I was about to translate this piece by Yonhap, but thankfully, One Free Korea has already done that for us.
The general secretary of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and a former DLP central committee member have been placed in detention on charges of spying for North Korea.
The two are accused of being part of a cell called the Ilsim-hoe (I take that as meaning the “One Heart Society”), a North Korean fifth column supposedly led by Korean-American businessman and alleged North Korean mole Michael Chang.
The Ilsim-hoe was allegedly instructed by Pyongyang to do, among other things:
- Keep track on a parliamentary resolution to sack then-Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung;
- Intervene on Pyongyang’s behalf in the May 31 regional elections, including having the DLP throw its votes behind Uri Party candidate Kang Kum-sil in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to defeat Grand National Party candidate Oh Se-hoon in the Seoul mayoral race;
- Use environmental issues to bring civic groups into the “anti-American struggle.”
- Keep dossiers on South Koreans in various fields (politicians, civic group figures, etc.) in order to keep track of trends in South Korean society following North Korea’s recent nuclear test. These dossiers were supposedly given to Mr. Chang.
The individuals in question are accused of undergoing training from North Korean agents at a safehouse (Korean: ajiteu, a lovely loanword—I believe through Japanese—from the Russian agitpunkt. Sorry, just learned that) in Beijing. It’s here that they supposedly received their orders as well.
South Korean authorities have decrypted and analyzed USB devices and CDs obtained from the suspects. Considering the fact that they contain detailed records of the cell’s activities (or so says Yonhap), authorities believe it likely that the suspects really were engaging in espionage activities.
One of the suspects apparently had in his car a document that swore loyalty to Kim Jong-il and pledged to promote North Korean-style socialism in South Korea and push for the abolition of the National Security Law—One Free Korea has the exact translation if you’d like to see it. The suspect claims he didn’t write it and just downloaded it from the Internet.
And really, who among us hasn’t walked around with a pledge of loyalty to the Lodestar of the 21st Century?
Now, before we jump to any conclusions here, the suspects are all strongly denying the charges against them or exercising their right to silence. They’ve also lawyered up. But as Joshua at One Free Korea points out:
Although the report claims that the suspects all denied everything and lawyered up, the lawyers say their clients were forced to incriminate themselves (Marmot: Actually, I believe the lawyers claimed that their clients were being asked to present evidence that they didn’t meet with North Korean agents). In fact, the Korean police do use highly coercive methods, but those tend not to work as well against people who obviously had their stories and their legal rights worked out in advance. And trust me on this, as one who has represented hundreds of criminal suspects: multiple accused never all tell the same story and lawyer up unless they have a very well-rehearsed game plan. It’s an exceptionally rare and wise client who lawyers up, and since Korean cops don’t give rights warnings, that’s even more true in Korea.
That all may be true, but it may also be that as former left-wing activists, they have a lot of experience with the Korean justice system and are well aware of their rights.
I’m not going to rush to any judgments—Korea has made great strides since the 1980s, but it’s still got its work cut out for it in convincing people that a spy charge is not, in fact, fabricated. That being said, I have a gut feeling—partly because North Korean agents may have gotten complacent and lazy over the last two presidential administrations—that this one could get very, very big.
How big? Well, the JoongAng Ilbo is reporting that investigators found at Michael Chang’s residence a “little black book” that included the names of the aides of ruling and opposition party lawmakers and leading members of labor and environmental groups. According to the JoongAng report, investigation have revealed that Chang brought about 10 leading figures of labor and civic groups—all former “386 generation” activists—to Beijing and Shenyang to meet with North Korean agents. In China, they were trained to engage in pro-North Korean activities, including anti-American activities.
Again, I stress this could all be bullshit.
The JoongAng also discussed the burden-sharing arrangement within the Ilsim-hoe (keep in mind, all of the following is alleged, not proven). Chang left it to former DLP central committee member (and former publisher) Lee Jung-hun, DLP general secretary Choi Ki-young, hagwon owner Son Jeong-mok and IT employee Lee Jin-gang to gather intelligence and build dossiers. The four, who are said to have joined the group between 1997 and 2003, handed the info they’d gathered through their publishing, Internet and political activities to Chang.
Lee Jung-hun reported to Chang on the direction of the Seoul chapter of the DLP, while Lee Jin-gang provided Chang with info on civic groups. The two Lees, graduates of Korea University, are said to have been introduced to Chang through fellow KU alumnus and Uri Party member Heo In-hoe, who is currently in the United States.
