NK NEWS BRIEF | Mar 27, 2013

KJU inspects “new” military technology made by unit 1501 of the Korean People’s Army | Photo: REUTERS/KCNA

NK INTERNAL

• Koryo Tours: “3G access is no longer available for tourists to the DPRK. Sim cards can still be purchased to make international calls but no internet access is available.”

• Daily NK source in PY: “New orders were recently handed down by KJU placing a limit on the number of children from the Central Party Secretariat list entering Pyongyang universities. It stated that children of ordinary workers and families from rural regions should have more opportunity to get into good universities… Of late there have been more ordinary people demanding that their children be able to enter prestigious universities. It seems that NK, which has been promoting KJU as a ‘people’s leader’, wants to dispel these popular complaints.”

• Daily NK source in N Hamkyung Province: ““The military training period for reserve forces has grown prolonged, so there are now more incidents where young people and local civilians are not participating. The commanders trying to lead them are always saying that ‘these are not empty words; there will be severe punishments if you do not participate in these training exercises… Most people agree that these training exercises are being conducted far more strictly than in the past. A lot of people are participating mostly because they don’t want to be punished.”

• NFI: The Rodong Sinmun has announced a protection order for Kim statues, in light of SKorean media reports that they may be targeted by the ROK military in the event of a provocation.

• Daily NK video showing ggotjebi children in Hyesan, recorded in Feb 2013 (after the nuclear test).

FOOD SECURITY AND ECONOMY

• WFP factsheet on assistance to NK. WFP map of newly proposed protracted relief and recovery operational coverage. “WFP’s nutritional intervention is designed to target almost 2.4 million women and children in the 85 most food insecure counties mainly in the northeastern parts of the country.”

• Reuters: China, which normally supplies 30,000-50,000 tonnes of crude oil per month to NK, did not export any crude oil to NK in February, according to Chinese customs data. The last time there were no recorded shipments was in Feb 2012, and there were also no recorded shipments in Feb 2011. Prior to 2011, China suspended crude sales in early 2007 and in Sept 2006, which also coincided with a nuclear test in October that year.

• Reuters on how the NKorean elite are beating sanctions, “one plasma TV at a time.”

REFUGEES

• Chosun Ilbo: 12 NKorean soldiers crossed the border into China in two groups earlier this month but were captured by Chinese troops and sent back to NK. Late last month two soldiers killed their senior officer and fled to China. Source: “As spring progresses and crop inventories are depleted further, we may see an increase in the number of defecting soldiers.” Eight civilian defectors were also caught in Yanji and repatriated earlier this month, including five ‘ggotjebi’ children. In addition, one of two ROK citizens who were caught with NKorean defectors was deported to SK – they were former defectors and had gone to China (using ROK passports) to help their families escape. The Chinese authorities reportedly threatened several times during the investigation, “We know that you were originally defectors yourselves. If you tell the truth we’ll send you to SK, if not we’ll repatriate you to NK.”

• NFI on the process of ‘money laundering’ in the markets that relatives of defectors use to hide the fact that they are receiving remittances from SK.

HUMAN RIGHTS

• The UN Human Rights Council unanimously passed a resolution establishing a Commission of Inquiry to investigate human rights violations in NK. NK’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland reacted to the establishment of the UN COI: “The U.S. and their South Chosun puppets should be well aware that this quarrel over human rights in our Republic [NK] is a challenge to our system and dignity that can never be accepted by our military and people.” NK’s foreign ministry also said it will “completely reject and ignore” the resolution.

• US State Dept spokeswoman: “”The United States commends the U.N. Human Rights Council for establishing an independent commission of inquiry to investigate North Korea’s grave, widespread, systemic human rights violations.”

• More than two years after the establishment of the North Korean Human Rights Violations Reporting Center and Hall of North Korean Human Rights Violation Record, not a single case has been investigated.

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS & SECURITY

• NK’s military command said it had put all its missile and artillery units on the “highest alert,” ordering them to be ready to hit SK and the US, including military installations in Guam and Hawaii.

