The Amateur

Computerist

Spring 2015 DPRK: Out-of-the-Box Diplomacy Volume 25 No. 1

Table of Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

Diplomacy to Build a Dialogue with North Korea . . . . . Page 2

Women Plan Peace Walk Across DMZ .. . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4

Media War Why Netizen Journalism Matters.. . . . . . . . . Page 5

DPRK UN Briefing Challenges U.S. Strategy. . . . . . . . Page 16

Contesting UN HR Report on North Korea. . . . . . . . . . Page 19

13 Observations about North Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 20

Enemy Image: What the DPRK Is Really Like.. . . . . . . Page 23

USA, North Korea and Hollywood.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 26

Global Citizens’ Declaration and Call. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 29

Introduction: North Korea

and the Need for

Out-of-the-Box Diplomacy

This year, 2015, marks seventy years since the end

of WWII and since the division of Korea. From

1950-1953 a war was fought to unite Korea. That war

failed to solve the problem of the division of Korea

and the war-like tension that still continues. Years of

hostility between the U.S. and the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea (DPRK, commonly known as North

Korea) also failed to achieve any improvement for

Korea. This issue of the Amateur Computerist begins

with suggestions that what is needed for peace and

security on the Korean Peninsula and as a step toward

reunification is a new approach.

The first article, “Out of the Box Diplomacy to

Build a Dialogue with North Korea” counters the myth

that talks with the DPRK can only be fruitless. It

reports on a program at the Asia Society in New York

City exploring the search for peace between the U.S.

and North Korea. At the program, former Governor of

New Mexico, Bill Richardson and Donald Gregg,

former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea stressed the

need for engagement rather than the U.S. policy of

‘strategic patience.’ They made a serious effort to

propose both the reasons and the possible means to

build a dialogue between North Korea and the U.S.

The second article reports on just such an effort at

out-of-the-box diplomacy. “Women Plan Walk Across

the DMZ to Support Peace and Korean Unification”

tells about a plan by 30 women to walk from North

Korea to South Korea through the DMZ. The group

plans to hold women’s peace symposia in each of the

Koreas and publicize the aspirations of Korean women

for peace and for unification. The walk will express the

desire for unification and the need to end the Korean

War. The armistice in 1953 only ended the fighting.

Other examples of an emerging alternative force

affecting diplomacy are analyzed in the article, “The

Media War at the UN and the DPRK: Why Netizen

Journalism Matters.” The article presents two case

studies of Korea, the U.S. and the UN relations. In

September 2005, just when an agreement had been

reached in the six-party talks on denuclearization of

the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. government acted

against the agreement by sanctioning the Banco Delta

Asia bank thus freezing DPRK funds held by that

bank. Online and off line journalists, however uncov-

ered much of the background story. Subsequently the

U.S. arranged to unfreeze the funds.

The other case study involves South Korea. In

2010, South Korea accused North Korea of sinking the

South Korean navel ship Cheonan and took that

accusation to the UN. Especially online but also by

letters to the UN Security Council, South Korea’s case

was challenged and discredited. Netizens in several

countries found discrepancies and questionable aspects

of the alleged U.S.-South Korean investigation. In this

situation the Security Council set up separate meetings

to hear from both sides, unusual for the UN. In a

situation where the views of both Koreas had been

presented and where there was worldwide discussion

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Page 1

online of the situation, the Security Council decided

that it was a question for the two sides to settle peace-

fully among themselves. While the media in the U.S.

had ignored the critique of the South Korean govern-

ment’s investigation that was being discussed online

and spread around the world, there were delegates at

the UN who were aware of it.

The article describes the concept of the netizen

(net citizen) introduced by the research done online by

Michael Hauben. As early as 1993, Hauben predicted

that netizens would be creating a broader and more

widespread media. The two case studies help to

demonstrate that Hauben’s prediction is proving

accurate. In both cases the potential of a new form for

journalism described as ‘netizen journalism’ made

possible a policy supporting peace instead of war. The

article proposes, “that the response of netizens to the

problems raised by the investigation of the Cheonan

incident is but a prelude to the potential of netizens in

different countries to work together across national

borders to solve the problems of our times.”

In addition to documenting out-of-the-box diplo-

macy, this issue of the Amateur Computerist returns to

a topic to which we devoted two previous issues,

Winter 2007 (Vol. 16, No1) and Fall 2009 (Vol. 18,

No 1),* namely, challenging the false narrative in the

Western mainstream media about North Korea. This

issue explores and documents the role of netizen

journalism toward lessening the tension between the

U.S. and the DPRK and on the Korean Peninsula.

In general the subject of the DPRK is treated by

the U.S. government and mainstream media with

hostility toward both the country and its policies.

Many myths are presented about the DPRK, like its

people suffer from great poverty and even famine.

Two articles in this issue, “Enemy Image: What the

DPRK Is Really Like” and “13 Observations about

North Korea by a Western Visitor” present evidence of

ordinary life in the DPRK similar to elsewhere. The

hope one author expresses is that an accurate portrayal

of life in the DPRK will become the basis “for friendly

relations and cultural and people-to-people exchanges

in the near future between people from the DPRK and

the western countries.”

In the past year, tensions on the Korean Peninsula

have been heightened. In September 2014, the U.S.

intensified its campaign at the UN and elsewhere to

portray the DPRK as a human rights violating state.

The DPRK defended itself from these accusations.

Two articles in this issue, “DPRK Human Rights

Briefing at UN Challenges U.S. Unending War Strat-

egy” and “Outside and Inside the UN Contesting the

UN Human Rights COI Report on North Korea” report

about the DPRK’s response and other challenges to the

U.S. and UN allegations. Both articles connect the

Human Rights COI Report to the U.S. hostile policy

toward the DPRK since there is a lack of credible

evidence of HR violations. The articles document the

politicization by some UN member states of the human

rights question.

The article analyzing the events surrounding the

November 2014 computer hack attack on Sony Pic-

tures Entertainment Corporation, “USA, North Korea

and Hollywood (II)” compared the U.S. government

rush to blame the DPRK to the way the DPRK was

accused of sinking of the South Korean warship

Cheonan. In both cases credible evidence was never

produced. The article raises the question: is the main

goal again to find “pretexts to introduce new sanctions

against North Korea”?

The articles in this issue document the need and

even provide an example as in the case of the Cheonan

and the Security Council, for how a more accurate

journalism can help create a more peace oriented

diplomacy.

There is a role being played by netizens and

netizen journalism to present a more accurate picture

of North Korean society and to understand better the

role played by the U.S. government and media in

increasing the tensions between the U.S. and the

DPRK and on the Korean Peninsula.

* The two previous issues covering this topic can be seen at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn16-1.pdf and

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn18-1.pdf

Out of the Box Diplomacy to

Build a Dialogue with North

Korea*

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

It was an unusual event. On Thursday, July 11,

2013, the Asia Society in New York City presented a

program about the Search for Peace with North Korea.

The official title of the program was “Avoiding Apoca-

Page 2

lypse: Searching for Peace with North Korea.”

Such

a title is in itself an unusual event for a program about

North Korea as it stresses the desire for peace with

North Korea, instead of focusing on the all too often

claims of the impossibility of progress in improving

the U.S.-North Korean relationship.

Former Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richard-

son and Ambassador Donald Gregg, former U.S.

Ambassador to the Republic of Korea were the speak-

ers with ABC’s Jon Williams in the role of moderator.

The program did indeed stand out in the sense that the

speakers made a serious effort to propose both the

reasons and the possible means to build a dialogue

between North Korea and the U.S.

Governor Richardson opened the program by

asking the question, “How do we improve the relation-

ship?” He argued that, “Isolating North Korea doesn’t

work.” Instead, he proposed the need for what he

called “out of the box diplomacy.”

