Archive for November, 2003
Posted by Joshua Stanton on November 30, 2003 at 8:51 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
No, not really, but it fits nicely into an exchange I’ve had with The Marmot over which of us has the goofier conspiracy theory (his, mine) or links to the more dubious stories about what’s going on in North Korea these days. I say we both lose, but I think I’m having more fun. Me, I’m not worthy of journalistic angst. I don’t link stuff I think is crap, I just link stuff I think will interest the readers and stimulate thought.
Oh, and I’m pretty open about my agenda.
There’s no denying that both of us have caved in to the temptation of Kremlinology, and we’re both probably one unnamed source away from bending the trajectory of Oswald’s bullet again. At this post, I kidded Marmot for suggesting that the CIA was behind some of the reports. Now, he’s not promoting his theory as fact anymore than I am with mine, but he takes me to task for calling some of the reports out of NoKo “reasonably credible,” notwithstanding my weasel-word (no pleasing some people!). Here’s what Marmot says:
I’m not sure if much of what we’ve been reading so far can be fairly characterized as “reasonably credible.” I mean, it MIGHT be credible, but given some of the sources — defectors, the Japanese press (the Sankei in particular), Cho Gap-je and the Wolgan Chosun (or the regular Chosun, for that matter, which tends to reprint stories run in the Sankei), nameless sources in China, etc. — credibility questions do come into play. Don’t get me wrong — I’d like to believe some of the stuff coming out of North Korea as of late is true. Some of it certainly is — the removal of the portraits has been confirmed, even by North Korea itself (even if it later went back on this admission). Some of the other stuff, well, I just don’t know. Ultimately, you are right of, course — this is ultimately Kim’s fault for running a complete information block..
As for this being all CIA and stuff, again, I don’t think it all is. Some of the stories are probably legit, and some of the ones that aren’t might be just the Japanese and Korean press being the Japanese and Korean press. I do get the feeling though that some of the stuff coming out is being manufactured/spun in a way that’s not accidental, and should that be the case, I’d have no problem with that at all. The North Koreans play mind games all the time, especially with the South Koreans, and if the CIA were playing “spook the Nork,” more power to them. If creative story telling starts planting doubts in the minds of the North Korean leadership as to their own stability and/or gives some NPA officers the belief that KJI could be taken out, well, tell away. –The Marmot
Fair enough. His subtitles read, “He’s guessing,” and so do mine. We’re both guessing because we can’t not guess, and of course, we can’t actually verify any of this stuff. But guess we do:
Hey–me too! And he’s not representing this as fact, so all it does is get a good discussion going.
Reasonably credible? Depends on the context. Let’s back away and look at this story in its own context. We’re Korea bloggers, which means we do this stuff from our homes in our hamboks (rather than pajamas). We report a little, but mostly, we comment on what others report. This is a story about what’s happening in North Korea, which means (1) it’s of interest to our readers, who can click the links and judge for themselves, and (2) we’re not talking about a courthouse in Modesto, so ironclad confirmation isn’t coming. We still don’t know what happened in Ryongchon. We have what we have, which is a lot of mostly unverifiable Kremlinology we’re feeding to fairly sophisticated consumers. The consumers of this blog, for example, include folks who’ve been to North Korea fairly recently and were able to largely discredit the story about the Kim Jong Il pins. The blogosphere is a big, happy, dysfunctional, self-correcting family.
And then again, there are some things about this story that most people would consider credible enough to print:
1. The before/after pictures, with “after” having no KJI.
2. The reports of foreign diplomats, including one who went on the record. Admittedly, other travelers saw nothing unusual, but that’s the old “absence of evidence v. evidence of absence” argument.
3. There is something to be said for cumulativeness. Could it be an excellent example of the “Big Lie” theory in action? Maybe, but a lot of different sources telling (hopefully) competent reporters the same thing enough times gives the proposed fact more weight.
Back to speculating on the facts–there’s also a sense of fair play here. The New York Times is speculating. All the papers are speculating. Why not us, too? Just because we’re smart enough not to believe most of it doesn’t mean we should deprive ourselves the pleasure of positing credible theories and sticking on the appropriate warning labels. I say embrace the pleasure, just don’t embrace any of the swirling theories any longer than you’d embrace the Chinese ambassador’s trophy wife at the big embassy dance.
I kid Marmot (What ever possessed him to choose that name?) for his CIA conspiracy theory while openly hoping that it’s true. In fact, his theory and my favorite-by-a-nose—and neither of us is representing them as anything more than that—are not mutually exclusive. What I don’t like about his theory is that some of the reports do indeed appear to be true, plus the fact that this is also the mainstream Pyongyang version.
