1. CHINA, RUSSIA JOINT STATEMENT CALLS FOR FLEXIBILITY
Korea Herald, 23 March 2006
In Beijing, Chinese and Russian leaders on Tuesday urged patience and flexibility in dealing with North Korea's nuclear confrontation, including the issue in their summit joint statement. The statement appealed to members of the six-party talks to engage in negotiations with a "constructive" attitude for a peaceful resolution of the row and for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, capping his two-day visit to Beijing, met Chinese leader Hu Jintao to discuss issues ranging from energy cooperation to non-proliferation, Iran and North Korea. Both countries are members of the six-way negotiations that also involve South and North Korea, the US and Japan. Beijing is the host of the multilateral forum aimed at removing all nuclear weapons and programs from the divided Korean Peninsula. China and Russia, ideological supporters of North Korea, have been urging Pyongyang and Washington to make concessions and move forward with the six-party talks.
Tuesday's statement reaffirms that the multilateral forum is the "practical and effective" approach to solving the nuclear issue. The two leaders also agreed to cooperate to enhance international nuclear non-proliferation mechanisms and promote a diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear row. The US State Department said yesterday North Korea should stop making "inflammatory" comments and return to the six-nation talks as soon as possible.
"The president, secretary of state and others have made it very clear that the United States has no plans to invade or attack North Korea," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington. The US wants North Korea to "engage in serious discussions, as opposed to making these kinds of inflammatory statements."
His remark came after North Korea said Tuesday it has the ability to carry out a pre-emptive strike, according to the official Korea Central News Agency. Military exercises conducted by the USA and South Korea on the Korean peninsula have compelled North Korea to strengthen its self-defense capability, KCNA said yesterday. North Korea "has the right to preempt an attack as the most effective and positive act for self-defense," the army said in its statement. South Korea's new nuclear envoy left yesterday for the United States to hold talks with his US counterpart on how to jump-start the stalled talks.
"I plan to grasp the atmosphere in Washington and listen to the US stance on the current situation," Chun Young-woo said. He didn't elaborate.
Earlier this month, Chun held his first talks with the US chief nuclear negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, when the secretary made a brief stop-over here on his return to Washington from a trip to Indonesia. Chun has already traveled to China and Japan for similar talks since becoming Seoul's top nuclear negotiator last month.
*************************************************
2. DPRK WANTS 'NUCLEAR COOPERATION' FROM USA
Associated Press, 21 March 2006
North Korea reconfirmed on Tuesday that it has nuclear weapons and demanded the United States give it "nuclear cooperation" instead of seeking to disarm it. The announcement risked escalating tensions in the prolonged standoff over the North's nuclear program, clouding the prospect of resumption of six-nation talks on the dispute.
"We have built nuclear weapons for no other purpose than to counter US nuclear threats," said a spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry, according to the North's Korean Central News Agency. It's rare for North Korea to mention its nuclear capabilities in such an explicit manner. The communist state usually refers to its nuclear arsenal as its "nuclear deterrent force." North Korea first declared last year that it has nuclear weapons, although the claim could not be confirmed independently.
"If the US is truly interested in finding a realistic way of resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, it would be wise for it to come out on the path of nuclear cooperation with us" even though the North is not currently a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, he said.
The spokesman was apparently referring to a recent nuclear deal between the United States and India, under which the US will provide India with nuclear know-how and atomic fuel, even though New Delhi has not signed the global anti-nuclear weapons treaty. North Korea has condemned the US for giving India "preferential" treatment by formally recognizing it as a nuclear power. North Korea backed out of the NPT in early 2003, right after the outbreak of the nuclear crisis in late 2002.
The North's spokesman also said his country has the right to launch a pre-emptive strike, saying it will strengthen its war footing ahead of South Korea-US military exercises scheduled this weekend. The spokesman's comments came on the heels of the US national security report, which among other things, reaffirmed US President George W. Bush's strike-first policy against terrorists and enemy nations and said North Korea poses a serious nuclear proliferation challenge.
