Email This to a Friend
North Korea’s Body Snatchers
Is Kim Jong Il taking hostages to get what he wants from the international community?
Last Thursday, North Korea announced that the trial of two American reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, will begin on June 4. Pyongyang’s soldiers snatched the pair on March 17 while they were, according to conflicting reports, in North Korea, in China, or wading across the Tumen River, which forms part of the border between the two countries. The young journalists, working for Current TV of San Francisco, were reporting on refugees fleeing Kim Jong Il’s paradise. Last month, Ling and Lee were charged with illegal entry and hostile acts and could spend at least five years in prison.
The two reporters are not the only foreigners facing hard time in Kim Jong Il’s gulag state. In March, Pyongyang detained a South Korean manager working in the Kaesong industrial zone, a collaborative Seoul-Pyongyang project located just north of the demilitarized zone. Yu Song-jin was charged with making derogatory comments about the Kimist paradise.
Is Chairman Kim taking hostages to get what he wants from the international community? At the moment, Pyongyang is engaged in standoffs with both the United States and South Korea, and the three detainees look like they have become bargaining chips. Of course, we should not be surprised. As the Wall Street Journal notes, Kim uses his 23 million people as hostages.
And from his point of view, foreign captives are better than domestic ones. Kim learned this lesson, unfortunately, earlier in the decade. In September 2002, he confirmed to then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that rogue North Koreans agents — are there any other kind? — had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens from 1977 to 1983 to obtain language and culture instruction for Pyongyang’s undercover agents. Five of the abductees were still alive, Kidnapper Kim said, and many believe the others were as well. He had tried to use them to obtain from Japan something like $10 billion in reparations, which Koizumi was evidently willing to hand over. Had it not been for an outraged Japanese public, led by the frail mother of one of the abductees, Mr. Kim would have walked away with a very large stash.
At this moment, there may be a hundred or more Japanese abductees. There are at least a thousand South Koreans, some of them prisoners from the Korean War and others abducted since then, confined in North Korea. On one level, the international community should be trying to free all these foreigners, but so far Kim has been able to stymie both Tokyo and Seoul. For now, the United States and South Korea are devoting their efforts to springing just three prisoners — Ling, Lee, and Yu.
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
Gordon G. Chang is the author of Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World and The Coming Collapse of China.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
11 Comments
1. what is occupation:this is not news…
the North Koreans, the iranians, the syrians, the palestinians all are body snatchers and how does the world react?
they give them billions in appeasement aid…
if the world would respond by these kidnappers with cutting off all funds, landing rights and food aid REGARDLESS of consequences until these people have been released it would cause these criminals to stop their behavior..
but they wont…
so dont expect a different behavior from these thugs…
they murder, kidnap and cause chaos…
there is only one solution….
take them out…
May 20, 2009 - 4:25 am 2. Vinny Vidivici:What is . . .
Sadly, decades of weak-kneed waffling by the West’s striped-trouser set will lead us, eventually, to your option. Almost passive/agressive we are. To mix metaphors, we allow gangrene to progress for fear of cutting off the toe, then the ankle, until finally . . . We say ‘never again’ do we don’t really mean it.
And the current batch blinkered diplomats, steeped in bogus tranzi-progressive conflict resolution theories are only making matters worse, or threaten to (see Sri Lanka). I’ll note that the only two wars ‘authorized’ by the UN ‘ended’ in debilitating stalemates characterized by oceans of human misery and are, in many respects, still underway. Sherman’s approach was far more humane.
May 20, 2009 - 6:35 am 3. LiberateLaura:Can you provide more details on back channel known as “New York Connection.” What is its origin, current players?
May 20, 2009 - 9:22 am 4. Ivanna Tinkle:Mr. Chang: This is the sentence you ended your piece with.
May 20, 2009 - 12:39 pm 5. Gordon Chang:“we need to change course and start acting like a superpower again. Kim is a thug, and the only thing he understands is strength. You don’t see him kidnapping Chinese and Russian nationals, after all.”
I agree with you 100 percent on this but unfortunately Obambi sees the role of the United States somewhat differently. He doesn’t want the United States to be a superpower and has recently gone around the globe apologizing for past American expressions of their power. And he’s about to do it again in Egypt. Mr. Obambi seems to forget all about unintended consequences. If he acts weak and indecisive the leaders of the worlds countries who want to see us in decline will take note of that and act accordingly. Why should Pyongyang be afraid of the United States when they know they can bully and browbeat a cowardly President and get away with it.
what is occupation, I agree that the “billions in appeasement aid” has got to stop. You have to wonder how we forgot every important lesson of the 20th century.
May 20, 2009 - 6:51 pm 6. Gordon Chang:Vinny Vidivici, as we in this forum know, “there is no substitute for victory.” Of course, many in Washington are too smart to realize this.
May 20, 2009 - 6:53 pm 7. Gordon Chang:LiberateLaura, thanks for the question.
I date the beginning of the “New York Channel” to June 1993, when the State Department’s Kenneth Quinones met with North Korean diplomats to discuss Pyongyang’s announced withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Since then, there have been many more informal discussions between American and North Korean diplomats. Usually, Pyongyang is represented by its New York-based U.N. diplomats. Our side is sometimes represented by senior Washington-based diplomats and sometimes by lower-level staff assigned to U.N. duty.
May 20, 2009 - 7:00 pm 8. Gordon Chang:Ivanna Tinkle, yes. It is surprising how Washington doesn’t know the basics.
Thanks for your great comments.
May 20, 2009 - 7:02 pm 9. scott:Japan better shed its anti-military policy like yesterday. They sure as hell won’t get any help from comrade Zero.
May 20, 2009 - 7:59 pm 10. Gordon Chang:scott, Japan is in North Korea’s crosshairs, and they know that in Tokyo. That’s why the Japanese have a better North Korea policy than we do.
We have a lot to learn from the Japanese when it comes to dealing with Kim Jong Il.
May 21, 2009 - 4:37 am 11. Alex:They crossed into North Korea…which was really stupid. Local Chinese do not mess around near that River, it is heavily guarded by NKoreans. The river was low, the girls thought it might be a good picture to get closer, and crossed into NKorea.
Maybe next time listen to locals telling you not to go near the border.
May 22, 2009 - 1:40 am