM broadcast at 0800 AEST on local radio. Tuesday, May 7, 2002 8:24
LINDA MOTTRAM: North Korea may have begun a concerted campaign to improve the country's international image but there's still a very wide gap between the kind of North Korea the West would like to see and the extent to which the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang is prepared to go. In reality the regime is as authoritarian as ever and our North Asia correspondent Mark Simkin has been finding that out the hard way. He and his cameramen were man handled by North Korean security officials after they attempted to film the very thing they'd been invited into the country to record.
Safely back in Tokyo, Mark filed this report.
MARK SIMKIN: It was ugly, unnecessary and not a little scary. We had been invited into North Korea to film the Arirang Festival, a mass gymnastics display featuring one hundred thousand people. The communist government was trying to show the world that it's a happy open country and not part of an "axis of evil" but we quickly found out what life is really like inside North Korea.
On the morning of the performance, we received repeated assurances and guarantees that we would be allowed to film the Festival. That was, after all, the whole reason for our visit but when the big moment arrived, we were suddenly told we had to hand over several hundred dollars. North Korea is not used to dissent and when we refused to pay, tensions quickly reached boiling point.
After the Festival finished, the ABC cameraman tried to film some shots of the stadium but was set upon by government agents and army officers. He was man handled as they tried to wrench the camera from his shoulder. When I tried to film the scuffle with the second smaller camera, I too was grabbed, pushed down a flight of stairs and wrestled to the ground.
The incident should not have come as a surprise. North Korea is in desperate need of hard currency and everyday there was a fresh attempt at extortion. On our last evening in Pyongyang two government men paid a late night visit to the hotel to demand we give them US$900 cash.
It quickly became apparent there's no such thing as a free media in North Korea. We had our passports seized when we arrived at the airport and we weren't allowed to leave the hotel without an escort. Filming was severely restricted, our government minders kept a careful eye on everything we did.
Senior officials later apologised for the incident at the Festival and admitted that the security forces had made a big mistake. It was an acknowledgement of just how embarrassing this could be for a country that is trying to attract foreign tourists and repair its international image. This is Mark Simkin in Tokyo for AM.
Joongang Ilbo reported that the 5th Pyongyang International Trade Fair took off Monday with the attendance of over 160 companies form 15 nations including PRC, Japan Russia, Britain, Italy and more, reported PRC Radio International. "Riaoning province and Jilin province alone had 100 companies flocking to the exhibition slated till Thursday," the PRC media said and added that the goods submitted by the companies include automobiles, machine tools, construction resources, textiles among other goods. Ri Kwang-gun the DPRK's trade minister said in his opening speech for the exhibition that the aim of this year's trade fair lies in strengthening friendly relations and cooperation with other nations, the report said. ("PYEONGYANG INTERNATIONAL TRADE FAIR TAKES OFF," Seoul, 05/07/02)
Joongang Ilbo reported that an international relief agency operating in Pyongyang may have to leave DPRK due to a lack of resources, an ROK government source said Sunday. Handicap International, a non-governmental organization based in Lyon, France, is likely to be forced to quit the DPRK if it fails to secure funding for its work. It would be the first time for a relief group to withdraw from the DPRK due to a lack of funding rather than disputes over access or cooperation from the DPRK. The source added that the pull out of the group could signal a retreat or loss of interest in DPRK by private international aid groups. The group, which specializes in helping land mine victims and other victims of armed conflict, supports an estimated 2,000 disabled DPRK citizens and was planning to offer surgery and regular medical treatment to another 7,500. ("RELIEF ORGANIZATION MAY LEAVE NORTH," Seoul, 05/06/02)
Chosun Ilbo, 4 May 2002.
Millions of North Koreans face death by starvation, as happened in mid 1990's, for the next one to two years unless donors act, warned John Powell, the United Nations World Food Program Asia director. Powell is currently working for this as his top priority because of an unexpected shortage of donations to North Korea. The international agency intended to deliver 610,000 tons of food to 6.4 million North Korean residents this year, but it remains 300,000 tons short and had to scale back aid as of May 2002. Food stocks are likely to dry up from July or August. The following is part of an interview with the director:
*Have you been in the North lately?
-
I traveled more than 3,000km for 13 days from March 26 to April 9 to personally look at the food aid situation focusing on five WFP offices to Shinuiju, Hamhung, Haesan, Wonsan, and Cheongjin, marking my fourth trip to the North to date.
*How was the situation?
-
Briefly, the North faces a very serious food shortage. I looked around orphanages, elementary schools and baby centers, as well as ordinary households and the picture was not good. Looking at a child aged 14 who looked like a child of 8 was tragic. In our view, even though the serious malnutrition, which happened in the drought of 1998, has reduced somewhat, the majority of people are in need of food aid. Of children under 5, 40% lack nutrition, which is an unacceptably high figure.
*Any reason to scale the target of this year to be 610,000 tons?
-
There is 150,000 tons of net gap between the amount of food that the North produces or imports and the shortage of food. We can hardly fill the gap. That's why we calculated 610,000 tons for 6.4 million of the weakest people, including pregnant women, children and the elderly. Some 90% of WFP's food aid goes to women and children.
*What if you fail to get additional donations in the future with regard to the 300,00 tons shortfall?
-
We will stop delivering food to 675,000 secondary students and 350,000 people older than 70 who are ill, or alone, 144,000 caregivers, including teachers, pediatric nurses and orphanage and nursery staffs, and some 500,000 unemployed people in cities. When the food stock hits bottom, aid to some 6.4 million people will stop.
*Do you expect people will die of starvation?
-
Famine will happen, even though it is gradual. The system of the North Korean food distribution gives people only 200 to 250g a day, about half of that of the food delivery to refugee camps worldwide. A person in an international refugee camp receives, on average, 500 grams of food a day, compared with North Korea's needy, to whom the government distributes only about 250 grams a day, with the number expected to drop to 200 grams before the autumn harvest arrives. People are getting weak when they are in malnutrition and vulnerable to a variety of diseases. That's when the famine starts. When one or two years pass with no more additional food aid, deaths may happen in
the end.
*Why are donors who gave food aid to North Korea in the past reluctant to do so this year?
-
We've received donations from the United States (150,000 tons), South Korea (100,000 tons) and Finland (480 tons) this year. Until last year, we managed to secure more than 96% of our target, but the situation has changed this year. Above all, we are overwhelmed by the increasing demands on humanitarian aid from all around the world, including Afghanistan. Secondly, it seems that other nations would like Pyongyang not to receive food aid any longer to get it to reform.
*Is North Korea the WFP's top priority?
-
We aim at distributing more food in Afghanistan (640,000 tons) than North Korea this year, but the state was our top priority until last year. We distribute food to one third of the North Korean people. North Korea has the worst situation.
*Does North Korea receive food aid from other institutes or countries other than WFP?
-
We are the institute that gives the largest food, but China and South Korea are also important donors to North Korea. China has donated 200,000 tons annually and South Korea gave 500,000 tons last year and is expected to give 300,000 tons this year. Other international agencies have donated food to the North as well.
*Some people say the food aid to North Korea is leading to the extension of dictatorial government.-
Obviously, it needs reform in various fields, other than agriculture. However, what about the starving people until they see the reform made? We should consider people in need of food. There is nothing wrong when it comes to saving a life. Think of what ex-US President Ronald Reagan said, "starving children don't know about politics." Both are important; the North to reform and to receive some food.
*Do you think it's possible for the North to solve the food problem without reforming its political system?
-
Look at China, which has now become a food exporter through reforming its economy and structure. Vietnam has also settled its food problem through economic reform. Why not North Korea? It can do so, I believe, but that's for it to decide.
*Does North Korea use WFP food for the military?
-
I'm sure it does not. The military and ruling class take rice produced in the North before giving it to others, so they do not need to take WFP's food aid. In addition, they don't like corn and wheat. We approach 163 out of 206 districts in the North. We strongly believe the fact that WFP food aid goes to people short of food.
*Any difficulty in distributing food?
-
Of course, there is long way to go to heighten the level of verification relevant to other nations. For security reasons, we cannot get access to some northern regions, nor launch verification at random. We have also a serious communicating problem as the North Korean government keeps Koreans from being hired as a WFP staff. It also closes its agriculture market, enabling us never to grasp the situation of agriculture distribution.
*When do you find the program worthy?
-
When I visited North Korea last time, I saw people with real gratitude, showing a friendly attitude. I was so glad to see children playing vigorously, whose hair and look was yellow and pale several years ago.
The Associated Press reported that the UN says it will stop distributing food to more than 1 million children and elderly in the DPRK because of a shortfall in international aid, sparking fears of a worsening humanitarian crisis in the country. In November, the United Nations appealed for $258 million so UN agencies and international relief organizations could respond to the most urgent needs in the DPRK, but to date just $23.5 million has been pledged, Kenzo Oshima, the UN's undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said Tuesday. Eventually, unless donors act, the more than 6 million DPRK citizens currently fed by the UN World Food Program - mainly women, children and the elderly - "may face acute and indeed life-threatening shortages of food, medicines and clean drinking water," Oshima told a news conference. In an initial cutback, the World Food Program is suspending food distribution to more than 350,000 elderly people and 675,000 secondary school children in May, said James Morris, the agency's new executive director. The program will continue to supply food to the groups most at risk - orphans, young children and pregnant and nursing women, he said. But Morris said "a little more than a million people are going to be severely at risk come May because the resources simply aren't there to meet the need." (Edith M. Lederer, "U.N. FOOD AID TO N.KOREA TO BE CUT," United Nations, 05/01/02)
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 30 April 2002.
The already severe humanitarian crisis in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will worsen dramatically within weeks unless the international community pledges more aid immediately, the United Nations warned today. Declaring that more than six million of the country's most vulnerable - primarily women, children and the elderly - face acute shortages of food, basic medicines and clean drinking water, the heads of the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Food Programme and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs urged donors to make fresh commitments promptly to prevent a potentially large-scale loss of life.
"Because donations have been slow in coming this year, we have already had to take some tough decisions. So, in May, we will not be able to distribute food to more than 350,000 elderly people and 675,000 secondary school children," said WFP Executive Director James Morris.
"While unfortunate, this will allow us to continue providing food for orphans, young children and pregnant and nursing women into the third quarter. These groups are most at risk, and are entirely dependent on a government-run Public Distribution System already scaling back its very meager rations."
"We need pledges now, because once a pledge is made it takes two to four months to get that food into the stomach of a hungry North Korean." Supplies of sugar, vitamins and minerals - key ingredients in fortified food blends and biscuits for young children made at local WFP - and UNICEF-supported factories - are all but exhausted too. "Micronutrients are vital for the immune system. Without them, children are much more vulnerable to illness and disease," said Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF.
DPRK government statistics indicate that 45 per cent of North Korean children under five are chronically malnourished, while a further four million school-aged children are also underfed, impairing their capacity to learn. The nutritional status of some 480,000 pregnant and nursing women is poor, and the rate of maternal mortality is increasing. "Indeed, a large segment of the civilian population of some 22 million people is suffering the consequences of inadequate food supplies, compounded by limited access to health, water, sanitation and education services," said Kenzo Oshima, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
"Last November, the United Nations appealed to donors for $258 million to enable UN agencies and NGOs to meet the most pressing humanitarian needs in the DPRK during 2002. To date, just $23.5 million, less than 10% of the total requirements of the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal, have been pledged. We urge the international community to respond urgently and generously." A broadening of the donor base would not only yield more resources, but also facilitate a broader international dialogue with the DPRK government. "Continued funding is very important for the engagement process," declared Bellamy. "Engagement does result in positive change."
The Associated Press reported that the DPRK denied Thursday that former US President Bill Clinton has been invited to Pyongyang to discuss bilateral relations. "We make it clear that we have not invited former U.S. President Clinton," a foreign ministry spokesman said in a report carried by Pyongyang Radio. It was issued after a foreign media outlet claimed the DPRK extended the invitation to Clinton. ("NORTH KOREA DENIES INVITATION FOR CLINTON TO VISIT PYONGYANG," Seoul, 05/01/02)
Liberacion, 29 April 2002 (Translated by Hyung Kyung Yoon).
Pyongyang(Reuters) – The North Korean leader Kim Jong-il invited former president Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to play the role of mediator and to moderate the “rhetoric” of Washington, announced a North Korean official. The anonymous official refused to specify if Kim Jong-il had addressed his invitation to Clinton before or after the January speech in which president George W. Bush accused North Korea of being part of an “axis of evil”.
“The project of the Great Leader Kim Jong-il is for Mr. Clinton to put an end to this rhetoric”, said the official. In New York, Julia Payne, spokeswoman for Clinton, said that the former president had not yet received any invitation to go to North Korea. But in Washington, on Monday, a viable source estimated that North Korea seemed anxious to take up the high level discussions once again which came to an end when Bush took office as President in January 2001.
The United States thinks of the visit as an official dialogue rather than mediation by the intermediary such as Clinton, said an anonymous source.
Under Clinton’s presidency, the relations between the two adversaries of the cold war had thawed, illustrated by a visit made to Pyongyang by Madeleine Albright, then Secretary of State, to investigate the possibility of a visit by Clinton himself. The idea had been considered prematurely in Washington.