Son, a high-school junior of Chang, kept track of general trends in South Korean society.
Chang, meanwhile, was instructed by Pyongyang to get the DLP to reflect North Korean strategy. Chang conveyed this order to Choi, the DLP’s general secretary. Or so investigators say.
Chang, meanwhile, took all the information collected and conveyed it to Pyongyang through North Korean agents in China.
49 Comments
Baduk has been warning of this scenario for quite some time. Why is it that nobody listens until it comes from the dirty mouth of the Korean press?
Granted all the caveats that some or all of this could be fabricated BS, it still boggles the mind that any South Korean could believe life under KJI’s rule is preferable to what they have here and now. Advocating socialism, fine, whatever, even communism, but this is like metal illness to me, I can never comprehend that mindset.
Why do you think this could get very big? No story becomes big in Korea unless the government wants it be big. Remember how fast Song Du Yul disappeared from the media radar.
Let us not forget that without a clear and present danger, USFK has no reason to be in Corea. The government and the press katchi kapshida to create the clear and present danger.
Thus spake michael:
That’s because you haven’t been steeped in a Korean-nationalist edumacation. Where economic autarky, racial purity and uri-this and -that have been extolled as virtues your whole life, a guy can get worn down by enduring colonization by General Motors, having to look at the disgusting miscegenated faces of Hines Ward and Moon Bloodgood, and being subjected to the petty complaints of sneering Condoleezza Rice (not just black, but a woman too!).
Sure, North Korea is a grinding, wretched existence for the masses (remember these guys are all elites) — but not having to look at Col. Sanders’ fat American face every day would be a relief. Coca-Cola costs a month’s pay? Good! It will keep the foolish masses from wasting uri nara money on royalties. Here in South Korea we have cable systems with 100 channels and what does it bring us? CSI, in English, twelve hours a day. That arrogant Horatio Caine! Better to have just the one channel, so long as all the faces on it are Korean and the messages are controlled by the proper parties.
Which are, of course, their betters with the proper education — Seoul National University, Korea University, or Yonsei University “student leader” alumni only need apply. Plus Kim Il Sung University. What’s important to remember is that passing that single examination at age 17 gives you the right to lord it over everyone the rest of your life.
Mr. Carr, you’ve presented a very good case for rejecting the brigandish lies of the Yankee running dog imperialists who have colonized the 단일민족, and I now pledge allegiance to the unwavering guidance of the Dear Leader.
Pass the crack pipe.
What do you want to bet none of these chopes does hard time? I know, no takers…
Brendon - a very good point you make about how S.Koreans, with their elite worship, naturally consider the N.K. masses to be 재수 없어 at worst and beneath notice at best.
Try introducing NK refugees to SK people; the attitude of the latter will depend on the positions that the former held (or claim to have held) in NK. And need I add that a former Pyongyang resident is respected much more than someone from Hamgyong?
“…this is like metal illness…”
I’m at least the second to note this typo (”…me[n]tal…”) but perhaps the first to savor the inadvertent irony (?)
metal illness = lead poisoning, a common problem up north.
As I commented in another post, given the current attitudes and comments from the present administration, I think this goes much deeper than the DLP.
LivingnKorea, nobody is willing to follow that white rabbit much deeper into the rabbit hole.
So true, Mark. Whenever something seems to go deep (whether its bribery or NK spying), the prosecutors and press drop it very fast.
Korean Central Intel Agency(KCIA) is in charge of this investigation. Yet, the day after making this public, the head of KCIA resigns.
Do you smell the rat?
The resigned head of KCIA is a military man. He could not take any more of this government which is selling out Republic of Korea to KJI. He has covered up several acts of treason for his paycheck but he ain’t gonna do it any more. He has conscience. He quit.
The chances it are bullshit are slim. Under the current government, and going back some years now as this government has been in power, the spoke chasers were NOT encouraged to doctor stuff up - they were in fact encouraged to turn a blind eye.
Also, all of this is deeply rooted in Korean history. The most direct root can be traced back to the late 1970s and 1980s when this 386 generation was gaining ground in opposing South Korea’s authoritarian rulers.
