The Marmot’s Hole

According to former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, Japan voted against Ban Ki-moon during the UN General Secretary elections, but later changed its mind after some lobbying by the US Ambassador.

The former ambassador said he personally suspected that the “discourage” vote against Ban had come from Japan and persuaded Tokyo’s envoy, Kenzo Oshima, to change his government’s mind.

Ban had suspected Ghana of voting against him after Oshima flatly denied casting the disapproval vote, according to the book.

But Bolton said when he met with Oshima and urged him to reconsider Japan’s “discourage” vote, he did not deny it.

“I took it that Japan could not yet vote ‘yes,’ but might at least shift to ‘no opinion,’ which was in fact what happened,” Bolton wrote.

The above won’t sit well with the anti-Japanese nationalists here.

Bolton also has a few things to say about North Korea.

Regarding North Korea, the former ambassador claimed evidence indicating uranium-enrichment activity extended well back into the 1990s and called it “the hammer I have been looking for to shatter the Agreed Framework.”

Up until mid-August of 2002, there was still no consensus that North Korea had violated the Agreed Framework, according to Bolton.

This suited people at the U.S. State Department’s East Asia and the Pacific Bureau, whom he called “EAPeasers,” who were in denial and wished to postpone any decision until after the December presidential election in South Korea, Bolton wrote.

The former envoy reiterated his opposition to the current U.S.approach to North Korea, insisting that the communist regime is bound to cheat again.

“In fact, the only true way to resolve the DPRK nuclear weapons problem is the reunification of the Korean Peninsula,” he wrote, naming the North by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“If I were Kim Jong-il, I would not be optimistic,” he said of North Korea’s top leader.

“His death will be dirty and contemptible, like his life and his regime, and it will be exactly what he deserves.”

There’s one thing that have been bugging me lately, the issue of uranium enrichment mentioned above. While everybody is watching Yongbyon, it seems nobody is paying attention to the North’s alleged uranium enrichment program.