“The North Korean President also hopes that Clinton can restart talks similar to those that happened with the former American President Jimmy Carter, who went to Pyongyang in 1994 at the invitation of Kim Il-Sung, father and predecessor of Kim Jong-il, in order to attempt organizing a summit between the leaders of the two Koreas, said the official.
CLINTON IN CARTER’S ROLE?
This summit project had been overturned due to the death of Kim Il-sung the same year. “Mr. Kim wishes that Clinton plays a similar role to that of Mr. Carter”, indicated the official.
Mr. Carter, in capacity as special emissary of Washington, had gone to Pyongyang in 1994 in order to meet Kim Il-sung, and prepare the grounds for bilateral negotiations, which had later come to an agreement for the terms of which North Korea had frozen its nuclear program.
The South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il had, in June 2000, their first summit talks in Pyongyang in an atmosphere of euphoria which had suddenly nourished the hope of détente, or even a reunification of the two Korean States in the future.
When he came to power, George Bush put aside the dialogue engaged with the North in order to carry out a reexamination of the policy run by the Clinton administration. In January, he pronounced his famous speech about the “axis of evil”, however during a visit to Seoul in February, he advocated talks affirming that he doesn’t have any intention to attack the North.
An emissary of Kim Dae-jung went to North Korea this month to hand over a letter from the South Korean leader to Kim Jung-il. The emissary, Lim Dong-won, said that he engaged the latter in order not to cling to the hopes born with the contacts with the Clinton administration, and to deal plainly with Bush.
Kim Jong-il replied to Lim that Pyongyang was ready to receive the American emissary Jack Pritchard, Ambassador of the Department of State for Korean Affairs. Pritchard, since then, has not yet directly contacted North Korean diplomats through the channel of the United Nations.
Liberacion, 29 Avril 2002.
PYONGYANG (Reuters) - Le dirigeant nord-coréen Kim Jong-il a invité l'ancien président américain Bill Clinton à se rendre à Pyongyang afin de jouer un rôle de médiateur et de modérer la "rhétorique" de Washington, a annoncé un responsable nord-coréen.
Le responsable, qui s'exprimait sous le couvert de l'anonymat, a refusé de préciser si Kim Jong-il avait adressé son invitation à Clinton avant ou après le discours dans lequel le président George W. Bush a accusé en janvier la Corée du Nord de faire partie d'un "axe du mal".
"Le projet du Cher Dirigeant Kim Jong-il est que M. Clinton mette fin à cette rhétorique", a dit le responsable.
A New York, Julia Payne, porte-parole de Clinton, a dit que l'ancien président n'avait encore reçu aucune invitation à se rendre en Corée du Nord.
Mais à Washington, des responsables américains ont estimé lundi que la Corée du Nord semblait désireuse de reprendre les discussions à un haut niveau qui ont pris fin à l'arrivée au pouvoir de Bush, en janvier 2001.
Les Etats-Unis pensent à un dialogue officiel plutôt qu'à une médiation par l'intermédiaire d'un ancien homme d'Etat tel que Clinton, a dit un responsable sous le couvert de l'anonymat.
Sous la présidence de Clinton, les relations entre les deux adversaires de la guerre froide avaient amorcé un dégel qu'avait illustré une visite effectuée à Pyongyang par Madeleine Albright, alors secrétaire d'Etat, pour étudier l'éventualité d'une visite de Clinton lui-même. Mais l'idée avait ensuite été jugée prématurée à Washington.
Le président nord-coréen espère aussi que Clinton puisse entreprendre une médiation du type de celle qu'avait assumée l'ex-président américain Jimmy Carter en se rendant à Pyongyang en 1994 à l'invitation de Kim Il-sung, père et prédécesseur de Kim Jong-il, pour tenter d'organiser un sommet entre les dirigeants des deux Corées, a dit le responsable.
CLINTON DANS LE ROLE DE CARTER ?
Ce projet de sommet avait capoté en raison du décès de Kim Il-sung la même année.
"M. Kim souhaite que Clinton joue un rôle similaire à celui de Carter", a indiqué le responsable.
Carter, en qualité d'émissaire spécial de Washington, était allé à Pyongyang en 1994 pour rencontrer Kim Il-sung et préparer le terrain à des négociations bilatérales qui avaient abouti plus tard à un accord aux termes duquel la Corée du Nord avait gelé son programme nucléaire.
Le président sud-coréen Kim Dae-jung et Kim Jong-il ont eu en juin 2000 leurs premiers entretiens au sommet à Pyongyang dans une atmosphère d'euphorie qui avait soudainement nourri l'espoir d'une détente, voire même à terme d'une réunification des deux Etats coréens.
A son arrivée au pouvoir, George Bush a mis en attente le dialogue engagé avec le Nord pour procéder à un réexamen de la politique menée par l'administration Clinton. En janvier, il a prononcé son fameux discours sur l'"axe du mal", mais, lors d'une visite à Séoul en février, il a préconisé des pourparlers en assurant n'avoir nullement l'intention d'attaquer le Nord.
Un émissaire de Kim Dae-jung s'est rendu ce mois-ci en Corée du Nord pour y remettre une lettre du dirigeant sud-coréen à Kim Jong-il. L'émissaire, Lim Dong-won, a dit avoir engagé ce dernier à ne pas s'accrocher aux espoirs nés des contacts avec l'administration Clinton et à traiter sans détours avec Bush.
Kim Jong-il a répondu à Lim que Pyongyang était prêt à recevoir un émissaire américain qui pourrait être Jack Pritchard, ambassadeur du département d'Etat pour les affaires coréennes. Pritchard n'a depuis lors pas pris contact directement avec des diplomates nord-coréens par le canal des Nations Unies.
LA Times by Barbara Demick, 25 April 2002
Even though he presides over one of the world's most shut-off societies, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il keeps abreast of world affairs by logging on to the Internet. On recent trips to China and Russia, he was an inquisitive sightseer, closely studying the effects of capitalism. This description of the reclusive 60-year-old comes from diplomats who recently returned from rare trips to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, made in an effort to coax the regime out of its isolation. They believe that Kim is eager to bring foreign investment and outside influences into his bastion of undiluted communism--if it can be done without endangering his hold on power.
"He really wants to open up and reform his economy, but he doesn't know how to do it," said Lim Dong Won, a South Korean presidential envoy who spent five hours closeted with Kim this month. "Kim Jong Il is emerging as someone who is increasingly aware of the outside world," said Donald P. Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, who met with two North Korean officials in Pyongyang this month. "There are indications that he wants North Korea to rejoin the world." After months of brooding over President Bush's "axis of evil" designation, North Korea appears to be coming out of its pique--even if only because it wants to loosen purse strings.
In fact, given that Pyongyang is hardly a popular stop on the diplomatic circuit, the recent visits amount to a veritable flurry of activity. In the weather-report lingo so often applied to Korean relations, this could be called the Pyongyang spring. Gregg's trip to Pyongyang, although unofficial, marked the first time that a high-ranking American had traveled to the North Korean capital since then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited in October 2000. It is expected to pave the way for an official trip by U.S. special envoy Jack Pritchard within the next six to eight weeks.
South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's nearly moribund "sunshine policy" of engagement with North Korea also gained a reprieve with the Pyongyang visit of his special envoy this month. Reunions between separated Korean families are scheduled to resume Sunday after a more than yearlong hiatus, and North Korea appears to be talking in earnest again about road and rail links to the South. Other recent visitors to Pyongyang have included Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, an old friend of Kim Jong Il.
The improvement in North Korea's attitude most likely stems from mercenary motives. Sales of its main export--missiles--have dried up since Sept. 11 because of heightened concerns about terrorism. Shortages of food and electricity have left the country chronically dependent on foreign donors. The North's agreement to resume talks and family reunions was accompanied by a pledge from South Korea that it will supply 200,000 tons of fertilizer and 300,000 tons of rice. Cynics, of which there are many, say the North is doing the bare minimum diplomatically to keep the foreign aid flowing. "They are trying to find a way out without changing the system," said Jean-Jacques Grauhar, who spent seven years as a business consultant in Pyongyang and now runs the European Chamber of Commerce in Seoul. "They are trying to gain time."
One of the most mysterious world leaders, Kim took over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea after the 1994 death of his father and the nation's founder, Kim Il Sung. Despite Kim Jong Il's reputation in his youth as a capricious playboy, some believe that they have seen in him glimmers of a future Mikhail Gorbachev who, like the former Soviet leader, would reform the system. Hopes soared after June 2000, when South Korea's Kim made a historic trip to Pyongyang, but there has been little tangible progress. Former U.S. Ambassador Gregg, who spoke with reporters this month at a peace conference here in the main town on Cheju island, said that Kim Jong Il logs on daily to the Internet, paying close attention to the outside world and studying the changes in China and Russia for clues on what to do in North Korea. After a trip to Moscow last year by rail, Kim sent a thank-you note to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in which he wrote, according to Gregg: "You have made wise choices. Communism will never return to Russia."
William J. Perry, a defense secretary and special envoy to North Korea under the Clinton administration, echoed the view that Pyongyang is looking to change. "The North Korean government believes it is in their self-interest to come into the modern world and to do what they need to do to engage South Korea and the United States," Perry said at the same conference. "They are not doing us a favor. It is in their self-interest." Although relations with the United States have been frozen, North Korea has been seeking to strengthen its ties with other nations. It is trying to bring in foreign tourists to attend a festival that is to begin later this month to commemorate the 90th birthday of founder Kim. Two international trade fairs are scheduled this year in Pyongyang, one in May and another in June, and last weekend, North Korea held its first computer software exposition in Beijing.
Compensating for the lack of progress on the U.S. front, Pyongyang has turned to Russia. Kim Jong Il made a surprise appearance last month at an Easter party at the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang, and negotiations are underway about linking Russia's Trans-Siberian Railroad with North Korean lines. In an unusual display of hospitality, Kim threw a large dinner this month for Vladimir A. Yakovlev, the governor of St. Petersburg.
With Japan, North Korea has shown renewed interest in resolving a dispute that has long blocked the normalization of relations: the whereabouts of Japanese citizens allegedly abducted to North Korea. North Korea said last week that talks between the North Korean and Japanese Red Cross organizations will take place this month. But diplomats believe that none of these efforts will help North Korea if it doesn't address the Bush administration's concerns about missile sales and the suspected development of weapons of mass destruction.
During his visit to Pyongyang, South Korean special envoy Lim carried with him a nine-page handwritten letter from Kim Dae Jung to the North Korean leader warning him that dire consequences could be in store if the North didn't start dealing with the Bush administration. "It is now time . . . to stop clinging to the past and to explore new ways to effectively talk and deal with the current U.S. administration," Lim quoted the letter as saying.
Under the Clinton administration, the U.S. and North Korea appeared to be heading toward normalization of relations, but that ground to a halt after Bush took office. And the antipathy between the two nations only deepened after the president's State of the Union speech in January, with his "axis of evil" comments. North Korea has agreed in principle to meeting special envoy Pritchard, but no date has been set. Diplomats say they are optimistic that the meeting will take place, barring any fresh flare-ups of tension, such as occurred with the "axis of evil" speech.
The Associated Press reported that a hundred-thousand dancers and gymnasts performed in a steady drizzle Monday at a stadium in the DPRK capital to mark the start of a festival that celebrates the birthday of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung. The opening ceremonies, held in Pyongyang's May Day Stadium, featured mass games in which thousands of students used placards to create giant backdrops for teams of gymnasts and other performers. At one point, the placards formed the beaming portrait of the late founder, who would have celebrated his 90th birthday on Monday. Although this year's festival also coincides with the 60th birthday of the DPRK's current leader, Kim Jong Il, he did not attend. ("DPRK STAGES OPENING CEREMONY FOR 'ARIRANG' FESTIVAL," Pyongyang, 04/29/02)
The Associated Press," Seoul, 04/28/02) reported that the DPRK demanded Sunday that the ROK sack its foreign minister and apologize for what it called his support of the US "hard-line" policy toward the DPRK. The DPRK was responding to an April 23 Washington Post report quoting ROK Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong as saying, "Sometimes carrying a big stick works in forcing DPRK to come forward." Choi made the remark in Washington earlier this month, the Post reported. The DPRK's official news agency, KCNA, called Choi's reported remark "an unpardonable insult." "Such traitors who make a mockery of and insult the fellow countrymen, kowtowing to their master the US, as Choi Sung-hong (did), should be dislodged and eliminated at once," said a statement by the DPRK's Committee for the Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland, a powerful party organization. Choi has said his remarks were taken out of context. (Yoo Jae-suk, "NKOREA WANTS SKOREA MINISTER FIRED
Reuters reported that DPRK leader Kim Jong-il made a rare public appearance on Thursday to mark army day and his defence chief told troops to deal "merciless blows" if the US or other forces put so much as a toe over the border. The DPRK celebrated the 70th anniversary of its 1.2-million-strong army as one of the most important festivals in honouring the achievements of state founder Kim Il-sung, father of leader and supreme army commander Kim Jong-il. As the climax to a 90-minute parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean People's Army (KPA), Kim walked slowly along the raised dais, smiling and raising both hands above his head to wave at tens of thousands of assembled troops. The huge crowd roared their approval, shouting: "May our comrade General Kim Jong-il live 10,000 years." (Teruaki Ueno, "NORTH KOREA HAILS ARMY AND 'IMPREGNABLE FORTRESS,'" Pyongyang, 04/25/02)
The Associated Press reported that the a cargo ship left for the DPRK on Thursday with 15,000 tons of fertilizer, the first of 200,000 tons the ROK has promised to donate. The ROK ship, which departed the southern port of Yosu, was to arrive at the DPRK port of Nampo on Friday, said ROK's National Red Cross. The ROK plans to finish the shipment of all 200,000 tons by the end of next month, in time for the rice-planting season in the DPRK that begins in mid-May. The DPRK requested fertilizer aid during a visit by ROK envoy to Pyongyang early this month. The ROK gave the DPRK 300,000 tons of fertilizer in 2000 and 200,000 tons in 2001. ("SOUTH KOREA BEGINS SHIPMENT OF FREE FERTILIZER TO NORTH KOREA," Seoul, 04/25/02)
There's an unlikely new competitor in the computer software market — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Kim's government opened a trade show Saturday at a Beijing hotel to promote the work of its software developers, a previously unknown industry that the secretive communist regime hopes will help to revive a famine-wracked economy. The force behind it all, North Korean officials said, is Kim himself, the reclusive and authoritarian leader whose face appeared on portraits throughout the show. ``The great general Kim Jong Il is devoted constantly'' to information technology, Kim Ho, an official of North Korea's Academy of Sciences, said at a news conference...