*************************************************
3. DPRK PROTESTS AGAINST US PREEMPTIVE ATTACK POLICY
DPRK Permanent Mission to the UN Press Release, KCNA, 23 March 2006
A pre-emptive attack is not the monopoly of the United States, warns a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry in an answer given to a question put by KCNA Tuesday in connection with the fact that the USA in a recent "report on national security strategy" designated the DPRK as an "outpost of tyranny " and a "target of pre-emptive attack" once again. The Bush administration singled out those countries which are not meekly following it from an independent stand, including the DPRK, as "outposts of tyranny," revealing its undisguised attempt to realize its wild ambition to realize "regime change" through a "pre-emptive attack", he said, and went on:
The above-said "report" reveals the US intention to start a war to prevent nuclear proliferation, "combat terrorism" and "spread democracy." It is, therefore, nothing but a brigandish document declaring a war as it is an indication that the Bush regime will not rule out even a war to bring down those countries which refuse to follow its ideology and view on value by branding them as enemies without exception. Today the Bush regime is to blame for unhesitatingly committing war and military intervention, stepping up the modernization of nuclear weapons and encouraging the spread of weapons of mass destruction, defying all the principles of international law and unbiased public opinion to meet its narrow-minded partisan purpose. It is the root cause of aggression, war and arms race.
Such aggressive nature of the Bush administration finds a more striking manifestation in its policy towards the Korean Peninsula. The Bush administration again cried out for a "pre-emptive attack" at a time when it let loose a string of balderdash against the DPRK after labeling it part of an "axis of evil" and an "outpost of tyranny" and is increasing such physical pressure as financial sanctions and joint military exercises against it. This brings to light the Bush administration's intention to invariably pursue its hostile policy toward the DPRK. The Bush administration is talking about the "six-party talks" and the like but, in actuality, is not interested in them at all. It is the calculation of the USA that it will evade the fulfillment of such commitment as the provision of light water reactors it made in the September 19 joint statement even if the talks are resumed. We made nuclear weapons to cope with the US nuclear threat. The Bush administration is sadly mistaken if it thinks the DPRK will yield to the outside pressure and surrender to it when Pyongyang is steadily driven to a tight corner. It is our traditional fighting method to react to the increasing pressure head-on, without making any detour. The same method will be applied to countering the USA. A pre-emptive attack is not the monopoly of the USA.
*************************************************
4. DPRK ASKS NORWAY TO BROKER NUCLEAR DEAL
Reuters, 17 March 2006
North Korea wants Norway to mediate in its nuclear standoff with the international community, a newspaper reported on Friday, but Oslo said it favored a resumption of stalled multi-lateral talks. North Korea says it has nuclear weapons, though the United States has been unable to confirm this, and six-party talks aimed at ending the communist state's nuclear weapons program ran aground in November.
"Norway has a good reputation as a peace mediator and very good experience in international conflict resolution," North Korea's ambassador to the Nordic region, Jon In Chan, told Verdens Gang, Norway's top selling daily. "We hope Norway can contribute as conflict solver in the ongoing nuclear dispute between the US and North Korea."
Norway played down the offer, however.
"We have no intention of taking unilateral action toward North Korea," Deputy Foreign Minister Raymond Johansen told Reuters. He said the country backed the six-party talks involving the United States, Russia, Japan, China and the two Koreas.
Since talks stalled, the United States has cracked down on firms it suspects of helping North Korea in illicit activity such as currency counterfeiting. Pyongyang has refused to return to the talks until Washington calls off its drive. Norway's Johansen said he would bring up the nuclear question when he visited North Korea later in the year to discuss humanitarian aid.
"The international community should urge a six-party agreement, but if there is anything any one country can do toward North Korea, we would welcome it."
He said North Korea's ambassador had not raised the question when they spoke on Wednesday. The North Korean embassy in Stockholm, where the ambassador is based, declined to comment. Norway, a member of NATO but not of the European Union, has a reputation as a peace mediator after involvement in seeking to end conflicts from the Middle East to Sri Lanka. It is also the home of the Nobel Peace Prize and in 1999 the committee, which is independent of the government, gave the award to South Korea's former President Kim Dae-jung for his efforts to mediate a peace with North Korea, still technically an enemy since the 1950-53 war.
*************************************************
5. EU FOCUSES ON DPRK RIGHTS AT CONFERENCE
Chosun Ilbo, 23 March 2006
International pressure on North Korea to improve its dismal human rights record increased on Wednesday, when the European Parliament decided to link humanitarian aid to the issue while a conference highlighting abuses in the North opened in the EU capital Brussels. Thursday sees the first hearing on North Korean human rights before the European Parliament.
At the conference, which was led by activist groups from the US and across Europe, Hungarian member of the European Parliament Istvan Szent-Ivany said the bloc has been too passive on the question of human rights in North Korea but is awakening to the seriousness of the issue. Szent-Ivany said he disapproved of providing unconditional aid to the North the way the South Korean government does. He stressed any humanitarian aid from the EU must reach those who need it most, including political prisoners in concentration camps, and expressed hope that monitoring and control of aid distribution to the North can be tightened.