Back then, in the “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” fashion, Kim Il Sung’s faults were wiped away by dozens and dozens and dozens of those youthful underground and above ground civic leaders — who made dutiful trips to Germany to hook up with the likes of Song Dul Yul (who still has a following among Korean grad students in Hawaii) and North Korean agents via East Germany.
Any time I read where someone was a former democracy activist in their 20s and 30s in the 1970-1990 period, I give it at least a chance they were - at one point or another - either directly making contact with North Korean operatives or were follow the orders of someone who was.
You might need to have taught Korean adults or spoken to a good many of them about their protest activities in college during that time period to understand what I mean by that –
– when protests used to come up as a topic, I would ask students if they have ever protested against something - and just about all of them had - since just about all of them were college educated ——— but when I’d ask what they were protesting against, the most common answer I got was, “I don’t know. My ’senior’ told us to meet at X place and then told us we were going to protest, and we protested.” It was very much a product of Korea’s group and group-think mentality.
We also have to remember that in the 1970s and perhaps into the early to mid 1980s, some people even outside of South Korea were saying North Korea was more developed than the South. It is hard to remember that given what we know from the 1990s to now.
Next, I think the fact the Korea Teachers Union has the largest war chest to work with of any union speaks volumes for the likely spread of North Korean fingers into South Korea’s NGO movement.
I guess that should be “spook” chasers
I forgot ——— I’d love to see Green Korea dusted to all hell and back out of this……..If they could find direct connections between North Korean operatives and Voice of the People, I’d smile a good bit too…..
Amazing! We have Korean-Americans spying for South Korea an Korean-Americans spying for North Korea.
You guys in Korea know the people and politics better than I — but (after reflection for a while, & reading the earlier comments and some of the links) — I’m thinking that these guys don’t see themselves as ideological disciples of Kim, but rather as smart political cookies who are building ties to similar cookies in the north, looking past the eventual demise of the Kim regime and the totally fluid possibilities of how an eventual reunification can go.
They’re thinking that they’ll one day be seen as politicians ahead of their time (again, assuming these reports are true as seems likely). If the German reunification is a precedent for what they have in mind, then they may be confident that with a continued US presence they will at some point become the ones (not the NK”s) who will dictate the parameters of how reunification is proceeding.
For now, they think they have to go through the motions of acceding to the abrasive demands of their NK contacts. Knowing their own ROK society well, they weren’t particularly worried about their own political/personal ambition prospects if caught.
W Germans became pretty confident about setting the terms of reunification w/ E Germany, as developments in Russian and E Europe proceeded for a couple years and the communist collapse accelerated. (At least that’s how I recall it, not an expert but I’m thinking for example of what I read about how W German military officers eventually showed up at E German military bases to dictate how the E Germans would be integrated into reunified German military).
I gather the German example has been studied extensively by the Koreans (?) I wonder if there is anything in English about what they concluded….Korean “national character” from what I read here and elsewhere is quite different from the Germans. I’ve mentioned on this blog before that I saw Col Hackworth on TV say once that the Koreans reminded him of the Irish, which is a more ominous precedent for reunification (or rather, “not” reunification).
Differences: Germans were two borders away from a USSR going through its own internal political collapse, with the extra protection of having a “buffer” intervening state of stiff-necked nationalists between them and USSR (Poland). For Korea, China is right next door and the Chinese aren’t about to have a collapse of their own (or so this it seems to this non-expert).
The more ominous precedent is an earlier Germany– Weimar. Weimar had no “resident” foreign forces (ie Allied occupaton armies by 1933 were long gone from Germany) and when the other German political parties agreed to allow Herr Hitler as chancellor in early 1933, they thought they could ride the tiger and “manage” him.
Lots of potential differences there too I suppose, still I hope Koreans have studied the whole political history of Germany (not just the most recent) as they look to the future.
What a complex political science stew. From my stupid white boy perspective, I would think that the “smart cookies” in ROK politics would be uniting across party lines to lobby hard in Washington with whatever administration is in power.
To get US support behind them for advancing and negotiating “neutralization” proposals to make to the Chinese (in the way that NATO agreed with USSR/Russia to never station western offensive combat forces in the former Warsaw pact).
To in turn get total Chinese support for setting up one of those giant fireman’s air bags on the ground (funding and support to cover all the diffeent contingencies in case the North decides to hurl itself off the roof).
