Archive for April, 2006
Posted by joshua on April 30, 2006 at 9:51 pm · Filed under Uncategorized, NK Economics, An Alliance?, Appeasement, Human Rights, Activism, Washington Views, U.S. & Korea
The bad news is that Kaesong-made goods look to be headed toward acceptance into the ASEAN FTA. This comes via Philip Dorsey Iglauer, who has made himself infamous both for awful reporting and awful analysis, so you’ve been warned.
I kind of hope Iglauer likes to google his own name, because that’s my cue to point out a story in the Donga Ilbo that’s certain to have him calling for his smelling salts:
The Korean government is opposing an article written by Jay Lefkowitz, the U.S. Special Envoy on Human Rights in North Korea, on April 30 that raises questions about the wages and human rights of North Korean workers in the Gaesong Industrial Complex.
. . . .
Lefkowitz wrote the article for the April 28 edition of the Wall Street Journal and it referred to issues of labor extortion from North Korean workers in the Gaesong Industrial Complex. Regarding this, a South Korean government official protested against the article saying that it was intervention in the internal affairs to criticize the Gaesong Industrial Complex with such a biased and distorted point of view.
Umm, having standards as to what products we choose to import at favorable rates is an internal American affair, if anything. What we’re talking about, of course, is a negotiated agreement between two sovereign states. Either is free not to sign the agreement if the terms are not to its liking. It strikes me that Korea can’t simultaneously act like a victim and demand to be treated as a more equal and independent partner. It looks like more of that famously suave South Korean diplomacy, the kind that made a complete fool of Korea before a global audience, over two worthless, uninhabitable, barren pieces of guano-encrusted rock that Korea already occupies.
The Administration seems determined to make an issue of this, and much to its credit. Lefkowitz raised the Kaesong question again at the Capitol rally last Friday, but he didn’t mention the nickel-an-hour wage the workers there actually get after Kim Jong Il takes his cut. Remember that when South Korean politicians and corporate hacks tell you the workers at Kaesong make $58 an hour. It’s a lie. And yes, an above-average wage still qualifies as slave labor when you have absolutely no say in the conditions of your employment, and when the average wage is literally a starvation wage.
After having a discussion, Cheong Wa Dae and the Ministry of Unification judged that if nothing is done on this issue raised by U.S. Special Envoy Lefkowitz, their plan to attract foreign companies to build factories within the Gaesong Industrial Complex could go wrong. Accordingly, they have decided to take drastic steps.
That step was to eliminate the possibility that the Gaesong Industrial Complex could be added to the list of North Korean human rights issues which has become an international issue after Mr. Bush met the families of abductees from North Korea and North Korean defectors in person.
Remember, all you budding diplomats: there’s no way to win friends and influence people quite like a public tantrum, and be sure to throw in some ad hominem attacks against a guy with the President’s ear. This was pretty remarkable:
The Korean government seemed to be troubled by U.S. President Bush meeting with families of abductees from North Korea and North Korean defectors at the White House on April 28. South Korea-U.S. tensions surrounding human rights policy in the North are running high.
Got that? Tensions are not running high over the thousand South Korean citizens still held hostage in North Korea despite nearly ten years and billions of dollars in bribes and inducements, or over the ten thousand artillery tubes the North still has pointed at the South. Tensions are running high because the U.S. president has the temerity to support calls for the release of the innocent victims. To make the South Korean position even more obnoxious than the betrayal of its own soldiers and citizens, it also claims the right to silence America regarding the kidnapping of Japanese.
I leave you with this:
Michael Green, the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently revealed what key figures at the While House have in mind, saying the Bush administration is coming to the conclusion that North Korea has no intention of giving up its nuclear program.
It took these guys six years to figure this out?
Posted by joshua on April 30, 2006 at 8:54 pm · Filed under Japan & Korea, Japan, Abductions
What kind of a low-life would do this?
Posted by joshua on April 30, 2006 at 7:58 pm · Filed under North Korea, Six-Party Talks, WMD, Inside NK, Korean Society, Diplomacy
During my recent trip to Korea, I was fortunate to have dinner and moderate quantities of alcohol with several other K-bloggers, including The Marmot, The Flying Yangban, Oranckay, The Drambuie Man (also a S. Dakota native), and Professor Andrei Lankov, who is working on a book on the Korean War, based on material from old Soviet archives. Oranckay picked a restaurant where I had some of the best kalbi I’ve ever eaten, and Robert knew of a beautifully restored old house where we had drinks, and where the lovely Marmotess joined us. Lankov is renowned for his dark sense of humor and inexhaustible knowledge of North Korea, and he didn’t disappoint.