The Japanese Ambassador for Human Rights Fumiko Saiga highlighted the issue of Japanese abducted by the North in the 1970s and 80s, which she said was a "top priority" of Tokyo's policy. She called on the international community to join hands in resolving the problem of human rights in the North. Kang Chol-hwan, a Chosun Ilbo reporter and defector from North Korea, told the conference North Korea "abuses the South Korean government's unconditional aid," and called on Seoul to stop aid separately from the international community, which insists on stricter monitoring. On Thursday, the conference will adopt a "Brussels Declaration" calling for greater international solidarity in improving North Korean human rights conditions.
Meanwhile, some 100 students and civil activists from the South are in the Belgian capital on an "Expedition for Peace on the Korean Peninsula" to protest against what they see as a hidden agenda behind the conference to further US hegemony. They distributed leaflets and held various protest performances at university campuses and elsewhere in Brussels.
*************************************************
6. UN OFFICIAL CONSULTS CHINA ON DPRK ASYLUM-SEEKERS
by Joe McDonald, Associated Press, 23 March 2006
The top UN refugee official said Thursday he pressed Chinese officials on the status of North Korean asylum-seekers in talks this week but gave no indication Beijing had agreed to drop its refusal to treat them as refugees. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said, however, that China is creating its first legal asylum system, which might help to resolve the conflict. The former Portuguese prime minister said North Korean asylum-seekers were "at the center of our debates" during his five-day visit, the first to China in nine years by a head of the UN refugee agency.
But Guterres wouldn't give details of the talks and didn't respond directly to questions about whether China changed its stance on North Koreans who are fleeing famine and repression. Beijing says they are economic migrants and has refused them refugee status.
"It is a question both sides recognize exists and both sides want to face and to solve together," Guterres said at a news conference. He said both sides had "a lot of homework" to do in coming months but didn't say whether they would hold more talks.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans live in hiding in China after fleeing famine at home and repression under the Stalinist dictatorship of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Several thousand have been allowed to leave for rival South Korea after seeking asylum in embassies and other foreign offices. But Chinese security forces have set up barbed wire fences to keep asylum-seekers out of diplomatic offices and launch periodic sweeps to catch North Koreans living in the country.
"Those DPRK citizens who illegally entered our territory came to China out of economic reasons instead of any political reasons," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular briefing. "They are not refugees."
Guterres said Chinese officials told him they are creating an asylum system that will be in line with international law and expect to complete it this year. "That, in my opinion, will help a lot in the future in development of solutions to these problems," Guterres said. Guterres wouldn't say how many North Koreans the UNHCR believes are living in China or whether he had asked to meet with any. The commissioner said he met with State Council Tang Jiaxuan, a Cabinet official, as well as officials of China's Foreign Ministry and ministries of commerce, civil affairs and public security.
*************************************************
7.ROK PRESS WALK OUT OF FAMILY REUNIONS
Chosun Ilbo, 23 March 2006
The South Korean press corps on Thursday decided to leave North Korea in protest at authorities’ interference with their coverage of an ongoing reunion event of families divided between North and South. Pyongyang on Tuesday took umbrage at reports in the South Korean press that accurately described some of those from the North Korean side as “abducted” by North Korea.
Seoul and the press pool said Pyongyang on Tuesday threatened to expel reporters who used the offensive terminology. The North gave an unnamed reporter “30 minutes” to leave or face being dealt with “according to North Korean law.” It also threatened South Korean authorities, saying it would end the reunion prematurely if the reporter stayed. North Korean security forces barged into the press room and confiscated tapes recorded by the SBS TV network and others. However, following behind-the-scenes negotiations, it returned them the next day.
The wrangling delayed the return of the first group of South Korean family members, most of whom are in their 80s or 90s, some nine hours after their reunions ended. They were to leave Mt. Kumgang at 1 p.m. on Wednesday after saying goodbye to their North Korean families in the morning. As a result, the buses carrying the 149, including 50 who accompanied their elderly relatives, did not leave until after 10 p.m. The South Korean press corps in a statement on Thursday said, “The North has obstructed our reporting and failed to respond to our demand for free press activity, let alone apologized. We interpret that to mean the North will continue to curb South Korean press activities during the second part starting on Thursday, and have decided to leave.”
Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok expressed deep regret that North Korea obstructed South Korean press activities and prevented the first group of South Korean families from coming back home on time. He said he protested to Pyongyang “and stressed that the attitude the North has shown does not help improve inter-Korean relations and is undesirable from the humanitarian perspective.” He added he urged the North to remedy the situation.
*************************************************
BOOK REVIEWS
*************************************************
8. ALTERNATIVE LENSES ON NORTH KOREA
"Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea" by Guy Delisle, Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly Books, 2005.
"North Korea in Quotation: A Worldwide Dictionary, 1948-2004" by Steve Shipp, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2005.
Reviewed by Erik Mobrand, News Blaze, 3 March 2006
Finding itself in the middle of an international dilemma over its nuclear program, North Korea is a country that the world needs to know about. But famed for its secrecy, North Korea is difficult for observers to penetrate. How can we learn what is really going on in that country?
Guy Delisle and Steve Shipp, authors of two recent books on North Korea, offer unconventional ways of presenting information on the subject - by cartoon and by quotation. Delisle, a cartoonist for a French animation company, found himself dispatched to Pyongyang for two months for a job. His graphic novel, one of the most fun books on North Korea published to date, documents his stay in the North Korean capital. In Pyongyang: A Journey to North Korea, Delisle gives us more or less just what he sees, from his arrival (the first frame is the airport) to his departure. The author spends those two months trying to get along with locals, keep himself entertained, and help the cartoonists under his direction make an animated bear's hand wave instead of vibrate.
From Pyongyang the reader gets plenty of observations that match what others have written about North Korea: shortages of power and food, inefficiency, and the ubiquitousness of images of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. (An optical trick even causes a startled Delisle to see the face of the Dear Leader in the mirror at one point.) Delisle tries to find out what kind of music people are interested in, sharing rhythms with some humorless interlocutors, only to discover that "North Korea isn't a reggae kind of country" (p. 71). Special treatment of foreigners prevents Delisle from interacting much with North Koreans, apart from the guides who follow him at all times.
North Korea in Quotation: A Worldwide Dictionary, 1948-2004, brought to us by the compiler of a biographical dictionary of Latin American and Caribbean artists and a directory of rainforest organizations, is a very different read. The book is a reference work of two- or three-sentence snippets about North Korea taken from the utterances of all sorts of people. In the preface, Shipp tells us the volume's goal is "to provide an easily accessed collection of the most historically important, well known and interesting statements about North Korea" (p. 2).
The quotations are organized under 20 topical headings. The book opens with a section on sayings about North Korea's relationship with China, and closes with one on North Korea and the United States. In between, subjects like "Daily Life," "Economy," "Korean War," "Nuclear Program," and "Reunification" are covered. The quotations come from speakers ranging from journalists to scholars, US administrators to Kim Jong Il, ensuring that plenty of different perspectives are heard.
What Delisle and Shipp have done is to throw analysis to the wind. Neither author is an expert observer of North Korean affairs - nor do they try to be. Delisle has no agenda, and doesn't pretend to know much more than what he sees. This is North Korea deliberately from an outsider's perspective, though in the rare guise of a visitor's eye. Shipp, too, withholds judgment from his material, providing no guide to the quotations he has compiled.
Both books' humble, intentionally-superficial treatment of North Korean issues is refreshing. By reporting only what is seen (in the case of Delisle) or heard (in the case of Shipp), the authors keep politics out of interpretation, avoiding a problem that plagues writing on North Korea. Because we have so little to go on when it comes to North Korea, getting "just the facts" can be more helpful than getting over-ambitious analyses.
Pyongyang offers touches of daily life, like people enjoying a stroll backwards - an exercise that could just as easily be seen on early mornings in Seoul parks. Signs of hope for North Koreans shine through at a few points, as when Delisle recognizes genuine individual talent (p. 151) and when a person flatly criticizes the country (p. 153). Delisle's refusal to judge what he sees is admirable. As a collection of reflections by an unbiased visitor, his book is valuable to those interested in North Korea.
The best way to use North Korea in Quotation is through its speaker index. If you want to know what a particular American leader has said on North Korea, then the volume is quite handy. But if readers page through the book cover to cover then they are likely to be more confused than before they can began, because so many conflicting views are presented with no help in assessing them. The compiler claims that the "varied opinions of statesmen, analysts and journalists... over the decades have produced a balanced critical assessment of North Korea and its relationship to the world" (p. 2). What, then, are we to believe when we read, on one hand, that "There is still very little evidence that the political elite in either Korea is willing to sacrifice any important interest for the broader goal of reunification" (entry 1666), but also that "Seoul has long wanted reunification" (entry 1662)? Drawing conclusions from the list of statements is difficult without knowing something about the background, expertise, and motives of the speakers.