What I do like about it is that sowing panic can work wonders against closed regimes. My favorite “panic and rumor” story takes place in Buon Me Thout, South Vietnam, in 1975. The North Vietnamese Army started its dry season offensive with an attack on the city, a dirty little town set in beautiful hill country near the Cambodian border–still, I’ll always have an affectionate memory of any town that reeks of plump sacks of inky black coffee as much as Pyongtaek reeked of decomposing brine shrimp–the SVN government decided to announce an “orderly strategic pullback” to more defensible areas. That made military sense, but at the time, the SVN press was tightly controlled and widely distrusted, and rumors spread like grassfires. Worse, the ARVN troops all had their families with them. “Strategic retreat” became “panic, rout, massacre, and collapse” almost instantly.
You know how that one ended, right?
Posted by joshua on November 30, 2003 at 3:51 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
No, not really, but it fits nicely into an exchange I’ve had with The Marmot over which of us has the goofier conspiracy theory (his, mine) or links to the more dubious stories about what’s going on in North Korea these days. I say we both lose, but I think I’m having more fun. Me, I’m not worthy of journalistic angst. I don’t link stuff I think is crap, I just link stuff I think will interest the readers and stimulate thought.
Oh, and I’m pretty open about my agenda.
There’s no denying that both of us have caved in to the temptation of Kremlinology, and we’re both probably one unnamed source away from bending the trajectory of Oswald’s bullet again. At this post, I kidded Marmot for suggesting that the CIA was behind some of the reports. Now, he’s not promoting his theory as fact anymore than I am with mine, but he takes me to task for calling some of the reports out of NoKo “reasonably credible,” notwithstanding my weasel-word (no pleasing some people!). Here’s what Marmot says:
I’m not sure if much of what we’ve been reading so far can be fairly characterized as “reasonably credible.” I mean, it MIGHT be credible, but given some of the sources — defectors, the Japanese press (the Sankei in particular), Cho Gap-je and the Wolgan Chosun (or the regular Chosun, for that matter, which tends to reprint stories run in the Sankei), nameless sources in China, etc. — credibility questions do come into play. Don’t get me wrong — I’d like to believe some of the stuff coming out of North Korea as of late is true. Some of it certainly is — the removal of the portraits has been confirmed, even by North Korea itself (even if it later went back on this admission). Some of the other stuff, well, I just don’t know. Ultimately, you are right of, course — this is ultimately Kim’s fault for running a complete information block..
As for this being all CIA and stuff, again, I don’t think it all is. Some of the stories are probably legit, and some of the ones that aren’t might be just the Japanese and Korean press being the Japanese and Korean press. I do get the feeling though that some of the stuff coming out is being manufactured/spun in a way that’s not accidental, and should that be the case, I’d have no problem with that at all. The North Koreans play mind games all the time, especially with the South Koreans, and if the CIA were playing “spook the Nork,” more power to them. If creative story telling starts planting doubts in the minds of the North Korean leadership as to their own stability and/or gives some NPA officers the belief that KJI could be taken out, well, tell away. –The Marmot
Fair enough. His subtitles read, “He’s guessing,” and so do mine. We’re both guessing because we can’t not guess, and of course, we can’t actually verify any of this stuff. But guess we do:
Hey–me too! And he’s not representing this as fact, so all it does is get a good discussion going.
Reasonably credible? Depends on the context. Let’s back away and look at this story in its own context. We’re Korea bloggers, which means we do this stuff from our homes in our hamboks (rather than pajamas). We report a little, but mostly, we comment on what others report. This is a story about what’s happening in North Korea, which means (1) it’s of interest to our readers, who can click the links and judge for themselves, and (2) we’re not talking about a courthouse in Modesto, so ironclad confirmation isn’t coming. We still don’t know what happened in Ryongchon. We have what we have, which is a lot of mostly unverifiable Kremlinology we’re feeding to fairly sophisticated consumers. The consumers of this blog, for example, include folks who’ve been to North Korea fairly recently and were able to largely discredit the story about the Kim Jong Il pins. The blogosphere is a big, happy, dysfunctional, self-correcting family.
And then again, there are some things about this story that most people would consider credible enough to print:
1. The before/after pictures, with “after” having no KJI.
2. The reports of foreign diplomats, including one who went on the record. Admittedly, other travelers saw nothing unusual, but that’s the old “absence of evidence v. evidence of absence” argument.
