There are a handful of NKHR-related events going on the next few days in Seoul. Of particular interest may be the last one on Saturday evening, at which two South Korean college students who happen to be former North Korean refugees will talk about their experiences and share their opinions. There also is a concert at the National Assembly’s Memorial Hall on Thursday afternoon, a documentary screening Friday night (in Korean - alas, no subtitles), and a flea market fundraiser Saturday afternoon. For complete information and detailed directions, visit the Justice for North Korea homepage.
A separate flier for today’s (Thursday’s) concert:
I have no way of knowing whether reports like this can be true, but one thing I can say with confidence is that the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, and Jimmy Carter will not demand an independent investigation to find out:
Free North Korea Radio, run by North Korean defectors, reported last Tuesday on the murderous acts toward disabled children by the country’s own government. Disabled children who are born in the city of Pyongyang are taken into government run hospitals and are suffocated to death by smothering wet towel over their face. [….]
Free North Korea Radio confirmed a story about one sailor, a captain of trade ships in Nampo port, who had to give up his grandson 8 years ago because of the gruesome policy. He received a threat from the city after his newborn grandson was born disabled.
The grandfather sailor spoke about the threats given by officials. “Give up your grandson, or you don’t get to live in Pyongyang. We will give you a week to decide,” recalled the sailor. “I was afraid that if I didn’t decide, I would be persecuted as a traitor who disobeyed Kim Jong Il, and then be excommunicated to a wasteland. I had no choice. I had to give up my grandson.” [link]
Visitors to Pyongyang, including Guy DeLisle, have noticed that Pyongyang is suspiciously devoid of disabled people, and this isn’t the first report that North Korea kills off handicapped babies shortly after their birth. Another previous report claimed that North Korea sends the handicapped off to special camps. Those reports aren’t entirely consistent, but they’re not necessarily mutually exclusive. And of course, there have been multiple reports over the years that North Korea kills babies born to repatriated refugee women to prevent the birth of racially “impure,” presumably half-Chinese babies. Ordinarily, my rule is to demand extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims, but North Korea’s claim on the benefit of that burden of proof weakens in the face of its prior consistent atrocities and its extraordinary secrecy.
In any event, this story broke a week ago, it’s gone pretty much unnoticed within the Human Rights Industry. Take from that what you will about the developmental status of anything like a global conscience.
Second, some South Koreans — including some who could end up governing South Korea after the 2013 elections — would be happy to help their North Korean business partners obfuscate the origins of their wares as “Made in Korea.” And if Kaesong-made material is cut and sewn in the South, the truth of the matter may not be entirely clear. A close reading of the country-of-origin rules for textiles, for example, makes plain that there are plenty of ways to get around the rules without resorting to outright fraud. Klingner cites an executive order that’s supposed to prohibit this, yes, but who would effectively police the prohibition?
Finally, who is to say that a second-term President Obama or a future President Chung will remain faithful to the positions their governments take today, after Congress gives them what they want?
For any of those reasons, Kaesong products invite mislabeling. Who can say with confidence that either the U.S. or South Korean governments can ensure us that Kaesong’s leakage into the U.S. market won’t be significant? It matters for some important reasons. Because the workers at Kaesong are afforded all of the labor rights of draft animals, imports from Kaesong would violate both international labor standards and the Tariff Act of 1930. Nor should the United States wish to join South Korea in dumping cash into Kim Jong Il’s coffers, thus violating the letter and spirit of U.N. resolutions that were designed, in large part, to protect South Korea’s security. Indeed, South Korea’s own conduct with respect to Kaesong puts it in a poor position to criticize China’s financial support for Kim Jong Il.