These books are welcome additions to the literature on North Korea, because they present their elusive subject in new ways. North Korea in Quotation should be used cautiously as a reference on the statements of particular individuals. Pyongyang is worthwhile for entertainment value alone, and Delisle's frames with their minimal captions make the graphic novel a surprisingly appropriate medium for bringing out the absurdity of passing time in that city as a foreigner. Delisle's insights into Pyongyang as a place where people live also teaches us about North Koreans.
*************************************************
9. TWO-DIMENSIONAL TRAVELOGUE
"Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea" by Guy Delisle, Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly Books, 2005.
Review by Bill Drucker, Korean Quarterly, Winter 2006
Recently when North Korea opened its doors (just a crack) to let in foreign investment, a Canadian cartoonist found himself among the foreigners working in Pyongyang, the country's capital. He was there representing a French film animation company. Several months of observances and experiences are summarized by Guy Delisle in the witty and astute cartoon-formatted memoir, Pyongyang.
Delisle, a Quebec native, spent ten years, mostly in Europe, working in animation. The artist entered North Korea with a smuggled radio and a copy of George Orwell's 1984. As with all foreigners, Delisle is provided with a North Korean guide and translator.
His first impressions include his feeling of bombardment by images of the leaders Il-Sung Kim and his son and present leader Jong-Il Kim. Then, he is brought to only the sites and images deemed suitable for foreigners. Although he is herded around appropriately, he still sees the austere realities of the city, its people, and the country. He observes a state, driven by programmatic conditioning and a rigid mindset. His images of girls playing accordions with wide, seemingly forced smiles are particularly disturbing. A harsher view is that the people and state are motivated by fear.
Two things are immediate to Delisle: Rules of behavior, and the honoring of the two Kims. And this is for foreigners. He quickly learns what is prohibited ---- no radios or cell phones, no pornography, no jokes about the leaders, no tipping, no traveling without your guide. In the city, Delisle finds that the streets are clean but there are not many cars or people. The buildings are well maintained but old. Electricity is restricted. All foreigners are given luxury hotel rooms (by North Korean standards) in one of two hotels for foreigners.
The whole trip seems doomed to dreariness from the start, but at the North Korean Scientific and Educational Film Studio of Korea (SEK), Delisle meets an old professional friend, Sandrine, and later David, a fellow animator. They find places for foreigners to drink and party, even gamble.
To see anything, Delisle must get permission. After two days, his guide takes him to the Pyongyang subway, an engineering marvel. Ninety meters underground, the subway can double as a bomb shelter in case of nuclear attack. Delisle observes that the structure is a functioning reminder to cultivate a constant sense of threat. At the ground level, it resembles a subterranean palace, with marble floors and sculpted columns. Heavy with propaganda murals, it is one of the few places in Pyongyang to be fully electrically powered.
Comic book format aside, Guy Delisle's observations of a surreal Pyongyang and the North Korean mindset are similarly striking and disturbing. Articulate if not overly conscientious guides, propaganda, a pristine façade, and letter-perfect images ---- all that misguided effort. That is the real pity of the country.
*************************************************
QUIDNUNC
In this section of CanKor, we invite readers to send questions, answers, or responses. Answers should be under 150 words and may be edited for space.
*************************************************
SOUTH KOREAN AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA USE A GREAT VARIETY OF FORMS WHEN TRANSLITERATING NORTH KOREAN NAMES, BUT RARELY THE TRADITIONAL KOREAN WAY PREFERRED IN THE DPRK. WHY?
*************************************************
All North Korea publications including those in foreign languages are subject to strict guidelines and review as to content and form. This includes enforced standardization of the format for transliteration of names and standardized rendering of hangul into English equivalents. Whether or not this format is "traditional" is debatable, but it unquestioningly leads to consistency that is sorely lacking in transliteration of Korea names in the ROK and abroad. In this aspect of clarity of transliteration of names into English the DPRK's system has demonstrated objectively verifiable superior results.
Dr. Charles Burton, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada
*************************************************
WHAT NOW?
Has the Six Party Talks process run its course?
[Questions or Answers should be e-mailed to: editor@CanKor.ca]
*************************************************