3. There is something to be said for cumulativeness. Could it be an excellent example of the “Big Lie” theory in action? Maybe, but a lot of different sources telling (hopefully) competent reporters the same thing enough times gives the proposed fact more weight.
Back to speculating on the facts–there’s also a sense of fair play here. The New York Times is speculating. All the papers are speculating. Why not us, too? Just because we’re smart enough not to believe most of it doesn’t mean we should deprive ourselves the pleasure of positing credible theories and sticking on the appropriate warning labels. I say embrace the pleasure, just don’t embrace any of the swirling theories any longer than you’d embrace the Chinese ambassador’s trophy wife at the big embassy dance.
I kid Marmot (What ever possessed him to choose that name?) for his CIA conspiracy theory while openly hoping that it’s true. In fact, his theory and my favorite-by-a-nose—and neither of us is representing them as anything more than that—are not mutually exclusive. What I don’t like about his theory is that some of the reports do indeed appear to be true, plus the fact that this is also the mainstream Pyongyang version.
What I do like about it is that sowing panic can work wonders against closed regimes. My favorite “panic and rumor” story takes place in Buon Me Thout, South Vietnam, in 1975. The North Vietnamese Army started its dry season offensive with an attack on the city, a dirty little town set in beautiful hill country near the Cambodian border–still, I’ll always have an affectionate memory of any town that reeks of plump sacks of inky black coffee as much as Pyongtaek reeked of decomposing brine shrimp–the SVN government decided to announce an “orderly strategic pullback” to more defensible areas. That made military sense, but at the time, the SVN press was tightly controlled and widely distrusted, and rumors spread like grassfires. Worse, the ARVN troops all had their families with them. “Strategic retreat” became “panic, rout, massacre, and collapse” almost instantly.
You know how that one ended, right?
Posted by Joshua Stanton on November 26, 2003 at 4:19 am · Filed under Uncategorized
북한인권
왜 중요한가? 의미가
무엇인가?
어떻게 북한 인권상황을 개선할수 있을것인가
북한 인권에 관한 국제 심포지엄
11월27일 (토) 9:30- 16:30
연세대학교 새천년관(국제학대학원)대강당
참가신청 및 문의 linkseoul@gmail.com 02-732-6710
알림
링크LiNK (Liberation in North Korea)와 남북자유민주청년회는 ‘북한 인권에 관한국제 심포지엄’을주최하며, 한국의시민단체와대학생들을초청합니다.
이번 행사는 27일하루동안에 북한문제를 전문적으로연구하는 전문가들,북한의 상황에 관심이있는 운동가, 그리고북한 정치범 수용소출신 탈북자들과북한, 남한, 미국, 중국유학생 등을초청하여 발표와토론의 형식으로진행됩니다.
이번 행사의참여단체로는세계시민기구,정토회, 좋은벗들,북한인권시민연합,북한인권정보센터,북한민주화운동본부와 ‘평화포럼’ 등이있습니다.
세부계획
10:30 기조 연설: 곽영훈평화 운동가/수석건축가- 서울 올림픽공원, 올림픽 경기장,올림픽 평화의 불, DMZ 통일평화시 설계
Part I: 북한 인권 위기에대한 증언
11:00 북한의 기아:좋은벗들강제 노동 수용소증언: 강철환(북한민주화운동본부)탈북자: 김상헌 TIME Asian Hero 2003(북한인권정보센터이사장)
Part II: 북한 인권위기에의 대응
1:30 토론회: 북한인권의의미와 접근방법토론자:자유민주남북청년회박일환 대표원재천 교수 (한동대국제법율대학원)북한인권시민연합참여연대 박정은 간사좋은벗들; 이승용평화인권부장
3:00 북한인권을 위한국제대학생 연대LiNK (미국, 캐나다, 영국의대학생 모임)대표 Adrian Hong (예일대학생)자유민주남북청년회(북한의 자유를 위한남북한 대학생모임)대표 박일환 (고려대법학과 탈북자)
4:00 Seoul Train 서울 기차 상영(한글자막)중국에서 고생하는탈북자의 모습을 다룬다큐멘터리
Posted by Joshua Stanton on November 26, 2003 at 12:24 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Posted by joshua on November 25, 2003 at 11:19 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
북한인권
왜 중요한가? 의미가
무엇인가?
어떻게 북한 인권상황을 개선할수 있을것인가
북한 인권에 관한 국제 심포지엄
11월27일 (토) 9:30- 16:30
연세대학교 새천년관(국제학대학원)대강당
참가신청 및 문의 linkseoul@gmail.com 02-732-6710
알림
링크LiNK (Liberation in North Korea)와 남북자유민주청년회는 ‘북한 인권에 관한국제 심포지엄’을주최하며, 한국의시민단체와대학생들을초청합니다.
