NK NEWS BRIEF | April 24, 2013

A South Korean businessman walks by his car carrying sacks of rice in the border city of Paju, April 17, 2013. | Photo: AFP

NK INTERNAL

• Daily NK: “People working in Kaesong also asked why we were going crazy preparing for war when people in South Chosun seemed perfectly fine. People are now more worried that Kaesong will permanently close in this atmosphere.”  

• ORNK source: “Even in the tensions, the Korean Wave in North Korea is spreading beyond K-pop, drama, and style, and people are seeking South Korean products for marriage gifts (…) When I said to my neighbors that I’m going to China to meet my relatives, they asked me to buy South Korean-made marriage gifts such as rings and necklace for them since South Korean designs are more classy. So I took a lot of money with me.”

• NK News: More NKoreans are relying on information from foreign radio. “Shortwave radios are perfect because receiving the information is completely anonymous. Unlike the Internet, radio doesn’t require any feedback or signals from listeners. They just switch on their set and receive broadcasts over the air, which makes it much more difficult to track listeners.”

• NK Tech: Images of the Korean Central Television TV and radio broadcasting center in NK show four new satellite dishes on the roof.

ECONOMY & FOOD SECURITY

• KCNA reported that NK’s Cabinet held an extended meeting to discuss the effect of international sanctions imposed on it, and ways to develop its economy through stepped-up exchanges with the outside world.

• Chosun Ilbo: Many Chinese investors in NK are having difficulty recovering their money; it is reported that close to 100 are staying indefinitely in PY, waiting to recover their money. Trading company head: “The biggest mistake Xiyang Group made was to ignore the dangers of investing in North Korea. (…) Once a dispute occurs, it is impossible to beat the North Korean government.”  

• Daily NK: During the military exercises in March, the regime failed to provide adequate rations to its people, causing desertions and fainting among civilian participants.  

• Daily NK: Increasing distributions of rations to the people has caused the price of rice to fall. “There was five days of distribution in the first part of last month and ten days in the last part, then a further five days at the start of this month, so rice prices fell. The authorities are saying that they are going to give ten days of distribution per month until September, then normalize it completely after that.”

• GIEWS Country Brief: The outlook on NK’s spring harvest is expected to be better than last year’s.

• The NK ambassador to Mongolia has requested food aid.

• Amb. King, US Special Envoy for NKHR issues: “Reports from a lot of organizations that operate in North Korea indicate conditions are fairly difficult. People don’t have a lot of protein. The food situation is very tight.”… “If there were a request for assistance, it’s something I’m sure that we would look at. We try to keep our humanitarian assistance separate from political considerations.”

• NKoreans fear that the KIC closure will jack up the prices of SKorean goods in NKorean markets. Source: “Many residents of South Hwanghae province earn their living as sellers of SKorean products which are illegally obtained from the Kaesong Industrial Complex. If it is closed, those residents will face serious trouble.”

• NK is reportedly negotiating the possibility of importing oil from Iran.

• JoongAng Daily: A delegation from the Eugene Bell foundation visited NK to oversee the distribution of Tuberculosis medicine.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• SK’s Democratic United Party (DUP) has included a reference to NK human rights in an amendment to its party policy. DUP official: “From the universal perspective, the North Korean human rights problem is one that the DUP cannot ignore, and therefore it has been included. However, the North Korean human rights issue is a sensitive one in inter-Korean relations, so we’ll have to wait and see what conclusions come out of the convention.”

• The US State Dept released a report detailing the NK regime’s human rights abuses. N Korean refugees are also mentioned in the reports on China for forced repatriation and lack of access to services, and defectors are briefly mentioned in the SK report for “alleged societal discrimination” upon resettlement.

REFUGEES

• Defector: “Since I was little, I strongly felt the need to leave. I’ve never touched a computer but I was really curious about them. I loved studying and was good at it so I wanted to learn as much as I wanted in a free country.”

• SINO-NK: A recent murder of a defector involved in prostitution has highlighted how female defectors are susceptible to sexual violence and depression.

• NKorean refugee testimony to global human rights subcomittee of the US House of Representatives: “The place where I was sold to, in tears, for 16,000 yuan (U.S. $2,600) was to a Chinese man in his 50s who was still not married because he was so poor and had no money, and this man was living with his 80-year-old mother, in a very poor and destitute situation. Because they were afraid I would run away, I was followed everywhere, even to the bathroom, to the stream near the house—wherever I went; when they needed to leave the house, I was locked inside the house and could not leave.”