It had to be one of my life’s most interesting conversations, and of its more interesting points was a discussion with Oranckay about North Korea’s hot new propaganda novel, “Barrel of a Gun,” which gives a fictionalized account of North Korea’s negotiations with the Clinton Administration. Here is a must-read New York Times review.
The novel “Barrel of a Gun,” for example, released in 2003, is an official “historical” work about how Mr. Kim’s iron resolve forced the Clinton administration to its knees in 1998. “Excellency,” the American negotiator says at the end of the book, groveling shamelessly before his North Korean counterpart, “you are also a mighty superpower.”
“I like the sound of that,” the North Korean answers with a chuckle and a sharp look. Then he lays down the law. The Americans want to inspect some caves for evidence of a nuclear program? Perhaps a “visit” can be arranged - if 700,000 tons of food are first delivered in atonement for the “strangulatory” blockade of the country. (If you ever wondered why Pyongyang allows food aid to be distributed with the Stars and Stripes on the bags, there’s your answer.)
This novel needs to be translated into English for the insight it will provide us about how North Korea views its negotiations with the United States. If anyone out there in academia is interested in providing a grant to translate it, drop me a line.
Posted by joshua on April 30, 2006 at 6:05 pm · Filed under Japan & Korea, Japan, Abductions
This is pretty much everything you wanted to know about the victims, the suspects, the circumstances of each kidnapping, and diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue . . . except, of course, for the parts the North Koreans aren’t telling anyone.
Posted by joshua on April 30, 2006 at 9:20 am · Filed under An Alliance?, Anti-Americanism, Korean Law, U.S. Military, U.S. & Korea, ROK Military
One of the most interesting things I observed during my recent visit to Seoul was the absence of any apparent arrangements to evacuate Yongsan Garrison, in the heart of Seoul. The relocation plan calls for the evacuation of Yongsan by the end of next year, and the movement of all of its facilities to Camp Humphreys, near the shitty city of Pyeongtaek. Yet the only visible changes at Yongsan are improvements — the new bridge connecting Main and South Post, the hospital renovation, and the new shopping area near the PX. Otherwise, the place was eerily unchanged, although friends in the know tell me that most of the various offices do have plans to make the move. Eventually.
With the South Korean government’s timid response to the radical left’s transformation of the issue into one of nationalism and anti-American politics, the immediate question is whether the U.S. will be able to occupy its new home. It appears that question will be answered in the affirmative in the reasonably near future, but only after more violence, which will result in no prosecutions.
The greater issue is money, with the U.S. sounding increasingly discontented with the South Korean “final offer” on what they will contribute to the cost of the move. The issue has long been contentious, and one on which the U.S. side has shown some real spine. Assistant Secretary for Defense Richard Lawless has previously stated that absent a successful resolution of a related issue, the size of the new facility, the U.S. might just reduce the size of the contingent that moves to Humphreys and order the rest back home. Just over a year ago, the U.S. broke another cost-sharing deadlock by summarily laying off Korean workers it could no longer afford to pay. In that context, the news that the U.S. has requested a delay in the deadline for presenting a “master plan” for the move is ominous, at least for those who believe that USFK still serves U.S. interests.
In another sense, it’s an excellent idea. As with the FTA issue, controversial issues like this ought not to be aired out in the middle of an election campaign. Korea will hold local elections on May 31st. Better they should keep talking about Tokdo.
Posted by joshua on April 30, 2006 at 8:45 am · Filed under NK Economics, An Alliance?, Korean Politics, Appeasement, Human Rights, U.S. & Korea
Former Minister of UniFiction / Uri Party Leader / presidential candidate Chung Dong-Young thinks he has found his winning issue: transforming the North into a corporate plantation, with Kim Jong Il as overseer.
Chung has the additional disadvantages of being anti-American and having a self-confirmed sub-room-temperature IQ (I’ve never met Chung, but several others who have confirm that judgment). If Chung or someone like him wins the presidency, expect a rapid and mostly complete departure of America’s military contingent from South Korea. I doubt Americans will have much interest in keeping their kids in harm’s way to protect that kind of arrangement.