Reuters reported that the DPRK said Thursday that inter-Korean relations could be at risk unless the US drops its hostile policy against the DPRK. On Thursday, the DPRK Korean Central News Agency accused the US of adopting a "policy of strength" and "policy of Cold War" designed to obstruct the reconciliation process on the divided Korean peninsula. "The inter-Korean relations may deteriorate again and independent reunification of the nation may be delayed, accordingly, unless that policy of the U.S. imperialists is frustrated," said the news agency. ("NORTH KOREA ACCUSES WASHINGTON OF BLOCKING INTER-KOREAN DIALOGUE," Seoul, 04/18/02)
One of the tasks of North Korea's State Security Agency is to search and arrest suspected offenders writing defiant graffiti or scattering critical leaflets, as well as those who have damaged or attempted to damage personality cult articles. Because they are deliberate acts risking one's life, however, it is by no means easy to trace them down. Security agents undergo hardship on account of never-ending incidents of defiance.
The State Security Agency was on full alert in December 1996 when handbills denouncing Kim Jong Il were found scattered at the Mount Kumsu Memorial Palace where Kim Il Sung's corpse lies in state. The regime was "squandering money to preserve the corpse for good when the people were starving to death," the handbills protested. The agency is said to have done its utmost to catch the perpetrator or perpetrators, but to no avail. Lee Kwang-chol (alias), a native of Shinuiju, a border city with China, who recently defected to the South, recalls witnessing during Kim the senior's mourning period (July 1994 - July 1997) a month-long repairing of a destroyed leg of a Kim Il Sung bronze statue standing in front of the station with curtains hung around it. Someone hammered the leg off. In the summer of 1996, a bulletin board at Rakwon Integrated Machine Corp., on which an oil painting of the Kims senior and minor was hanging, was burned with gasoline. Graffiti denouncing Kim Jong Il was subsequently found in nearby Yongchon County.
"The Korean War was a fratricidal war provoked by Kim Il Sung" was found painted on the wall of Hyesanjin Light Industry College on June 24, 1997, according to another North Korean defector living in the South, and a native of Hyesanjin, Yanggang Province. The State Security Agency branch office in Hyesanjin attempted, in vain, to arrest the offender or offenders, resorting to handwriting analysis by collecting a page each from notes on "total reflections on conduct" written by not only the college's students but also "shock troopers" working at nearby construction sites.
In December of the same year, graffiti and leaflets saying "Overthrow Kim Jong Il" and "Reform is the only way for North Korea to survive" were found and scattered at Songsin Market in Songsin-dong, Sadong District, Pyongyang. Such incidents have frequently taken place in major cities such as Hamhung, South Hamgyong Province; Chongjin, North Hamgyong Province; Sunchon, South Pyongan Province; and mines in South Hamgyong Province.
Graffiti incidents, which often took place even before 1994, have more than doubled since the perennial food crisis hit the land that year, according to North Korean defectors. "We only wait for an order from President Chun Doo-hwan," was found scribbled on a toilet door in Sunchon in June 1996, whereupon security agents took the entire door away. Early in 1990, slogans like "Overthrow Kim Jong Il" were found painted on a number of large bulletin boards in Kowon Mine, South Hamgyong Province, and its vicinity. Since the act should have involved a number of people, investigations were conducted under a tense atmosphere, recall some North Korean defectors.
Few offenders are apprehended in graffiti incidents. Unless one is caught red-handed, few could afford to admit to the "crime" and to protect themselves against handwriting analysis, many are said to use their left hands when writing the slogans. Residents are supposed to be shocked to see defiant writing and watching people defying the law this way is also supposed to make the viewer feel guilty. They often criticize them as "crazy guys intending to die," but in their hearts, however, some citizens admire their braveness, say North Korean defectors. (Kang Chol-hwan, [email protected]
)
Joongang Ilbo reported that the DPRK's Arirang Festival will be scaled down to a domestic event, a high-ranking ROK government official said Monday. DPRK had been touting the two-month event, scheduled to begin April 29, as a magnet for at least 200,000 foreign tourists. DPRK had planned 50 performances, each to be seen by 4,000 tourists, and observers had estimated that it might earn US$80 million if the festival were an international success. (Lee Young-jong, "NO NOSY FOREIGNERS WANTED AT ARIRANG," Seoul, 04/16/02)
From 29 April to 29 June 2002, Pyongyang will organise "Arirang", the biggest mass gymnastics exhibition ever in history. More than 100.000 youth will illustrate wonderful landscapes in form and in the rhythm of Korean music, including lights and lasers in the May Day Stadium (capacity of 150.000 seats) on Rungret Island. International visitors will be able to visit Pyongyang for 3 days (2 nights) without having to apply for a regular visa. The visa will be issued immediately on the border during this special period. A flight between Seoul and Pyongyang will be opened, and a land route will be available as well. Citizens from all nationalities will be able to apply to witness the display. The organisation Committee of Arirang could extend the special period depending on international demand. (Kfa Today, February-March 2002 )
Bernard Krisher, former Tokyo bureau chief of Newsweek
, is a journalist, publisher, and organizer of two NGOs helping Cambodia. He is a close friend of King Sihanouk and close to Kim Dae Jung of South Korea. For Krisher, Cambodia and North Korea are closely related to each other. In his interview with PK, Krisher stressed that Pyongyang should ignore Bush and accelerate the peace and reconciliation process in accordance with the historic inter-Korean agreement. He is planning to visit the DPRK again to assist it in building a "telemedicine system."
Q: What do you think about the Bush administration's North Korea policy?
Krisher: Bush is "a bully in a birthday party" who suddenly disturbs the whole nice atmosphere. He doesn't know about Korea and its people. He doesn't know how hard Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong Il worked to put fracture together. Madelleine Albright had talks in Pyongyang and she had a great success. She was so welcomed by Kim Jong Il. But Bush didn't like Albright. He didn't like Clinton. So he shattered all of this and destroyed everything the Clinton government had built up.
Q: Now, he is calling North Korea part of an "axis of evil."
A: North Korea is not an "evil" country. I think he dared say so because of lack of knowledge. He is not very smart. Recently, chats on the Internet joking about Bush are mostly about his stupidity. I can't stop laughing. And he actually did not win the election. If it had not been for September 11, he basically would be very unpopular today, and the people would not have much respect for him. September 11, however, pulled America together because of the attack on America by terrorists. America became very patriotic. And Bush immediately did fight terrorism and succeeded in Afghanistan to a degree. But he has done too far now, and has used this incident to
lump the whole bunch of things together that are totally unrelated. And now he finds certain countries he doesn't like, and puts them all together. But most intelligent people neither follow nor support him. Many articles criticized Bush't such policy, and European allies don't support it either. The problem is that Bush has been trying to be more militaristic. He has a very strong Pentagon, a strong Secretary of Defense And his people are wanting an increased military budget. They need "enemies" and "threats."
Q: Despite the historic Pyongyang summit in June 2000, the inter-Korean relations are undergoing a stalemate after Bush came to office.
A: I think there was a great breakthrough in inter-Korean ties. The Pyongyang summit was a very remarkable event. You may take two steps forward and one step backward. But you cannot take it back. Clinton made a great step forward and North Korea was really moving toward something very positive. Pyongyang kept all agreements with Washington. And then, Bush lumped together North Korea, Iraq and Iran. He was lacking in understanding of the situation. But I think a real victim is Kim Dae Jung. He was pushed into confusion by Bush. He doesn't necessarily have to criticize the U.S., rather, he should be "polite" to Bush. In the meantime, Pyongyang should not
overreact to Bush's rhetoric, but just ignore Bush and continue what they were doing with the South. It should not let Bush get in the way. International public opinion is in favor of the continuation of inter-Korean dialogue in this direction. South Korea is a very conservative society. No "sanction" whatsoever against the North should be taken. I think Kim Jong Il's meeting Kim Dae Jung will make a big difference. The people suddenly change their minds, you know. I think it's up to North Korea to support Kim Dae Jung and not let him leave with a total failure or as a lame duck. Everything should be put back in place to show that Bush is totally wrong and
irrelevant.
Q: You have known King Sihanouk of Cambodia for many years. Your first visit to the DPRK was at his invitation when he was staying in Pyongyang in exile. And you have been engaged in humanitarian aid to the two countries.
A: Yes. I have been to North Korea six times in all. I visited the country to bring relief goods there three times. What gave me a clue to dealing with Pyongyang was a perfect example of Kim Il Sung-Sihanouk relationship based on loyalty. It was in Indonesia in 1965 that the two leaders met for the first time through the good offices of Sukarno. At that time I was there. The loyal friendship between the two totally unlike leaders was forged especially after Prince Sihanouk was ousted in a 1973 coup d'etat but soon offered asylum by Kim Il Sung to live in a newly-built private palace for him in Pyongyang until he was reinstated in Cambodia. It was so loyal a relationship
that for several years after Kim Il Sung died, Sihanouk would not approve diplomatic relations with South Korea, and only after he knew that Kim Dae Jung was the man who Kim Il Sung once said was "a good man." So there was nothing disloyal. Sihanouk called Kim Il Sung his best friend. Because of my friendship with King Sihanouk, I became very much interested in North Korea and wanted to help...
Wed Apr 17, 6:39 AM ET.
SEOUL (Reuters) - Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) sent a flower basket for the 90th birth anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il-sung this week, but nature trumped the Palestinian president by making 90 white azaleas bloom, Pyongyang says.
"Mysterious natural phenomena took place in different parts of the country on the occasion of the auspicious holiday of April," North's Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Wednesday. "Witnesses said that natural wonders took place to pray for the perpetuity of the memory of the president," said the latest of periodic accounts of miracles linked to the ruling family.
The 90th birth anniversary on Monday of "Eternal Leader" Kim Il-sung was celebrated as the "Day of the Sun" in North Korea (news - web sites) with flower shows, commemorative coins and visits to the palace where his body has lain in state since his death in 1994.
"On the morning of April 15 the wind stopped blowing in Mangyongdae where President Kim Il-sung was born and the temperature around his old home and its surrounding area was 16.2 C (61.2 F), recording the highest temperature (for April 15) since the meteorological observation," KCNA said.
In the run up to the big day, 11 swan-like birds circled a statue of Kim Il-sung ten times and 90 white azaleas bloomed, "stirring up deep emotion among the people", it said. When Kim's son and successor as communist ruler, Kim Jong-il, turned 60 two months earlier, KCNA said it had snowed for 60 days and dumped exactly 60 cm (two feet) of snow on his mountain birthplace.
Korea Times, 12 April 2002. The World Food Program (WFP), yesterday, urged the international community to provide immediate food aid to North Korea. The world's largest food aid agency, under the umbrella of the United Nations, alleged in a press conference in Seoul that North Korea's 6.4 million beneficiaries of WFP donations will face a severe food crisis unless new contributions to the emergency operation are made now. It claimed that this would be necessary for bringing peace and stability to the Korean peninsula. "The people we feed, the most vulnerable in North Korea, will have dramatically reduced rations by August under current funding levels,'' said John Powell, the WFP's regional director for Asia. He appealed to the international community to help North Korea stave off a major food crisis by pledging additional donations immediately. "A break in the food aid 'pipeline' would seriously disrupt the WFP's efforts to alleviate hunger and reduce malnutrition among the at-risk population group,'' Powell said. Powell has just returned from a two-week countrywide mission to investigate the food supply situation in the North. "While great strides have been made in reducing the levels of acute malnutrition _ the kind most associated with famine _chronic malnutrition remains at unacceptably high levels,'' he urged.