One such proposal he made was the need for a

special UN envoy to help find a peaceful resolution to

the Korean Peninsula conflicts. He recalled that the

UN used to have an envoy, a Canadian, Maurice

Strong. Richardson suggested that the current UN

Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon appoint an envoy.

Richardson also considered the potential of a sports

diplomacy, or something along the lines of the N.Y.

Philharmonic concerts in the DPRK that had been so

successful a few years ago.

Richardson gave as an example of the need for

serious attention to the problem of the poor relation-

ship with North Korea, the recent experience of

shutting down Kaesong, the joint Korean program

which provides 50,000 jobs for North Koreans in

factories owned by South Koreans. This is the first

time in the history of that program that the bad rela-

tions led to the shutdown of this program, he noted.

“Some creative thinking is needed,” Governor

Richardson argued. “Whether that be the appointment

of a special envoy, or something else to be done by the

UN, or something by the media, some kind of thinking

has to evolve,” Richardson explained. “What’s hap-

pening now is not good,” he concluded.

Ambassador Donald Gregg’s contributions to the

program reflected a similar sense that the U.S. needed

to do more to engage with the North Koreans. Gregg

spoke about how Syracuse University had set up a

program more than 10 years ago providing information

technology training for North Koreans. Gregg was

critical of the U.S. failure to recognize that the U.S.

had the potential to influence the situation, instead of

handcuffing “themselves” with policies like “strategic

patience.”

Ambassador Gregg related how when Kim Jung

Un first came on the scene, Gregg had encouraged the

U.S. government to invite him to visit the U.S. This

proposal, however, like others Gregg made to the U.S.

government, was not accepted by U.S. officials.

Another example described by Gregg recalled an

incident in the early 1990s. Recognizing the antago-

nism of the North Koreans to the U.S.-South Korean

military exercises each year, Ambassador Gregg had

gotten the Pentagon to cancel the exercises one year.

This was welcomed by the North Koreans and pro-

vided an opening for talks. Instead, however, without

consulting Ambassador Gregg, the then U.S. Secretary

of Defense, Dick Cheney got the military exercises put

back. The result was that North Korea threw out the

IAEA inspectors and a crisis developed. Describing

this experience, the U.S. State Department country

director for Korea at the time, Charles Kartman com-

mented, “People were looking for clubs not solutions.”

In response to a question about the nuclear um-

brella that the U.S. provides to protect South Korea

and Japan, Gregg related an incident where North

Koreans suggested that they be included under the U.S.

nuclear umbrella as a means for them not to feel the

need to have their own nuclear program. Ambassador

Gregg proposed that there is a need for an understand-

ing to develop between the U.S. and North Korea and

that such an understanding can only come as a result of

contact.

Governor Richardson proposed that new players

were needed who could help develop a relationship

between the U.S. and North Korea. He answered

positively to a question from the audience about

whether ASEAN might be able to play a bigger role. In

general, Richardson advocated that those from the

region be a source of help in opening up the relation-

ship with North Korea.

A video of the July 11 program has been put

online at the Asia Society. The title is, “Searching for

Peace with North Korea.”

Notes

http://asiasociety.org/new-york/events/avoiding-apocalypse-

searching-peace-north-korea-0

http://asiasociety.org/video/policy/searching-peace-north-korea-

complete

Page 3

* This article appeared on July 15, 2013, on the Netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/07/15/out-of-the-box-

diplomacy-to-build-a-dialogue-with-north-korea/

Women Plan Walk Across the

DMZ to Support Peace and

Korean Unification

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

On March 11, 2015, women who were planning to

cross the DMZ separating the two Koreas held a press

conference at the United Nations. They explained that

30 women from around the world would hold a walk

for peace in Korea in May 2015. The group hoped to

meet with North Korean women in North Korea and

then cross the DMZ into South Korea and meet with

South Korean women. They proposed to hold peace

symposiums with women in North and South Korea.

They hoped to learn from women in both Koreas about

their hopes and aspirations for peace and for unifica-

tion.

This year, 2015, is the 70

anniversary of the

division of Korea into two separate entities. Prior to

the division of Korea, there was one Korea for more

than a thousand years.

The division of Korea set the

stage for the Korean War in 1950-1953. While an

armistice in 1953 ended the fighting, it did not end the

war. The promised activities to resolve outstanding

issues were to take place soon afterwards, but instead

the discord has continued and in the absence of a peace

treaty, there are continuing hostile encounters between

the two Koreas.

In order to work toward unification, a peace

framework is needed. Also a peace treaty ending the

Korean War would help resolve outstanding problems

so as to make peace on the Korean peninsula more of

a possibility. The group of international women hope

their trip will contribute toward such efforts.

In October 2000, the UN Security Council passed

Resolution UNSCR 1325 which recognizes the contri-

bution women can make toward creating peaceful

resolutions of conflicts.

The significant aspect of this

Security Council resolution is that it calls for an

important role for women not only in preventing and

resolving conflicts, but as part of the decision making

processes.

The preamble to the resolution states:

Reaffirming the important role of women in

the prevention and resolution of conflicts and

in peace-building, and stressing the impor-

tance of their equal participation and full

involvement in all efforts for the mainte-

nance and promotion of peace and security,

and the need to increase their role in

decision-making with regard to conflict

prevention and resolution.

This language is reinforced in the text of the

resolution, which urges in Paragraph 1 that member

states increase the role of women in all decision

making levels of conflict resolution and peace pro-

cesses.

The Resolution:

1. Urges Member States to ensure increased

representation of women at all decision-

making levels in national, regional and inter-

national institutions and mechanisms for the

prevention, management, and resolution of

conflict;

To support this effort by member states, the UN is

urged to act in a complementary way.

The Resolution:

2. Encourages the Secretary-General to

implement his strategic plan of action

(A/49/587) calling for an increase in the

participation of women at decision-making

levels in conflict resolution and peace pro-

cesses;

Hence the activity of women is not narrowed

down only to acting on issues related to the impact of

conflict and war on women, but the role envisioned for

women is one of active and empowered participants in

all levels of the peace making and conflict resolution

processes.

In a recent article Ann Wright, one of the women

who will be part of the group of 30 women walking for

peace in Korea, wrote that the group had received

tentative support for their trip from North Korea and a

response from the United Nations Command (UN

Command) at the DMZ that if South Korea is agree-

able with the proposal, the UN Command will approve

it.

While the UN has continually supported UN

Resolution 1325 through follow up resolutions or

presidential statements from the UN Security Council

each year since the passage of UNSCR 1325, there has

Page 4

not been any indication from the UN Secretary General

yet of support for the trip. A question was raised to his

spokesperson on March 11 as to whether the an-

nounced “plans for a peace march through the demili-

tarized zone between North and South Korea are

something that the Secretary General would support.”

The Secretary General’s spokesperson responded: “Let

me take a look at what was announced, and I will get

back to you a bit later.” After three weeks no response

had yet been provided.

Similarly, the day after the group’s press confer-

ence at the UN announcing its plans, the question of

whether or not South Korea would support the trip was

raised to the South Korean Minister of Gender Equal-

ity and Family who was visiting the UN at the time.

She promised to get back to the journalist raising the

question by e-mail, but there was no response from

her.

Though the group had not yet gotten official

approval from South Korea, according to Ann Wright,

there are some signs that it will get a positive response.

In her article, Ann Wright writes

You might wonder, what will this peace

walk do? For one, it has already conveyed

several important messages: 1. The Korean

War must end with a peace treaty; 2. Women

can and must be involved at all levels of

peacemaking; and 3. We must act now to

reunite millions of families tragically divided

by a man-made division. If the barbed wire

fences lining the DMZ were erected by men

more than 60 years ago, men and women

have the power to bring them down.

After the above was written, an article by AP

reported that Christine Ahn who is co-organizer of

Women Cross DMZ, the group planning the peace

march had returned from a trip to North Korea.