Posted by joshua on April 30, 2006 at 8:28 am · Filed under Korean Politics, Anti-Americanism, Korean Society, Korean Law, U.S. Military
Via the Stars and Stripes. South Korea’s violent, anti-American political subculture found a willing host in the woman, whom the authorities claim to be mentally ill. Although she set the fire to “punish” the United States for its “terrorism,” she ended up burning three Korean workers severely. There were suggestions that the fire had been accidental. At least the Koreans are prosecuting her and asking for hard time, although I doubt that would happen today if this woman were affiliated with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions or Hanchongryeon.
If anyone is aware of any senior government official visiting any of the injured workers in the hospital or denouncing violence against Americans, please feel free to drop the URL in the comments section. It’s not too late. The workers are all still in the hospital. Don’t hold your breath . . . .
Posted by joshua on April 29, 2006 at 11:29 am · Filed under Human Rights, Refugees, Defectors, U.S. & Korea
Updated 4/30; scroll down
“We can and will do more to protect North Korean refugees. . . . We hope that very, very soon, we can welcome North Korean refugees here in the United States.” — Amb. Jay Lefkowitz, April 28, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 28 (Yonhap) — The Los Angeles Immigration Court has granted asylum to a North Korean defector after he awaited a decision in the U.S. for the past 20 months, his lawyer said Friday.
The final ruling came Thursday for the defector, Seo Jae-sok, a pseudonym, who entered the U.S. through the Mexican border in 2004, according to Miriam Kang of Human Rights Project, a California-based non-profit corporation. Seo is a former North Korean military officer who came to the U.S. with his wife and two children.
At first blush, you could be forgiven for thinking that Jay Lefkowitz had some inside knowledge that he was about to deliver on that implied promise, and while that’s possible, I still count myself among the unpersuaded and refuse to give my government a break here. I will explain.
First, Yonhap reports that “State Department officials said they were not aware of Seo’s case.” That’s plausible, since Seo had actually entered the United States by crossing the border from Mexico. Second, the immigration courts fall under the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which is part of the Justice Department, not State. Third, Immigration courts are not Article III courts, but they do follow the doctrine of judicial independence, meaning that this ought to be viewed as an isolated judicial decision and no reflection of U.S. executive policy, except to the limited extent that the court relied on the most recent State Department country report on North Korea. Fourth, the standard for asylum isn’t especially stringent, either; it’s a basic test of facial credibility. It’s also unclear just how this matter relates to the North Korean Human Rights Act, other than Section 302’s language that,
For purposes of eligibility for refugee status . . . , or for asylum . . . , a national of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea shall not be considered a national of the Republic of Korea.
Oh, did I mention that Seo and his family had already settled in South Korea? Nothing in the report suggests that he feared persecution in South Korea, but it’s not a very detailed report, and asylum records are confidential.
In other words, nothing about this case suggests that “[t]he Secretary of State” actually “undert[ook] to facilitate the submission of applications . . . by citizens of North Korea seeking protection as refugees,” as Section 303 of the law says the Secretary “shall” do. Whatev. To put a finer point on it, I don’t give Lefkowitz, the State Department, or the Administration any credit here whatsoever. State was of no help to Mr. Seo on his way through the Iron Curtain or the Bamboo Curtain. The only government action that “facilitated” anything for Mr. Seo was the Border Patrol’s failure to catch him when he crossed the Tortilla Curtain. That’s hardly the way we want to accept refugees into this country. Barring evidence of that Seo was persecuted in South Korea, then, I echo this comment by Andy Jackson at the Marmot’s Hole:
Frankly, I would much rather see the US getting North Korean refugees via, say, Mongolia or even Europe. North Koreans are legally citizens of the ROK and I would much rather see our asylum spots going to refugees on the run rather folks who want to upgrade countries.
On the other hand, Andy wonders if he’s missing the evidence that South Korea silences defectors. I think the answer to the latter question is that it does, at least if you believe this recent report by the South Korean National Human Rights Commission. I’m not sure what qualifies as “bush-league” harassement, however, or whether anything the South Korean government did or willfully failed to prevent meets that definition.
I hope we’ll eventually know.