But I guess all this would be “traitorous”. Amazing, don’t these guys even admit to themselves in private what has happened (and still happens) up north? Do they really think they can play games with those guys? (rhetorical question, nobody is obliged to answer…)
Looking around the Korean web space, this doesn’t seem to be a big story. It’s probably a lot of Koreans are weary of the Cold War. Also, probably a lot of Koreans are looking at this cynically as just political manuevering to rein in one of the opposition parties. In summary, Koreans don’t trust their government.
But I think there really is something to this case, considering that the current government has been very sympathetic of the North Korean government. Why would they bring this case up unless there is really something there that they just couldn’t ignore, friend or no friend (North Korea).
Ref :German reunif as relevant to potential Korean one, turns out there is beaucoup in English, sorry for redundancy if discussed here before. Google and you shall receive, a few samples:
1) The Cost of Unification: German Lessons for Korea
By: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Written August 2002, Updated March 2005
http://samvak.tripod.com/pp167.html. An eerie book promotion ad, seemigly unrelated, at the top of the page, is it some kind of subliminal statement about Koreans? OTOH, maybe it’s meant for the Yanks….
2) http://www.korea-is-one.org/ar.....ticle=2332
“…an abridged version of Christine Ahn’s Congressional testimony on January 25, 2005. Ahn is a member of Korean-Americans United for Peace and an Oakland Institute Fellow”
“….If the United States genuinely wants peace and human rights for the Korean people, then U.S.-Korea policy should reflect this aspiration. Concretely, the United States should sign a non-aggression pact with North Korea, lift economic sanctions, minimize hostile rhetoric towards the north, and support the Korean people’s efforts towards reunification….
As a Korean American, I feel especially responsible because I live in the United States, and as an American citizen, I want America to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.”
Of course she chooses to say absolutely zippo about whether US troops should stay. I’m all for her ideas, as long as we bring our troops out.
3) Many more, such as a 1998 book by Martin Hart-Landsberg, Lewis & clark college professor. Chapter 8 is excerpted on line, appears to be a “leftish” one (ie, basically it’s all the US’s fault). Suppose there’s many others, so why am I surprised.
Hart-L’s book is endorsed by Noam Chomsky, so maybe we’ll see the new UN Sec-Gen holding it up at the rostrum of the general assembly while inhaling deeply of the sulphur fumes. An intoxicating and exhilarating scent indeed.
The arrests come a week after pictures of South Korean ministers were shown dancing and singing in NK and days it was alleged that the South Korean government has been turning a blind eye at North Korean drug smugglers who make stops in Pusan. Sacrificial lambs so that the international press doesn’t start asking too many questions?
Maybe I should have rephrased that…”pictures of South Korean ministers singing and dancing in NK were shown”?
The original grammar was more fun — like those HP commercials.
I think Paul H. is giving way, way, way too much credit to these guys. I think they are most likely just the same as a good number of Korean univesity educated civic minded intellectual types in that society — they have completely blinded their eye to the reality of North Korea. At best, if they can find a way to half-way admit NK is a dictatorship and horrible place, they find a way into fooling themselves into believing “it would be different” if it were not for the US always causing NK to fear it.
I remember hearing a Korean prof in the US talking about having visited NK for some reason that in part dealt with setting up a noodle factory in the late 1990s - and she talked about all the groups that had contacted her about writing something for their journal or group or whatever about North Korea —- and about how she self-censored what she wrote - not because she was afraid the North wouldn’t let her back in or not because of pressure from this group or that group —– but simply because it seemed like the right thing to do during this period with NK “opening up.” She didn’t mention the “Sunshine” policy and she wasn’t talking politically — she just felt like it was “right” to not talk about North Korea’s problems, and she said she knew a good number of collegues that felt that way. (This was at the start of the 2nd nuke crisis)
And this is a prof who had been in the US for a long time and had been educated in her advanced degrees in the US.
How hard is it to imagine South Koreans from the 1970s and 1980s generations who haven’t been outside South Korea for any extensive period believing the North “really isn’t as bad as people make out. In fact, if the US would just leave them alone, I bet juche would work. Look how well it did in the 1960s and 70s….”
김승규 국정원장은 2004년 7월 법무부장관에 임명됐고 지난해 6월 국정원장에 취임했다. 28년간 검사로 재직해 수사 업무에 정통하다. 취임 직후 ‘불법 도청사건’이 터지자 “국민께 용서를 구하고 새 출발해야 한다”며 진상 규명과 국정원 개혁에 앞장섰다. 독실한 기독교 신자로 전별금을 돌려보낼 만큼 청렴하고 ‘사심(私心)’이 없다는 평을 듣는다.