During her visit, she met with officials from North

Korea’s Overseas Korean Committee and Democratic

Women’s Union. As a result of Ahn’s visit to Pyong-

yang, North Korea gave permission for the peace walk.

Also Ahn indicated that she received support to hold

a symposium in North Korea on women and peace

building.

Notes

United Nations Command As Camouflage: On the Role of the

UN in the Unending Korean War:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/08/31/united-nations-

command-as-camouflage

http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/

1325%20%282000%29

Ann Wright, Women Walk for Peace in Korea, March 28, 2015,

at: PopularResistance.org:

https://www.popularresistance.org/women-walk-for-peace-in-

korea

AP, North Korea supports Gloria Steinem-led women’s walk

across the DMZ, The Guardian, April 3, 2015:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/03/north-korea-d

mz-charity-walk-women-gloria-steinem

A version of this article appeared on March 31, 2015 on the

Netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2015/03/31/women-plan-walk-

across-the-dmz-to-support-peace-and-korean-unification/

The Media War at the UN and

the DPRK Why Netizen

Journalism Matters

Notes for a Talk*

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

[Author’s Note: The following are slightly edited

Notes prepared for a talk presented at Stony Brook

University on December 4, 2013. The talk was part of

a series of talks in fall 2013 sponsored by the Center

for Korean Studies at Stony Brook focusing on North

Korea. The talk was presented with slides which are

available at the website given at the end of these

Notes. Comments are welcomed.]

I – Preface

I am honored to be here today and to give this talk

as part of the series of talks on North Korea.

In October of 2006, I began covering the United

Nations first as a journalist for the English edition of

the South Korean online newspaper OhmyNews

International. When OhmyNews ended its English

edition in 2010, I became a correspondent covering the

U N f o r a n E n g l i s h l a n g u a g e b l o g

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog at the website of the

German newspaper Die Tageszeitung. Both

OhmyNews International and my blog at the taz.de

website are online publications.

With Michael Hauben, I am a co-author of the

book Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet

Page 5

and the Internet. The book was first published online

in January 1994. On May 1, 1997, the print edition of

the book Netizens was published in English. Later that

year, in October, a Japanese translation was published.

Netizens was the first book to recognize that along

with the development of the internet, a new form of

citizenship, called netizenship had emerged. This is a

form of citizenship that has developed based on the

broader forms of political participation made possible

by the Net (i.e., the internet).

I want to share some of the background about the

origin, use and impact of the netizen concept and its

relation to what I call netizen journalism before

presenting two case studies of how netizen journalism

has affected the media war at the UN.

II – Introduction

While now many people are interested in the

impact of the internet on society, pioneering research

was done by my co-author Michael Hauben in the

early 1990s when the internet was first beginning to

spread and to connect people around the world.

In his research, Hauben recognized that there were

people who appreciated the communication the

internet made possible and that these people worked to

spread the Net and to do what they felt needed for it to

help to create a better world. Taking the common

network term, “net.citizen” used online at the time,

Hauben proposed that these people who worked to

contribute to the Net and the bigger world it was part

of were “netizens.”

In an article he wrote on the impact of the Net on

journalism, Hauben recognized that many people

online were frustrated with the mainstream media and

that the netizens would be creating a broader and more

widespread media.

Hauben recognized in the early 1990s that “the

collective body of people assisted by (the Net)…has

grown larger than any individual newspaper….” I want

to look at two news events about North Korea and the

UN in the context of this prediction. Then I will

consider the implication of these case studies for the

kind of journalism about North Korea that I propose

netizens and the internet are making possible.

III – Korea

In February of 2003 I was glancing at the front

page summaries of the articles in an issue of the

Financial Times. I saw a surprising headline for an

article continued later in the issue. The article said that

in 2002 netizens in South Korea had elected the

president of the country, Roh Moo-hyun. He had just

taken office on February 25, 2003. The new president

had even promised that the internet would be influen-

tial in the form of government he established. Also I

learned that an online Korean newspaper called

OhmyNews had been important making these develop-

ments possible. Colleagues encouraged me to get in

contact with OhmyNews and to learn more about the

netizens activities in South Korea and about

OhmyNews.

I was able to get in contact with OhmyNews. I

began to submit articles to it. They would be printed

along with a few other English language articles others

were submitting. By 2004 OhmyNews began an Eng-

lish language online edition called OhmyNews Interna-

tional. I began to write for it. I soon became the first

woman columnist for the English edition.

I subsequently learned that both South Korea and

China are places where the role of netizens is impor-

tant in building more democratic structures for society.

I began to pay attention to both of these netizen

developments. South Korea, for example, has been an

advanced model of grassroots efforts to create exam-

ples of netizen forms for a more participatory decision

making processes. I wrote several research papers

documenting the achievements and activities of

Korean netizens.

IV – Reporting on the UN

By October 2006, the second five-year term for

Kofi Annan as the Secretary General of the United

Nations was soon to end. One of the main contenders

to become the 8

Secretary General of the UN was the

Foreign Minister of South Korea, Ban Ki-moon.

I had covered one previous United Nations event

which I had found of great interest. That event was the

World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

which encouraged access to the internet for everyone.

The event took place in Tunis, Tunisia in November

2005. Also I had watched with interest some of the

press reports of the speeches made by heads of state at

the 2006 opening of the General Assembly session.

These events gave me the sense that it probably would

be interesting to go to the UN and cover the activities

for OhmyNews if the new Secretary General would be

the Korean candidate.

On October 9, 2006, Ban Ki-moon won the

Security Council nomination. This nomination was to

Page 6

be approved by the General Assembly on October 13.

I thought this would be a historic event for South

Korea.

By 2006, I was writing regularly as a featured

columnist for OhmyNews International (OMNI).

I asked the Editor of OhmyNews International if

I could get a letter for a press credential to cover the

UN for OMNI. He agreed and I was able to get my

credential in time to go to the General Assembly

meeting when the General Assembly voted to accept

the Security Council’s nomination of Ban Ki-moon.

I was surprised that some of the speeches welcom-

ing Ban Ki-moon as the Secretary General elect were

meaningful speeches referring to actual problems at

the UN such as the need for reform of the Security

Council. Conversely the U.S. Ambassador to the UN,

John Bolton, made no pretense of both welcoming Ban

and of expressing his dissatisfaction with Kofi Annan,

the outgoing Secretary General who had condemned

the U.S. invasion of Iraq. A significant focus of the

comments to the new Secretary General from member

states emphasized the importance of communication at

the UN, that it was critical for the incoming Secretary

General to listen to all states and to hear their views.

It was a thrill to be at the UN witnessing the vote

for a new Secretary General who was from South

Korea. I wondered if the internet would be able to have

any impact on the new Secretary General and on what

happened at the United Nations, since the internet had

been able to make it possible for netizens in South

Korea to impact politics.

The very next day after Ban Ki-moon’s nomina-

tion was approved by the General Assembly, the

Security Council took up to condemn the recent

nuclear test by North Korea. This had been North

Korea’s first nuclear test. The Security Council im-

posed sanctions on North Korea, not giving the North

Korean Ambassador to the UN, Pak Gil Yon, a chance

to respond until after the sanctions had been voted on.

When the North Korean Ambassador responded, he

referred among other issues, to financial sanctions that

the U.S. had imposed on North Korea. No one in the

Security Council asked him what he was referring to or

how this affected the issues the Security Council had

acted on with respect to North Korea.

It impressed me that just as a new Secretary

General from South Korea was being chosen as the

new Secretary General of the UN, at the same time

sanctions were being imposed on North Korea. The

Security Council acted against North Korea before

hearing its views on the issue they were considering.

This was in sharp contrast to the emphasis member

nations had put on the importance of hearing the views

of all members when member nations welcomed Ban

Ki-moon to the United Nations in the meeting just one

day earlier in the General Assembly.