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• NK’s National Defense Commission demanded an end to sanctions, a complete withdrawal of “all nuclear war measures deployed in SK and neighboring regions”, and an apology before they would engage in dialogue. The Rodong Sinmun also stated that NK may hold arms reduction talks with the US, but will not give up its nuclear program. “Our position is clear. Never dream of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula before denuclearization of the world is realized.”

• Kerry: “I think it’s fair to say that without China, North Korea would collapse. (…) Therefore I think it’s important for us to work with China. I think China has indicated its willingness to work with us.” He also commented on recent NK pre-conditions for dialogue, “So, I’m prepared to look at that as, you know, at least a beginning gambit — not acceptable, obviously, and we have to go further.”

• President Park Geun-hye will speak in front of the US Congress next month, as a sign of the strength of the US-ROK alliance.

• NKorean military source: “There’ll be no problem launching the missiles at any point in the two months after injecting them with fuel, oxidizer and ignition agent. In the end, it is the injection of the final ignition agent that decides the timing of the launch.”

• Daily NK: A leaflet defaming the SK Minister of Defense and praising the NK regime was found by the National Ministry of Defense. In addition, authorities also intercepted a package addressed to the Minister of Defense containing a white substances later identified as flour.

• NK has denied involvement in Boston Bombings.

• SK and the US failed to amend the Atomic Energy Agreement. As a result, they are reportedly considering extending the current agreement by another two years.

• Yonhap: The suspension of the KIC has caused an SK auto parts supplier to lose its Indian business partner.

• Japan Times: Recent comments show differences between the US’s and Japan’s approach to NK, with the US welcoming dialogue and Japan taking a harder stance.. PM Abe told Kerry: “You mentioned dialogue, but we have been betrayed by NK before. I don’t want you to forget that”, and another government source said that Kerry’s attitude toward NK was “more conciliatory than we imagined”.

• JoongAng Daily: 60% of SKoreans gave a positive review of PGH’s response to the latest security crisis. Jeong Han-wool, E Asia Institute: “Park has a liberal message saying she is willing to talk and provide assistance even before the nuclear crisis is resolved, if NK proves it can be trusted. (…) At the same time, she also gave a conservative message that the ROK-US alliance will continue to be reinforced. The positive rating came as she used both messages appropriately to resolve the public uneasiness on national security.”

ANALYSIS & OPINION

• Eric Schmidt: “North Korea is at the beginning of a cat-and-mouse game that’s playing out all around the world between repressive regimes and their people. In most of the world, the spread of connectivity has transformed people’s expectations of their governments. North Korea is one of the last holdouts. Until only a few years ago, the price for being caught there with an unauthorized cell-phone was the death penalty. Cell-phones are now more common in North Korea since the government decided to allow one million citizens to have them; and in parts of the country near the border, the Internet is sometimes within reach as citizens can sometimes catch a signal from China. None of this will transform the country overnight, but one thing is certain: Though it is possible to curb and monitor technology, once it is available, even the most repressive regimes are unable to put it back in the box.”

• Jasper Kim: “A long shot, for sure, but South Korea and others can offer to provide technological assistance to allow the spread of the Internet. Such efforts towards digital democracy would not only be more cost effective and less risky than a build-up of hard power, it would appeal to the soft power invisible influence of information and promote change from within.”

• Japan Times: Many NKorean defectors in SK aren’t intimidated by war threats. “It’s not even possible for North Korea to have a war. They don’t have fuel. They don’t have electricity. Even if they yell to the world that they’ll go to war, it’s all just talk.”

• Simon Cockerell of Koryo Tours: “There is such a thing as leisure time, at least for people in Pyongyang and in certain other parts of the country. North Koreans are not the Taliban; they do things that most westerners can relate to: having too many drinks, having a singsong, having a night out — these types of things do occur.”

MISC.

• NK Tech: Personal details of thousands more users of three NK-related websites have been released by the Anonymous hacker group. In response, the Chosun Sinbo apologized to its readers.

• The new website “KCNA Watch”, started by Frank Feinstein of New Zealand indexes KCNA content in English.

• NK News: KJI’s grandson Kim Han-sol has reportedly gone missing in Bosnia.

• NK News: A Guinean exchange student studying in Wosan during the 1980’s recalls the protests he and his African peers took part in for the purpose of obtaining clean water. “The military’s plan was to stop us from going through the tunnel, but also psychologically to wait until we were tired, thirsty, and hungry before they came for negotiation. This tells you exactly how well they know and use psychological tactics.”

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