Kim ,the resigned head of KCIA, had served as a minister of Justice since April 2004 before becoming the present post at June last year. He worked as a prosecutor for 28 years and therefore is proficient in investigation. When the illegal evasdropping by KCIA became public, he reorganized the agency claiming “we must make a fresh start after apologizing to the people”. As a devout christian, he returned the money given to him as a special bonus and is known to be a honest person.
I was wrong. He was not a military person but a police type (a former prosecutor). The excerpt is from a private interview.
http://www.chosun.com/politics.....00064.html
South Koreans are no more willing to acknowledge the USSR & China’s role in the Norks’ prosperity than to acknowledge America’s role in the “Miracle on the Han”.
This is off subject but I can’t seem to get the Archives page to show October postings prior to October 21st or so. I’m looking for the posting about “know your escape routes” that tells what documentation we would need for a quick exit from Korea and where we are supposed to go. I tried a search using those words but it doesn’t turn up.
Can someone please post a link to that entry? My wife is Korean and I want to check what paperwork we should have for her if things turned bad. (not that I think they will….but just in case).
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2006/.....on-routes/
The plot thickens…
“National Intelligence Service Director Kim Seung-kyu, we are told, tendered his resignation on Friday and the president accepted it. …some speculate that displeasure at the investigation from 386ers in power may have hastened Kim’s departure. The spy suspects took part in the democracy struggles of the 1980s and have close personal ties with 386ers in Cheong Wa Dae. In fact, NIS insiders say they are under strong pressure from 386ers in the political arena. The entire 386 generation appears to be attacking the NIS, one said. The Democratic Labor Party, whose former and incumbent leaders are implicated in the spy scandal, is protesting in front of the agency every day. In an absurd twist, the party’s vice secretary-general protested in front of the NIS on Wednesday and was arrested for spying the next morning.”
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....80009.html
Too me, it looks like an isolated incident where a bunch of naive, over idealistic and zealous, and extremely stupid leftist wackos decided that it will be fun playing spies with the North Koreans.
As for Uri involvement, Uri is stupid, but I doubt they are stupid enough to play spies with the North Koreans. Unless they are DLP members pretending to be Uri.
Anyway, let’s see how this plays out.
Thanks!
mins0306,
No, they are not stupid. They are pro-China people. Yes, Uri party wants Korea to sever ties with the US. And, that means automatically belonging to the China-NK camp.
Korea is at crossroad ever since Pres. Kim DaeJung radically changed the course of the country. Pres. Rho, his lieutenant, is just following the roadmap set by Pres. KDJ, the greedy rat who sold out the country to the Chinese.
This spy thing is only the tip of the iceberg. I call these 386 activists Commies but that is misnomer. They are pro-China revolutionaries. They won’t stop till Korea becomes a vassal state of China.
Selling the country out right under the people. Stupid Koreans do not even know what is happening. Those who know approve this deal.
They are no idea what they are wishing for. Massive pillaging by the hungry Chinese. You just wait and see.
This article says basically what I have been writing about.
http://www.joins.com/article/2491708.html?ctg=1000
The 386 politicians did not want Mr. Kim (head of NIS, formerly KCIA) to investigate the spy case. They want him to be quiet and recognize these “spies” are just, as Paul H. has wrote, progressive revolutionaries.
They argue that for two Koreas to unite SK has to embrace NK. That means humoring and paying KJI. Even letting KJI to control SK and people. Together with “progressive people” in SK, they wanted to influence (by threat and assassination?) SK election next year.
Kill these Commies (pro-China activists) right now. Right now! The Republic of Korea is being destroyed from the inside. These fucking Progressive politicians are selling the country out to KJI and the Chinese.
Kill them before too late.
baduk,
You have every right to express your views.
But I’m afraid that your views border on the ridiculous.
First you say Uri are NK commies, now they have morphed to pro Chinese agents.
I don’t like the Uri either and yes they are a bunch of loonies, but although they will screw up this country mightly before they leave office, I don’t see them turning this country over to KJI or the PRC. Besides there is a difference between left wing loonies and hard core commies, and personally I don’t think Uri is that hard core commie. Of course the DLP is another matter.
