I’m going to add just one small bit to the fracas between the Korean Finance Ministry and two reporters with whose work I’m familiar — Don Kirk and Evan Ramstad. As to the questions themselves, sometimes, the function of a good reporter is to challenge official groupthink and corruption, especially in a place where groupthink is as prevalent as it is in Korea. I do not think that a country that aspires to be a hub of international business can nonetheless exempt itself, for cultural reasons, from ethical standards that have gained international acceptance. One of these is that governments ought not to ply interest groups or investors with prostitutes (which seems to be a reasonably good guess as to where the questions might be headed). If a reporter has a basis to believe that this has occurred, it seems fair to ask about it. The questions Kirk and Ramstad were at least as appropriate as the question that brought us this infamous episode of presidential mendacity. As for the context in which the questions were asked or the other issues between Ramstad and the Foreign Ministry, I have no particular knowledge and therefore nothing useful to add.
I will confess, however, that I am biased toward Kirk and Ramstad, am a fan of their work, and wish them both well. Long before this episode, I’d noted their role in a trend toward much-improved reporting about Korea lately. Some full disclosure would be appropriate: I consider Kirk a personal friend, and he arranged for his publisher to send me a free review copy of his excellent book about Kim Dae Jung. I don’t think this was enough to buy me off, but I put that out there for your consideration. Kirk’s book, like his original exposure of the 2000 summit scandal, are prime examples of questions that some Koreans no doubt considered pushy and inappropriate at the time, not just in spite of the fact that they contradicted Korean groupthink about DJ and North Korea, but because they contradicted it. Those who lived in Korea in those years know the extent to which those issues had become intertwined with Korea’s national pride and nationalism. For a time, it was blasphemy to challenge it.
Ramstad has featured my work, and Curtis’s, in the Journal. In addition to our lengthy conversation during which which he interviewed for that article, we’ve had a number of e-mail exchanges. These, in addition to my observation of his work, have been sufficient for me to get a sense of his subject matter knowledge, which is first-rate. His reporting has added a much-needed correction to past reporting of North Korea by reporting on conditions inside North Korea itself. Both Kirk and Ramstad are correspondents of the first caliber. To the extent that their questions drew attention to elephants that went unmentioned in a room filled with reporters, so much the better.
Surely even the most determined opponent of the Iraq War would agree that this is a far better way for a war to end than this, or this. It’s not quite over, of course, but there’s no reason for it to go on. No one in Iraq wants it to go on, and most importantly, no one is afraid:
One of trite bumper sticker slogans that became vogue in the last five years is that you can’t export democracy at gunpoint. From where I sit, it looks like we just have. Mind you, Iraq is one of those extraordinary cases — the only case I can envision today — in which direct foreign military intervention was an appropriate way to accomplish that. I submit that the intense unpopularity of the war in the terrible years of 2004-2008 was not so much that the casualties exceeded what our politicians expected before they voted to send the troops in. It was unpopular because the people could not see the outcome we see here. How else could this result have been achieved? Not without violence, certainly, and had it not been achieved, Iraq would be in a state of unrestrainable genocide, proliferation, and aggression.
To all of those who served and to their families, there are not enough occasions when the rest of us thank you for what you have done. Let this be one of those occasions. Thank you.
The fact that Japan has its own Roh Moo Hyun now is both more and less troubling than Roh’s own presidency. On the one hand, Hatoyama wasn’t elected on a wave of anti-Americanism, but because voters were understandably tired of one-party rule. If Hatoyama doesn’t improve conditions in Japan, he may not hold power for long. On the other hand, we have much more air and naval power in Japan than in Korea, and whereas Korea is strategically expendable to America, Japan really isn’t.
I hold Barack Obama responsible for the fact that somewhere in Futenma, someone hates us.
If you believe in peace, it might be worth a minute of your time to condemn the utter senselessness of the terrorists who murder Iraqis for defying them and voting in the Arab world’s only truly free elections. The terrorists may even be losing the support of the BBC:
The campaign of sectarian killing is beginning to seem like mindless nihilism, rather some sort of clear-cut political strategy. Having completely failed to derail the democratic process here, it is hard to see what the extremists can do now. Other than raise the level of violence even more, of course. [BBC, John Simpson]
Who would have thought this could happen four years ago? Thank goodness President Obama had the spine and the will to stand up to all those calls to pull the troops out.