Update: The Donga Ilbo adds much additional detail about the case, including this fact.
Seo said, “From what I know, currently 40~50 defectors in L.A. and 20~30 in New York are preparing for asylum. It’s less than a hundred, but a lot of defectors will come to this region in the future.”
Posted by joshua on April 29, 2006 at 10:15 am · Filed under WTF?, North Korea, Unintended Humor, Korean Politics, Anti-Americanism, Appeasement, Human Rights, Korean Society, Japan & Korea, China & Korea
As one who takes the position that our problems with North Korea will only end with the inevitable destruction of its regime, it’s moments like this when I have to pause to thank the Korea Central News Agency for giving me gems like this one (ht to the Marmot):
A strange farce to hamstring the essential characters of the Korean nation and seek for “multiracial society” is now being held in south Korea. In this regard Rodong Sinmun today runs a signed commentary, which censures the farce as an unpardonable bid to negate the homogeneity of the nation, make south Korea multiracial and Americanize it. To deny the peculiarity and advantages of the homogeneous nation now that dominationism and colonialism are posing a threat to the destiny of weak nations is a treacherous act of weakening the spirit of the nation, the commentary says, and goes on: The south Korean pro-American traitorous forces advocating the theory of “multiracial society” are riffraffs who have not an iota of national soul, to say nothing of the elementary understanding of the view on the nation and social and historic development.
If the homogeneity of the nation is not kept, the nation and the destiny of individuals cannot be defended from the U.S. dominationist moves and the attempt of the Japanese reactionaries for invasion of Korea, which is revealed in their claim to Tok Islet, cannot be checked.
I officially no longer believe it’s possible to top the official idiocy we’ve heard on Tokdo. Ditto the gullibility of the Korean people who are so willingly distracted by it, away from matters of manifestly greater importance. If Tokdo is “uri ttang,” it seems odd that most of Korea’s territory and a dwindling, wretched third of its people dominated by an illegitimate democidal despot aren’t also “uri ttang.” And of course, North Korea puts its herrenvolk ideology into practice by killing babies it believes to be racially impure. Are these murdered infants also unworthy of South Korean outrage? The double standard and the ready acceptance thereof are both flat-out inexplicable to rational minds.
The theory of “multiracial society” is a poison and anti-reunification logic aimed to emasculate the basic idea in the era of independent reunification. The anti-national logic is advocated in south Korea, contrary to the aspiration of the fellow countrymen. This is ascribable to the criminal attempt of the pro-American elements including the Grand National Party to make the north and the south different in lineages, block the June 15 era of reunification and seek the permanent division of the nation and the manipulation of the U.S. behind the scene.
Another question this raises — are you as concerned as I am that this intemperate North Korean criticism of South Korean views on individual rights will ruin the spirit of inter-Korean reconciliation and present a setback for the six-party talks? Just checking . . . .
I’ve written about the politics of “racial purity” in today’s Korea here. And of course, the very idea of Korean racial purity is asinine. Koreans are already an ethnic mixture of indigenous peoples, Chinese, and Mongolians, and (gasp!) Japanese. If there’s one thing the North Koreans excel at, it’s propaganda, and there’s no denying that North Korea’s racial theories have a certain inherent appeal in South Korea. Without bringing the level of this post down to a personal diatriabe, my own recent visit to South Korea with my two children confirms that Hines Ward mania hasn’t transformed Korea into an open-minded society — not by a long shot. Scroll down to the bottom of this post, and you’ll see that South Korea’s ruling party isn’t above playing the “ethnic purty” card against America, either.
(To be fair to the South Koreans, there are some who are espousing relatively more enlightened views.)
But please — please do explain to me how North Korea’s regime is really misunderstood and poised on the precipice of opening, reform, and mature diplomatic resolution of its differences with the civilized world. Where is Selig Harrison when you have something in hand that just cries out to be stapled to the front of his face?
Posted by joshua on April 29, 2006 at 8:59 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Abductions
Via Channel News Asia.
In the meeting with the Yokota family, Bush assured them that the United States would “strongly” work for freedom in North Korea.
“It’s hard for Americans to imagine that a leader of any country would encourage the abduction of a young child,” Bush said.
“It’s a heartless country that would separate loved ones, and yet that’s exactly what happened to this mom as a result of the actions of North Korea,” he said, after meeting with 70-year-old Sakie Yokota and her daughter Megumi.