In principle, the FTA is a good thing for both Korea and the United States both economically and diplomatically. I also like the idea of supporting President Lee for behaving like a statesman and an adult. Anyone who is even minimally observant of U.S.-South Korean relations can see the South’s utter monomania about getting the FTA passed. I can see why South Korea would like to see the FTA passed in time for it to impact the South Korean economy in time for the 2013 elections. So why does South Korea still wear the Kaesong albatross? Kaesong inexplicably continues to grow, but the only one turning a profit is Kim Jong Il, thanks to continued subsidies from the South Korean government. Kaesong certainly hasn’t delivered on its promises of reforming North Korea or reducing tensions. On the other hand, the risk of Kaesong’s toxic plume seeping into the stream of FTA commerce hands a legitimate issue to FTA opponents, some of whom would rather talk about Kaesong’s utter lack of labor rights and the very real possibility that it’s funding Kim Jong Il’s WMD programs than their own parochial protectionist motives (here, I distinguish Rep. Brad Sherman, who has long been genuinely concerned about North Korean proliferation).
Is this such a hard choice for the South Korean government? It wouldn’t be if the U.S. told South Korea that it can have free trade with North Korea or the United States, but not both. That’s exactly the deal that President Obama should make with Congress, and then offer to President Lee.
Personally, I’m a little hesitant to endorse the conclusion that North Korea is increasing the production of any particular crop (in this case, opium) solely based on satellite imagery of crop patterns in one area; I’d like to see a little more corroboration from other sources. I don’t think there’s any question that the North Korea government has long manufactured and exported illicit drugs as a matter of state policy — and still does — but most recent evidence suggests that North Korea’s dope industry has suffered from the country’s general industrial decline, and that increasingly, the expertise and materials needed to manufacture drugs are being diverted into the markets, like almost every other salable commodity.
Today, reports about drugs in North Korea are usually about the rise of drug addiction as a domestic social problem, and the regime’s periodic crackdowns on drug use and trafficking.
_____________________________________
There are now 21,000 North Korean defectors in the South. But I have something far more jarring to show you today — this chart, showing the number of North Koreans arrested as illegal aliens in Thailand in recent years:
If Iran, Iraq, and North Korea are an Axis of Evil, then China must be the Limited-Slip Differential of the Axis of Evil:
North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report obtained by Reuters on Saturday. The report said the illicit technology transfers had “trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.” That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity. [Reuters]
China is a member in good standing of the U.N. Security Council notwithstanding the fact that its conduct aided and abetted the violation of at least four Security Council resolutions it voted for (1695, 1718, and 1874, linked on my sidebar, and 1737). Just to put all of this in perspective, the Security Council is a law-giving body where the members who make the rules can pretty much freely break them. Think of it as a little like the House Ways and Means Committee, only without mid-term elections, only five members, no accountability whatsoever, and vast consequences for the security of billions of people.
“Prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Islamic Republic of Iran on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air,” the report said. “For the shipment of cargo, like arms and related materiel, whose illicit nature would become apparent on any cursory physical inspection, (North) Korea seems to prefer chartered cargo flights,” it said. It added that the aircraft tended to fly “from or to air cargo hubs which lack the kind of monitoring and security to which passenger terminals and flights are now subject.”
Several Security Council diplomats said China was unhappy about the report and would likely not agree to release it to the public. At the moment, only the 15 council members have official access to the document. One of the experts on the panel is from China and diplomats said he never endorsed the report, which was delivered to the Security Council on Friday. His refusal to endorse the report delayed its submission for around 24 hours, diplomats said.
Sure, you say, but that still doesn’t prove that the Chinese knew anything. I mean, it’s not as if North Korean planes loaded with missile parts were landing at the Beijing Airport en route to Tehran while Condi Rice was sending the Chinese government angry cables asking them to seize the planes, is it? Oh, right. I guess it kinda is like that. Never mind.
So what was China’s response? The traditional one:
The report was submitted to Security Council members over the weekend, but had been delayed for days before that after the Chinese expert on the panel refused to sign off on the report. “The Chinese expert refused to sign the report, under pressure from Beijing, and this raises serious issues about a panel of experts that is supposed to be free from political interference,” said a senior United Nations diplomat, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue. [N.Y. Times]
China has a history of using its misbegotten seat on the Security Council to block reports that criticize North Korea, Sudan, and itself.