The article I wrote for OhmyNews International

described this situation. It explained:

The urgent problem facing the UN at this

juncture in history is not whether North

Korea has developed and tested a nuclear

device. It is the breakdown reflected by the

lack of participation and investigation by the

international community into how a crisis

will be handled once it develops, and

whether the concerns and problems of those

involved in the crisis will be considered as

part of the process of seeking a solution. It is

how the UN functions when tensions reach a

point where serious attention is needed to

help to understand and solve a problem.

(Quoted from “The Problem Facing the UN,”

OMNI, October 17, 2006).

In general when at the UN, I paid attention to

Security Council developments, particularly with

regard to the meetings imposing sanctions on North

Korea and also on Iran. Also, I particularly followed

the meetings of the Security Council and the General

Assembly when Security Council reform was being

discussed.

V – Some Mainstream Media Created a

Story

Soon after Ban Ki-moon took office as Secretary

General at the beginning of January 2007, a story

appeared in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) accusing

North Korea of using UN funds from the United

Nations Development Program (UNDP) for its nuclear

program. An editorial in the January 19 issue of the

WSJ by Melanie Kirkpatrick had the headline: “United

Nations Dictators.”

No evidence was presented in the WSJ, just

accusations. This situation was reminiscent of how the

WSJ and some other mainstream media had accused

the former Secretary General, Kofi Annan, of misusing

UN funds in Iraq, and how this had mushroomed into

what had come to be known as the “Food for Oil”

scandal.

The significance of this story for me, was to see

Page 7

that some of the mainstream media were active creat-

ing stories and accusations with no real evidence,

while only very few media appeared to be investigat-

ing the actual underlying issues that had led the North

Korean government to carry out its first nuclear test.

VI – The Six-Party Talks and the Banco

Delta Asia Story

In January 2007 there were reports in the press

about a meeting that had taken place in Berlin between

Christopher Hill, the Assistant Secretary of State for

the U.S. and Kim Kye-gwan, the Deputy Foreign

Minister of North Korea.

Around this time I learned some of the back-

ground behind what had led to North Korea carrying

out its first nuclear test. An agreement had been

reached on September 19, 2005 between the six parties

to talks about the denuclearization of the Korean

peninsula. The six parties were North Korea, South

Korea, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China. Shortly after

the agreement was signed in Sept 2005, the U.S.

Treasury Department announced that it was freezing

the assets of the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) a bank in

Macao, China, which held $25 million of North

Korean funds.

The result of this action was that North Korea lost

access to $25 million of its bank funds, and also to the

use of the international banking system. North Korea’s

response was to leave the six-party talks to protest this

action which it considered hostile and politically

motivated.

North Korea was encouraged by some parties to

the six-party talks to have bilateral negotiations with

the U.S. over the financial sanctions. The U.S., how-

ever, refused to negotiate. Unable to find a way to

negotiate with the U.S. over this situation, North

Korea, in July 2006, tested a missile. The response of

the UN Security Council was to condemn North Korea

by passing UN Resolution 1695 but not to investigate

what the problem was that led North Korea to carry out

a missile test.

Then on October 9, 2006, North Korea carried out

its first nuclear test. Once again the Security Council

failed to investigate what was behind this action.

Instead the Security Council passed Resolution 1718

imposing more sanctions on North Korea.

Only after this nuclear test did the U.S. demon-

strate a willingness to negotiate with the DPRK over

the financial sanctions imposed on Banco Delta Asia.

On January 16 and 17, 2007, Christopher Hill and

Kim Kye-gwan held talks in Berlin and came to an

agreement. Though not officially announced, it was

believed that they agreed that the $25 million being

held in the Macau BDA, along with access to the

international banking system would be restored to

North Korea. In exchange North Korea would return to

the six-party talks. The Berlin meeting appeared to

break the deadlock and the six-party talks were held

again starting on February 8, 2007. Another agreement

was announced five days later on February 13, 2007.

Then on March 5 and 6, Hill and Kim held bilat-

eral talks in New York City. Despite the agreement

reached in Berlin, however, the U.S. Treasury Depart-

ment issued a finding on March 19 against the BDA

under Section 311 of the U.S. Patriot Act. This move

again deadlocked the six-party talks, even as the

delegates arrived for the talks in Beijing.

The deadlock continued for the next few months,

with much of the mainstream U.S. press blaming North

Korea for continuing to insist that its $25 million be

returned via a banking transaction, before it would

agree to any further steps in the six-party talks. The

North Korean delegate said he understood that the

agreement in Berlin with Christopher Hill had pro-

vided for the return of the $25 million from the BDA

as a money transfer via the international banking

system.

The U.S. Treasury Department officials claimed

that their decision against the BDA left it up to the

bank to return the funds. The decision against the

bank, however, meant that it had no means to return

the funds as a money transfer as the Section 311

finding against the bank meant that it lost access to the

international banking system.

During this period, there were rumors that a bank

in China had been asked by the U.S. State Department

to make the transfer. The bank allegedly considered

the request. Eventually, however, the bank refused

based on its fear that it too would be frozen out of the

international banking system by the U.S. Treasury

Department, as the BDA had been, if it offered to help

make the transfer of funds back to North Korea.

The McClatchy Newspaper Company, in a way

that is different from much of the rest of the main-

stream U.S. media, carried articles which helped to

investigate the issues underlying this dispute between

the U.S. and North Korea. Other banks in Macau, an

article in the McClatchy Newspapers explained, had

played a similar role with regard to North Korea,

Page 8

helping North Korea to sell its gold, but only the BDA

had been singled out for sanctions. The article sug-

gested that the U.S. Treasury Department’s actions

were not based on actual criminal activity by the bank

or by North Korea, but instead were motivated by a

political objective.

One of the McClatchy newspaper articles de-

scribed some documents that the newspaper had

acquired including the BDA’s complaint challenging

the U.S. Treasury Department decision against the

bank. Also, the McClatchy newspaper article referred

to a statement filed by the owner of the BDA to protest

the Treasury Department action.

I tried to find a way to get copies of the docu-

ments. I tried to contact the law firm and even wrote to

the McClatchy reporter, but none of these efforts

succeeded.

I did, however, find a copy of the Patriot Act on

the internet, and read Section 311, the section being

used against the bank. I was able to see that the section

of the law was such that the U.S. government did not

have to present any proof for its actions.

In March 2007, I did a story titled “North Korea’s

$25 Million and Banco Delta Asia,” documenting how

the use of Section 311 of the Patriot Act against the

bank was a political act, rather than a criminal determi-

nation. The U.S. Treasury Department did not have to

provide any evidence and acted as the accuser and

judge in the case. Even though there had been an

agreement between the U.S. and North Korea to return

the $25 million to North Korea, nothing happened.

The stalemate continued.

In May 2007, I covered the 50

Anniversary

dinner celebration of the Korea Society. Chris Hill

gave a short talk as part of the program. He indicated

that he would persevere until a means was found to

break the impasse over the $25 million so as to make

it possible for the six-party talks to continue.

Several journalists covered the event for other

South Korean publications. They were particularly

interested in what Hill said, but Hill’s talk in itself did

not seem to represent a newsworthy event.

In the next few days, however, it appeared that an

important story was developing. An article by Kevin

Hall titled, “Bank Owner Disputes Money-Laudering

Allegations,” published by the McClatchy Newspaper

Company said that the blog “China Matters” had

published links to some documents refuting the Trea-

sury Department’s charges against the bank.

“China Matters” is a blog about U.S.-China

policy. The links that the blog made available included

to an appeal submitted by the lawyer for Banco Delta

Asia to an administrative hearing at the Treasury

Department and to a statement by the owner of the

Bank in Macao, Stanley Au.

I now had the documents in the case. The U.S.

government’s findings were general statements pro-

viding no specific evidence of wrongdoing on the part

of the bank. The bank’s statements and refutation gave

significant documentation refuting charges of illegal

activity on the part of the bank. The refutation also

made the case that there was political motive for the

U.S. government’s allegations rather than actual illegal

activity on the part of the bank.