• White House press secretary: “NK’s bellicose rhetoric and the threats that they engage in follow a pattern designed to raise tensions and intimidate others. And as we say consistently, the DPRK will achieve nothing by these threats or provocations, which will only further isolate NK and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia.”

• ROKG (unnamed) source: “If NK launches another provocation, our military has developed a plan to respond with air-to-surface and surface-to-surface missiles to strike not only the source of provocation as well as support and command forces, but also some statues of KIS and KJI.” The ROK MOD would not comment on the report, but vowed a “thousandfold, ten-thousandfold retaliation” against a Cheonan-like provocation from NK.

• The US and ROK militaries signed a new agreement on the role that US forces would play in supporting SKorean counters to NKorean provocations.

• MOFAT description of PGH’s “trust-building policy” steps: 1) Provide humanitarian aid while calling on NK to keep to agreements made with SK. 2) Expand inter-Korean economic cooperation without linking it to NK’s nuclearization actions. 3) Large-scale govt assistance linked to progress in denuclearization.

• The ROKG approved the first shipment of humanitarian aid to NK under PGH, allowing the Eugene Bell Foundation to send 605,000 USD worth of TB medicine to NK.

• The MOU said they will propose talks with PY to set up family reunions this year.

• The USG is urging the EU to impose sanctions on NK’s Foreign Trade Bank. The EU’s sanctions have already expanded on those approved by the UNSC in January, adding measures preventing trading in NKorean government bonds, gold, other precious metals, and diamonds, and barring NKorean banks from opening new branches in the EU and European banks from opening new branches in NK.

• NK has severed a military hotline with SK that is used for communications regarding SKoreans’ travel to the KIC.

ANALYSIS & OPINION

• Kang and Cha with a Foreign Policy “Think Again” on NK, covering the threat of war – “The worry is that KJU might not hold to the same logic [of mutual deterrence], given his youth and inexperience.”; the reasons for NK’s poverty – “NK is poor because of an outmoded economic policy and self-imposed isolation from the world… One could not have imagined a worse economic plan.”; China-NK relations – “As long as China continues to value stability on the peninsula more than it worries about a few nuclear weapons, it will not fundamentally change its policy towards its unruly neighbor.”; and lastly the chance of engaging/bribing PY to give up their nukes – “If only it were that easy… In fact, the record of U.S. engagement is pretty impressive.” Recommended read.

• Cohen: “The commission of inquiry should not be seen as an end in itself but rather as part of a larger strategy to promote human rights in NK. A strategic plan should… have definite goals like achieving a dialogue with North Korea; disseminating to its schools, government offices and institutions Korean translations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; gaining international access to the penal labor camps; bringing an end to the prison system and forced labor; and allowing freedom of movement for North Koreans across borders.”

• Hayes: “Maybe sending in the B52s was tactically smart… but far more likely is that it was strategically stupid to force NKoreans to relive August 1976. Because it will surely, 100 percent guaranteed, justify in NKorean minds that they could be attacked any moment by US nuclear weapons and that the only way, short of reconstituting their hostile relationship with Washington, to reduce the risk of nuclear attack is to pose a similar threat to the United States and its allies, and until it has developed and demonstrated that ability, substitute threat rhetoric and risk-taking for capacity.”

• Kirk: “While waiting for Armageddon, the AP needs to ask sensitive questions in Pyongyang as it does everywhere else. For instance, there is no excuse for the bureau not to have at least tried to investigate threats to Pak Jong Suk’s family. The failure to mention that issue in its coverage, much less ask about it inside NK, demonstrates the AP’s reluctance to touch upon human rights and other sensitive subjects in its reporting from Pyongyang for fear of offending the NKoreans and jeopardizing the bureau’s presence.”

MISC.

• A week after the cyber attack on SKorean banks and broadcasters, further cyber attacks have paralysed the websites of NK defector groups and NK-specialist media outlets, including Daily NK, NKnet, NKIS and FNKR.

• NK’s Air Koryo is increasing flights between PY and Beijing from three per week to five per week.

• The Atlantic exposes KCNA’s digitally manipulated photos of military hovercraft exercises.

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