Here is hoping that the next presidential elections will come very soon.
mins0306, take everything baduk says with a grain of salt. Most of his comments are made with his tongue pressed deeply in his cheek. Heck, even his nic, baduk, is probably meant as a farce (everything is black and white for him).
For those who are arguing that Uri wouldn’t frame DLPers because both parties are left-wing…
That’s exactly why they WOULD frame DLPers. A far-left party takes votes away from Uri, not from the GNP. If the DLP collapses, those supporters who still have an interest in electoral politics will likely go over to Uri, which right now needs all the support it can get. And I doubt Uri would really care that the collpase occured at the hands of the right-wing security forces. Despite their promises, Uri has yet to make even mild changes to the National Security Law.
I’m not saying there was a frame-up, just that it would not be inimicable to Uri’s interests for the DLP to go down in a spy scandal, as is claimed by those who say a frame-up is impossible.
True, AndHereWeAre.
Also: Koreans tend to gravitate towards the middle road wherever they see it. If left-wing starts to mean “spying for NK” and right-wing means “opposing Sunshine Policy”, then the Uri Party will start to look like sensible moderates again. This could be the Uri Party’s strategy.
mins0306,
For a small country like Korea there is no middle of the road. It does not have sources to balance China, Russia and Japan.
Up to now, Korea maintained its independence from these evil neighbors through the help of the US. In last ten years, though, Korea is becoming anti-American.
Why?
Ostensibly, these progressive politicians are saying that they want Koreas to unite. But, how? Kim Jongil is not dead. He won’t just hand over his land to the South. So, what is really going on? Are these politicians stupid or what sending billions of dollars to KJI and enabling NK to build up its forces? Are they so stupid? What to prevent a war? Sending resources to the enemy is a way to prevent a war? Fucking idiots!
No, they are not stupid. They are carrying out a roadmap set up by Kim Daejung to sell SK to China. Yes, their aim is not the unification, but being a protectorate under China, the rising power.
They think if they switch from “American protectorate” to “Chinese vassal state” then they can bring the unification of two Koreas and prevent the war between two Koreas.
However, look carefully about China. Its average income is $80 per month. A seventeenth of Korea’s. Do you think the Chinese will allow Koreans to be rich guys if Koreans come under them? No way, Josei. It is like a rich family moving into the heart of Halem. The po’ folks will kill, rob and burn while gang raping the wife and the daughters. This is the future of the united Korea.
When switching one’s alliance, Korea must count the cost. The US is leaving Korea and she will have nothing to do with Korea in less than three years. Koreans will be under the mercy of the Chinese and NKs.
Don’t come crying back to the US. The alliance is over.
Being anti-American is equal to being pro-China. It is evident to everyone else but Koreans. Like a cheating woman, Korea may even believe it is not the same.
It is the same!
When a Chinese envoy came, all Korean congressmen vowed 90 degrees and he made a speech in Korean congress. No American counterpart had been allowed to do that.
Korea is quickly becoming a satellite of China, whether average Koreans know it or not.
The third item in Robert’s bulleted list (re using environmental issues to push ulterior motives) may explain the recent travesty of that movie The Host!
The game is coming to an end. Eberstadt should be saying what he did years ago now. His timing was a bit off. Only thing that makes me worry is that he seems to think that he was off because of all the goodies DPRK received—not so much emphasis on information control. The news are pretty much wide spread that Hallyu invasion of DPRK is succeeding. DPRK drives out food aid, why? Joshua point out that the news item at NK Daily is becoming more frequent and better. Soon, the news will go deeper and deeper into DPRK from the border along with China. That’s probably going to be a pretty good gauge on how much the “Hallyu” phenomena is spreading in DPRK. Once it’s widespread in the countryside, it’s all over for Jongil. VHS players are still probably very expensive in DPRK. But if there are any economic resurgence, that’s probably the first thing an average DPRK citizen will buy–so as dr. lankov says, it is pretty hopeless for DPRK. NK Daily reports that the food prices are going up. Rumors fly about that China stopped oil delivery in September. Rumors of scarlet fever is brewing. You just have to look at the dirty faces of DPRK denizens along the Chinese border to realize that the 2nd famine is coming. Why else would KJI test a bomb? He is the only one who knows what’s going on in that country. But this time, anyone of any importance knows that DPRK lost the cold war and there won’t be a reason to stick around a nation that is hopeless.