I’m not sure of what the story is, or why Pepsi’s site used to say, “Voting ends on February 28th,” and now says, “Voting ends on March 31st,” but LiNK confirms they’re still in the running for $250K. I suppose that means I’ll have to fix that button and put it back in my sidebar. For now, vote here. They’ve dropped to number 7, so they definitely need your vote.
And if anyone from LiNK can explain why the deadline was extended, please e-mail me or drop a comment. Thanks.
Update: So I guess the way this works is that Pepsi starts the contest all over again every month. LiNK’s position hasn’t dropped; this is a whole new beginning.
So Operations Key Resolve and Foal Eagle have started again. I boldly predict that this year, as has been the case for each year for the many decades we’ve had troops stationed in South Korea, the exercise will not end with an American invasion of North Korea. Just as predictably, North Korea is threatening the United States and/or South Korea. The challenge for North Korean propagandists is always how to make each year’s threat stand out from such previous-year classics as “sea of fire.” After all, you can only say “brigandish,” “imperialist,” and “merciless” so many times before people start to suspect you’re writing your missives with pre-printed refrigerator magnets.
The North’s military warned Sunday that it would bolster its nuclear capability and break off dialogue with the U.S. in response to the drills. It also said it would use unspecified “merciless physical force” to cope with them, saying it is no longer bound by the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. [AP]
“The revolutionary armed forces of (North Korea) will be left with no option but to exercise merciless physical force as the rival is set to do harm to the (North),” the military’s mission at the truce village of Panmunjom said in a statement carried by the country’s official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea has escalated its threats against South Korea and the U.S. over the planned drills. Last week, the North vowed to strengthen its nuclear deterrent and its means of delivery — an apparent reference to missiles. Last month, the North also threatened a “powerful” — even nuclear — attack if the drills go ahead. [AP]
Also, because any excuse will do, North Korea is telling us yet again that it’s not going to disarm:
North Korea said Sunday it would no longer move forward with nuclear disarmament in response to a planned U.S.-South Korean joint military exercise. The announcement was made by the official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA.
“The maneuvers clearly indicate once again that the U.S. and the South Korean authorities are the harassers of peace and warmongers keen to bring a war to this land,” the statement said. [CNN]
President Obama decided not to restore North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism on February 3, 2010. President Bush removed North Korea from the list on October 11, 2008 as a reward for its “progress” toward nuclear disarmament. Discuss among yourselves.
“The process for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula will naturally come to a standstill,” the North’s official KCNA news agency quoted a senior military official as saying.
“It is illogical to sit face to face with the dialogue partner, who brings dark clouds of a nuclear war while leveling its gun at the other party, and discuss ‘peace’ and ‘cooperation’ with him,” the official was quoted as saying. [Reuters]
And they had been doing so well until now! If only we could all just get along. If only we had another Agreed Framework:
The North has been demanding a peace treaty with the U.S. and even made it a major condition for its returning to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. [….] On the face of it, it’s a very easy decision to make,” John Feffer, the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus, a Washington-based think tank, told The Korea Times. The proposition also appears commonsense because the U.S. and North Korea have not exchanged any significant gunfire since 1953.
Some observers correctly say that it’s because U.S. negotiators see granting a peace treaty to the ill-behaving North as a “reward.” But a deeper and even ultimate diagnosis may be that it’s because the U.S. actually cannot afford to give it to North Korea. And the problem lies with its domestic political situation, according to Feffer.
“U.S. law stipulates that a peace treaty must obtain two-thirds of the votes in the Senate. The problem is that there are a number of Senators, mostly Republican, who are not willing to sign a peace treaty with North Korea. This domestic consideration has to be taken into account,” said Feffer, adding that this is the “real reason” the U.S. administration is unwilling to offer a peace pact. [Korea Times, Sunny Lee]
And here I was, prepared to hold Barack Obama responsible for the fact that the people in Pyongyang who tell the KCNA guys what to write who hate us, only to see John Feffer elucidate why the stuff that KCNA says is actually all the Republicans’ fault. But then, Feffer’s unique talent is the capacity to construct an argument that everything that happens in Korea — Kim Jong Il starving North Koreans, Kim Jong Il testing nukes, Kim Jong Il breaking promises, Kim Jong Il threatening the neighbors — is somehow America’s fault. In some circles, this unique gift is confused with intelligence.