Not the words of a man who pins high hopes on diplomacy. If you can’t wait for the Rodong Sinmun’s response, you can always click for a preview. Related posts here, here, and here.
Posted by joshua on April 29, 2006 at 8:52 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Korean Law, Refugees, Defectors, Censorship
The Daily NK is offering up some investigative reporting to back up its skepticism about Ms. Ma’s asylum claims. Ms. Ma, a former North Korean counterintel agent who worked in China until her defection in 2000, is petitioning for political asylum in the United States because of alleged South Korean persecution.
Read and decide for yourself, but one point in the Daily NK’s favor: threatening people to silence them is persection; offering them fat bribes to keep quiet (even if true) isn’t. Reports from other refugees suggests other issues with her credibility. One point I found less persuasive was the denial of the government officials. While the Daily NK was right to report the government’s position, that position would only have merited more than a sentence or two had the government officials not denied the story.
Posted by joshua on April 29, 2006 at 8:27 am · Filed under Inside NK, Famine & Food Aid, NK Military
Required reading for DPRK military watchers, via the Daily NK:
The most serious problem is malnutrition spreading in the North Korean military. Before the food shortage, 800g of rice, 200g of meat was the official amount provided for one day, the soldiers have not been receiving the official amount for more than 10 years. It does not seem to be improving either. Rice has been replaced with corn or potato, and meat is only provided for holidays. Military bases try to run greenhouses and farms, but they fail for the lack of materials and proper management.
A military base where it is announced that Kim Jong Il is visiting, borrows vegetables and meat from nearest villages for ‘food inspection’ and returns them.
Lim Young Soo (25, North Korean defector) who used to be a part of Military Base 407 says, “Only 5 remained in the military among 100 whom I joined the military with. Some died during construction or became handicapped. Some returned home when they were (temporarily) discharged for hardship.
Mr. Lim says, “Even if you are malnourished, without connection, you can’t go home. If you die in the military base, you are buried on the hill”. The comment reveals that malnutrition in North Korea has reached a very serious level.
Read the rest on your own. Related posts here and here.
Posted by joshua on April 29, 2006 at 8:14 am · Filed under Media Criticism, Inside NK, Famine & Food Aid
Last fall, when the North Korean government ordered the World Food Program out of the country, I wrote a series of alarmist posts based on the simple syllogism that, since 6.5 million North Koreans depended on WFP aid as of last August, and that the aid was cut off as of last December, that millions of North Koreans were going to go hungry in the months to follow. Last week’s North Korea Freedom Week events gave me the opportunity to ask knowledgeable persons in and out of government about the current state of the food situation. None claimed to have detailed knowledge, but none reported a rise in refugees crossing the Chinese border in search of food, or other ominous reports about a decline in food supplies. This report was the only one that suggested growing food insecurity in some regions.
I had been contemplating writing a post that would happily report that my predictions had been excessively alarmist, but this new report from the Daily NK gives me some pause:
On the 23rd, North Korean sources said that from April only some areas of Pyongyang have gotten rations, and local areas were already cut. Greeting the Workers’ Party Foundation Day (10.10) last year, North Korea restarted rationing, yet from the beginning, the rationing did not advance as planned, and furthermore, from this spring even Pyongyang has undergone a severe shortage of food.
Mr. Kim, who is a North Korean trader and now stays in Dandong, China said, “Officials working at the central agencies now (the Party, Ministries, Court) in Pyongyang have gotten rations, but workers working in general factories and small companies in local cities have to resolve their April and June’s food portions themselves.”
Predictably, the hunger is having a disproportionate impact:
Mr. Kim stated, “Despite a severe shortage of food, some wealthy, powerful people are persisting well. Yet other people who rely on the food rationing of factories mainly go to local areas to exchange food with goods.” It led to a situation where North Koreans have to withstand starvation by all means, before new potatoes come out.
The Daily NK even has the remarkable ability to track the sharply rising price of food on the black market.
Rice prices at Jangmadang of Shinuiju are traded at 1,000 won($0.33) to 1,200 won($0.4) per 1kg, and Yongcheon rice (yielded in Yongcheon) at 1,200 won per 1kg. Chinese rice is 900 won($0.3) to 930 won($0.31) per 1kg, and corn is 300 won($0.1) to 400 won($0.133). Shinuiju rice is a little more expensive than that of other cities, and its wheat flour is cheaper. It is because rice comes in from other cities, and Chinese wheat flour is distributed to each city via Shinuiju.