I’ll simply post the press release and let it speak for itself:
Committee for Human Rights in North Korea
1725 Eye (I) Street, NW • Suite 300 • Washington, DC 20006 • (202) 349-3830 www.hrnk.org
PRESS RELEASE
****For Immediate Release****
On Thursday, the Washington-based bipartisan Committee for Human Rights in North Korea will release an extraordinary report, “TAKEN! North Korea’s Criminal Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries.”
The report, three years in the making, is based on numerous sources never before published in English, detailing how people of at least twelve nationalities have been abducted from fourteen countries around the world. It features satellite imagery of where many of these abductees have lived (and may still live) and where they have been forced to work for the North Korean regime.
This report, unlike others that presume little is known about the abductions, sets out the massive amount of information that can be compiled by comparing testimony from former abductees, former operatives of the North Korean regime, and former agents who collaborated with the regime.
In light of these details, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea explains how the abductions were carried out, how the victims were treated in North Korea, how the regime used the abductees to carry out its espionage objectives, and how the regime organized itself bureaucratically to implement Kim Jong-il’s directives to abduct foreign nationals and exploit their knowledge and abilities.
As with all Committee reports, this report provides policy recommendations on how to implement an international strategy to raise the issue of abductions with North Korea both bilaterally and multilaterally, and pursue legal recourse.
The report is the result of extensive coordination with organizations that focus on North Korean abductions in Tokyo and Seoul, as well as US, Japanese, and South Korean officials. Family members of the abductees will participate in Thursday’s release of the HRNK report.
The presentation of this report will be held Thursday May 12 at 9:30 am at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street, NW, 13th floor, “First Amendment Room.”
CONTACT:
Chuck Downs, Executive Director, Committee on Human Rights in North Korea
There’s no audio, so you can’t hear him singing along to “Sugar Magnolia” and barking at his wives for more potato chips:
At the risk of starting a global conspiracy theory here and now, this video looks like it could have been made at a homeless shelter in Oakland. OK, maybe none of the neighbors really did know they were living next to the world’s most wanted mass murderer, but anyone who got a look at this dude ought to have rushed back home to check his local online sex offender registry.
It’s difficult to understand how anyone not educated in a Pakistani madrassah can remain dour and joyless on hearing that someone so unreservedly evil has become shark excrement, but leave it to Europe’s usual suspects to find a reason. Some are saying that President Obama may have “lost his luster” for unilaterally (gasp!) killing a man who murdered 3,000 American civilians, nearly all of them on American soil, without even asking the permission of the government that was willfully harboring him. One columnist at the Guardian even looked down his nose at the “spontaneous outpourings of raucous jubilation” in America. C’mon, guys, this is supposed to be a happy occasion! Turn those frowns upside down!
See? I told you that Europe would learn to hate us all over again!
It’s difficult to accept these arguments as motivated exclusively by an objective pursuit of the law’s pristine meaning, and the more closely you review the actual legal authorities, the more baseless the arguments start to sound. Leave aside if you will (even if I would not) the absolute justice of dealing death to a fugitive mass murderer. Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the U.N. Security Council — yes, I know — specifically invoked Chapter VII and reaffirmed America’s “inherent right of individual or collective self-defence as recognized by the Charter of the United Nations,” and its “need to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.” As U.N. resolutions go, that’s about as much clarity as you can expect. International customary law and the majority of scholars have long interpreted the right of self-defense, as articulated in Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, as authorizing force by a state against those planning armed attacks against that state, and especially against its civilian population.
Someone should also call the attention of Obama’s critics — and the Pakistani government — to the parts of this resolution that required states to “[d]eny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts,” “[p]revent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes,” and “[e]nsure that any person who participates in the financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts or in supporting terrorist acts is brought to justice.” So much for multilateralism. I would be tempting to hail the Pakistanis before the U.N. Security Council, except that (a) it’s the U.N. Security Council, after all, and (b) we need the use of the port in Karachi and the road to Qandahar more that we need the smug self-satisfaction that substitutes for sound statecraft in the Soft Reich. (That’s also why calls to cut off all aid to Pakistan will probably go nowhere, at least until the Iranian government is finally overthrown.)