이번 행사는 27일하루동안에 북한문제를 전문적으로연구하는 전문가들,북한의 상황에 관심이있는 운동가, 그리고북한 정치범 수용소출신 탈북자들과북한, 남한, 미국, 중국유학생 등을초청하여 발표와토론의 형식으로진행됩니다.
이번 행사의참여단체로는세계시민기구,정토회, 좋은벗들,북한인권시민연합,북한인권정보센터,북한민주화운동본부와 ‘평화포럼’ 등이있습니다.
세부계획
10:30 기조 연설: 곽영훈평화 운동가/수석건축가- 서울 올림픽공원, 올림픽 경기장,올림픽 평화의 불, DMZ 통일평화시 설계
Part I: 북한 인권 위기에대한 증언
11:00 북한의 기아:좋은벗들강제 노동 수용소증언: 강철환(북한민주화운동본부)탈북자: 김상헌 TIME Asian Hero 2003(북한인권정보센터이사장)
Part II: 북한 인권위기에의 대응
1:30 토론회: 북한인권의의미와 접근방법토론자:자유민주남북청년회박일환 대표원재천 교수 (한동대국제법율대학원)북한인권시민연합참여연대 박정은 간사좋은벗들; 이승용평화인권부장
3:00 북한인권을 위한국제대학생 연대LiNK (미국, 캐나다, 영국의대학생 모임)대표 Adrian Hong (예일대학생)자유민주남북청년회(북한의 자유를 위한남북한 대학생모임)대표 박일환 (고려대법학과 탈북자)
4:00 Seoul Train 서울 기차 상영(한글자막)중국에서 고생하는탈북자의 모습을 다룬다큐멘터리
Posted by joshua on November 25, 2003 at 7:24 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Posted by Joshua Stanton on November 17, 2003 at 9:57 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The event, held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, was modestly attended by about fifty people, mostly NGO representatives, activists, and Korean media types. It began with a screening of Seoul Train, which documents the efforts of North Korean refugees to escape to South Korea through China, despite the constant risk of being caught and sent back to the North Korean gulags, where they could face starvation, torture, forced abortion, infanticide, or even summary execution.
The WG Review of Seoul Train
Seoul Train is a powerful and unashamed work of propaganda, all the more so because it presents the Chinese side of the story in all of its anti-persuasive, cold-hearted contempt for both the refugees and China’s own
treaty obligations toward them. The real emotional power of the film, however, comes from its interviews with the refugees themselves, when it shows us the faces, aspirations, and humanity of a people we so seldom see in images other than scowling DMZ guards or controlled interviews with hand-picked citizens. Accented by a dark and moving score, the camera follows them from their hideouts to the moment they make their final dash for freedom, often without success. One cannot help but be moved by the teenage girl who calls a relative in South Korea, telling her not to worry, or the refugee woman who smiles as she admits that she’s “eating for two,” not yet knowing what the audience already senses–that it is their fate to be caught and sent back to North Korea. By then, the film has already told us what has probably happened to her child.
More debatable are the tactics of Norbert Vollertsen, Chun Ki-Won, and other conductors in the Chinese “underground railroad,” and the film doesn’t gloss over the price many of the refugees (and not a few of the activists) pay for their controversial tactics. It’s hard to deny that the activists have put these refugees in the greatest possible danger–and done so partially for the sake of media attention–a fact that clearly weighs heavily on the souls of some of the activists. It’s equally hard to deny that without that media attention, there would be far less impetus to hold North Korea and China accountable for their suffering. The refugees themselves convey to the audience that they knowingly confronted the risks, but it’s not much comfort to the viewer. If there is anything that can justify the price so many of them paid, it will be the effect watching this film has on its audience (in this case, some influential people). It’s also difficult to see how the debate about tactics advances beyond the question of what other alternatives exist to help these refugees. Not all of them have time to wait for conditions in their homeland to improve. So should they take their chances hiding out? Steal a boat? It’s at least fair to ask critics to suggest a better idea.
Seoul Train also hit the U.N. High Commission for Refugees hard enough to leave a mark, although this part of the message was obscured when the film took its only unfair shot. One activist interviewed on camera suggested that UNHCR officials might be criminally liable for failing to assist North Korean refugees. I was persuaded that the UNHCR has fecklessly sacrificed principle for accomodation and consensus. The U.N. isn’t doing its job and wasting our money. Why not stop there? Unworthy of employment? Yes. Corrupted? Possibly. Criminal? Even to me, an avowed believer that the U.N. should stick to vaccination programs, that charge seemed excessive, even reminiscent of Michael Moore’s recent work.