Also the blogger at China Matters who uses the

pseudonym China Hand or Peter Lee posted some of

the Congressional testimony by David Asher, a former

U.S. government official who had helped to plan and

enforce the U.S. Treasury Department sanctions

against the Banco Delta Asia.

Asher explained that the U.S. government had

targeted a small Macau bank to scare the banks in

China. “To kill the chicken to scare the monkeys,” the

ex-government official explained, quoting an old

Chinese proverb in his testimony in a U.S. Congressio-

nal hearing.

I wanted to verify the testimony of Asher and

understand its implications, so I searched online and

found an earlier government document from Novem-

ber 2006. Asher had testified in a similar vein at a

Congressional hearing titled “China’s Proliferation to

North Korea and Iran, and Its Role in Addressing the

Nuclear and Missile Situations in Both Countries,” on

September 14, 2006. This document was the transcript

of that hearing.

The hearing was held by a special Congressional

Commission about the U.S. China relationship which

held hearings semi annually.

What was most surprising in this document,

however, was the explanation that the Banco Delta

Asia sanctions were an issue that was only secondarily

aimed at North Korea? The primary issue that was of

interest to the U.S. government officials involved in

the Commission Hearing was what was China’s

foreign policy and how closely did China’s behavior

match the foreign policy goals set out by the U.S.

In the discussion at the September 2006 hearing

about the Banco Delta Asia, David Asher described the

political objectives of the action. Speaking about

China, Asher said:

Page 9

They get the message on the financial

angle…there’s an old saying in Chinese,

‘You kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.’

We didn’t go out and cite a multitude of

Chinese financial institutions that have been

publicly identified as working with North

Korea over the years….

We did need to designate one small one

though, and that one small one sent a mes-

sage to all the others, that they had to get in

line, and it was timed to coincide with other

information that we were making public….

I think they got the message…. We need to

try to align our financial and economic inter-

ests. I do think, though the use of some

pressure, including veiled pressure is effec-

tive. (Hearing before the U.S.-China Eco-

nomic and Security Review Commission,

2006, p. 115-116)

The Commission hearing clarified that the pur-

pose of freezing North Korean funds in the Banco

Delta Asia was not about stopping criminal activity by

that bank or by North Korea, as there was never any

proof presented of any such activity. Instead it was an

act with a political objective which was to pressure

China to act in conformity with U.S. policy goals in

general and in its actions toward North Korea in

particular.

At last I had the news peg for an important story.

I wrote the article, “Behind the Blacklisting of Banco

Delta Asia: Is the Policy Aimed at Targeting China as

Well as North Korea?” submitting it around 5:00 a.m.

my time to OhmyNews International. By noon the next

day, my story appeared. That was May 18.

Also on May 18, the Wall Street Journal carried

an Op Ed by the former U.S. Ambassador to the UN,

John Bolton. The article scolded the U.S. government

for negotiating to return the $25 million to North

Korea

In late May I was an invited speaker at the Inter-

national Communications Association (ICA 2007)

conference in San Francisco. I summed up my experi-

ence writing for OhmyNews International, particularly

describing the BDA story and the helpful role of online

media in making it possible to present an alternative

narrative as opposed to that of the mainstream U.S.

media about the situation.

VII – Voice of America News Service

Little did I realize when I gave my talk in San

Francisco, however, that my experience with this story

was not ending, but actually a new episode was begin-

ning.

A short time later, on June 11, I received a sur-

prising e-mail message. The message was from a

reporter who said she worked for Voice of America

News Korea (VOA News Korean Service). VOA is the

official U.S. government news broadcasting service.

She began:

“Hello Ms. Hauben.”

She introduced herself as a reporter with the

Korean Service of the Voice of America News in

Washington, D.C.

Her e-mail continued:

While I was working on a story about BDA

issue, I read your report, ‘Behind the

Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia.’ I thought

you made some valuable points about the

BDA issue in this report, I was wondering if

I could have a conversation with you in this

matter. Since I am on a deadline, I’m trying

very hard to get a hold of you. So I would

really appreciate it if you call or e-mail me

back ASAP.

She gave her phone number.

The VOA News had become part of the U.S. State

Department. I wondered if it was advisable to speak

with her as VOA News has a reputation of being a

promoter of U.S. government policy, rather than a

news service seeking the facts. I asked my editors at

OhmyNews International and I also spoke with a

Korean journalist I know who covers stories at the UN

for another Korean newspaper. They all encouraged

me to speak with her.

I called her as she had asked. She said she wanted

to interview me by phone. I asked her to let me know

what she would want to speak with me about. She sent

me an e-mail message elaborating.

Her message explained:

The purpose of this interview is to let our

listeners know what is going on regarding the

BDA issue and how the BDA issue is devel-

oping.

When I read your article, I thought you made

valuable and critical points about the BDA

issue, and I thought it might be very impor-

tant to let your idea about the BDA issue be

heard by our listeners.

She listed questions she would ask me in the

interview. They were:

Page 10

1. How you came up with the idea of writing

this article. How you prepared it. About your

sources.

2. Briefly summarize your findings or main

points of the article.

3. What you are trying to accomplish by

writing this article? What needs to be done to

resolve the BDA issue?

“Finally,” she wrote, “I wanted to ask you if we

could do this interview sometime between 9:00 a.m.

and 9:30 a.m.… Thanks again,” she ended the e-mail

message.

She called at the arranged time.

She told me her listeners were in North Korea. I

was surprised that a reporter for a U.S. government

media would offer to do a story about the hidden

political objectives of U.S. policy against North Korea

which were being camouflaged by false criminal

accusations against North Korea.

We had a half hour telephone conversation

discussing my stories, the sources I had used and the

problem represented by the American government

freezing the BDA funds. She also asked for the URLs

to follow up on the sources I had cited. These were

basically material I had found on the internet, includ-

ing several government documents, and copies of the

legal documents submitted by the bank owner to

appeal the U.S. Treasury Department ruling against the

bank.

The VOA News reporter said she was interested

in contacting former U.S. government officials like

David Asher who was responsible for crafting the plan

to freeze North Korea’s bank account assets. She

wanted to ask them to respond to my article.

Just as this contact with the VOA News journalist

was happening, there were news stories describing the

ongoing efforts to find a solution to the roadblock that

the frozen North Korean funds represented.

Soon there were reports that the Federal Reserve

Bank of New York had agreed to transfer the funds

from the BDA to an account held by a Russian bank

for North Korea. In the following weeks, the funds

transfer was done.

The VOA News reporter wrote me saying she had

other stories to do and was not for now going to pursue

this story any longer.

Whether the contact had any impact on the

resolution of the stalemate, I can only speculate.

Regardless of her motivation, however, the VOA

News reporter had contacted me before the situation

was resolved. At the very least, an article I had done

had caught the attention of someone connected to the

Voice of America News, which was part of the U.S.

State Department. I was given the chance to explain

what I had learned about the BDA story and to explain

how I understood the controversy surrounding it. So

my story did indeed have more of an impact than I had

understood when I gave my talk at the ICA 2007 in

San Francisco.

The experience I had with my BDA story and the

encounter with the Korean News Service of the VOA

News demonstrates that the internet makes it possible

not only to spread an accurate narrative among the

public, but also to reach government officials with an

interest in the issues being critiqued.

The reason I have taken the time to tell this story

is that it represents for me a taste of the impact that

such online journalism makes possible.

VIII – The Phenomenon of Netizen Jour-

nalism

In the research I have been doing and the experi-

ences I have had exploring the potential of what I call

netizen journalism, the question has been raised:

What is this new form of news and what are its

characteristics?

Is there something different from traditional

journalism?

Is there some significant new aspect represented

by netizen journalism?

Essentially I have found that there is an important

research component of what I call netizen journalism.