Note to Sunny Lee: couldn’t you find anyone to go on record and express a view that isn’t the exclusive dominion of the lunatic fringe? Now fasten your seat belts, because we’re about to cross over to an alternative universe:
In a survey last year by Rasmussen, a U.S. polling organization, North Korea topped the list of countries that American voters see as the biggest national security threat. A Gallup poll in February showed that the view hasn’t changed. The North again topped the list of countries, together with Iran, in “critical threats to the U.S. vital interests.”
The results show the predominantly negative perceptions the American public have toward North Korea. And given that their view on the North, not the U.S. administration, may be the ultimate decider on whether a peace treaty should be signed, Pyongyang is at a critical disadvantage.
In its peace treaty demand, North Korea may have neglected this factor. It’s important for the secretive state to have “winning negotiations” with U.S. nuclear envoys, but behind them are lawmakers, and behind them the general public, who ultimately influences U.S. negotiations.
“There is a tendency in the U.S. that sees a peace treaty with North Korea as somehow a concession,” said Feffer. “That’s why it has been so difficult to push the issue forward domestically.”
Perhaps, it’s time for North Korea to engage in a charm offensive of public diplomacy to earn the hearts and minds of Americans first to see progress on its demand.
I suppose it violates the Feffer Principle to imply that Kim Jong Il modify his behavior — or even that he has the free will to do so — but I would humbly suggest that a minimally effective “charm offensive” might begin with Kim Jong Il announcing a moratorium on declarations of war, nuke and missile tests, public executions, threats against the neighbors, illegal arms shipments and technology transfers to shadowy regimes, and the refusal of international food aid for starving people. Maybe he could even show some sincerity by closing down his death camps. Any one of those things would go a lot further to dispel our hegemonic misconceptions than any of Feffer’s intricate constructs of brittle logic.
The AP is reporting that Pakistani security forces have captured Scummy Hippie Traitor Number One, Adam Gadahn, in Karachi.
Grain of salt: this, from Pakistani sources, which don’t have a terribly good record for reliability.
And in related news, there’s some sweet red-on-red fighting reported in eastern Afghanistan, with the forces of ex-Marxist, ex-mujahid and thorough scumbag Gulbuddin Hekmatyar fighting against the Taliban. Some of Gulbuddin’s people are said to be getting the worst end of the fight and defecting to government forces. While I don’t doubt that Gulbuddin himself could bring over plenty of valuable intel, he is after all the man primarily responsible for destroying Kabul, and who got his start throwing acid into the unveiled faces of women at Kabul U.
During the Soviet war, mujaheddin groups fought each other frequently, the but Soviets’ arrogance and brutality prevented them from exploiting those divisions successfully.
Starting yesterday, several news outlets had reported that North Korea had released recent video of Kim Jong Il appearing in Hamhung to mark the re-opening of a textile factory in Hamhung, but to my intense aggravation, none provided a link to the actual video. YouTube, however, does not disappoint:
The video shows Kim waving to an assembled crowd with his right arm, and moving his left arm slightly to applaud … himself, presumably. Heil me. There are no shots showing both Kim Jong Il and the crowd. Note that Kim is wearing a parka, and the septuagenarians with him (Kim Yong Nam is on the right) are wearing heavy overcoats, while those in the crowd below wear business suits and hamboks. Mike Madden identifies the rest of the rogues’ gallery. Decide for yourself whether he really was appearing before this crowd. The crowd is assembled in front of what Curtis identifies as the Hamhung Grand Theater:
The two large objects in the foreground starting at :50 don’t show up in the satellite imagery. At first, I guessed that they were monuments, but if they are, they’re new. Otherwise, the scenery in the video matches the imagery.
There is no audio with this video. In fact, I haven’t heard any audio of Kim Jong Il speaking since his stroke, which leads me to suspect that his speech may still be slurred, or that the pitch of his voice may be unnaturally high in a way characteristic of stroke victims. If anyone knows more about that, I’d appreciate an e-mail or a comment.
Mike Madden’s post identifies the reopened factory as the February 8th Vinalon Complex, which, according to the Nuclear Threat Institute, is one of North Korea’s largest chemical plants. It’s also suspected of producing chemical weapons, “including blister, choking, nerve, and tear agents.”
