The Marmot’s Hole

One of the great things about South Korean journalism - every time Korea gets mentioned in the American press, it becomes big news. This is precisely the way in which I found out about this piece in the current edition of Newsweek documenting the history of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Just a sample:

Few North Koreans have suffered more directly for Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions than Kimchaek University’s class of ‘62. Shortly before graduation day, the campus began buzzing with news that atomic scientists were needed for a new research lab being built for the “Great Leader,” Kim Il Sung. “Our professors really pushed the need for nuclear development,” recalls one class member who escaped the country two years ago and recently told NEWSWEEK his story. “The rumor circulating among students was that those of us sent there wouldn’t have long to live.”

And for all you people (you know who you are) who are still convinced that this current crisis is all George Bush’s fault:

North Korea probably began cheating on the 1994 deal before the ink was dry. Scores of high-explosive tests done in the late 1990s suggest ongoing work to perfect a nuclear detonator. A female scientist who claims to have been in Yongbyon in the 1990s describes schemes concocted to hide covert weapons research. In a transcript allegedly made after she fled into China last year (and obtained by NEWSWEEK through a humanitarian group that arranged her exile in South Korea), she describes deception at the No. 304 Research Institute where she worked, a facility “involved with making both nuclear and chemical weapons.” To dodge IAEA inspections, she says, “we moved all materials and equipment into underground caves.” Eventually, a new plant called the August Facility was constructed. “The place is hidden inside a forest and connected with a new railroad from other facilities,” she added. “It processed uranium for use in other institutes.”

Newsweek also ran this brief peak into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - a somewhat disturbing snippet:

Other discoveries are more unsettling. One day we visit the International Friendship Museum in Hyangsan, a marble palace built to hold what may be the world’s greatest collection of kitsch: thousands of gifts that have been presented to the Kims by foreign dignitaries. It’s hard to keep from laughing at the ugly vases, carpet slippers, House of Commons whisky glasses and other junk on display until I notice a peculiar detail. In the past few years, one gift after another has been credited to high-ranking defense officials from Iran and Pakistan. Is it coincidence that all three countries are widely suspected of trafficking in nuclear secrets? Whatever the envoys talked about, it probably wasn’t train schedules.