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Monthly Archive: January, 2010

January 26, 2010

Who Is Still Free Not to Be Muslim?

Let’s begin by dispensing with the moot question of whether I agree with all that Geert Wilders has said. I don’t, and I specifically disagree with statements by Wilders, such as his call for the Koran to be banned, that are themselves incompatible with the freedom of speech Wilders now defends so articulately. But almost by definition, people who become the state’s first targets for censorship have inevitably expressed views that are controversial, even indefensible. Wilders is now facing prosecution...

Categories Censorship/Islam
January 26, 2010

Glenn Beck: “Revolutionary Holocaust”

There’s plenty to criticize in Glenn Beck’s documentary “Revolutionary Holocaust,” starting with Beck himself, whose Obama=Stalin schtick is only the polar opposite of Michael Moore’s reductio ad Hitlerum against Bush. Notwithstanding some of the disturbing associations in Obama’s not-so-distant past, Beck’s comparisons are overwrought and mostly groundless — I’d go as far as entirely groundless but for the fact that Anita Dunn wasn’t canned immediately (or ever) after making this contemptible statement (just imagine the reaction if Karl Rove had...

Categories History
January 26, 2010

Breaking Kim Jong Il’s Blockade

A fascinating new New York Times story tells us how clandestine journalism inside North Korea is doing more than bravely telling us stories that went untold before. Services like the Daily NK and Open Radio are coming into their own and improving the quality of their reporting in the face of challenges that traditional journalists wouldn’t (and shouldn’t!) even attempt to overcome: The reports are sketchy at best, covering small pockets of North Korea society. Many prove wrong, contradict each...

Categories Subversion
January 25, 2010

New Reports Highlight Failure of U.N., Ban Ki Moon to Address North Korean, Chinese Atrocities

A series of new reports on (the absence of) human rights in North Korea will not, by itself, change much, but they signify that for now, South Korea has stopped ignoring the issue. They may also complicate the State Department’s preferred course of doing the same. On the 20th, Human Rights Watch released its 2010 “World Report,” which brings together a review of all the most important issues in the field of international human rights during 2009. As usual, North...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/North-South
January 25, 2010

New Camp 25, Camp 12 Pages

Although I don’t claim that my preliminary identification of the site of Camp 25, Chongjin is yet confirmed by witnesses, two of the former Chongjin residents whose stories are told in Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy” provide a degree of circumstantial corroboration. Judge the evidence for yourself here; however, I can’t say for certain that the site is a prison at all until a credible witness confirms it. I’ve also put up a new page on Camp 12, Chongo-ri. Most...

Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/The Camps
January 24, 2010

24 January 2010: Toward a New Realism

The arch-“realist” Richard Haass has concluded that talks are going nowhere, changed his mind, and called for regime change in Iran. I wonder if, had all other things been equal but the outcome of the 2008 election, Haass would have had the same epiphany. I’ve always found irony and amusement in the idea that it is “realistic” to believe that pathologically mendacious regimes, regimes founded on the idea that rules are for subjects and enemies, would freely negotiate away the...

Categories Anju Links
January 24, 2010

Great Confiscation Updates: Current Trends Cannot Continue

The wire services continue to report that conditions just keep getting worse for North Koreans, but the latest dispatch from Good Friends adds extensive detail to the hyperinflation story, and how it’s affecting the ability of people to get food: This is the sort of reporting that Good Friends typically does well. We’re used to seeing North Korea’s corn-eaters going hungry, but I always watch for signs that the elite, the military, and other rice-eaters are sharing in the misery:...

Categories NK Economics
January 22, 2010

22 January 2009: So Much for Outreach

* One year into the Obama Administration — and doesn’t it seem like so much longer than that? — the new conventional wisdom is that “outreach” has been a failure and that pressure is likely to continue. The failure of outreach is completely unsurprising. The administration’s resort to pressure is slightly surprising. * Jesus in Pyongyang! I sure hope this kid and her whole family aren’t sent to a prison camp over this. * Don Kirk: “Looking Ahead to North...

Categories Uncategorized
January 22, 2010

North Korea Liquidates Family for Trying to Escape

Via the Daily NK comes a terrible report about the fate of the Jeong family from the town of Hyesan, near the Chinese border. At some point, the Jeongs decided that they’d had enough stultifying propaganda and grass porridge for a lifetime, so they decided to make a break for it. Early in July last year Jeong escaped from North Korea to Changbai in China along with his mother, wife and three- and seven-year old daughters. However, in August the...

Categories Human Rights/Inside NK/Refugees
January 22, 2010

North Korea Honors Dead Sailors for Saving Kim Portraits

Reports like these are a staple of North Korea’s cult propaganda. Similar reports after the Ryongchon explosion in 2004 evoked global pity and disgust. They’re at it again: North Korea has poured honors on sailors who drowned to death while saving the portraits of the country’s leaders when their cargo ship sank off the coast of China in November, the communist state’s official media reported Friday. Yonhap tells us that five actual human beings died when the ship sank, which...

Categories Uncategorized
January 22, 2010

North Korean General Loses Star, Keeps Life

Personally, I’m always intrigued by the disgruntlement of armed men who often come into close contact with Kim Jong Il: Recent photos of a North Korean general close to leader Kim Jong-Il showed that he has been demoted for reasons, which were unclear, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday. The JoongAng Daily published photos of General Kim Myong-Guk released last June and this week. The earlier picture showed Kim with the four stars of a full general, while this week’s...

Categories Kremlinology/NK Military
January 21, 2010

Great Confiscation Update

From the Daily NK: A defector, who spoke with his family in North Hamkyung Province on Tuesday, reported the news to the Daily NK, “I called my family to send some money to them as I had heard they were in trouble, and they told me that the current situation is unspeakably terrible. They live only by bartering with others. He explained further, “For now, state-designated prices are still not public, so people think that selling goods for cash now...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics
January 21, 2010

Why, You Ask, Does North Korea Need Another Bank?

It probably doesn’t have anything to do the reason cited in news reports about a “thaw” (as if) in relations with the South or the United States. A body known as the Korea Taepung International Investment Group held its first board meeting to launch a state development bank, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency reported late Wednesday The bank will finance state projects “after being equipped with advanced banking rules and system needed for transactions with international monetary organisations and...

Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions
January 21, 2010

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may not survive the year 2012 and massive unrest is likely to follow his death, the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification speculates. A military coup, riots, massacres and a massive exodus could follow Kim’s death, KINU said in its report. [Chosun Ilbo] My own prediction: I predict with high confidence that Kim Jong Il will die, and that there will be much rejoicing. Also, I predict with moderate to high confidence that one week...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Regime Change