Panel Discussion
With the film over and the audience primed for the taste of red meat, former South Korean President
Kim Young Sam addressed the group to denounce North Korea’s cruelty and South Korea’s appeasement of the regime. President Kim gave a perfectly fine speech, even after the obvious decimation of his words in translation. From everything I have heard, he was as fine and honest a man as one finds in South Korean politics, and I suspect his legacy deserves a better label than as Korea’s Herbert Hoover. Still, one couldn’t help but think to one’s self that his South Korean constituency is losing what little power it has with each passing year. That doesn’t reflect badly on President Kim, but it does make you wish that his generation had built a stronger political and social foundation for today.
Doug Anderson, Counsel to the House International Relations Committee, spoke of the famous scene of the North Korean woman and child who were seized inside the Japanese Consulate. If it looked bad in pictures, it looked far worse on film, to see this woman screaming and fighting three Chinese guards for her child, and for both of their lives.
Anderson related how much this picture had incensed a State Department offical–not because of what the Chinese did, but because of what the official described as the political and financial motives of the underground railroad workers. By that moral calculus, Raoul Wallenberg should have stood aside and trusted in the good offices of the Hungarian Red Cross. Foggy Bottom, indeed.
The most powerful speaker was Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, and I couldn’t help thinking that in another incarnation, he would have made a superb trial lawyer in spite of his apparent contempt for my chosen profession. Before an audience, Horowitz is as riveting as the best of them; privately, well, he sometimes seems so full of himself that you expect his skin to grow crinkly and translucent before he emerges, cicada-like, from his exoskeleton (granted, it’s an epidemic condition in Washington). Yet there’s no denying the forcefulness of his advocacy on this issue, particularly as a drafter, tweaker, and coalition builder for the North Korean Human Rights Act, and I already feel just terrible for kidding him this way, so please forgive me, k? His most interesting statement was his claim that the mood in Congress and the Administration had reached the point that there is now “no chance whatsoever” of the North Korean nuclear crisis being resolved through another 1994-style agreed framework. Horowitz wears the neoconservative label proudly (and for that matter, so do I for the most part), so presuming he speaks for that movement, you then turn to the questions of whether either the neocon faction’s domination of Washington or the rigidity of its doctrine are as absolute as Le Monde declares, or as Horowitz implies. I suspect both may have their own reasons to overstate the case, and that a new agreement, though unlikely, is much more likely to fail over the pragmatic issue of North Korean intransigence on verification than on ideological principle.
Still, it’s probably fair to call Washington’s shift away from dialogue and accomodation with North Korea decisive, and the dog that did not bark at this event was the disclaimer, so often repeated by congressional speakers at the North Korea Freedom Day rally last April, that Washington’s goal for North Korea is not regime change. This time, there was open discussion before the media of encouraging a coup d’etat (Chosun guy: “Hasn’t Roh ruined relations with America?”). On the issue of regime change, the election and the growing divisions between Washington and Seoul have removed the burden of that necessary pretense. The mood in Washington has visibly changed. Today, smart people all over town are, or should be, phoning their brokers to buy shares in companies that make solar-powered radios, GPS chips, and UAVs.
The Big Winner: LiNK
The real star? Again, and by universal acclaim, it was the twentysomething kids from
LiNK, ably and modestly led by the unseemingly effective Adrian Hong. Adrian seems to be eternally traveling and organizing, although his apparent exhaustion only made him seem even more sympathetic–the kind of martyr you can still like–as he bravely battled through it. The straightforward, daring, not-for-hire compassion of all of the LiNK activists stands out in Washington like a clean set of teeth in a British union hall.
And the Big Loser Is . . .
If America’s North Korea policy hints at having found its direction at last, proponents of changes to our China policy have at least begun tracing their fingers over the map. Republican congressman Ed Royce, who looks like he will become an important player in Korea issues, went so far as to suggest that Congress was considering imposing a 25% tarriff on Chinese products, under the combined pressure of human rights activists and labor unions. Royce didn’t exactly say that he would vote for that provision or predict its passage, but the signal certainly wasn’t subtle. Hopefully, someone in Beijing will hear it (
Hey! Look over here!) even if such a measure would be iffy in the face of a WTO challenge.