The February 8th Vinalon Complex occupies the grounds of a former Japanese-owned factory that processed acetylene carbide to produce iso-octane for aviation fuel during World War II. Dr. Lee Sŭng Ki, a famous chemical engineer and the inventor of vinalon, supervised the construction of the February 8th Vinalon Complex, which began in 1959 and was completed in 1961. The facility was the first dedicated vinalon production plant in North Korea, and it was organized as a “complex” (聯合企業所) in 1974. According to the Segye Ilbo, the 13th Nuclear Chemical Defense Battalion is posted here. There are no firm details about the types of CW agents that may be produced at this facility. [NTI]
The NTI has more information on the links between vinalon and chemical weapons here. Here’s a photograph of the plant from 2000:
More on the plant’s closing:
The factory, established in 1961, reportedly shut amid worsening economic difficulties in the mid-1990s. The North’s state media have said it recently resumed producing vinalon, and that would help the country become an economically prosperous nation. [AP]
Vinalon is a synthetic fiber the North Koreans claim to have been invented in secret by a Korean scientist working under the oppressive heel of the Japanese. Despite their concession that vinalon was invented in 1939, the North Koreans have appropriated vinalon as a symbol of their scientific and economic self-reliance. The North Koreans say now that the February 8th complex just “resumed mass-producing quality vinalon cotton and various chemical goods after being streamlined,” but this account seems to contradict a report of a 2008 Kim Jong Il visit:
[H]e learned about the technological updating and production at the complex, walking round the rebuilt and newly constructed workshops. After making the rounds of the exterior and interior of the rebuilt and newly established processes, he expressed great satisfaction over the fact that builders and their helpers successfully completed the large project equivalent to the construction of a big factory by their own efforts and with their technology in a brief span of time. He highly appreciated their feats and extended warm greetings to them. [KCNA, May 28, 2008]
If the plant was operating so efficiently then, why throw this big grand-reopening / streamlining bash?
North Koreans, it seems, didn’t really feel much like celebrating on February 16th:
One person was killed by armed guards on Feb. 16 when a group of people attempted to rob a food train at Komusan Railway Station in Puryong-gun, North Hamgyong Province, defector group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said. The attack came on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday after a disastrous currency reform sent food prices skyrocketing. The train was loaded with rice imported from China, the group said. Workers, outraged over the death, attacked armed guards with ploughs and police and military were called in.
“North Koreans are angry that guards shot a worker dead for a few kilograms of rice but protesters are unlikely to get off lightly because the incident happened on Kim’s birthday,” the group said. [Chosun Ilbo]
The North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS) reported that a North Korean was shot dead in a fight after he, along with several other hungry residents, attempted to loot food items by jumping on a train in North Hamgyeong Province. The train shipping imported foods from China was passing through the region. The province shares a border with the northeastern part of China.
“A man, who was identified only as Jung, died during a physical fight with security forces,” the report said. [Korea Times]
Are North Koreans really resisting their government more, or does the proliferation of cell phones mean that we’re just more likely to hear about it when they do? My guess is that it’s a bit of both, since resistance against this regime certainly isn’t an entirely new development.
In any event, I was interested in knowing where this riot had occurred to put it into the context of the the region, prior reports of disturbances, and the size of the population there. Komusan turns out to be a small, isolated town along the railroad line from Hoeryong on the Chinese border down to the large North Korean city of Chongjin, the city described in Barbara Demick’s recent book. It also turns out to be just 7.5 miles as the crow flies from the village of Chongo-ri, which has given its name to the infamous prison camp I located just east of there, with much help from David Hawk and Chuck Downs, and some key tips from Curtis and my wife.
The north side of the town is taken up by what appears to be a large mill serving the numerous mines in the surrounding hills. As we’ve learned, there are copper mines in this area.
Here are some closer views of the town and the station.
This area has long been a hotbed of discontent. It’s geographically isolated, so disturbances would be easy to contain. That may be why various Korean regimes have long sent malcontents to this part of the country. But today, this area has become strategically significant. The main supply routes from China to North Korea run through Sinuiju in the West and Hoeryong in the East. This railroad line is the eastern route from China that supplies the provinces of North and South Hamgyeong and Kangwon. It runs south to Chongjin, then southwest along the coast to Hamhung, Hungnam, and Wonsan. North Korea’s interior is mountainous. It has a few roads and rail lines, but most appear to be poorly maintained. If disturbances interfere with this rail line, the next best ways to supply the east coast would be by ship, using those cities’ dilapidated ports, or by bringing the supplies through Sinuiju in the west through Pyongyang, then to Wonsan and up the coast again.