This news about Ilshimhwe is just bad for everyone. Come on, anyone with a half a brain should have known that all those labor guys are bbalchisan several years ago. How can anyone act surprised now? For the love of God, don’t politicize the kids!
The US wants to hand over control to ROK as soon as she can so she can get the f&*k out. Uri party has just majorly f&*ked Korea’s future. Things look pretty screwed for South KOrea, as Roh Moo Hyun has pretty much insured that the US-Korea alliance is over. Right now, I believe that a Kim Jae Gyuish solution is the only hope for South Korea. I never thought I would say this, but S Korea may need the firm hand of Chun Doo Hwan. There was a time when I thought Kim Dae Jung was a hero. Now, it seems pretty clear, Korea wasn’t ready for real democracy. It seems that Hannara did their best to keep the alliance going. Hannara discovers half a billion dollars are going from Kim Dae Jung/Hyundai to Kim Jong Il’s pocket through the Macao bank, and now the US puts the stop to the Macao bank. But US & Hannara can’t be open partners because that will just rouse up the 60% crazy korean college student who would rather point guns at Bush than Jongil. This is the future, and that means that the alliance really is over. Come 2012, assuming that DPRK hasn’t fallen yet, US will be gone. God only knows if S. Korea will go nuclear after that. There is a minute, minute hope that things will turn around when the Uri are gone, and Bush will be gone too. But I have a feeling, all of this may be meaningless as DPRK will crumble sometime in the next 3 years.
Where will the NK refugees go, when they are hemmed in by Chinese fences? South Korea & China has done their best to appease Kim Jong Il at every turn, but KJI has made sure that he can’t accept any more goodies. He has doomed himself.
It’s time for the expats to pack their stuff and come home. If you stick around in Korea when the sh1t hits the fan, it’s the US army that has to get you out—and they are going to be very very busy. It’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to you. So if you aren’t military, it’s time to take your last pay check and come home. This time, it really is unlike any other crisis time on the Korean peninsula. This is it folks. Don’t be fulled by habitualized people over there who have no other option but to stay. When the sh1t hits the fan, they will want to leave too. You can’t assume that you will have easier time leaving, just because you hold a foreign passport. You have to survive the barrage of artillery shells first.
And if you are military, my gratitude and I hope to God that you don’t become a “speed bump”. You guys know your chances much better than me… godspeed to you all.
Most of us know that the NIS, aka KCIA, has been the core of change, I mean the elites of NIS know how the political wind will be change in direction and who they going to serve. IMO, this DLP spying case has revealed without pre authorization by the ex-director of NIS, Kim Seung-kyu. This might be a signal of transformation of NIS’s color to fit into the Hannara dang.
It is also interesting what the DLP delegation would get from a meeting with Kim Youngnam and possibly from KJI on their official visit, Oct. 30th ~ Nov. 4th, to North.
May be the new survival tactic, a instruction, or just a medal, just like Jang Min-ho (44, under arrest) had received the National Reunification Award (NRA) from North Korea, from NK.
The Chosun said: “Kim would neither confirm nor deny that he was directly or indirectly pressured over the investigation by other former student activists of the so-called 386 generation now in influential positions. “I don’t care,” he said. “The investigation of North Korean spies will continue until the truth is found, and everyone [in the NIS] will work hard to do that even if it costs them their job, regardless of my resignation.” He said “everyone” in the agency was conducting the probe with “a strong sense of patriotism and is working to improve our nation’s security by arresting North Korean spies.” The remarks hint at discord either between the NIS and some politicians or within the NIS over the investigation.”
http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....00005.html
Baduk,
Please, lets refrain from calling for the killing of people. This isn’t an al-Quada blog where we debate the ways, means and targets of slaughter. That is never acceptable in a democracy, which I know you support, anyways.
> It’s time for the expats to pack their stuff and come home. …
Geez-louise, virtual wonderer, chill. Things aren’t nearly that bad yet, and still aren’t on all likely to become so. They’re still isn’t a single actor on this scene who wants war or would benefit from it…
You’re sounding as fever-crazy as Baduk.
The Korean aspects of this case are interesting — and highly embarassing to the DLP and Uri party, but no one here seems to be mentioning the AMERICAN side of this “386 spy case.”