At the end of the day, it was China that came out wearing the horns and tail. There’s no question that China has made very determined enemies among constituencies that are feeling their power, and it was interesting to note that this group of Chinese religious freedom activists had a full-page ad in the Washington Times (yes, yes . . . I know) today, sponsored by a collection of conservative, religious, and human rights groups, and by what looks like just about every church in Midland, Texas. The print ad isn’t available online, which is unfortunate because it’s far better than anything on the China Aid Web site, and because one of the imprisoned activists pictured is Choi Yong-Hun, caught and jailed a year and a half ago while trying to help North Koreans escape. This may be the worst news of all for China. Her enemies are plotting against her. As they are known to say in Foggy Bottom–damn neocons!
Posted by joshua on November 17, 2003 at 4:57 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The event, held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, was modestly attended by about fifty people, mostly NGO representatives, activists, and Korean media types. It began with a screening of Seoul Train, which documents the efforts of North Korean refugees to escape to South Korea through China, despite the constant risk of being caught and sent back to the North Korean gulags, where they could face starvation, torture, forced abortion, infanticide, or even summary execution.
The WG Review of Seoul Train
Seoul Train is a powerful and unashamed work of propaganda, all the more so because it presents the Chinese side of the story in all of its anti-persuasive, cold-hearted contempt for both the refugees and China’s own
treaty obligations toward them. The real emotional power of the film, however, comes from its interviews with the refugees themselves, when it shows us the faces, aspirations, and humanity of a people we so seldom see in images other than scowling DMZ guards or controlled interviews with hand-picked citizens. Accented by a dark and moving score, the camera follows them from their hideouts to the moment they make their final dash for freedom, often without success. One cannot help but be moved by the teenage girl who calls a relative in South Korea, telling her not to worry, or the refugee woman who smiles as she admits that she’s “eating for two,” not yet knowing what the audience already senses–that it is their fate to be caught and sent back to North Korea. By then, the film has already told us what has probably happened to her child.
More debatable are the tactics of Norbert Vollertsen, Chun Ki-Won, and other conductors in the Chinese “underground railroad,” and the film doesn’t gloss over the price many of the refugees (and not a few of the activists) pay for their controversial tactics. It’s hard to deny that the activists have put these refugees in the greatest possible danger–and done so partially for the sake of media attention–a fact that clearly weighs heavily on the souls of some of the activists. It’s equally hard to deny that without that media attention, there would be far less impetus to hold North Korea and China accountable for their suffering. The refugees themselves convey to the audience that they knowingly confronted the risks, but it’s not much comfort to the viewer. If there is anything that can justify the price so many of them paid, it will be the effect watching this film has on its audience (in this case, some influential people). It’s also difficult to see how the debate about tactics advances beyond the question of what other alternatives exist to help these refugees. Not all of them have time to wait for conditions in their homeland to improve. So should they take their chances hiding out? Steal a boat? It’s at least fair to ask critics to suggest a better idea.
Seoul Train also hit the U.N. High Commission for Refugees hard enough to leave a mark, although this part of the message was obscured when the film took its only unfair shot. One activist interviewed on camera suggested that UNHCR officials might be criminally liable for failing to assist North Korean refugees. I was persuaded that the UNHCR has fecklessly sacrificed principle for accomodation and consensus. The U.N. isn’t doing its job and wasting our money. Why not stop there? Unworthy of employment? Yes. Corrupted? Possibly. Criminal? Even to me, an avowed believer that the U.N. should stick to vaccination programs, that charge seemed excessive, even reminiscent of Michael Moore’s recent work.
Panel Discussion
With the film over and the audience primed for the taste of red meat, former South Korean President
Kim Young Sam addressed the group to denounce North Korea’s cruelty and South Korea’s appeasement of the regime. President Kim gave a perfectly fine speech, even after the obvious decimation of his words in translation. From everything I have heard, he was as fine and honest a man as one finds in South Korean politics, and I suspect his legacy deserves a better label than as Korea’s Herbert Hoover. Still, one couldn’t help but think to one’s self that his South Korean constituency is losing what little power it has with each passing year. That doesn’t reflect badly on President Kim, but it does make you wish that his generation had built a stronger political and social foundation for today.
Doug Anderson, Counsel to the House International Relations Committee, spoke of the famous scene of the North Korean woman and child who were seized inside the Japanese Consulate. If it looked bad in pictures, it looked far worse on film, to see this woman screaming and fighting three Chinese guards for her child, and for both of their lives.
Anderson related how much this picture had incensed a State Department offical–not because of what the Chinese did, but because of what the official described as the political and financial motives of the underground railroad workers. By that moral calculus, Raoul Wallenberg should have stood aside and trusted in the good offices of the Hungarian Red Cross. Foggy Bottom, indeed.