For now, there’s only this Korean language link. There isn’t much detail to add. The report didn’t go into detail, stating only that it was too horrible to describe in detail, which is just as well. The Free Robert Park blog, which has claimed to report first-hand information from Park in the past, contains this cryptic entry dated March 2nd:
The news article that was here has been removed at the request of Robert’s family because it was causing distress. Not because it was untrue. I hope that you dear reader will also be sensitive while you seek the truth, and that you will pray with love for Robert and his family. The torture did not stop when he left Pyongyang, and is now affecting all those close to him.
I must say that the sexual — and presumably, homosexual — torture of an American prisoner wouldn’t fit with my expectations of how North Koreans would have been instructed to treat anyone who might live to tell about it. Yes, it’s apparent that Mr. Park left Pyongyang in a state of emotional distress, but then again, Park didn’t show obvious signs of the severe beating the Chosun Ilbo reported he’d experienced. I really don’t know what to make of this, but if it’s true, Park ought to find the courage to tell the world about it.
‘
So I wasn’t able to make it to Korus House to see the Venerable Pomnyun speak, but the Hankroyeh, of all places, cites him as saying that two thousand people have starved to death in North Korea since The Great Confiscation. I’m tempted to fall back on ordinarily reliable maxim that everything the Hanky publishes is false just because it’s published in the Hanky, but in this case, it’s slightly more complicated than that. First, it’s likely that that many North Korean prisoners or kotjaebi would have starved to death even without The Great Confiscation, but we’ll never know for certain. Second, I don’t doubt that The Great Confiscation has caused the deaths of many North Koreans, whether through suicide, execution, or starvation. Third, I don’t believe either Good Friends or any other organization with contacts inside North Korea has developed those contacts sufficiently to make reliable estimates. Undercounting seems much more likely than overcounting, but both are distinct possibilities. Fourth, I cite Good Friends frequently because they’re a valuable source for reporting anecdotes from which we can infer general trends, but I would caution anyone against relying on them for statistical information.
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Axis, Schmaxis: Janes publishes new imagery of an Iranian missile launch site and finds a North Korean connection.
Update: I went on Google Earth, where I found and marked the base camp, but GI Korea does me one better and finds what may be the construction site Janes refers to. Assuming that’s the right place, the similarities aren’t any more obvious to me than they are to GI Korea, but if I’m reading the imagery dates correctly, they’re about a year old. Maybe Janes has newer images and more interpretive skill than me.
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The Chosun Ilbo cites a Radio Free Asia report (good luck finding it) that even Pyongyang’s shops and hotels for foreigners are running out of food:
Radio Free Asia on Wednesday quoted a member of an American NGO who recently visited the North to deliver aid as saying shops in Pyongyang are empty, there are few foreigners in hotels, and construction has come to a standstill.
The American recalled that even no kimchi, the staple spicy delicacy of Korea, was found among dishes of Korean food served in the Koryo Hotel. He wondered if the hotel could not afford to make it due to skyrocketing prices. He had visited the North for more than 10 years, but it was the first time no kimchi was served, he added.
RFA quoted a Western diplomat in Pyongyang as saying foreigners travel to the Chinese border town of Dandong at weekends because they cannot find daily necessities even in designated shops in the North.
Several years ago, after observing the rise of the now-failed Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, the goombahs in the Kremlin decided that it would be a good thing to have some street muscle handy in the event any Russians got similar ideas. In the annals of accidental fame, the Kremlin is to irony what the Taliban are to sodomy; thus, it’s only natural that the group was called the “Democratic Anti-Fascist Youth Group.” The Russian acronym turns out to be NASHI, the Russian word for “ours,” lest anyone miss the nationalist appeal.
Certainly the Kremlin must have liked the idea that its new Putinjugend wouldn’t be under the state’s direct control, technically speaking, a useful thing should some knees or skulls happen to break in the course of someone getting carried away by the passionate expression of someone’s love for his Mother. Land. As Miriam Elder informs us, NASHI’s web site, responding to what it calls “many requests,” has published a series of North Korean propaganda oil paintings depicting Yankee big-nosers massacring babies and defiling pure North Korean women. This would be my personal favorite:
Is lovely, da? Da!
(Hmm. What do you suppose it would cost to have them paint us some weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?)
What are we to take from this? That we should all hope for the day when America will finally elect a president capable of suave, nuanced diplomacy … a president who can “reset” our relations with Russia and undo all the harm caused by those reckless, imperialistneoconcowboys. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton must be held responsible for this decline in relations, because I, for one, simply cannot rest while knowing that somewhere in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, someone does not like me.