Michael Chang (Chang Min-ho) first visited the North in 1989 when it was still a go-to-jail card for violating the NSL. This showed he was a follower of the juche ideals at the time as a KOREAN student activist. Then he packed up his bags with his trusty green card in hand and went to the US where he enlisted in the US Army.
Though not stated, his FOUR years at Yongsan should raise some questions. Here you have an anti-American in disguise wearing US uniform running around the headquarters of the CFC at the same time the North’s Kim Il-sung revealed he had a bomb and the world was at the brink of going to war.
Then when he gets out of the military, he gets his US citizenship in 1993 and returns to Korea. Then in 1993 he makes another trip to the North…and meets with the DPRK Worker’s Party folks for training in China.
If one doesn’t see the implications, I sure hope the FBI, CID, OSI, CIA and others see the significance.
1. The man is an UNREGISTERED foreign agent — the same thing that got Robert Kim in a jam as a spy for South Korea.
2. The man was an anti-American BEFORE he joined the military. Don’t the applications for entry into the US military state what countries you have visited within the past five years? He visited North Korea the same year he enlisted. Either he lied or the new US Army no longer cares who they enlists. The bottomline is that it appears to be a false enlistment.
3. He became a US citizen based upon his military service which in turn based upon a false enlistment.
4. When he came to the states in 1989, who were his “sponsors”? As a recent college grad, he wouldn’t normally been granted a green card on the special quota for Koreans. Some one had to be his sponsor. Remember in the past few years “foreign agents” for the DPRK have been found in LA — including one double agent who was sleeping with her FBI handler.
5. Supposedly Chang was recruited by another Korean-American. Who is he? Is he still running around in America?
There’s a whole bunch of other questions I have, but they start questioning whether there is a network setup in Yongsan to recruit these Korean-American GIs. Then we unjustifiably start painting with a brush ALL those Korean-Americans GIs who serve at Yongsan. That would not be right.
That’s why the FBI-CIA-etc. need to be involved. What’s the embassy statement? Thus far Chang has supposedly confessed, but I don’t believe they’ve levied the espionage charges on him as yet. Has the US investigators been allowed by the ROK to interrogate him? Questions…questions…questions…
Sanshinseon, hahaha. I finally have gone the way of Baduk. But things really are that bad. All I know is this:
1. 2nd famine approaching in DPRK
2. DPRK impotence towards information control
3. inevitable failure of the 6 party/bilateral talks
Final analysis–> war
2+2=4
Kalani,
Damn good points.
virtual wonderer theme,
I’m with him on this one.
As I was dozing off the other night, I got a real bad feeling about what the next two years are going to bring. Forget 2012.
I have a feeling NK is going to make a run toward collapse, and I know Kim Jong Il is the type who would prefer “suicide by cop” - but what kept me up a little longer that night was the idea — maybe the bulk of North Korea would prefer that kind of death to a collapse of the “motherland” too???!!!????
I didn’t think the North was going to collapse during the first famine or since.
I do think it is going to collapse now.
And I believed those defectors who said the North Korean state could not fathom going down alone.
I am not in Korea any more.
And I really don’t keep in touch with anyone there except my in-laws.
But I worry about the types of people I taught there those years and my in-laws and others.
I have a very bad feeling about what is going to happen within the next 2 years.
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Enemies Within…
I wrote a while ago that I couldn’t make sense of the actions of South Korea’s President Roh Moo-hyun other than to interpret them as the actions of a DPRK stooge, and I suspect that my statement at the time…
[...] I’m in no position to know what the truth is about these people, but one thing is clear: the timing of this is dodgy and the motivations are almost certainly political (as in so many cases where there is the supposed ‘uncovering’ of a terrorist or espionage cell that has clearly been kept on ice for sometime by the security services). There are some more details in English at the Marmot’s Hole, including the interesting facts that the accused are apparently thought to have engaged in such heinous crimes as compiling dossiers to keep track of trends in South Korean society or promoting environmental issues to involve civic groups in the anti-American struggle, and… wait for it, reporting on the activities of the DLP branch in Seoul. It strikes me that even if all this stuff were to turn out to be true then basically what they are being accused of is gathering materials on South Korean social movements and left for passing on to North Korea. So they were spying on themselves and their comrades. [...]
[...] Robert Koehler in Marmot’s Hole blogs about the details of spy case against the general secretary of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and a former DLP central committee member. [...]
[...] Marmot’s Hole has a roundup from blogs and papers on the latest North Korean spy case. [...]