The WFP estimates some 40 percent of North Korean children under 5 remain malnourished. "In Chonjin, for example, we visited a pediatric hospital and saw malnourished children. A malnourished 14-year-old boy looked like an 8-year- old. He had sunken eyes and cheeks and was listless. The only things moving were his eyes,'' he said. Powell told reporters that the WFP would run out of food in July or August unless there are further contributions. "So we are calling for immediate pledges because even with a pledge from a donor, it takes 2 to 4 months to mobilize the food and get it to the people who need it.'' The WFP's appeal comes as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the recent inter-Korean agreement to bring bilateral relations back on track, during presidential envoy Lim Dong-won's visit to the North. The WFP also supports 18 local food-processing factories that will produce more than 30,000 tons of blended foods, high-energy biscuits and enriched noodles this year.
Pyongyang, April 12 (KCNA) -- A TV forum "Patriotic Life" was arranged at the April 25 House of Culture yesterday to commemorate the 90th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung. Present there were senior party and state officials, officials of party and power organs, ministries and national institutions, anti-Japanese revolutionary fighters, former unconverted long-term prisoners, those associated with the revolutionary activities of the president, heroes and heroines, persons of distinguished service and working people in the city. Performers spoke highly of the greatness of Kim Il Sung who performed immortal exploits on behalf of the country, the people, the times and history, leading the revolution and construction to victory with his outstanding ideo-theoretical activities and energetic guidance. He was the leader of the people unprecedented in history, who turned Korea into the socialist homeland of Juche and made the Korean people the most proud and happiest people, they said.
Recalling with deep emotion the days of struggle and merits when they were building a socialist land of bliss, independent, self-supporting and self-reliant in national defence, in this land under his leadership, they stressed that his revolutionary life would remain long in history with the century. The participants expressed the conviction that Kim Il Sung would be always alive in the hearts of the Korean and the world people and the future of Korea shining with the august name of the sun would be rosier under the guidance of Kim Jong Il.
Joongang Ilbo reported that railroads in DPRK are old and decrepit, and an overall repair project for tunnels and rail bridges is urgent, the Japanese daily Tokyo Shimbun said Monday. The newspaper said a research institute run by the Russian Ministry of Rail Transport together with DPRK authorities conducted a safety survey on the 700 kilometers of railroads along the east coast of DRPK. The two-month survey was part of efforts to link the Russian Trans-Siberia Railroad to the DPRK. Quoting the survey, the Japanese newspaper said the east coast rail line between the Duman River at the north-eastern tip of the peninsula and the cities of Wonsan and Pyeonggang, is a safety risk. "Repair work on 130 tunnels and 742 bridges is a pressing need," the report said. In some tunnels, bricks fell off when touched, and trains must slow to below 10 kilometers per hour for safety. The Russian survey team estimated that the needed repairs will cost at least US$2.2 billion. (Oh Day-young, "NORTH RAIL SYSTEM CALLED DANGEROUS," Tokyo, 04/09/02)
The Chosun Ilbo, 8 April 2002
North and South Korea released a joint statement Saturday in which the two countries agreed to cooperate in reducing tension on the peninsula, to re-link the Seoul-Shinuiju railway, construct a road between Munsan and Kaesong and to re-link the Donghae railroad on the east coast alongside a road connection. Also the fourth inter-Korean family reunions will be held from April 28 in the North's Mount Kumgang.
In a five-point statement announced by Lim, further agreements included holding the second Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Committee meeting for four days from May 7 to 10 in Seoul and to restart military contacts between defense ministers. The two sides also agreed to hold a second Kumgang Mountain tour promotion from June 11 at the North Korean resort, and operate working level contacts to further economic cooperation.
A delegation of North Korean economic inspectors will visit Seoul sometime in May and both Koreas agreed the stalled ministerial level dialogue would be resumed pending a progress review. Lim stressed the two sides saw eye to eye about the need to put into practice the historic agreement reached between President Kim Dae-jung and North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong Il on June 15th 2000, in a bid to break the previous deadlock and restore inter-Korean relations.
Lim briefed an emergency National Security Council meeting, chaired by Minister of Unification Chung sae-hyun, which agreed to ratify the agreement and proceed on it from this week. The government will review its list of 100 people to participate in the family reunions and will initiate military dialogues with regard to the re-linking of the railroads. Seoul will also send 200,000 tons of fertilizer in aid to the North before May, as requested by Pyongyang. In addition the government asked that a delegation be sent to the Busan Asian Games and for the torch to start the event to begin its journey at Mount Baekdu in North Korea, the furthest reach of the peninsula. Pyongyang answered it would take these under advisement.
The following is an unofficial translation of the full text of the joint press release, issued by South and North Korea simultaneously on April 6 following the Lim's visit to Pyongyang from April 3-5: At the request from the South, Lim Dong-won, President Kim Dae-jung's special advisor for foreign affairs, security and unification, visited Pyongyang as a special envoy from April 3-5, 2002. Special envoy Lim paid a courtesy call on National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il and delivered a personal letter and a message from President Kim Dae-jung. During the stay, talks were held between Special Advisor to the President for Foreign Affairs, Security and Unification Lim Dong-won and Kim Yong-sun, a secretary of the Central Committee of the (North) Korean Workers' Party.
In this process, both sides discussed the latest developments on the Korean peninsula, a grave situation before the Korean nation and various issues arising from inter-Korean relations, and made the following agreements:
1. Both sides agreed to respect each other in accordance with the spirit of the historic June 15 South-North Joint Declaration and make efforts not to create tension.
2. Both sides decided to restore inter-Korean relations, which have been temporarily frozen, to its original state in accordance with the agreements in the Joint Declaration in which both sides agreed to resolve the question of reunification on their own initiative through cooperation among our Korean people.
3. Recognizing the importance of connecting severed railways and roads between the South and the North, both sides agreed to newly construct a railway and a road on the east coast, and to quickly connect the railway between Seoul and Sinuiju and the road between Munsan and Kaesong in the west.
4. Both sides agreed to actively promote dialogue and cooperative enterprises between the South and the North as follows:
1) The second meeting of the Committee for the Promotion of Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation will be held in Seoul from May 7-10. Besides this, working councils under the Committee will be put into operation to discuss the connection of railways and roads, the construction of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, methods to prevent floods along the Imjin River and other issues;
2) The second meeting of the government authorities will be held at Mount Kumgang, starting June 11 to activate the Mount Kumgang tourism program;
3) The fourth exchange of separated families will take place at Mount Kumgang from April 28.
4) The North will dispatch its economic delegation, as earlier agreed upon, to the South in May.
5) Both sides will hold the Seventh Inter-Korean Ministerial Talks, in accordance with the implementation in, and progress of, the afore-mentioned agreements.
6. Both sides agreed to cooperate with each other according to the principles of brotherly love, humanitarianism and mutual assistance.
Malnutrition et Alcoolisme Achèvent la Déchéance de ce pays Entièrement voué au Culte de Kim Il-sung et de son Héritier, Kim Jong-il
Le Figaro, 3 avril 2002. La nuit, Pyongyang, deux millions d'habitants, est plongée dans une obscurité oppressante. Quelques phares balayent des avenues immenses, où des hommes se hâtent, telles des ombres fantomatiques. Seule la statue de Kim Il-sung, déifié de son vivant et adoré depuis sa disparition en 1994, est brillamment illuminée jusqu'à l'aube par des projecteurs géants. « Les 22 millions de Nord-Coréens vivent une vie misérable. Les gens sentent le déclin du régime, dans leur ventre d'abord », dit un coopérant international. Le dernier régime du communisme stalinien ne peut plus cacher sa faillite. Il s'est transformé en une secte sans pitié (1), qui commémore sans cesse le deuil de son
fondateur.
On entre dans cet univers kafkaïen en étant immédiatement flanqué d'un guide-policier, qui vous abrutit des slogans ineptes de son quotidien, et vous exhorte à reconnaître « la vraie vérité », au nom de « masses » qui vivraient dans « un paradis », mais auxquelles on interdira néanmoins tout contact avec le visiteur. Dès l'aéroport, les téléphones portables sont confisqués. Dans les trois palaces de la ville (marbres gris sombres, moquettes puantes, papiers peints décollés), quelques lignes de téléphone étroitement surveillées permettent d'appeler l'étranger. L'Internet est inconnu. Pas d'autres livres, sur les rayons des « librairies », que ceux dédiés au culte de Kim Il-sung et de son fils et
successeur, Kim Jong-il. Le pays n'est relié au reste du monde que par deux liaisons aériennes hebdomadaires avec Pékin.
L'heure est grave, dans l'histoire locale, tant les événements heureux se bousculent ! Ce printemps, le « révéré Kim Jong-il, Cher Leader » vient de fêter ses 60 ans ! L'armée, le pilier du régime, célèbre son demi-siècle d'existence ! Et le « révéré camarade Kim Il-jung, Grand Leader », va souffler ses 90 bougies ! Qu'il soit mort depuis longtemps n'a pas la moindre importance. « Il est notre père à tous ! » affirme une petite fille. Sur les places et les avenues de Pyongyang, des centaines de milliers de gens passent leurs journées à répéter des mouvements. Les enfants font des culbutes. Les femmes agitent de grands éventails roses et jaunes. Les hommes brandissent des bâtons surplombés d'une torche rouge. Têtes baissées, regards
vides, ils défilent comme des automates, sous les aboiements des ordres hurlés dans des haut-parleurs. Les hommes sont de petite taille (1,60 m en moyenne) et les femmes ont les jambes très arquées, des signes évidents de malnutrition. Tous sont chaussés d'espadrilles noires. La fin du jour approchant, ils s'engouffrent dans le métro (une ligne unique) ou dans des tramways et des autobus brinquebalants, d'un autre siècle. Partout, de longues files d'attente. Et ces haut-parleurs, qui diffusent une musique funéraire. Sur les bas-côtés des routes, « le peuple » se déplace à pied, en cohortes sans fin.
Le refus de voir la réalité en face est dans chaque coeur, en Corée du Nord. Il s'explique d'abord par la honte d'une déchéance qui crève les yeux. « La démotivation des gens est absolue. Le soir, ils se réunissent dans les appartements pour boire des quantités énormes de n'importe quel alcool », constate une coopérante occidentale. Les années fastes se sont évaporées avec l'écroulement de l'URSS, et de grandes famines en 1995 (deux millions de morts). « Le passage du communisme au socialisme est pénible », avoue une fonctionnaire. « Ils savent que ça ne marche plus et qu'il ne s'est plus rien passé dans le pays depuis vingt ans », raconte un expert européen, qui s'amuse de voir Kim Jong-il visiter chaque année la même usine de locomotives... ne produisant aucune locomotive ! L'un des quelque 120 Occidentaux vivant à Pyongyang explique que la fabrique de tracteurs du pays emploie 15 000
personnes, pour une production annuelle de 150 engins. Et que l'on fait fumer la cheminée de l'usine de plastique du pays, pour faire croire qu'elle fonctionne ! « Ce qui me révolte, dit la jeune directrice d'une ONG, c'est que les gens dans les campagnes ont des têtes épouvantables, ils sont petits et maigres, personne n'a d'électricité, les puits sont pourris, les fenêtres n'ont pas de carreaux, les écoles pas de chauffage... Les besoins fondamentaux des habitants ne sont pas assurés. »
Le sort des campagnes (la moitié de la population exploite les 20 % du territoire qui sont cultivables) est tragique dans le nord du pays. Les coopératives regroupent chacune 1 200 familles (3 500 personnes) sur des superficies variant entre 500 et 100 hectares. Dans les années 60, les exploitations ont été mécanisées (un tracteur pour trente hectares) et l'on a massivement eu recours aux engrais. Aujourd'hui, sans machines ni engrais, « 70 % de l'eau est perdue, et les fermes produisent à 50 %, au maximum, de leur potentiel », constate un expert agricole.
Dans « ce pays de fou », comme dit un diplomate européen cloîtré à Pyongyang, où le théâtre des apparences sert à masquer un naufrage, deux classes sociales émergent : ceux qui ont des dollars, et les autres. Car la monnaie locale (le won) ne vaut plus rien (officiellement, 1 dollar = 2,15 wons. Et 220 wons officieusement). Les salaires (entre 140 et 220 wons) permettent juste de survivre. La vie des habitants de la capitale est rythmée par les coupures de courant. « Cet hiver, le climat a été doux, mais curieusement, les pannes d'électricité beaucoup plus nombreuses. Sans doute la centrale se déglingue-t-elle », observe flegmatiquement un diplomate occidental.
C'est au stade Kim Il-sung que l'on va dire « joyeux anniversaire ! » à Kim Il-sung, embaumé dans un palais dément. Les répétitions d'un festival qui aurait enchanté les nazis (il mobilise 100 000 figurants, dans un délire de propagande), vont bon train. Song Sok-hwan, un vice-ministre de la Culture ,auquel nous avons demandé si l'organisation d'une telle manifestation n'était pas déplacée dans un pays où les organisations internationales empêchent 7 millions de femmes et de vieillards de mourir de faim, a haussé les épaules et répondu : « Les Coréens adorent chanter et danser ! » La traductrice du ministre a ajouté : « Personne ne meurt de faim
ici. Les gens des organisations des Nations unies sont des malades mentaux ! »
Mais pour ne pas disparaître comme le dernier reptile de la guerre froide, le régime lâche du lest. Les deux à trois millions d'apparatchiks qui veulent sauver le système et leurs maigres privilèges, sont contraints de laisser les marchés privés se multiplier. Le long des chemins, dans des coins d'immeubles, les paysans viennent vendre les fruits et légumes qu'ils cultivent sur des parcelles « privées » de plus en plus étendues. Des « hommes d'affaires » s'affichent en ville, dans des voitures japonaises rutilantes. Pour les diplomates en poste à Pyongyang, cette prospérité soudaine a une seule origine : « La défense rapporte beaucoup », explique l'un
d'eux.