The Wall Street Journal’s Melanie Kirkpatrick, a very nice person with whom I’ve exchanged some e-mails, has an article on Christianity in South Korea. Interesting reading, even for those of us who prefer our religion much less organized. The statistic that 40% of South Korean Christians are Pentecostal is both remarkable and unsurprising. (Corrected, thanks.)
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Because I’m a sucker for such things, let me direct you to Coming Anarchy’s fascinating Google Map of drone strikes in Pakistan. The anti-anti-terrorist left’s dumbest new initiative is its opposition to drone strikes. Unless you just don’t think we should kill terrorists at all, a lunatic fringe view in an age when terrorists are willing and able to kill thousands of Americans in our own country, I’m at an absolute loss to see any principled argument against using drones, as opposed to manned aircraft that require pilots to be put at risk for much greater cost. (Link fixed, thanks.)
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No please stop: North Korea threatens to suspend Mt. Kumgang tours, which haven’t been happening for years anyway. Park Wang-Ja was not available for comment.
According to the Treasury Department, North Korea is still printing fake dollars, but no major North Korean meth and heroin shipments have been intercepted in recent years, leading it to believe that the regime is out of that business:
“There is insufficient evidence to say with certainty that state-sponsored trafficking by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) has stopped entirely in 2009,” the 2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report released by the department said. “Nonetheless, the paucity of public reports of drug trafficking with a direct DPRK connection suggest strongly that such high-profile drug trafficking has either ceased, or has been reduced very sharply.”
The annual report said, “No confirmed instances of large-scale drug trafficking involving the DPRK state or its nationals were reported in 2009,” noting, “This is the seventh consecutive year that here were no known instances of large-scale methamphetamine or heroin trafficking to either Japan or Taiwan with direct DPRK state institution involvement.” [….]
The report noted that trafficking of methamphetamine along the North Korea-China border continues. “There are indications that international drug traffickers can purchase methamphetamine in kilogram quantities in some of the major towns on the Chinese side of the DPRK-China border,” it said. [Yonhap]
You can read the full State Department report here. Here’s what it says about Supernote counterfeiting, by the way:
“Counterfeit $100 U.S. notes called supernotes continue to turn up in various countries, including in the United States,” it said. “There are reports, for example, of supernote seizures in San Fransisco and a very large supernote seizure in Busan, South Korea, during 2008 and 2009.” Supernotes are uniquely associated with North Korea, the report said. “But it is not clear if recent seizures are notes which have been circulating for some time, or they are recently-counterfeited new notes.”
Overall, the evidence I’ve seen supports the view that North Korea’s large scale, state-sponsored meth and heroin production and export business has dropped off sharply, although it’s also possible that they’ve just gotten better at not getting caught. This doesn’t mean, of course, that Kim Jong Il has decided to just say no to drugs. North Korean diplomats are still being busted for selling other drugs on a fairly regular basis, though I’m not aware of any major drug busts last year.
Most likely, North Korea’s large-scale dope manufacturing is rusting just like pretty much ever major industry in North Korea. North Korea, which has tried to overcome the law of comparative advantage with silly ideas like ostrich and rabbit farms, is thought to have brought in experts from the Golden Triangle to teach it how to grow poppies. Former prisoners have identified this field in Camp 15, a political prison camp, as one place where opium poppies are grown:
North Korea’s short growing season may have done as much to doom this initiative as anything, including high-profile drug interceptions and the general decline of North Korean industry.
Where North Korea manufactures (or manufactured) illicit (to us) drugs is no longer a very well kept secret. At least some of the facilities used to manufacture the drugs were originally built by the Japanese during the occupation period. Here’s the Nanam Pharmaceutical Factory …
and the Hamheung Pharmaceutical Factory:
A big thank you to Curtis for those last two locations. For much, much more on North Korea’s dope industry, I refer you to this detailed paper by Lieutenant Commander Cindy Hurst.