Maybe now more Europeans might agree with me that awarding President Obama that Nobel Peace Prize was premature after all. My take is that our young President might just have earned it, even if by doing so he also forfeited most of those all-important electoral votes in the Netherlands. But least they’ll still have Jimmy Carter for a few more months.
“These are places out of sight of the rest of the world, where almost the entire range of human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for last 60 years are ignored.” “As North Korea seems to be moving towards a new leader in Kim Jong-un and a period of political instability, the big worry is that the prison camps appear to be growing in size.”
Amnesty International believes the camps have been in operation since the 1950s, yet only three people are ever known to have escaped Total Control Zones and managed to leave North Korea. About 30 are known to have been released from the Revolutionary Zone at Political Prison Camp in Yodok and managed to leave North Korea. According to the testimony of a former detainee at the revolutionary zone in the political prison camp at Yodok, an estimated 40 per cent of inmates died from malnutrition between 1999 and 2001.
Having read Amnesty’s “report,” which is shorter than many posts I’ve written on this blog, I can’t help thinking that I must be missing something. Aside the article quoted above, Amnesty has issued a ten-page, double-spaced report, a press release, some b-roll video, and a petition, though I’d be fascinated to know where that will be delivered.
From these, I will extract three facts for your consideration: first, that the estimated population of the camp system is 200,000 men, women, and children; second, that in some of the camps, the annual mortality rate is 40%; and third, that the camps have been operating since the 1950’s. If we accept these statistics as true — or as close to true as Kim Jong Il permits us to tell — where on this earth are as many people are suffering and dying so miserably and unjustly than North Korea? By any objectively defensible standard of morality, Amnesty ought to have rededicated itself to closing down North Korea’s prison camps immediately after the Khmer Rouge was driven back into the jungle. But that did not happen.
I sure hope that’s not all Amnesty has to say about this, because collectively, all of this is still just a sliver of the information that multiple other sources have published years ago. Amnesty’s report comes eight years after David Hawk first began publishing images of the camps, and provides far less information, fewer photographs, and fewer witness accounts. Amnesty’s “revelations” also come four years after this humble site first published detailed satellite imagery of North Korea’s political prison camps, several of which had still never been seen by foreign eyes at that time. Curtis Melvin and GI Korea have placemarked and published (respectively) far more detailed imagery of the camps than Amnesty has. Korean NGO’s, such as the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights and the Korean Bar Association, also contributed far more to our understanding of the camps years ago. What excuse does the Human Rights Industry’s most lavishly funded and best-promoted conglomerate have for being years behind a handful of tiny, under-resourced NGO’s and bloggers in speaking out against the greatest human rights atrocities of the last quarter-century?
There is also a part of me that feels wrong to quibble; after all, an Amnesty press release gets picked up instantly by the New York Times, the BBC, the Daily Mail, and a news wire. (For that matter, it’s been great for my own traffic.) And to be fair to Amnesty, they’ve done much good in bringing needed attention to abuses in Syria, Libya, and China, and however sporadically, they have spoken up for the North Korean people over the years. Most recently, they joined the chorus of outrage directed at the W.H.O.’s imbecile of a Director, Margaret Chan, for her praise of North Korea’s health care system. And hey, at least they’re not following Jimmy Carter’s hypocritical advice that this “cannot be changed by outsiders,” though Jimmy has taken enough of a beating since his return from Pyongyang that I see even he is criticizing the deficiency of North Korea’s health care system now. I suppose I should be thankful for that much from a self-professed human rights advocacy group, so all that being said, I signed their petition and hope you’ll do the same, although I certainly didn’t give them any of my money (which I’d urge you to send here or here instead).