« Les ingénieurs nord-coréens ont bien amélioré la technique de missile des Russes. De la vente jusqu'à l'après-vente, ils fournissent toute la gamme des services en la matière à la Syrie et à l'Iran, un peu au Pakistan, et probablement à la Libye », dit un diplomate européen à Pékin. Français et Britanniques sont d'accord avec l'Administration Bush sur le danger de cette prolifération : « Les Américains ont tout à fait raison, et nous les suivons sur le sujet. Vendre des missiles au Proche-Orient, cela constitue une menace pour les Européens également », ajoute le diplomate de l'Union européenne.
Etiqueté du label « axe du Mal » par George Bush en janvier, le régime nord-coréen tremble désormais. La reconnaissance par les Etats-Unis, qui garantirait les vieux jours du dictateur de Pyongyang, était presque acquise sous l'Administration Clinton. Elle se dissipe soudain, comme un mirage.
(1)Lire Les Aquariums de Pyongyang (Robert Laffont, 2000), sur les camps de concentration du régime, où 150 000 à 200 000 Nord-Coréens sont détenus.
Le Figaro
, 3 April 2002 (Translated by Yoon, Hyung Kyung).
At night, Pyongyang, with its two million inhabitants, is submerged in an oppressive obscurity. Some lighthouses scan vast avenues where men hasten as ghostly shadows. Only Kim Il-sung’s statue, built in his lifetime and worshiped since his death in 1994, is brilliantly illuminated until dawn by huge floodlights. “The 22 million North-Koreans live a miserable life. People feel the decline of the government, in their stomachs first”, says an international corespondent. The last Stalinist communist government cannot hide its bankruptcy. It has changed to a pitiless sect [ See The Aquariums of Pyongyang (Robert Laffont, 2000) ] that unlimitly commemorates the death of its founder.
Penetrating in this Kafka-like universe, we are immediately flanked by a police-guide who brainwashes you with inept slogans of his everyday life, and exhorts to make you recognize “the real truth”, in the name of “the masses” who can live in “paradise”, but is forbidden to have any contact with visitors. At the airport, our mobile phones were confiscated. In the three palaces of the city (dark grey marble, stinking carpet, peeling wallpaper), some closely supervised telephone lines allow you to phone abroad. Internet is unknown. No books, on the shelves of the bookshop, except those dedicated to Kim Il-sung’s cult and his son and successor, Kim Jong-Il. The country is connected to the world only by two weekly airplane flights to Beijing.
At this sober time in local history, joyous events are carried out hurriedly. This spring, the “esteemed Kim Jong-Il, Dear Leader” will celebrate his 60th birthday! The army, the pillar of the government, will celebrate its half-century of existence! And the “devoted comrade Kim Il-sung, Great Leader” will celebrate his 90th! The fact that he has been dead for ages does not have any importance. “He is the father of all of us”, affirms a little girl. On the Places and Avenues of Pyongyang, hundreds of thousands people pass their days in monotony. Children do somersaults. Women shake big pink-yellow fans. Men brandish sticks overhanging with a red torch. Lowered heads, empty eyes, they defile as automats, under the barking of orders shouted by the loudspeakers. Men are small (1,60 m in average) and women are bow-legged, evident signs of malnutrition and all dressed in black rope-soled sandals. At the end of the day, they rush in the metro (one line only) or in the joggling tramways and buses, from another century. Everywhere, there are long queues; loudspeakers, which diffuse funeral music. On the sidewalks, the people move on foot, in endless lines.
The denial of seeing the truth is in each heart of a North Korean. It is explained first by the shame of decay, which is obvious. “The people’s unmotivation is their life. In the evening, they meet in apartments to drink more than the usual cup”, notices an occidental cooperant. The splendorous years have evaporated with the collapse of the USSR, and its big famine in 1995 (2 million deaths). “The passage from communism to socialism is painful”, admits a state employee. “They know it does not work any more and nothing has happened in the country since 20 years ago”, says a European expert, who enjoys looking at Kim Jong-il every year visiting the same locomotive factory…, which does not produce any locomotives! One of the 120 occidentals living in Pyongyang explains the manufacturer of tractors in the country employs 15,000 people, for a yearly production of 150 engines. And they make smoke come out the chimney of the national plastic factory, to make people believe that it is working! “What is revolting”, says a young manager of an NGO, “is that people in the countryside have dreadful features, they are small and slim, nobody has electricity, wells are fouled, no windows and schools do not have heaters… the inhabitants’ fundamental needs are not assured. “
Most of the northern countryside (half of the population exploit 20% of the territory which is cultivable) is in critical situation. Cooperatives gather together, each made up of 1,200 families (3,500 people) in the superficies between 100 and 500 hectares. In the 60’s, farming had been mechanized (a tractor for 30 hectares) and massive doses of fertilizer were used. Today, without machines or fertilizer, “70% of the water is lost, and farms are producing at maximum 50%, of the potential”, notes an agricultural expert.
In “this country of madness”, says a European diplomat cloistered in Pyongyang, where the theater of appearances is used to hide a shipwreck, two social classes emerge: those with dollars, and the others. Because the local currency (the won) is not worth anything anymore (officially, 1 dollar = 2.15 Won and 220 Won unofficially). Salaries (between 140 and 220 Won) allow one to barely survive. The life of the inhabitants of the capital is interspersed by power cuts. “This winter, the climate has been mild, but curiously, power cuts were much more numerous. No doubt the power plant is falling apart”, observes, phlegmatically, an occidental diplomat.
It is at Kim Il-sung stadium that they will go to say “Happy Birthday!” to the dead leader, embalmed in a palatial tomb. Rehearsals for the festival, which would have enchanted Nazis (it mobilizes 100,000 extras, in a frenzy of propaganda), are going well. Song Sok-hwan, Vice-Minister of Culture, when asked if the grand display was not tasteless for a country where international aid organizations have diverted 7 million deaths by starvation of the country’s women and elderly, just shrugged and answered: “Korean love singing and dancing!” his translator added: “Nobody is starving here. Members of the United Nations Organization are mental invalids!”
In order not to disappear as the last dinosaur of the cold war, the government discharges ballast. The 2 or 3 million apparatchiks, who want to save the system and their privileges, are forced to allow private markets to multiply. Along roads, at the corners of buildings, farmers come to sell fruits and vegetables, which are grown more and more on “private” plots of land. Businessmen appear in cities, inside brand new Japanese cars. For diplomats working in Pyongyang, this sudden prosperity has only one origin: the defense department yields a lot, explains one of them.
North Korean engineers have improved upon the techniques of Russian missiles. From sales to after-sales, they provide a range of services to Syria and Iran, a little to Pakistan, and obviously to Libya, says a European diplomat in Beijing. French and British are in agreement with the Bush administration’s statement about the risk of this proliferation: “American is quite right, and we follow them on the subject. Selling missiles to the Middle-East constitutes a menace for Europeans, as well” adds a European Union diplomat.
Labeled with the stamp “axis of evil” by George W. Bush in January, the North Korean government trembles over its future. The recognition by the United States, which would guarantee the old days of the dictator of Pyongyang, was nearly established under Clinton’s administration. It has suddenly drifted away, as if by a miracle.
Joongang Ilbo reported that the ROK and the DPRK have agreed to relink the cross-border railways and roads on the western and eastern parts of the peninsula, ROK special envoy Lim Dong-won announced Saturday upon his return from DPRK. After his four-day visit to the secretive Stalinist state. Lim said that the DPRK had agreed to reopen the suspended Gyeongui railway and road project and to begin new construction for the northern part of the Donghae railway and road, connecting ROK's Gangneung and DPRK's Wonsan on the east coast. According to a statement jointly released Saturday, the two sides also agreed to resume the suspended series of family reunions on April 28 at the DPRK's Mount Geumgang. (Lee Young-jong, "2 RAIL LINKS AGREED IN INTER-KOREA TALKS," Seoul, 04/08/02)
Pyongyang, April 6 (KCNA) -- The DPRK can not but dismiss Bush's repeated remarks about "the axis of evil" as a serious mockery and open threat of aggression to the DPRK, says Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary. It goes on: Bush seemed to feel the need to clamour again about "the axis of evil" at home. Bush seems to calculate that creating the impression that "the axis of evil" conception, a target of the world derision, has any validity would help the republican party escape from blows it is expected to face in the off-year election to the U.S. congress this year for his mistakes. It is also his calculation that the steady escalation of the tensions on the international arena would help him live up to the expectation of the munition monopolies which have provided a large amount of political funds to him.
In fact, "the axis of evil" theory was conceived on the desk to browbeat somebody by "means of shock" and meet his selfish interests. There is a rumour that this theory is not "for foreign consumption" but for "domestic consumption." this is by no means fortuitous. The Bush group's reckless behavior only hardens the determination of the Korean army and people to take revenge upon the United States. The Bush ruling quarters are well advised to face up to the reality and think twice over their behavior.
Reuters reported that the DPRK said on Thursday that the US was its "most wicked sworn enemy" in a series of diatribes issued less than 24 hours after the DPRK dropped hints it might restart frozen dialogue with the US. "The U.S. is the most wicked sworn enemy of the Korean nation as it is not only hindering inter-Korean exchange and cooperation ... but also putting a stumbling block in the way of achieving Korea's reunification," the state media quoted the North's Asia- Pacific Peace Committee as saying. In the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper, demanded the withdrawal of US troops in the ROK saying, "it is imperative to put an end to the presence in South Korea by the U.S. imperialist aggression troops." ("N.KOREA, IN ABOUT-FACE, SAYS U.S. 'SWORN ENEMY,'" Seoul, 04/04/02)
Reuters reported that the DPRK in its first substantive official media report on its talks with the ROK's special envoy, Lim Dong-won, said on Thursday that the ROK and US were to blame for the stalemate in inter-Korean ties. Lim met senior DPRK ruling party official Kim Yong-sun in Pyongyang on Wednesday and urged the DPRK to return to full dialogue and resume North-South projects that they walked away from last year, Seoul officials said. But an account of the meeting by the official DPRK Central News Agency (KCNA) said that the rapprochement "is facing a serious crisis due to the moves of the bellicose forces at home and abroad to provoke a war, our side noted, adding that not only the US but the South side are to blame for this." (Paul Eckert, "N.KOREA REPORT ON TALKS BLAMES SOUTH FOR STALEMATE," Seoul, 04/03/02)
Reuters reported that the DPRK in its first substantive official media report on its talks with the ROK's special envoy, Lim Dong-won, said on Thursday that the ROK and US were to blame for the stalemate in inter-Korean ties. Lim met senior DPRK ruling party official Kim Yong-sun in Pyongyang on Wednesday and urged the DPRK to return to full dialogue and resume North-South projects that they walked away from last year, Seoul officials said. But an account of the meeting by the official DPRK Central News Agency (KCNA) said that the rapprochement "is facing a serious crisis due to the moves of the bellicose forces at home and abroad to provoke a war, our side noted, adding that not only the US but the South side are to blame for this." (Paul Eckert, "N.KOREA REPORT ON TALKS BLAMES SOUTH FOR STALEMATE," Seoul, 04/03/02)
The Associated Press reported that the PRC and the DPRK will build a new bridge over the Yalu river to join the sole span that now connects the two countries. PRC legislators made the proposal two years ago, but the DPRK gave its agreement only recently. The sides will pick a location together. The single Yalu bridge provides rail and vehicle links between the PRC city of Dandong and the DPRK's Sinuiju. ("CHINA AND NORTH KOREA AGREE TO CONSTRUCT NEW BRIDGE OVER HISTORIC RIVER," Beijing, 04/02/02)
Reuters, 01 April 2002. It is hard to imagine how it feels to be leader of North Korea. But even if you cannot step directly into Kim Jong-il's shoes, you can get an inkling by standing on the VIP podium of Pyongyang's May Day stadium for a private preview of a mass gymnastics display by 100,000 performers. On the brink of starvation and mired in economic stagnation, North Korea plans to stage a lavish pageant of vintage communist kitsch from this month to mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of its founding leader Kim Il-sung. In a rare sign of openness, the hermit state hopes to attract unprecedented numbers of foreign tourists to the April 29-June 29 "Arirang" festival to raise badly needed hard currency. And to try to stir interest overseas, it gave foreign reporters a rare chance to preview the show on Friday. It was an impressive sight -- a sea of bodies dancing, somersaulting and hula-hooping in synchrony before changing backdrops of revolutionary tableaux formed by thousands of children holding up flip-cards.
But to the aid workers who help feed the country's 23 million people, it is an appalling waste of time and resources designed to upstage the May 31-June 30 World Cup soccer finals in South Korea and Japan. North Korean officials deny any link to the World Cup, saying the festival is to celebrate the achievements of Kim Il-sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, who took power in 1994 in the first dynastic succession of the Communist world. "Arirang has no other purpose to pursue. It has no relation with the World Cup," Vice Minister of Culture Song Sok-hwan told reporters after the preview. "The mass gymnastics will cover all the history of the Korean nation, including the difficult days in the past right up to now, when Korean people live life as you can see," Song said. "Through this Arirang you will see what is the Korean people. Seeing is believing."