This doesn’t mean that North Korea isn’t still producing plenty of meth and heroin, although most of the industry seems to have turned pro. As I’ve described here in more detail, the collapse of North Korea’s economy left a number of scientists and chemists with all the knowledge needed to set up their own meth labs and with no other means to survive. Despite North Korea’s poverty, there’s a demand for drugs to stave off hunger and dreariness, and as a substitute for medically appropriate medicines that aren’t widely available. As a result, the city of Hamhung in particular has a severe problem with methamphetamine addiction. The latest from Open News is that students are turning to selling dope (and in some cases, their diplomas) to survive:
North Korean university students have the burden of paying for living expenses and other financial sacrifices requested by the university. In the case of university students in downtown Haesan last year, it has been estimated that the average amount money spent a year is about 18,000-20,000 yuan, which is equivalent to 900,000-1,000,000 won in North Korean currency before the currency reform. Moreover, the students who are in the final semester need to pay a bribe for graduation. The graduation payment is about 6,000-8,000 yuan (about 300,000-400,000 won before currency reform). The source has stated that the reason why the students need to pay bribes even though the North Korean society provides a free education is because bribing is prevalent within the schools. This is why that the North Korean university students have no choice but to be involved in criminal acts such as drug trafficking and selling their diploma.
The source further explained about students who are selling their diploma which they have gained with a great amount of effort. According to him, the trend of selling diploma has become popular among the students who have finished their military service, have left their family in suburban areas, or have a low living standards. The portion of such students is approximately 1-2 per class. Also, it is possible for them to change their pictures and names before putting them on the transaction market by contacting the managerial staffs at school. The universities are indeed supporting the diploma selling by condoning it.
Such diplomas are being sold to the people who are rich and want to gain social success. It is because graduating from university is one of the factors that can contribute to gaining success in the society. Also, the price of the diploma, in the case of a diploma from the School of Education, is worth about 300,000 won (before the currency reform).
The source estimated that it was around the mid-1990s when North Korean students have faced such a difficult situations. Although such situations have declined during the late 1990s, it has restarted since the early 2000 before the recent currency reform. Also, it has dramatically increased ever since the currency reform. Furthermore, the source has added that this trend that is not only confined to Heasan, Yangkang Province but is prevalent in other parts of North Korea. [Open News, Mi-Ok Kim]
Kim Jong Ryul, who spent 16 years under cover in Austria, also described how the “great leader” and his son and successor Kim Jong Il spent millions pampering and protecting themselves with Western goods — everything from luxury cars, carpets and exotic foods, to monitors that can detect heartbeats of people hiding behind walls and gold-plated handguns.
The colonel’s account — told in a new book by Austrian journalists Ingrid Steiner-Gashi and Dardan Gashi — shows the deep divide between the lifestyles of the North Korean leadership and their citizens, who sometimes must subsist eating tree bark, knowing they will be sent to labor camps if they criticize the government. [AP]
Remember this story the next time you see Goebbelsian apologists like Christine Ahn or John Feffer try to blame starvation in North Korea on American anti-proliferation sanctions.
In the hierarchy of problems in North Korea — every last one of which the U.N. is failing, abysmally, to address — I’m not sure that pollution by toxic chemicals ranks at the top of the list. On the other hand, I agree that it’s going to be one of the biggest post-reunification challenges. Cue quote from some U.N. wonk:
“The environment-related problems that exist in North Korea, I just have to say right now, I think they’re much more serious than in many other countries in the world,” Boljkevac said.
When you think about pollution in North Korea, think about the acres of abandoned factories along the beachfront in Chongjin, which make Love Canal look like an organic blueberry farm in Vermont. Click for full size:
Kinda like Detroit, right? Except without the EPA, and except that in Detroit, people probably aren’t using ponds and streams like the ones you see in these pictures for washing or (God forbid) cooking. You have to wonder how anyone is ever going to clean Chongjin up. Meanwhile the U.N. wags are in Pyongyang, which is probably far from the worst North Korea has to offer, environmentally speaking.
Boljkevac says North Korea is providing his teams with full access and cooperation. He says his job is made easier by the fact that none of the chemicals he is seeking to eliminate have anything to do with weapons production.
It’s always the same story with the U.N. and North Korea: only the woefully gullible need apply. I’m sure others can think of plenty of examples of dual-use facilities that are issuing forth rivers of methyl ethyl death, but the most obvious example that comes to my mind is the crumbling 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, which North Korea used to make its nuclear bombs. If North Korea is giving Boljkevac full access to its nuclear facilities, then he’s managed to do what the International Atomic Energy Agency hasn’t since the last time North Korea kicked its inspectors out.
And they had been doing so well until now! If only we could all just get along. If only we had another Agreed Framework: 