Rising black market prices, the sale of valued possessions, and the slaughter of draft animals are all initial signs of famine that observers should watch for. The entire report is a must read, and it suggests that North Koreans coped with the reduced food supply through the winter, but that coping strategies are nearly exhausted.
In fact, famine has taught North Koreans how to hoard and gather food, and generally, to survive on fairly meagre assets. The same is no doubt true on both governmental and indivual levels. What’s more, I tend to believe that while officials in Pyongyang range between apathetic and malignant when it comes to feeding North Korea’s least-favored regions and classes, persons with detailed knowledge of North Korea (Andrew Natsios and Andrei Lankov, to name two) report that local officials often try to get food into the bellies of the hungry. Thus, the government’s response can’t be viewed as monolithic, although the overall effect of national policies is the use of food as a weapon of political cleansing. Finally, North Korea’s food situation probably varies dramatically by region, due to geographic favoritism (click and scroll down for map) and the awful quality of North Korea’s transportation network (it’s easier to send food from Nampo on the West coast to Chongjin in the east by ship than by road or rail).
New famine or not, millions of North Koreans are on the precipice of starvation and will be stunted for life without a swift influx of food aid. All the more reason for China and South Korea to stop abetting the regime’s discriminatory distribution by giving their food aid without any effective monitoring.
It’s moments like this one when I’m exceptionally proud to be affliated with the Daily NK (I occasionally submit pieces to them — of course, without compensation). What other media outlet would be able to compile such a detailed report? It’s an outstanding example of North Koreans finding their own increasingly independent voice. Their reports could help raise the alarm internationally and save many lives by doing so.
Posted by joshua on April 28, 2006 at 11:25 pm · Filed under Human Rights, Abductions, Activism
A 43-year-old political prisoner in North Korea is expected to be executed this weekend, and human rights groups in Seoul and around the world are trying to save the man’s life.
In Seoul, 23 South Korean human rights groups yesterday submitted a petition to the National Human Rights Commission. They are seeking its assistance to stop the execution of Son Jeong-nam, who is being detained in Pyongyang by the North Korean State Security Department, said his younger brother, Jeong-hun, who defected to the South in 2002.
Son Jeong-hun said at a news conference earlier this month that North Korean authorities announced that his brother will be publicly executed for “betraying the nation.”
The brothers met each other in China in 2004. After Son Jeong-nam returned to the North, he was arrested and accused of providing information about rights abuses by the North Korean regime to his South Korean brother.
Link here. At the outset, I’ll say that we probably can’t, and that we ought to try anyway. Please send three quick e-mails; one to your Congressman and one to each Senator. While you’re at it, please ask your Senators about House Concurrent Resolution 168, which deals with those abducted by North Korea. It’s been stalled in the Senate for a year now.
Posted by joshua on April 28, 2006 at 11:04 pm · Filed under Human Rights, Asia, China & Korea, Refugees, Defectors, Activism, Human Trafficking
My biggest regret of my recent trip to Korea was that I wasn’t able to sit down and talk with the Rev. Tim Peters at length. Tim is one of the kindest, most selfless, most sincere people I’ve met in my life. He told me to watch for this piece in Time, which begins with this refugee woman’s description of the guard who killed her unborn baby:
Hwang, Kim says, referred repeatedly to the baby as “the Chink,” because the father was a peasant from northeastern China, where Kim had fled earlier that year. As she lay on the prison floor, Hwang demanded that she abort the fetus herself. Kim refused, so the guard began kicking her over and over again in the stomach. Then he beat her, and continued beating her as her sister screamed, until Kim Myong Suk blacked out. When she regained consciousness, she says, she “was taken to a clinic in the camp, and in the most blunt manner, they removed [the fetus] from my body.”
The rest of the piece focuses on how refugees are smuggled out of the North, and China. It gives fresh insight on “defection brokers,” who are often villified by the South Korean authorities. Must reading, and a great graphic here. You can visit the Family Care Foundation, which helps fund the underground railroad, here. I have zero qualms about endorsing this one.
(Photo Cred: PHILIP BLENKINSOPÑAGENCE, TIME)
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