PREPARATIONS DOMINATE CITY LIFE
For the past six months, preparations for the festival have dominated life in a city already strewn with giant monuments to Kim and his "Juche" philosophy of self-reliance, residents say. Every day, tens of thousands of children, students and workers pour through the streets carrying plastic flowers of lurid pink and orange and gather in squares and parks to practice their routines. "We're preparing for the torch march to show the unity of all the people united around Kim Jong-il," said one organizer as he marshalled 1,000 students and workers before the giant "Juche" tower, built in 1982 to mark Kim Il-sung's 70th birthday.
Ri Yong-kum, 14, a gymnast in the science and technology display, said all 2,000 students at her school had volunteered for the show and now spent half the day practicing their moves. "I feel like the happiest person in the world and very honored I am participating in this Arirang festival to be seen by the world and our Great Leader," she said. Ri is part of the centerpiece of the event -- a mass gymnastics display which embodies the spirit of collectivism North Koreans experience almost from birth. Kim Jong-il, famous for giving "on the spot guidance" to everyone from surgeons to journalists, had this to say about the art form. "The schoolchildren, conscious that a single slip in their action may spoil their mass gymnastic performance, make every effort to subordinate all their thoughts and actions to the collective," he wrote in an essay in his Selected Works.
Gymnastics should represent "the leader's greatness, the sagacity of his leadership, his immortal revolutionary achievements and his noble communist virtues," he said. Unjustifiable extravagance but the aid workers who gather at the Random Access club in the former Bulgarian embassy every Friday say such extravagance cannot be justified when malnutrition and disease are rife and water and electricity are in short supply. The vice minister of culture, like other North Korean officials, declined to say how much it would cost to stage the lavishly lit show in a city where power cuts occur daily. "Let me remind you, this is a socialist country," he said. "Of course we are not rich in finance, but the government will provide the funds for this program," Song said. "The Korean people are struggling to build up the Korean nation," he said. "Still we have difficulties, a shortage of electricity, a shortage of food, but nobody has died due to hunger and poverty." Aid workers paint a far grimmer picture. They tell stories of orphanages filled with children stunted by malnutrition and hospitals using beer bottles to give intravenous drips. Operations are often performed without anesthetics, they say.
They say famine and related disease have caused anywhere from 100,000 to several million deaths in North Korea, which spiraled into economic crisis after the Soviet Union collapsed a decade ago. North Korea has depended on food aid -- much from South Korea and the United States -- to feed its people since a series of droughts, floods and harsh winters in the late 1990s. David Morton, head of the World Food Program in Pyongyang, said last week government food stocks would be exhausted again in April or May and food aid could dry up by July. "Time is running out for North Korea," he said. Aid workers say the country is stuck in a vicious cycle in which humanitarian aid helps maintain the status quo and donor countries hold off on major offers of development aid until the political system changes.
POSITIVE SIGNS
In South Korea, which has seen inter-Korean ties put on hold by the North for months, some see positive signs in the festival. Some political analysts argue it could be a sign Pyongyang is willing to restart stalled inter-Korean cooperation projects. Indeed, a southern envoy is scheduled to visit the North this week for exploratory talks. North Korean officials say they are hoping to attract up to 2,000 foreign tourists a day, including Westerners, Japanese and South Koreans. But diplomats and aid workers in Pyongyang say that is wishful thinking. "Two thousand people a day passing through Pyongyang airport -- you must be joking," said one. The airport struggles to handle its normal daily turnover of a few hundred passengers.
Are there signs North Korea might follow China's path of economic reform and open up to the outside world? "None at all," said one Western diplomat. Two secret visits by Kim Jong-il to China in 2000 and 2001 spurred hopes North Korea would expand contacts with foreign countries and allow free economic zones in major cities. "They were impressed by the skyline in Shanghai so they came back to Pyongyang and got architects to draw up plans for some more skyscrapers," said another diplomat. "That's as far as they're following the Chinese model."
People's Daily reported that by quoting sources from DPRK's People's Army, DPRK official newspaper Rodong Sinmun said on March 31 that in March the US flied more than 150 sorties to make air reconnaissance on DPRK. The DPRK newspaper also said that the US set out large quantities of flights in March to exercise military training on the Korean Peninsula. (Zhao Jiaming, "US INCREASES AIR RECONNAISSANCE AND MILITARY TRAINING AGAINST DPRK," Pyongyang, 04/01/02, P3)
Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun today devotes its whole front page to an article saying that the army-based policy serves as a powerful weapon in the anti-imperialist struggle in our times. The army-based policy of the Workers' Party of Korea is a political mode prompted by the will to fight a life-and-death battle and an invincible policy demonstrating its might because of this will, the article notes, and goes on: This policy calls for putting forward the army, the main force, in the confrontation with imperialism as a pillar of the revolution and giving definite priority to the military affairs so as to shatter any imperialist move for aggression.
The strong anti-imperialist spirit is reflected in the principle of the army-based policy that the army precisely means the party, state and people and the steadfast stand to hold aloft the banner of the anti-imperialist struggle to the last in the unique state political system centered on the national defence. The policy for building socialism and diplomatic strategy advanced by leader Kim Jong Il in the period of the army-based policy are based on the viewpoint on the resolute anti-imperialist class struggle. Our tough position and stand toward imperialism have grown stronger than ever before in the course of pursuing the army-based policy.
It is our faith that has been deepened in that course that defending the banner of independence against imperialism means victory and abandoning it leads to death. The article calls for firmly adhering to the principle of giving priority to the military affairs in the revolution and construction under any circumstances and making utmost effort to strengthen the army. It also calls for decisively smashing the imperialists' moves for aggression with a transparent viewpoint on the anti-imperialist class struggle. The pursuance of the army-based policy under the leadership of Kim Jong Il leads to protecting the rosy future of the country and the nation and making it brighter, the article concludes.
Pyongyang, March 31 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialists committed more than 150 cases of aerial espionage against the DPRK by mobilizing strategic and tactical reconnaissance planes with various missions in March, according to military sources. After its take-off from a U.S. air force base in South Korea a high altitude strategic reconnaissance plane "U-2" spied on strategic objects in the north, flying over South Korea for a long time. On March 14 and 19, an "E-3" commanding plane left an overseas base and committed espionage on objects of the north side along the military demarcation line, commanding the fighters of the U.S. imperialist aggressors involved in an air battle exercise and a drill of striking the targets on the ground in South Korea. Meanwhile, the U.S. imperialists committed aerial war exercises against the north in the sky over all parts of South Korea including forefront areas. During the joint war exercises, a combination of the "Rsoi" and "Foal Eagle," staged from march 21 to 27 the U.S. imperialists let over 120 fighters fly in the sky over South Korea every day and mobilized at least 180 fighters on March 26 and 27, their last phase. All these facts clearly prove that the U.S. imperialists are keen to seize the DPRK at a "single blow" through a surprise "pre-emptive attack" after singling out it as the next target of their operation following their afghan war.
By Jeremy Page
PYONGYANG, North Korea (Reuters) Sun Mar 31, 4:37 AM ET -
Behind a Stalinist veneer, the elite of North Korea (news - web sites) lead a life of luxury unimaginable to the rest of its hungry people. They sip Starbucks mochas, watch flat screen televisions and take holidays in Thailand. But who and how many are the privileged few? Nobody seems to know. Officially, of course, they do not exist in the worker's paradise.
"Our leaders work in humble offices and they never use property for their own interests," said Jang Kyong-hui, 46, a tour guide at the birthplace of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il-sung. "We have no special buildings for high-level people." "Though we don't eat luxurious food and wear luxurious clothes we are happy because we have a strong spirit," she said.
North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, is strewn with giant monuments and posters extolling the virtues of the collectivist system it has doggedly pursued for half a century. But there are also tell tale signs of affluence and indulgence. At Beijing airport, a North Korean was seen checking onto the flight to Pyongyang with a pile of food packages including two large cartons of Starbucks mocha powder.
Customs officials at Pyongyang airport were seen processing about a dozen boxes of top of the range flat screen televisions. Diplomats and aid workers in Pyongyang say they regularly see North Koreans shelling out U.S. dollars for luxury goods in their diplomatic store or fine cognac and coffee in hotel bars. Of the North Korean officials who escorted a group of foreign reporters last week, one had recently spent a month on holiday in Thailand. Another had just returned from two years studying in Australia.
POVERTY AND MALNUTRITION
But such luxuries are strictly confined to residents of Pyongyang, aid workers and diplomats say. Elsewhere in the country of 23 million people, malnutrition is rife, water and power in short supply. The country has depended on international food aid in recent years after a series of floods, droughts and harsh winters.
But every year, the government and military elite put aside a chunk of the harvest for their own consumption, said David Morton, the head of the World Food Program in Pyongyang. "At harvest time, the cooperative retains a year's supply of food, then the top groups including the army take a full year's supply. The remainder of the harvest is then distributed to the people through the public distribution system," he said. "So people have to make up the balance by all possible means, borrowing from relatives in the countryside, finding wild food on the mountainside or chopping wood and selling it."
Meanwhile in Pyongyang, foreign residents say there has been a marked increase in the number of people enjoying obvious wealth -- and the number of brand new Mercedes cruising the streets. Officially, only "merited artists and gold medallists" are permitted to own private cars, which carry orange number plates. All other vehicles are "gifts" from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, one government official said.
LOUIS VUITTON AND DISNEYLAND
Many of the luxury goods in the capital are imported by government and military officials approved to travel overseas, diplomats say. But family members of the top brass also enjoy such freedoms. Last May, a man reported to be the son of Kim Jong-il was deported from Japan after trying to enter the country on a false Dominican passport.
The man, accompanied by two women and a child, identified himself as Kim Jong-nam and said he had wanted to visit Disneyland, the Kyodo news agency reported at the time. He wore a gold Rolex and carried Louis Vuitton bags, according to other Japanese media reports -- not exactly the right image for the grandson of founding leader Kim Il-sung. "Our great leader Kim Il-sung experienced the life of the poor people," said Jang the tour guide as she showed reporters the humble thatched hut where he was born into a lowly family of grave tenders. "That's why he sympathized with the poor people and he devoted his whole life to increasing the wealth of the people."
Joongang Ilbo reported that World Tribune.com the US based Internet paper reported that the DPRK continues to hide its nuclear and fissile material inside underground bunkers citing the words of US experts in the Bush administration on Thursday. The paper pointed out that the DPRK not only conceals unknown quantity of nuclear fissile substances but also at least three nuclear bombs away from the reach of the US and International Atomic Energy Agency in charge of inspection to the reclusive state. With the DPRK standing firm against full inspection to its suspected nuclear region of Yongbyon the paper said DPRK may've used Yongbyon and other regions for test on the weaponization of long-range missiles capable of reaching the US. ("WORLD TRIBUNE REPORTS OF HIDDEN NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN THE NORTH," Seoul, 03/29/02)
Reuters reported that David Morton the World Food Program chief in Pyongyang announced that the DPRK's food stocks are likely to run out in April or May and without further support from donor
countries, food aid will be exhausted by July. "Last year's harvest is still going out through the public distribution system at the rate of 300 grams per day -- much less than a person needs," Morton said. Morton also said that he did not believe Afghanistan was the reason for the DPRK's lack of aid but suggested Japan's contribution was flagging. He gave no further details on the cause of the aid shortfall, which now stands at just a quarter of the WFP appeal. "Unusually, donors have only committed 25 percent of that so far and we will run out of food aid in July this year. That is of great concern to us. It hasn't happened since we've been here," said Morton. "What is missing actually is Japan, which gave half a million tons last year. Japan was the biggest donor last year," he said.(Jeremy Page, "N.KOREA CUPBOARD ALMOST BARE, FOOD AID DWINDLES,"
Pyongyang, 03/28/02)
The Japan Times reported that the DPRK called for "readjusting the country's economic foundations" Wednesday, saying it will open the isolated, hunger-stricken country for joint ventures and cooperation with foreign countries and international organization. DPRK Premier Hong Song Nam said in the new policy statement the DPRK needs to improve trade and economic cooperation and widely conduct joint ventures and collaboration with different countries and international organizations. ("N.KOREA KEEN ON CLOSER INTERNATIONAL TIES, TRADE," Seoul, 03/28/02)
Pyongyang, March 26 (KCNA) -- Deposits of gold, silver, lead, zinc, nickel, tungsten and natural fertilizer were recently surveyed in different parts of the DPRK. Detailed prospecting of five districts led to designating the sites to be developed. The western regional iron ore prospecting team surveyed and confirmed the deposits of cerium and rare-earth elements and found out bodies of lead and zinc. North Hwanghae Province surveyed at least 10 kinds of underground resources, secured 12 sites for prospecting and development and completed a topographical map necessary for the evaluation of ore seams. It succeeded in surveying a deposit of sapropelic coal believed to be millions of tons. A scientific systematization of the character of the geological composition in Pongsan and Unpha areas resulted in discovering new ore bodies. A nonferrous metal vein of rich content was struck in Musan area, North Hamgyong Province. A prospecting team in South Hamgyong Province intensified detailed prospecting of Kumya area, thus finding out mineral deposits needed for the production of calcium hydroxide and magnesium fertilizer.