I say this for several reasons, the first of which is that Amnesty’s paltry report comes years after it’s news to anyone, and the second of which is that it contributes little to our knowledge of the North Korean camp system, other than to reaffirm that it continues to expand. Then, GI Korea pointed out that this year so far, Amnesty has published a grand total of nine reports about South Korea and just this one about North Korea. That’s an awfully damning statistic for Amnesty’s sense of perspective, and thus for its legitimacy as a global conscience. It especially highlights one problem that the Human Rights Industry has done far too little to correct — their tendency to criticize governments in direct proportion to which they allow access to the evidence of their own conduct. The problem with this is that the degree to which governments allow access and bother to read petitions from Amnesty International tend to be inversely proportional to the severity of the abuses those governments commit. The last decade of virtual silence from Amnesty does suggest that North Korea has found the right formula to sew up the eyelids of nosy outsiders.
Do not take any of this as argument that South Korea, the United States, or any other government ought to be above morally proportionate criticism. The questions surrounding Gitmo and the interrogation methods used there are legitimate questions with important implications for the character and security of our nation, and also for the human rights of those that the terrorists would murder next, although I do not accept that those questions are as simple as Amnesty’s street theater would suggest, or as sterile as the arguments of its legal scholars who question the lawfulness of killing Osama bin Laden, an act that almost certainly saved many innocent lives.
Whatever position you take on those questions, it is still objectively indefensible that the Human Rights Industry has expended such a disproportionate share of its energy, funds, and political capital on torturing the definition of the word “gulag,” or on defending the immunity of terrorists from civil societies acting in self-defense. This is not an indication of a pristine conscience, it is an indication that too many of us have lost our sense of moral perspective. And that is a global disgrace.
For those of you in Korea, if you don’t know much about the human rights crisis that is North Korea (and spilling into China and South Korea) and/or if you want to learn how to get involved, there’s a great opportunity for you this Saturday in English or next Saturday in Korean (please encourage your Korean friends. coworkers, students to attend!).
I volunteer with Justice for North Korea, and we’re holding our third round of informational orientation sessions for volunteers and anyone who’s interested in learning more. Each time we’ve held these sessions we’ve tried to improve them, and I think we’ve got a great program in place now.
Learn about the situation North Koreans must endure in North Korea, China, and South Korea.
Taught by those with extensive experience assisting North Korean refugees. One speaker was himself once such a refugee in China.
Learn about opportunities to get involved.
Saturday, May 7, 2011, 9:30 – 6:00 in English (Saturday, May 14 in Korean)
Sinchon Station, line 2, exit 5 — straight for 50m
키세스(KISES) Language Hakwon, 1st Floor.
Course Fee (includes lunch): 20,000 won if received by May 6th or 25,000 won at the door
(The fee will cover your lunch and help us pay for the facility rental. Anything left over will go toward Justice for North Korea’s work.)
Please see our homepage for lots more details and how to register:
1. It’s particularly satisfying in some evil way to think of Osama bin Laden not as “elusive” or “shadowy,” but as “shark food.”
2. I don’t think the location where bin Laden was hiding leaves any question that Pakistan was sheltering him. This wasn’t some mountain cave in the tribal territories that the Pakistani government doesn’t control. It was a house near a military academy in a town right near Islamabad. I was on the fence for years about whether Pakistan was a friend or an enemy. My own best guess was that the government was mostly cooperative but unable to control all of its rogue elements. I’ve moved far in the direction of Pakistan being an outright, passive-aggressive enemy, an enemy with nuclear weapons.
3. No, this doesn’t mean we can let our guard down or that we can declare victory, but it’s a tremendous psychological victory in an overwhelmingly psychological war. And now, all of the intelligence resources that had been hunting for bin Laden can shift their gaze to Zawahiri and Mullah Omar.
4. Spontaneous jubilation has erupted in front of the White House. Really? In America?
5. If you know a soldier or (for those living in D.C.) a CIA officer, the beers are on you.
6. Before today, I’d have guessed that President Obama would probably win reelection by sheer lack of an electable opponent. Today, I think his odds of reelection are even greater.
Hello, Jimmy Carter here. Some of you may remember me for my successful negotiations that preceded the freeing of American hostages from our embassy in Iran, brought peace to the Middle East and free elections to China, and secured the peaceful nuclear disarmament of North Korea.