Netizen journalism, as a socially oriented journalism,

is a journalism that is oriented toward a public pur-

pose. As such, at times there is a need to do serious

research into the background, context and political

significance of conflicts. By revealing the actual forces

at work, netizen journalism provides a more accurate

grasp of whose interests are being served, and what is

at stake in the events that make up the news.

Traditionally, the press can function as a watch-

dog for society by exposing the use and abuse of

power. Or, the press can act to support the abuse of

political power.

Netizens, whether journalists or citizens who turn

to journalism to challenge problems in their society,

have demonstrated in a number of instances that they

are able to bring public attention to situations needing

change, and exert the needed pressure for the change

Page 11

so that the change gets made.

If netizen journalism can provide a more accurate

understanding of conflicts, it can help make more

likely the peaceful resolution of these conflicts.

Also as an aside, my stories about the U.S.-BDA-

North Korea-UN conflict led to my being short-listed

for one of the journalism awards presented each year

by the United Nations Correspondence Association

(UNCA) for the best journalism articles about the UN

for 2007. While I did not get the award in 2007, I did

get it the following year, in 2008.

IX – The Cheonan – Some Background

The Cheonan conflict, which was brought to the

UN in 2010, provides another interesting example how

netizen journalism affected the media war and helped

to make a significant contribution to a peaceful resolu-

tion of the conflict by the Security Council.

The Cheonan incident concerns a South Korean

war ship which broke in two and sank on March 26,

2010. Forty-six of the crew died. At the time, the ship

was involved in naval exercises with the U.S. military

in an area in the West Sea/Yellow Sea between North

Korea and China. This is a situation that had been the

subject of much discussion on the internet.

Initially the South Korean government and the

U.S. government said there was no indication that

North Korea was involved. Then at a press conference

on May 20, 2010, the South Korean government

claimed that a torpedo fired by a North Korean subma-

rine exploded in the water near the Cheonan, causing

a pressure wave that was responsible for the sinking.

Many criticisms of this scenario have been raised.

There was no direct evidence of any North Korean

submarine in the vicinity of the Cheonan. Nor was

there any evidence that a torpedo was actually fired

causing a pressure wave phenomenon. Hence the

South Korean government had no actual case that

could be presented in a court of law to support its

claims.

In fact, if this claim of a pressure wave were true

even those involved in the investigation of the incident

acknowledge that “North Korea would be the first to

have succeeded at using this kind of a bubble jet

torpedo action in actual fighting.”

X – The Cheonan Press Conference and

the Local Election

The press conference held by the South Korean

government on May 20, to announce that North Korea

was responsible for the sinking of the Cheonan came,

it turns out, at the start of the local election period.

Many South Koreans were suspicious that the accusa-

tion was a ploy to help the ruling party candidates win

in the local elections. The widespread suspicions about

the government’s motives led to the ruling party losing

many of the local election contests. These election

results demonstrated the deep distrust among the South

Korean population of the motives behind the South

Korean government’s accusations about North Korea’s

responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan.

XI – The Cheonan and Netizen Journalism

Netizens who live in different countries and speak

different languages, however, took up to critique the

claims of the South Korean government about the

cause of the sinking of the Cheonan. This netizen

activity had an important effect. It appears to have

acted as a catalyst affecting the actions of the UN

Security Council in its treatment of the Cheonan

dispute.

There were substantial analyses by non govern-

mental organizations like Spark, PSPD, Peaceboat, and

others posted on the internet, either in English and in

Korean or in both languages. Some of these online

posts were in the form of letters that were also sent to

the members of the UN Security Council. At the time,

I saw discussions and critiques of the Korean govern-

ment’s claims at American, Japanese and Chinese

websites, in addition to conversation and postings

about the Cheonan on South Korean websites.

One such critique included a three part analysis by

the South Korean NGO People’s Solidarity for Partici-

patory Democracy (PSPD). This analysis raised a

number of questions and problems with the South

Korean government’s case. The PSPD document was

posted widely on the internet and also sent to the

President of the United Nations Security Council for

distribution to those Security Council members inter-

ested and to the South Korean Mission to the UN.

While there were many blog comments about the

Cheonan issue in Korean, there were also some

bloggers writing in English who became active in

critiquing the South Korean investigation and the role

of the U.S. in the conflict.

One blogger, Scott Creighton who uses the pen

name Willy Loman, or American Everyman, wrote a

post titled “The Sinking of the Cheonan: We are being

lied to.”

Page 12

The South Korean government had claimed that

the diagram it displayed above the glass case contain-

ing the alleged torpedo shaft was from a North Korean

weapons sales brochure which offered the torpedo. The

torpedo was identified as the CHT-02D.

In a post he titled “A Perfect Match?,” Creighton

showed how there was a discrepancy between the

diagram displayed by the South Korean government in

the press conference, and the part of the torpedo it had

on display in the glass case below the diagram. He

demonstrated that the diagram did not match the part

of the torpedo on display because one of the compo-

nents of the torpedo shown was in the propeller sec-

tion, but in the diagram, the component appeared in the

shaft section. There were many comments in response

to this post, including some from netizens in South

Korea. Also the mainstream conservative media in

South Korea carried accounts of this blogger’s critique.

Three weeks later, at a news conference, a South

Korean government official acknowledged that the

diagram presented by the South Korean government

was not of the same torpedo as the part displayed in

the glass case. Instead the diagram displayed was of

the PT97W torpedo, not the CHT-02D torpedo as

claimed.

In a post titled “Thanks to Valuable Input” de-

scribing the significance of having documented one of

the fallacies in the South Korean government’s case,

Creighton writes:

(I)n the end, thanks to valuable input from

dozens of concerned people all across the

world…. Over 100,000 viewers read that

article and it was republished on dozens of

sites all across the world (even translated). A

South Korean MSM outlet even posted our

diagram depicting the glaring discrepancies

between the evidence and the drawing of the

CHT-O2D torpedo, which a high-ranking

military official could only refute by stating

he had 40 years military experience and to

his knowledge, I had none. But what I had,

what we had, was literally thousands of

people all across the world, scientists, mili-

tary members, and just concerned investiga-

tive bloggers who were committed to the

truth and who took the time to contribute to

what we were doing here.

‘40 years military experience’ took a beating

from ‘we the people WorldWide’ and that is

the way it is supposed to be.

This is just one of a number of serious questions

and challenges that were raised about the South

Korean government’s scenario of the sinking of the

Cheonan.

Other influential events which helped to challenge

the South Korean government’s claims were a press

conference in Japan held on July 9 by two academic

scientists. The two scientists presented results of

experiments they had done which challenged the

results of experiments the South Korean government

used to support its case. These scientists also wrote to

the Security Council with their findings.

Also a significant challenge to the South Korean

government report was the finding of a Russian team

of four sent to South Korea to look at the data from the

investigation and to do an independent evaluation of it.

The team of Russian navy experts visited South Korea

from May 30 to June 7. The Russian team did not

accept the South Korean government’s claim that a

pressure wave from a torpedo caused the Cheonan to

sink. Getting a leaked copy of the Russian team’s

report, the Hankyoreh newspaper in South Korea

reported that the Russian investigators determined that

the ship had come in contact with the ocean floor and

a propeller and shaft became entangled in a fishing net.

Also the investigators thought it likely that an old

underwater mine had exploded near the Cheonan

adding to the factors that led to it sinking.

Such efforts along with online posts and discus-

sions by many netizens provided a catalyst for the

actions of the UN Security Council concerning the

Cheonan incident.

When the UN Security Council took up the

Cheonan issue in June 2010, I was surprised to learn

that some of the members of the Council knew of the

criticism of the South Korean government investiga-

tion blaming North Korea for sinking the ship.

XII – The Cheonan and the UN Security

Council

South Korea brought the dispute over the sinking

of the Cheonan to the United Nations Security Coun-

cil. The Mexican Ambassador to the UN, Claude

Heller, was President of the Security Council for the

month of June 2010. (The presidency rotates each

month to a different Security Council member nation.)