The most powerful speaker was Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, and I couldn’t help thinking that in another incarnation, he would have made a superb trial lawyer in spite of his apparent contempt for my chosen profession. Before an audience, Horowitz is as riveting as the best of them; privately, well, he sometimes seems so full of himself that you expect his skin to grow crinkly and translucent before he emerges, cicada-like, from his exoskeleton (granted, it’s an epidemic condition in Washington). Yet there’s no denying the forcefulness of his advocacy on this issue, particularly as a drafter, tweaker, and coalition builder for the North Korean Human Rights Act, and I already feel just terrible for kidding him this way, so please forgive me, k? His most interesting statement was his claim that the mood in Congress and the Administration had reached the point that there is now “no chance whatsoever” of the North Korean nuclear crisis being resolved through another 1994-style agreed framework. Horowitz wears the neoconservative label proudly (and for that matter, so do I for the most part), so presuming he speaks for that movement, you then turn to the questions of whether either the neocon faction’s domination of Washington or the rigidity of its doctrine are as absolute as Le Monde declares, or as Horowitz implies. I suspect both may have their own reasons to overstate the case, and that a new agreement, though unlikely, is much more likely to fail over the pragmatic issue of North Korean intransigence on verification than on ideological principle.
Still, it’s probably fair to call Washington’s shift away from dialogue and accomodation with North Korea decisive, and the dog that did not bark at this event was the disclaimer, so often repeated by congressional speakers at the North Korea Freedom Day rally last April, that Washington’s goal for North Korea is not regime change. This time, there was open discussion before the media of encouraging a coup d’etat (Chosun guy: “Hasn’t Roh ruined relations with America?”). On the issue of regime change, the election and the growing divisions between Washington and Seoul have removed the burden of that necessary pretense. The mood in Washington has visibly changed. Today, smart people all over town are, or should be, phoning their brokers to buy shares in companies that make solar-powered radios, GPS chips, and UAVs.
The Big Winner: LiNK
The real star? Again, and by universal acclaim, it was the twentysomething kids from
LiNK, ably and modestly led by the unseemingly effective Adrian Hong. Adrian seems to be eternally traveling and organizing, although his apparent exhaustion only made him seem even more sympathetic–the kind of martyr you can still like–as he bravely battled through it. The straightforward, daring, not-for-hire compassion of all of the LiNK activists stands out in Washington like a clean set of teeth in a British union hall.
And the Big Loser Is . . .
If America’s North Korea policy hints at having found its direction at last, proponents of changes to our China policy have at least begun tracing their fingers over the map. Republican congressman Ed Royce, who looks like he will become an important player in Korea issues, went so far as to suggest that Congress was considering imposing a 25% tarriff on Chinese products, under the combined pressure of human rights activists and labor unions. Royce didn’t exactly say that he would vote for that provision or predict its passage, but the signal certainly wasn’t subtle. Hopefully, someone in Beijing will hear it (
Hey! Look over here!) even if such a measure would be iffy in the face of a WTO challenge.
At the end of the day, it was China that came out wearing the horns and tail. There’s no question that China has made very determined enemies among constituencies that are feeling their power, and it was interesting to note that this group of Chinese religious freedom activists had a full-page ad in the Washington Times (yes, yes . . . I know) today, sponsored by a collection of conservative, religious, and human rights groups, and by what looks like just about every church in Midland, Texas. The print ad isn’t available online, which is unfortunate because it’s far better than anything on the China Aid Web site, and because one of the imprisoned activists pictured is Choi Yong-Hun, caught and jailed a year and a half ago while trying to help North Koreans escape. This may be the worst news of all for China. Her enemies are plotting against her. As they are known to say in Foggy Bottom–damn neocons!
Posted by Joshua Stanton on November 11, 2003 at 10:44 am · Filed under Uncategorized
On Friday, November 12th at 2:00 pm EST leading human rights groups for North Korea will rally in New York City and Los Angeles in front of the permanent Chinese mission to the UN and the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, at the second rally in two weeks organized by Liberation in North Korea (LiNK). They will be protesting China’s arrest and repatriation of 70 North Korean refugees, 62 who were arrested on October 26 at safe houses near Beijing, along with another eight North Koreans who failed to gain entry into the South Korea Consulate in Beijing on October 25. Activists nationwide will also coordinate a simultaneous email, fax and telephone protest campaign to the Chinese diplomatic officials in the US.
Liberation in North Korea (www.linkglobal.org), a nationwide movement that includes several thousand American college students and professionals, will be joined by a coalition of leading American and South Korean organizations to protest China’s treatment of internationally recognized refugees, and its repatriation of the 62 to North Korea, despite international pressures.
