The Marmot’s Hole

Brings tears to your eyes, don’t it? The little Stalinists might might be responsible for one of the worse famines in modern history, but damn, they do dress well. Anyway, Mongolian President Natsagyn Bagabandi — a household name to you all, I’m sure — arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday for a three-day stay in the lovely North Korean capital. Nobody’s quite certain what the trip’s about — heck, Bagabandi might just have wanted to get out of UB for a couple of days — but there is some speculation that the Mongolian head of state is on a mission to patch up relations with its former brother in socialism. According to the Korea Times:

Mongolian President Natsagyn Bagabandi arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday on what appeared to be a mission to enhance bilateral relations, which may have been strained due to Mongolia’s stance to accept North Korean defectors.

Mongolia’s role as a “processing center” for defectors seeking to come to Seoul has apparently become a source of concern for the North since Mongolian Foreign Minister Tsend Munh-Orgil said in a November interview that his government would continue its policy of receiving North Korean refugees at border crossings.

The Mongolian president was greeted at the airport in Pyongyang by Kim Yong-nam, president of the Presidium of the North’s Supreme People’s Assembly, the North’s official mouthpiece Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

It remains unclear whether Bagabandi will meet North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il.

Apparently on the agenda was a North Korean proposal to build in Mongolia a collective farm for defectors:

Major agenda for the high-level talks in Pyongyang are expected to include measures for building a collective farm in Mongolia for North Korean defectors.

In August, Pyongyang’s deputy foreign minister Kim Yong-il visited Mongolia and suggested building a joint collective farm to which North Koreans, including defectors, would provide the manpower, according to a report by Radio Free Asia.

I mentioned that Radio Free Asia report back on Nov. 29:

NK Chosun cites a report from Radio Free Asia (which I can’t seem to find) that claims that North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong-il, when he visited UB in August, suggested that Mongolia take North Korean citizens in the Land of the Great Blue Sky and put ‘em to work on collective farms or constructing social overhead capital. Quoting some northeast Asia specialist from American University, the report said Kim was referring to both North Koreans who entered Mongolia legally and those who entered not so legally, i.e., defectors. NK Chosun said if the report was true, it would seem to be a response to calls from South Korean and U.S. North Korean human rights groups to construct camps for North Korean defectors in Mongolia.

Mongolia, of course, has become a major third country by which North Korean defectors make their way to South Korea, especially now that it’s grown more difficult to bust into embassies in China. As for what the North Koreans might be up to, well, there is only so much leverage they have on Mongolia, while the South Koreans, U.S., and Japan have tons of it. Comradeship from the good old days goes only so far when the South Koreans own half of Ulaan Baator and 20,000 + Mongolians are only a Justice Ministry crackdown away from having their butts placed on the next plane back to the steppes. Of course, given Unification Ministry policy these days, one wonders if the South Koreans would actually use that leverage. Heck, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young might think the whole “collective farm” project is a good idea, for all I know.

Just a note to the Korea Times — I don’t like to get anal with mistakes like this, but still:

Mongolia, a close ally of China and North Korea, has underlined the importance of “silent diplomacy” in dealing with the defector issue as a crackdown by Chinese police on refugees attempting to storm embassies in Beijing has forced them to search for alternative routes to Seoul, including Mongolia.

Mongolia a “close ally of China?” Yeah, bosom buddies. Kinda like India and Pakistan.