By Jim Doran
Weekly Standard
, March 25, 2002. President Bush's inclusion of North Korea in the "axis of evil" was
accurate and necessary. It was also liberating. It freed us from the confines of a debate about North Korea that has unfolded along traditional hawk versus dove lines. The doves, led by South Korean president Kim Dae Jung and former U.S. president Bill Clinton, stressed the need for dialogue, conciliation, and the pursuit of signed agreements with the North. This approach has featured the 1994 Agreed Framework, a North-South summit in June 2000, renewed diplomatic relations between Pyongyang and several Western countries (though not the United States), and the lifting of longstanding U.S. sanctions on North Korea.
If the measure of success is the enhancement of U.S. and South Korean security, then the dovish approach has manifestly failed. Through all the talk and signing ceremonies of the past decade, North Korea has continued to develop the Taepo Dong-2 missile, which will be able to reach the United States, according to the CIA. It also continues to export missile components and technology to Iran, Libya, and Syria. No effort has been made to diminish its stock of chemical and biological weapons, both of which, the CIA recently informed Congress, Pyongyang has the capability to deliver by missile. As for nuclear power, despite the freeze on construction of the Yongbyon nuclear reactors, the fact is that without full inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to which North Korea has agreed but which have yet to take place, we simply do not know the full extent of Pyongyang's nuclear capabilities.
Meanwhile, the readiness of North Korea's massive conventional army--third largest in the world, for a country with 22 million people--has improved over the past few years after a famine-induced slide in the mid-1990s, largely thanks to aid from the United States and South Korea. As a result, the regime in North Korea is as entrenched and dangerous today as it was when we launched Asia's analogue to the now-defunct Middle East peace process.
In pointing out these failures, hawks have argued for verifiability and strict reciprocity in agreements, immediate IAEA access to North Korea, and an exploration of the possibility of replacing the nuclear reactors being built for North Korea under the Agreed Framework with conventional power plants. While the hawks' goals are desirable, their approach suffers no less than the doves' from a fundamental flaw: It assumes the legitimacy of the Communist regime in Pyongyang. Indeed, as long as we continue to negotiate with North Korea over what are essentially technical matters, however hard-headed our negotiating posture, we contribute to the legitimacy of the regime. Assuming and undergirding the legitimacy of a regime so plainly illegitimate as Kim Jong Il's is not only contrary to American values but also doomed to fail, just as détente and arms control with the Soviet Union failed in the 1970s.
President Bush has pointed the way out of this box. By properly labelling the North Korean regime evil, the president has called into question its legitimacy. This allows us to get to the heart of the matter: Getting rid of
Kim Jong Il and the sinister clique in Pyongyang is the only lasting solution to the multiple threats that North Korea now poses to the world. A liberation strategy for North Korea would require at least the following policies:
(1) Public diplomacy. The president's State of the Union speech should be followed up with additional statements by high-ranking officials that indicate the United States' desire for a new regime in Pyongyang. In order to keep the moral high ground, Washington must offer reasons that focus not only on the North Korean military threat, but also on the execrable human rights situation. North Korea is routinely ranked among the very worst offenders in the world by all the monitoring organizations. Radio Free Asia broadcasting into North Korea, now just 2 hours a day, should be ramped up--ultimately to 24 hours a day--in conjunction with efforts to provide and spread the means of communication in North Korea, as was done successfully in Poland in the early 1980s. Obviously, the United States should oppose additional moves toward extending diplomatic recognition to Pyongyang and including North Korea in international fora.
(2) End financial subsidies to the regime. U.S., South Korean, and international aid legitimises the North Korean regime, helps sustain its military capabilities, and in all likelihood saved it from collapse in the early to mid-1990s. North Korea has diverted U.S.-provided fuel oil for military purposes. We cannot be sure where our food aid has gone because the inspection regime is a farce: Aid groups must give the government a week's notice before inspecting distribution systems. The United States should end this silly state of affairs by giving North Korea a short deadline to allow no-notice, countrywide inspections of food aid and fuel oil distribution. If the deadline is not met (which seems likely), the aid should be cut off. Similarly, if North Korea does not allow the full IAEA inspections required under the Agreed Framework to begin immediately, construction of the light-water reactors should cease forthwith. Diplomatic pressure should also be brought to bear on Beijing and Seoul to cease the direct aid and payoffs that have marked their recent policies toward Pyongyang. Finally, the United States should declare that there will be no further lifting of sanctions and that all international loans to North Korea will be opposed.
(3) Encourage an exodus from North Korea. A flood of refugees from the former East Germany contributed to the welcome collapse of that regime in 1989. There are credible reports that over 200,000 North Koreans have fled in recent years to China, Russia, and South Korea. We should encourage this trend by providing diplomatic and financial support to South Korean-based refugee organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and governments that are willing to assist those who flee the prison that is North Korea. Such an effort would be an act of true international mercy, as opposed to the present charade of providing food aid that is "distributed" by the North Korean military.
(4) Promote internal opposition. This can be pursued through both overt and covert means. Radio Free Asia broadcasting and public diplomacy should stress the benefits of freedom and democracy for the people of North Korea. On the covert side, defectors and refugees can help identify and establish contact with potential allies within the North Korean government. It can be communicated to these people that the United States would urge their receiving amnesty in a post-Communist North Korea and would seek punishment only for Kim Jong Il and the worst abusers of human rights.
(5) Sustain and enhance deterrence. Until North Korea is free, it must continually be reminded that aggressive action on its part will immediately result not in mere retaliation, but in a decisive blow that will end the regime. The Bush administration's inclusion of North Korea as a potential target in the recent Nuclear Posture Review is an excellent step in that direction. Addressing the grossly inadequate housing and unfair pay scale for our soldiers in Korea would also help. A policy geared toward the ultimate liberation of North Korea will require time, effort, and expense. Most of all, it will require fortitude. For that reason, it will be opposed by the guardians of the status quo. But as the horrible events of September 11 should have made clear, the status quo is no longer acceptable. Jim Doran is a senior professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The views expressed are solely his own.
Joongang Ilbo, March 22, 2002. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi emphasized Thursday that solving the issue of Japanese allegedly abducted to North Korea is necessary for global security and vowed to make that point clear in his talks with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in the plane bound to Seoul. If the issue, which is so keenly linked to safety and security of the people, is overlooked it would be a neglect to world peace and security as well, he said. Further acknowledging the need to normalize diplomatic ties with North Korea in the long run Mr. Koizumi said Japan must continue to seek cooperation with South Korea which could also affect tripartite relations with the United States later on.
The latest pledge is also reiteration of Mr. Koizumi's stance after his meeting on Tuesday with the families of the Japanese victims allegedly taken to the Stalinist state against their will. The abduction of Japanese nationals to North Korea which has long stood between Tokyo and Pyongyang was highlighted once again when a wife of a former Japanese leftist confessed her involvement in bringing in a woman called Keiko Arimoto to the communist state. Keiko Arimoto, who was 23 at the time disappeared during her study in Europe back in 1983.
The government launched a team comprised of ministries and agencies for active approach on abduction cases, headed by Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. The team consists of three lawmakers who serve as senior vice ministers at the Justice Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry. The deputy chief, according to the reports was especially critical toward the foreign ministry's passive stance toward the disappearance of Japanese nationals saying the case is directly connected to the life and basic freedom of the people. North Korea while denying its involvement in abduction cases nevertheless suggested seeking missing Japanese nationals. Even that effort, meager as it is, came to a halt when Japanese police cracked down on Chongryon, a pro-North Korea group based in Japan late last year for suspicions of funnelling cash to the North through illegal means.
North Korea then again downplayed Japan's demand to confirm the whereabouts of missing people as groundless worsening its image in Japan. Such resulted into Japan's halt of humanitarian aid to the hunger-stricken nation, the government unable to contain the mounting public rage. Recently Abe Shinzo disclosed three North Korean agents responsible for the two abduction cases respectively in 1977 and 1980, who are living in Japan as reported by Japanese broadcast NHK. The Japanese government now believes at least 13 Japanese nationals were abducted to the North recently including two college students who both went to study abroad just like in the case of Ms. Arimoto.
Joongang Ilbo reported that the DPRK has been straightening its civil defence force for some time. The intensification of civil armed forces is in line with direct orders from incumbent DPRK leader Kim Jong-il who stressed the establishment of "sole leadership." Chairman Kim exhorted that civilian security training is directly linked with the nation's security and that they should keep up the training no matter how busy they are with farming and other livelihood matters. ("NORTH TO STRENGTHEN CIVIL DEFENSE FORCES,"Seoul, 03/18/02)
The Korea Herald reported that the Guinea-Bissau navy discovered a stash of arms aboard the DPRK ship, the Golden Like, which then managed to escape, a source close to the navy said Friday. The vessel entered Bissau port on Wednesday, officially to seek a fishing license, but a routine search by the navy's security services uncovered Kalashnikovs, sub-machine guns and ammunition in various parts of the ship, the source said. An inquiry was opened into possible accomplices who may have helped the captain flee with his cargo. Last week unidentified fishing boats were surprised working in Guinea-Bissau waters. The suspects opened fire on a naval launch killing a soldier. ("ARMS FOUND ON N.K. SHIP OFF GUINEA-BISSAU," Bissau, 03/18/02)
People's Daily reported that Kim Jong Il, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of DPRK watched the military train of 319 army units on March 11. During the inspection, Kim stressed that the armed forces of the DPRK have made political and military preparation to defeat any enemy. The armed forces are capable of shattering any enemy invasion and safeguarding the socialist homeland, said Kim. According to the report from Rodong Sinmun , the official newspaper of DPRK, on March 12, Kim expressed his satisfaction to the military train of the army. (Zhao Jiaming, "DPRK PREPARED TO DEFEND HOMELAND: KIM JONG IL," Pyongyang, 03/13/02, P9)
The Associated Press reported that the DPRK threatened Wednesday to abandon a 1994 promise to freeze its nuclear laboratories. The DPRK's Foreign Ministry issued a statement reading, "under the present situation where nuclear lunatics have taken office in the White House, we are compelled to examine all the agreements with the US. The DPRK will not remain a passive onlooker to the Bush administration's inclusion of the DPRK in the seven countries, targets of US nuclear attack, but take a strong countermeasure against it." The remarks were the DPRK's first reaction to reports last week that the Pentagon was studying the possible use of nuclear weapons against seven countries that could threaten the US which included the DPRK. "In case the US plan ... turns out to be true, the DPRK will have no option but to take a substantial countermeasure against it, not bound to any DPRK-US agreement," the Foreign Ministry said. ("N. KOREA MAY RESCIND NUCLEAR PROMISE," Seoul, 03/13/02), The Associated Press (Sang-Hun Choe, "N.KOREA: WE'RE READY FOR US STRIKES," Seoul, 03/13/02), and Reuters (Martin Nesirky, "NORTH KOREA HITS OUT AT US NUCLEAR ARMS REVIEW," Seoul, 03/13/02)
Joongang Ilbo reported that what little trade existed between the US and DPRK has decreased significantly since the start of the Bush administration. Statistics released by the US. Department of Commerce showed that trade between the two countries fell to US$676,537 in 2001 from US$2,888,000 in 2000, the last year of the Clinton administration. Of the 2001 figure, US$650,340 was in US exports to the DPRK, while the DPRK exported only US$26,197 to the US. While most of the US exports to the DPRK consisted of medicine and relief goods, the DPRK also imported US$30,000 worth of golf balls. ("US CURTAILS TRADE WITH PYONGYANG," New York, 03/11/02)
By Anne Morse (World Magazine)
Critics deride the "axis of evil" rhetoric but eyewitnesses know better. In North Korea, evil only begins to describe the everyday horror of life under "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il.
When Norbert Vollertsen hears critics rip President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" remarks, he can't help rolling his eyes. North Koreans, he says, "are so happy about the president's speech-and they will tell you that he is absolutely right. For the first time in their lives they felt supported and encouraged. Defectors are willing now to come to the United States in order to testify because of this speech."The criticism of Mr. Bush-who called North Korea, Iran, and Iraq an "axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world"-crescendoed with his trip to Asia late last month. South Koreans, hoping for détente with their communist neighbor, marched through the streets in protest as the president arrived in Seoul. Former President Jimmy Carter chimed in, saying Mr. Bush's State of the Union statement "was overly simplistic and counterproductive. It will take years before we can repair the damage done by that statement."
Dr. Vollertsen, a 44-year-old German physician, wants officials to pay more attention to the damage done to North Koreans under the current regime than to the damage to foreign relations. He spent 18 months living at North Korea's axis, watching evil spin systematically around him. North Korea, he says, is a modern-day Nazi Germany. And its "Dear Leader," the 60-year-old President Kim Jong Il, is practicing genocide. From Dr. Vollertsen these are not empty charges. He has had access to witness North Korea's famine conditions in a way no other Westerners have. He traveled to North Korea in 1999 with the German relief agency Cap Anamur (known in English as German Emergency Doctors), working to rehabilitate the nation's hospitals. A month after his arrival, Dr. Vollertsen found himself treating a patient who was badly burned by molten iron. Dr. Vollertsen unhesitatingly offered his own skin for the grafting procedure. In front of government officials, a doctor stripped skin from his left thigh with a penknife. Impressed by his unselfish act, Mr. Kim's government awarded Dr. Vollertsen the prestigious Friendship Medal. They gave him a VIP passport and driver's license, allowing him to travel freely across the country without the usual government restrictions. These were gifts the government would one day regret. They allowed Dr. Vollertsen to discover and secretly videotape a nationwide famine. Bouncing across the countryside in a Jeep, Dr. Vollertsen encountered starving children who were nevertheless forced to engage in daily, two-hour songfests idolizing the "Dear Leader."