In a letter to the Security Council dated June 4, South

Korea asked the Council to take up the Cheonan

dispute. Park Im-kook, then the South Korean Ambas-

Page 13

sador to the UN, requested that the Security Council

consider the matter of the Cheonan and respond in an

appropriate manner. The letter described the investiga-

tion into the sinking of the Cheonan carried out by

South Korean government and military officials. The

conclusion of the South Korean investigation was to

accuse North Korea of sinking the South Korean ship.

How would the Mexican Ambassador as President

of the Security Council during the month of June

handle this dispute? This was a serious issue facing

Ambassador Heller as he began his presidency.

Ambassador Heller adopted what he referred to as

a “balanced” approach to treat both governments on

the Korean peninsula in a fair and objective manner.

He held bilateral meetings with each member of the

Security Council which led to support for a process of

informal presentations by both of the Koreas to the

members of the Security Council. He arranged for the

South Korean Ambassador to make an informal

presentation to the members of the Security Council.

Ambassador Heller also invited the North Korean

Ambassador to make a separate informal presentation

to the members of the Security Council. Sin Son Ho

was the UN Ambassador from North Korea.

In response to the invitation from the President of

the Security Council, the North Korean Ambassador to

the UN sent a letter dated June 8 to the Security

Council which denied the allegation that his country

was to blame. His letter urged the Security Council not

to be the victim of deceptive claims, as had happened

with the U.S. presentation by Colin Powell on Iraq in

2003. It asked the Security Council to support his

government’s call to be able to examine the evidence

and to be involved in a new and more independent

investigation on the sinking of the Cheonan.

In its June 8 letter to the Security Council, North

Korea referred to the widespread international senti-

ment questioning the conclusions of the South Korean

government’s investigation. The North Korean Ambas-

sador wrote: “It would be very useful to remind

ourselves of the ever-increasing international doubts

and criticisms, going beyond the internal boundary of

south Korea, over the ‘investigation result’ from the

very moment of its release….”

What Ambassador Heller called “interactive

informal meetings” were held on June 14 with the

South Koreans and the North Koreans in separate

sessions attended by the Security Council members,

who had time to ask questions and then to discuss the

presentations.

At a media stakeout on June 14, after the day’s

presentations ended, Ambassador Heller said that it

was important to have received the detailed presenta-

tion by South Korea and also to know and learn the

arguments of North Korea. He commented that “it was

very important that North Korea approached the

Security Council.”

In response to a question about his view on the

issues presented, he replied, “I am not a judge. I think

we will go on with the consultations to deal in a proper

manner on the issue.”

Ambassador Heller also explained that, “the

Security Council issued a call to the parties to refrain

from any act that could escalate tensions in the region,

and makes an appeal to preserve peace and stability in

the region.”

Though the North Korean Ambassador to the UN

rarely speaks to the media, the North Korean UN

delegation scheduled a press conference for Tuesday,

June 15, the day following the interactive informal

meeting. During the press conference, the North

Korean Ambassador presented his government’s

refutation of the allegations made by South Korea.

Also he explained North Korea’s request to be able to

send an investigation team to the site where the sinking

of the Cheonan occurred. South Korea had denied the

request. During its press conference, the North Korean

Ambassador noted that there was widespread condem-

nation of the investigation in both South Korea and

around the world.

The press conference held on June 15 was a lively

event. Many of the journalists who attended were

impressed and requested that there be future press

conferences with the North Korean Ambassador.

During his presidency of the Security Council in

the month of June, Ambassador Heller held meetings

with the UN ambassadors from each of the two Koreas

and then with Security Council members about the

Cheonan issue. On the last day of his presidency, on

June 30, he was asked by a reporter what was happen-

ing about the Cheonan dispute. He responded that the

issue of contention was over the evaluation of the

South Korean government’s investigation.

Ambassador Heller described how he introduced

what he refers to as “an innovation” into the Security

Council process. As the month of June ended, the issue

was not yet resolved, but the “innovation” set a basis

to build on the progress that was achieved during the

month of his presidency.

The “innovation” Ambassador Heller referred to,

Page 14

was a summary he made of the positions of each of the

two Koreas on the issue, taking care to present each

objectively. Heller explained that this summary was

not an official document, so it did not have to be

approved by the other members of the Council. This

summary provided the basis for further negotiations.

He believed that it had a positive impact on the process

of consideration in the Council, making possible the

agreement that was later to be expressed in the Presi-

dential Statement on the Cheonan that was issued by

the Security Council on July 9.

Ambassador Heller’s goal, he explained, was to

“at all times be as objective as possible” so as to avoid

increasing the conflict on the Korean peninsula. Such

a goal is the Security Council’s obligation under the

UN Charter.

In the Security Council’s Presidential Statement

(PRST) on the Cheonan, what stands out is that the

statement follows the pattern of presenting the views

of each of the two Koreas and urging that the dispute

be settled in a peaceful manner.

In the PRST, the members of the Security Council

did not blame North Korea. Instead they refer to the

South Korean investigation and its conclusion, ex-

pressing their “deep concern” about the “findings” of

the investigation.

The PRST explains that “The Security Council

takes note of the responses from other relevant parties,

including the DPRK, which has stated that it had

nothing to do with the incident.”

With the exception of North Korea, it is not

indicated who “the other relevant parties” are. It does

suggest, however, that it is likely there were some

Security Council members, not just Russia and China,

which did not agree with the conclusions of the South

Korean investigation.

Analyzing the Presidential Statement, the Korean

newspaper Hankyoreh noted that the statement “allows

for a double interpretation and does not blame or place

consequences on North Korea.” Such a possibility of

a “double interpretation” allows for different interpre-

tations.

The Security Council action on the Cheonan took

place in a situation where there had been a wide-

ranging international critique, especially in the online

media, about the problems of the South Korean inves-

tigation, and of the South Korean government’s failure

to make public any substantial documentation of its

investigation, along with its practice of harassing

critics of the South Korean government claims. The

Security Council action included hearing the positions

of the different parties to the conflict.

The result of such efforts was something that is

unusual in the process of recent Security Council

activity. The Security Council process in the Cheonan

issue provided for an impartial analysis of the problem

and an effort to hear from those with an interest in the

issue.

The effort in the Security Council was described

by the Mexican Ambassador, as upholding the princi-

ples of impartiality and respectful treatment of all

members toward resolving a conflict between nations

in a peaceful manner. It represents an important

example of the Security Council acting in conformity

with its obligations as set out in the UN charter.

In the July 9 Presidential Statement, the Security

Council urged that the parties to the dispute over the

sinking of the Cheonan find a means to peacefully

settle the dispute. The statement says:

The Security Council calls for full adherence

to the Korean Armistice Agreement and

encourages the settlement of outstanding

issues on the Korean peninsula by peaceful

means to resume direct dialogue and negotia-

tion through appropriate channels as early as

possible, with a view to avoiding conflicts

and averting escalation.

The mainstream U.S. media for the most part,

chose to ignore the many critiques which have ap-

peared. These critiques of the South Korean govern-

ment’s investigation of the Cheonan sinking have

appeared mainly on the internet, not only in Korean,

but also in English, in Japanese, and in other lan-

guages. They present a wide-ranging challenge of the

veracity and integrity of the South Korean investiga-

tion and its conclusions.

An article in the Los Angeles Times on July 28

noted the fact, however, that the media in the U.S. had

ignored the critique of the South Korean government

investigation that was being discussed online and

spread around the world.

In this example, the netizen community in South

Korea and internationally were able to provide an

effective challenge to the misrepresentations by the

South Korean government on the Cheonan.

In conclusion, I want to propose that the response

of netizens to the problems raised by the investigation

of the Cheonan incident is but a prelude to the poten-

tial of netizens in different countries to work together

across national borders to solve the problems of our

Page 15

times.