These 62 North Korean refugees will certainly be imprisoned, and likely tortured or executed. The refugees were reportedly planning to seek asylum in a foreign embassy in Beijing. Intent to defect and contact with South Koreans are considered severe treasonous crimes in North Korea, punishable by execution or detention in a forced-labor camp. Defection itself is a crime punishable by death according to North Korean law. China’s forcible repatriation of these 62 North Koreans. China has in the recent years repeatedly and blatantly violated refugee conventions by forcibly repatriating thousands of refugees to North Korea. (China is a signatory member of the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees)
China has also imprisoned foreign humanitarian aid workers. In the most recent public statement, the Chinese foreign ministry referred to these aid workers as “snake-heads” and warned of grave punishment for the two South Korean activists in custody, whose fates remain unknown. These activists are members of a South Korean human rights group, the Democracy Network Against the North Korean Gulag (NKGulag). Their work, sheltering refugees and providing humanitarian aid, is protected by UN mandates that safeguard human rights defenders.
China cannot avoid international scrutiny for her treatment of North Koreans and their human rights defenders. On November 12, 2004, we ask that those of conscience voice their outrage at this grave and tragic injustice.
Protests:
Friday, November 12, 2:00 pm [U.S. Eastern Standard Time]
Chinese Permanent Mission to the UN
350 East 35th Street, New York, NY 10016
Friday, November 12, 11:00 am [U.S. Pacific Standard Time]
Chinese Consulate Los Angeles
443 Shatto Place, Los Angeles, CA 90020
Virtual World-Wide Protest:
2:00 pm [U.S. Eastern Standard Time]
11:00 am [U.S. Western Standard Time]
Information: 917.923.5950
www.linkglobal.org
www.xanga.com/linkorea
adrian@linkglobal.org
Posted by joshua on November 11, 2003 at 5:44 am · Filed under Uncategorized
On Friday, November 12th at 2:00 pm EST leading human rights groups for North Korea will rally in New York City and Los Angeles in front of the permanent Chinese mission to the UN and the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, at the second rally in two weeks organized by Liberation in North Korea (LiNK). They will be protesting China’s arrest and repatriation of 70 North Korean refugees, 62 who were arrested on October 26 at safe houses near Beijing, along with another eight North Koreans who failed to gain entry into the South Korea Consulate in Beijing on October 25. Activists nationwide will also coordinate a simultaneous email, fax and telephone protest campaign to the Chinese diplomatic officials in the US.
Liberation in North Korea (www.linkglobal.org), a nationwide movement that includes several thousand American college students and professionals, will be joined by a coalition of leading American and South Korean organizations to protest China’s treatment of internationally recognized refugees, and its repatriation of the 62 to North Korea, despite international pressures.
These 62 North Korean refugees will certainly be imprisoned, and likely tortured or executed. The refugees were reportedly planning to seek asylum in a foreign embassy in Beijing. Intent to defect and contact with South Koreans are considered severe treasonous crimes in North Korea, punishable by execution or detention in a forced-labor camp. Defection itself is a crime punishable by death according to North Korean law. China’s forcible repatriation of these 62 North Koreans. China has in the recent years repeatedly and blatantly violated refugee conventions by forcibly repatriating thousands of refugees to North Korea. (China is a signatory member of the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees)
China has also imprisoned foreign humanitarian aid workers. In the most recent public statement, the Chinese foreign ministry referred to these aid workers as “snake-heads” and warned of grave punishment for the two South Korean activists in custody, whose fates remain unknown. These activists are members of a South Korean human rights group, the Democracy Network Against the North Korean Gulag (NKGulag). Their work, sheltering refugees and providing humanitarian aid, is protected by UN mandates that safeguard human rights defenders.
China cannot avoid international scrutiny for her treatment of North Koreans and their human rights defenders. On November 12, 2004, we ask that those of conscience voice their outrage at this grave and tragic injustice.
Protests:
Friday, November 12, 2:00 pm [U.S. Eastern Standard Time]
Chinese Permanent Mission to the UN
350 East 35th Street, New York, NY 10016
Friday, November 12, 11:00 am [U.S. Pacific Standard Time]
Chinese Consulate Los Angeles
443 Shatto Place, Los Angeles, CA 90020
Virtual World-Wide Protest:
2:00 pm [U.S. Eastern Standard Time]
11:00 am [U.S. Western Standard Time]
Information: 917.923.5950
www.linkglobal.org
www.xanga.com/linkorea
adrian@linkglobal.org