But of course, you say, I’m remembered for something else, too — for my tireless campaigning on behalf of the downtrodden and oppressed everywhere from 1973 to 1975, and since 1983. As my covenant with you, the American people who values I represent in our global village, I swear that I will not shirk from condemning the greatest atrocities in our world today, such as apartheid in Palestine. I promise you that I will not rest until I tear down the walls between Palestinian children and their dreams of martyrdom, and until any developmentally disabled woman wearing an explosive vest under her burka can sit in any section of a public bus without fear of discrimination.
Today, however, I’d like to speak to you about another subject that’s close to my heart: America’s duty to end poverty and hunger everywhere, starting with North Korea.
Recently, I decided to visit Pyongyang to build on my success at achieving a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, and at bringing a lasting peace and the reduction of tensions between our North Korean friends and their South Korean neighbors. The itinerary for my visit had originally called for a chaperoned tour of the U.S.S. Pueblo and the American Imperialist War Crimes Museum, followed by peace talks over a game of horseshoes with my good friend, Kim Jong Il. Unfortunately, Mr. Kim cited last-minute scheduling conflicts and was unable to find the time to meet with me, which is a striking coincidence, given that the President of South Korea also had a scheduling conflict when I called on him in Seoul just days before. It is widely reported, of course, that I am highly regarded by the government of North Korea. I feel secure enough of this truth that I see no need to “question the decision of a head of state about the priorities they set for their own schedule.”
Having an entire day to spend in Pyongyang before the next scheduled flight out of the country, I decided to use my time productively by investigating whether there was any evidence of human rights violations to be remedied in North Korea. Fortunately, the two North Korean gentlemen assigned to accompany me at every waking moment, and to monitor me through closed-circuit video at every non-waking moment, graciously obliged and eagerly answered all of my questions.
I must say that I undertook my investigation without really suspecting that I would find anything seriously amiss. Sure, as I have said before, “there are some human rights concerns about the North Korean regime’s policies,” although I saw no reason to upset my hosts by raising minorunpleasantness that, unlike the the subjects of the dressings-down I had delivered to Israel or to the South Korean government many years ago, are matters that “cannot be changed by outsiders.”
Lastly, both of the North Koreans I interviewed during my visit spoke most highly of their single-minded devotion to the Sun of the Nation, who provides all that the people require, including meat rations for party members on his birthday. Yet further inquiry revealed something shocking and disturbing — the first evidence of human rights violations in North Korea confirmed by reliable official sources since 1953:
It is at moments like these that I thank our Creator for gifting me with the ability to bravely speak truth to power, a skill I perfected during my brief tenure as President of the United States, in the course of my many written appeals to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s sense of fair play. Just after I spoke these words, Mrs. Robinson swooned, and I had to send Rosalynn to fetch my smelling salts from the pouch in my carpet bag where I keep my topical ointments and my Doctor Horton’s Elixir.
Like a swamp rabbit stalking its hapless quarry, the cruel malaise of Yankee parsimony stalks the people of North Korea. It is therefore my solemn duty to carry home the shocking truth that there are shortages of food in North Korea. And based on the findings of my investigation, the cause of the shortages is none other than the United States. Those of you who know me need no further elaboration on the reticence with which I reached the sad conclusion that our own government was somehow responsible for this injustice. After I returned to Plains, I asked of my scriveners at the Carter Center to take the very next train to Macon, where there is a fine Carnegie library. On his return, he brought me evidence that President Obama had recently signed an Executive Order freezing all assets linked to “the procurement of luxury goods; and its illicit and deceptive activities in international markets through which it obtains financial and other support, including money laundering, the counterfeiting of goods and currency, bulk cash smuggling, and narcotics trafficking.” Did our President give no thought to the innocent children who would suffer the loss of their livelihoods?
Worse, America pressured our beloved United Nations into passing a resolution that bans some of North Korea’s most vital industries, namely “items, materials, equipment, goods and technology, determined by the Security Council or the Committee, which could contribute to DPRK’s nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes,” and inhibits its right to free commerce in “battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems.”