He saw gangs of undernourished children working on a 10-lane highway project. He watched doctors perform an emergency appendectomy on a girl without anesthesia. He met adults who were desperately afraid, always under surveillance, dousing their depression with cheap alcohol. He found a staggering infant mortality rate and, among children who did survive, significant declines in height, weight, and IQ. "It's easier to brainwash unintellectual children," Dr. Vollertsen observes dryly."The children not only look like children in German concentration camps, they are actually behaving like them," Dr. Vollertsen says. During an interview with WORLD in Washington, he spreads out photos of emaciated children wearing blue and white striped pajamas, staring vacantly at the camera. "This boy died the very next day," he says, pointing to one. "There is no medicine, no running water, no heating system, no food, no bandages-and this is the situation all over North Korea."
Everywhere, that is, except in the glittering capital city of Pyongyang, where Dr. Vollertsen found casinos, nightclubs, luxury hotels, gourmet foods, and diplomatic shops. "Very fashionable, and all for the ruling class-the military and party members," he recalls. Hospitals there are-no surprise-state of the art." President Bush is right. Kim is using food as a weapon against his own people, systematically starving them to death, mainly those who are in opposition to the government-Christians or any political opponents," Dr. Vollertsen says.
As much access as the government provided Dr. Vollertsen, the worst atrocities were kept hidden in secretive prison camps. These he learned about more recently. After leaving North Korea, he spent time along its borders learning from defectors-torture victims who live like hunted animals on the border between North Korea and China. They described a nightmare world where guards electrocute prisoners for fun and throw women into sewage pools for stealing food. He heard stories of children who vomit when they accidentally dig up fresh mass graves and babies who are strangled moments after birth on concrete floors. He was told repeatedly of an island in the northeastern part of North Korea, in an area near Chongjin so highly restricted it does not appear on official maps, where prisoners are used as laboratory test material for anthrax and other bacteria, food poisoning, or medical experiments-how long they can stand freezing, or how long they can live underwater-"the cruelest experiments you can imagine," Dr. Vollertsen says.
Mr. Bush's remarks and recent trip should revive a hardline approach to North Korea, even though experts long have known it is the most repressive nation in the world. Humanitarian relief experts say that more than 2 million people have died of starvation in North Korea since 1995-despite the country's receiving more food aid than any other nation in the world. Dr. Vollertsen's firsthand testimony was echoed last month in Tokyo at the third annual International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees. Three North Korean defectors, including a former bodyguard of President Kim Jong Il, told reporters and conferees that international food aid is not reaching the starving; instead, it is going to the government. They said millions of dollars worth of food aid is being stockpiled in mountain military complexes and used to feed soldiers and the ruling elite.
The former bodyguard, Lee Young Kuk, said he watched the punishment of a political prison camp inmate accused of stealing salt. He was tied to a vehicle and dragged for 2H miles at high speeds and "became de-skinned." His body was tied to a stake "as an example," said Mr. Lee. He told reporters, "I have watched so many deaths in North Korea I almost lost the concept of human dignity." The conferees in Tokyo agreed to a concluding statement: "We believe that the North Korean regime is the paramount human-rights violator of our time.""When I see the combination of brainwashing, starvation, concentration camps, of rape, of medical experiments and mass executions, all those horrible stories and the testimony of all those defectors, then I must say that Kim is an upgraded version of Hitler's Nazi Germany," Dr. Vollertsen declares. "He's committing genocide."
It was comments like these that earned Dr. Vollertsen's expulsion from North Korea in December of 2000. He now spends much of his time interviewing North Korean escapees and helping them travel an underground railroad that begins at the Chinese border, travels through Mongolia and Thailand, and ends in Seoul. Dr. Vollertsen now hopes to capitalize on the momentum of Mr. Bush's declaration with a congressional hearing in Washington. In recent weeks he has made the rounds, meeting with members of Congress and officials at the State Department, along with human-rights activists. One Washington activist, Hudson Institute senior fellow Michael Horowitz, was sufficiently moved by his presentation to invite Dr. Vollertsen to stay in his home during his Washington meetings. "In my 25 years working in Washington I've never seen anybody who has become a hero to so many people so quickly," Mr. Horowitz says.Dr. Vollertsen is convinced the United States "is the only place on earth" where officials will listen to what he knows about North Korea. He is bitter that "nobody cares" in his native Europe, despite vibrant images of its own Holocaust. "All the European politicians, they ask me, 'Do you have any evidence, do you have any torture victims in your backpacks?'"
Dr. Vollertsen-the son of a soldier who fought for Hitler-is determined to speak out in view of his own history (see "Paying a debt to history"). He says he will continue the campaign despite anonymous midnight telephone calls warning him to keep quiet. "We Germans were accused of not caring when there were rumors about concentration camps, so I feel responsible to speak out," he says quietly. "Never again it should happen that there is silence when something like this is going on."
Joongang Ilbo reported that stratfor.com, a US intelligence analysis Web site unveiled satellite pictures on Friday of a DPRK missile engine testing systems in Hwadae-gun, Musuadan-ri, North Hamgyong province, along with a report on developments in the DPRK's missile program. The pictures were taken last December by Quick Bird, a US commercial satellite. The report did note though that a testing site for rocket engines was established sometime after 2000, the last time commercially available satellite images of the area were taken. It added that the DPRK is continuing development of its second-generation Daepodong missile despite keeping its pledge to refrain from testing missiles in flight until 2003. Stratfor predicted a high possibility of DPRK test firing its latest Daepodong missile by late 2003. The newest Daepodong is estimated to have a range of up to 6,000 kilometers, but accuracy is thought to be quite poor. Claiming that the DPRK is likely to use its newest Daepodong for political advantage, the report warned of a possible mishap caused by unfavorable relations between the US and DPRK. ("SATELLITE PICTURES OF NORTH'S MISSILE FACILITIES UNVEILED", Seoul, 03/08/02)
The Korea Times reported that the DPRK has disapproved or postponed all upcoming ROK visits to DPRK except for those relating to economic cooperation. According to the Ministry of Unification, the DPRK has disapproved two cultural cooperation groups' visit, scheduled for March 5 and 9 respectively, and notified the Korean Sharing Movement and National Episcopal Committee for the Reconciliation of Korean People to cancel their visit on March 26. However, three groups with economic cooperation purposes, including a processing business, made their visit to DPRK as planned on March 2, right after the cancellation of the New Year's joint celebration. (Kim In-mok, "NK CANCELS ALL BUT ECONOMIC TRIPS," Seoul, 03/07/02)
BBC Monitoring Service, March 6, 2002. Text of report in English by North Korean news agency KCNA in Pyongyang, 6 March 2002
A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry answered a question put by KCNA [Korean Central News Agency] today accusing the United States of pulling up the DPRK again over the "human rights issue". He said: The US State Department released an "annual report on human rights for the year 2001" on 4 March, in which it let loose stereotyped vituperation against the DPRK, talking about "dictatorship", "lawlessness" and "absence of political and civil rights". It is a well-known fact that the US is a land with the world's poorest human rights record. The US finds itself in such a pitiful position that it lost membership of the UN human rights organization. Such being the hard fact, the US is making much fuss over the human rights situation in other countries, styling itself a "judge". This is the height of folly. Through this smear campaign over the "human rights issue" the US seeks to hurt man-centred socialism in the DPRK where the leader, the party and the masses form a harmonious whole. But this is as ridiculous as trying to sweep the sea with a broom. All human rights are guaranteed by law in the DPRK and its people fully enjoy true political freedom and rights as genuine masters of the state and society. The US desperate moves to destroy the DPRK's political system will only harden the Korean people's will to defend to the last the most advantageous socialist system of their own style. The US should clearly know that its reckless efforts to unilaterally apply its "human rights standards" to other countries will only invite international criticism, scoff and isolation.
The Associated Press reported that the DPRK said Tuesday that the US was blocking prospects for dialogue by plotting to dismantle its communist system. "North Korea's stand on dialogue is to get its political system recognized by the US, not to allow itself to be disarmed or abandon its system," said the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). "This position is neither 'brinkmanship' claimed by the US side, nor a 'prelude' to dialogue," said the KCNA report. (Yoo Jae-suk, "N.KOREA ACCUSES US OF BLOCKING TALKS," Seoul, 03/05/02)
Brent (Won-ki) Choi
Joongang Ilbo, March 4, 2002. Helen-Louise Hunter, a member of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea who served in the CIA for over two decades and authored the book "Kim Il-song's North Korea," was positive that in the end Pyongyang will come out for dialogue with Washington for its own good. Following is a summary of the JoongAng Ilbo
's interview with Ms. Hunter, who recently visited Seoul to attend a seminar on North Korea.
Q: North Korea again rejected dialogue with the United States on Feb. 22nd. What do you say to this?
A: We shouldn't take that as the North's final decision. Time is on our side and Pyongyang will eventually come out for talks using whatever excuse they can come up with. Inter-Korean dialogue is also highly likely to resume within this year before the South's presidential election in December.
Q: What will the United States do to stop North Korea from selling missiles abroad?
A: The first step will be to put strong diplomatic pressure on Iran, Iraq, Egypt and other Middle East nations that import missiles from North Korea. North Korea will be the next one to get its share of pressure. But I'm not sure if the United States would conduct direct check ups on North Korean freighters on the open sea.
Q: North Korea has dispatched over 500 officials to study economics abroad. Could this be a sign Pyongyang is getting ready for an open market?
A: Leaders of communist societies tend to hold lack of technology responsible for economic crisis rather then their social system. The Soviet Union was one of the examples, as were other East European nations in the past. Unless North Korea does something about its social system, whatever improvements they make in technology sectors would realize their limits. North Korea may subsist for the next few years, but in the long run the the regime will meet its end.
Q: What are the chances of China persuading North Korea to the path of an open door policy?
A: During the 70s when former North Korean President Kim Il-sung visited the Soviet Union, Moscow would prod Kim to make new reforms in the economy. Kim would say "yes" and forget the whole thing the day he returned home. I believe the same thing for Chairman Kim Jong-il. Beijing may urge the junior Kim to resume inter-Korean dialogue and make new changes in the economy. The Chairman will also say "yes," but remain stubborn.
Q: What is your evaluation of the incumbent North Korean leader?
A: We need to judge Chairman Kim in two respects. In the North, Chairman Kim is the most open-minded man and best informed on outside affairs. But by Western standards, his perception of the world and the market economy is below average.
Joongang Ilbo reported that the US State Department on Friday reported the DPRK as a country of concern in regard to the production or and smuggling of illicit drugs. The department's "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report" said that few narcotics seizures with a clear DPRK connection have been found. It added, however, "Most observers continued to view narcotics coming from North Korea as a significant problem for Japan and Taiwan." The report continued, "Allegations of state complicity in the illicit narcotics trade and other criminal enterprises by North Korea remain a profound concern." It also said that it was possible that the DPRK government "has chosen to sponsor illegal activities as a matter of state policy." ("NORTH BAY BE TIED TO DRUGS, U.S. SAYS," Washington, 03/04/02)
В Северной Корее производится меньше продуктов питания, чем в Южной идет на выброс. Об этом свидетельствуют опубликованные сегодня результаты исследования сеульских властей. Так, по данным министерства по делам правительственной администрации и внутренних дел Южной Кореи, за минувший год в стране было отправлено на помойку более 4 млн. т овощей, мяса, рыбы и прочей пищи. А в соседней КНДР объем произведенных за этот же период
продовольственных товаров - в основном это рис, ячмень, картошка - достиг лишь 3.94 млн. т.
В настоящее время, несмотря на то, что Северная Корея периодически получает гуманитарные грузы с продуктами питания от Юга и некоторых членов Объединенных Наций, страна переживет настоящий голод, констатирует Всемирная продовольственная программа ООН. Острая кризисная ситуация усугубляется природными невзгодами. За последние шесть лет северокорейцы пережили сильнейшую засуху, сменившуюся прошлой осенью не менее
катастрофичными наводнениями и оползнями, сообщает ИТАР-ТАСС. 20:01 04-03-2002 (in Russian)
Korea Herald, March 1, 2002. The first batch of 100,000 tons of corn in government aid to North Korea via the World Food Programme (WFP) left the Chinese port of Qinhuangdao, Hubei Province, for the North Korean port of Nampo yesterday, Unification Ministry Spokesman Kim Hong-jae said. The first shipment of 23,500 tons of corn is scheduled to arrive at Nampo today and the remaining 76,500 tons will be delivered to the North Korean ports of Nampo, Cheongjin and Heungnam in four future shipments, he said. "The humanitarian aid is intended to ease the North's food crisis, and the South has decided to join the U.N. agencies' programs to help the North," the spokesman said.