Like you, I weep that President Obama, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, could have allowed his U.N. Ambassador to support a Security Council Resolution resolution that deprives North Korean children of such fundamental necessities as “all arms and related materiel, as well as to financial transactions, technical training, advice, services or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of such arms,” and “financial transactions, technical training, advice, services or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use of such arms or materiel.”
How could a U.N. resolution so indiscriminately deprive innocent children and nursing mothers of their basic needs, yet so disingenuously include an exemption for “humanitarian and developmental purposes directly addressing the needs of the civilian population?” How many more children must suffer before America ends this unjust blockade? I implore you to look into the eyes of this pitiful, emaciated waif and give generously:
My fellow Americans, I am outraged, and you should be, too! But together, we can make a difference. I have decided, therefore, to establish a foundation to petition President Obama to lift these unjust sanctions and help the Leader of North Korea provide for his people. Naturally, I am announcing this new campaign right here on OFK, a site that has been informing literally dozens of concerned citizens, resident aliens, and undocumented immigrants about North Korea’s humanitarian challenges for a half century of dog-years.
I ask you today to join with me. Together, we shall lift this dastardly union blockade and provide affordable housing for North Koreans in need — like this habitat along the North Korean seaside. Today, the people of North Korea struggle to build additions to their palaces and rows of luxury seaside villas for the hard-working officials who struggle each day to provide for the people:
~~~ 2002 ~~~~~~~~~ 2009 ~~~
The shortage of heavy equipment in North Korea not only prevents the government from mechanizing the nation’s agricultural system, it also means that the horse track in this sprawling palace complex could only be built with the generous assistance of 10,000 class enemies who hand-carried tons of rocky soil by using those buckets they balance on the end of poles, just to prove their devotion to their leader and their fitness to reenter society.
And to think that all of this affordable housing was built in a neighborhood with no Home Depot! Just imagine all of the children the North Korean government could feed with the money it’s spending on shipping costs and special-order surcharges. Together, we can help the people of North Korea overcome their desperate material needs and build more housing for its rural population, so that the authorities can again afford to purchase the essential foodstuffs we all enjoy each day … like grits, hard-tack, molasses, and side meat:
Sanctions have also affected the government’s efforts to provide affordable housing for the urban poor, including this 105-story, 3,000 room public housing project that could also host some of the thousands of tourists who flock to Pyongyang’s annual Robotic Obedience Festival each year.
Sanctions imposed in our name have done grievous harm to North Korea’s key industries, like WMD development, WMD concealment, WMD production, and WMD proliferation. These are industries on which millions of ordinary North Koreans depend for their livelihoods. And because no nation can afford not to invest in its economy, sometimes consumerism had to be sacrificed for the greater good. Even so, sanctions delayed the completion of this underground runway …
… this new missile satellite launch facility …
… and this powerplant, which my North Koreans friends inform me will be employed for the peaceful generation of electricity …
Sanctions nearly ruined Kim Jong Il’s birthday celebrations for his late father. Because he is a generous man, Kim Jong Il gives things to other people on his father’s birthday! And because nothing says “democratic peoples’ republic” like a new S-Class, last year, he wanted to give a trainload of cars to some of his best friends. Some would have ruined the whole celebration by saying that U.N. sanctions prohibit the import of “luxury goods,” but fortunately, the Chinese government was understanding enough to let them across the border.
Why, in North Korea, dads coming home from a hard day of risking public execution for stripping copper wire out of abandoned factories can’t even get the sweet release of a refreshing glass of cognac! My fellow Americans, can there be any question of who is responsible for scenes like these on the streets of cities across North Korea?
Please send your tax-deductible contributions here.
* Achtung, consigliori! The Jimmy Carter-Kim Jong Il Habitat Foundation is not associated with the Carter Center, Habitat for Humanity, or Jimmy Carter. It is not tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Also, it is not an actual foundation.
Hello, Jimmy Carter here. Some of you may remember me for my successful negotiations that preceded the freeing of American hostages from our embassy in Iran, brought peace to the Middle East and 