XIII – Conclusion

Describing the frustration of many netizens with

the traditional media that they had to rely on before the

internet, Hauben wrote: “Today, similarly, the need for

a broader and more cooperative gathering and report-

ing of the News has helped create the new online

media that is gradually supplementing traditional

forms of journalism.”

In an article about the power of the internet,

Hauben recognized that the Net gives the power of the

reporter to the netizen. This represents a diffusion of a

power formerly held by the few, placing it in hands

that are different from its former masters.

Speaking about the potential for such a journalism

Hauben predicted, “As people continue to connect to

Usenet and other discussion forums, the collective

population will contribute back to the human commu-

nity this new form of news.” He recognized that, “The

Net has opened a channel for talking to the whole

world to an even wider set of people than did the

printed books.”

In one of the press conferences at the UN when Li

Baodong was the Chinese Ambassador to the UN, he

told the media, “You are the 16

member of the

Security Council.” He was in general speaking to the

traditional media. The case studies I have however,

described, demonstrate the potential for this new

media, the netizen media, to assume that membership.

* The slides used for this talk are online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/stony-brook/Stony-Brook-Sl

ides-12-04-2013.pdf. The url for the online version of “Netizens:

On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet” is:

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120. A version of these Notes

appeared on December 17, 2013 on the Netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/12/17/why-netizen-

journalism-matters/

DPRK Human Rights Briefing

at UN Challenges U.S.

Unending War Strategy*

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

The briefing held at the United Nations by the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK,

commonly known as North Korea) on Tuesday,

October 7, 2014 was an opportunity to hear the

DPRK’s response to U.S. and E.U. initiatives targeting

the DPRK. The U.S. and the E.U. have been using the

UN to try to demonize the DPRK as a perpetrator of

grave human rights violations and to rally the UN

Security Council to refer the DPRK to the International

Criminal Court (ICC).

In the previous few months, the DPRK Mission to

the UN had held several press conferences alerting

journalists to threats to international peace and security

taking place on the Korean Peninsula. The October 7

briefing, however, was not only open to the press

covering the UN, but to UN member nations and also

to NGO’s with access to UN Headquarters in New

York.

At the briefing, the DPRK made a presentation

about the “Report of the DPRK Association for Human

Rights Studies” (Report) that it had published on

September 13 about human rights in the DPRK.

The DPRK Deputy Ambassador at the UN, Ri

Tong Il, opened the briefing by introducing the Report.

Also taking part in the presentation were Choe Myong

Nam, Deputy Director-General of the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs of the DPRK and Kim Song, Coun-

selor to the DPRK UN Mission.

Ambassador Ri explained that there has been an

increasing tendency to carry on a human rights cam-

paign against the DPRK. He referred in particular to a

meeting organized by U.S. Secretary of State John

Kerry to discuss allegations of human rights abuse in

the DPRK. The U.S.-sponsored meeting was held on

September 23 at a hotel near the UN Headquarters.

The DPRK was not invited to the meeting, and it was

denied the right to attend when it asked to participate.

Ambassador Ri said that the purpose of this

briefing being held by the DPRK was to focus on

correcting the misinformation being spread about

human rights in the DPRK and to provide a more

accurate understanding of the situation of human rights

Page 16

in countries with differing social and political systems.

He pointed out that the UN with 193 member states is

made up of nations with different political systems,

different values and different ideologies.

Ambassador Ri listed the five chapters in the

Report giving a brief introduction to each of the

chapters. Then he welcomed questions or statements

from those present. Diplomats from several missions

at the UN, including the Cuban and Venezuelan

Missions, responded, thanking the DPRK for the

briefing. They referred to the criticism made at the UN

about those nations who sponsor country-specific

human rights resolutions. Experience has demonstrated

that such resolutions are most often politically moti-

vated, and not geared toward improving conditions for

people. Instead the purpose is an illegitimate political

objective, such as regime change. The Human Rights

Council had adopted the Universal Periodic Review

(UPR) procedure, as an effort to counter such abuse

and instead to treat all countries impartially. While

many countries focus on the UPR procedure, a few

nations continue to sponsor country-specific resolu-

tions thus politically targeting other nations.

An example of such political motivation was

provided by Choe Myong Nam in response to a ques-

tion. He described how in 1993 after a breakdown in

negotiations with the U.S. led the DPRK to pull out of

the IAEA, the U.S. pressured the E.U. to bring a

resolution against the DPRK for human rights viola-

tions.

A copy of the Report was distributed to those who

attended the October 7 briefing.

Chapter I of the Report explores the general

nature of human rights so that each nation can deter-

mine what the application will be in their situation. For

the DPRK this entails making a critique of how the

U.S. and certain other nations are trying to impose

their view of what the standards should be for other

nations. “Nobody in the international community

empowered them to establish the international ‘human

rights standards’,” the Report notes. (p. 12) Instead, the

Report maintains that human rights standards in a

country are the prerogative of the people of that

country. “In every country,” the Report explains,

“those who demand the human rights and campaign

(for) them are the people….” (p. 12)

The Report refers to the Commission of Inquiry

on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic

of Korea (COI) recently sponsored by the Human

Rights Council. The content and framework of the

Report provides background that is helpful toward

grasping the underlying fallacy of the COI. The Report

maintains that the ‘COI’ is an attempt “to bring down

the DPRK by collecting prejudiced ‘data’ without any

scientific accuracy and objectivity in the content….”

(p. 12)

All of Korea has been the victim of anti human

rights actions by an occupying power, notes the

Report. This was during the period of the Japanese

occupation of Korea (1910-1945). “Each and every

law manufactured by Japan in Korea in the past

were…anti human rights laws aimed at depriving

Korean people of all political freedoms and rights, and

forcing colonial slavery upon them.” (p. 13) The

Report explains that these anti-Korean laws created by

the Japanese colonial rule were abolished and a new

foundation established legally and politically in order

to provide protection and empowerment for the Korean

people. The Report argues that this demonstrates the

DPRK is concerned with the question of human rights.

(See pp. 14-15)

The Report proposes that the protection of human

rights in the DPRK requires putting the political

development of the DPRK into its historical context.

Throughout the Report historical background is

provided to put current developments into such a

perspective. The Report documents various forms of

hostile actions by the U.S. showing the effect such

actions have had on the DPRK development after the

end of WWII and the end of Japanese colonial rule

over Korea. One such example that the Report pro-

vides is explaining that “sanctions were imposed on

Korea after Korea was liberated from Japanese colo-

nial rule.”(p. 93) The U.S. imposed sanctions against

the socialist countries including the DPRK as part of

its Cold War politics even before the Korean War. (p.

93)

The Report also documents recent hostile acts by

the U.S. against the DPRK. The DPRK puts the anti

human rights campaign by the “U.S. and its followers”

in the context of the effort to “defame the image of the

DPRK in the international arena and dismantle the

socialist system under the pretext of ‘protection of

human rights’.” (p. 98)

A question was raised during the briefing about

what was the relationship between the fact the U.S. is

unwilling to negotiate a peace treaty with the DPRK to

end the Korean War and the U.S. led allegations of

human rights abuse against the DPRK. A possible

motivation for such a question is a recent journal

Page 17

article by University of California Professor Christine

Hong. The article offers a helpful analysis of this

relationship which is at the heart of the ability to

understand the nature of the U.S. campaign against the

DPRK. Her article, “The Mirror of North Korean

Human Rights,” published in Critical Asian Studies,

captures the intimate connection between the U.S.

government’s unending hostility against the DPRK,

and the U.S. claims of gross human rights violations in

the DPRK.

The article explains that the U.S. has been and is

technically and in practice at war with the DPRK.

There has been an unending set of economic, political

and cultural sanctions imposed on the DPRK either by

the U.S. Congress or by the UN particularly the UNSC

in the recent past. There have been massive military

drills close to the DPRK by the U.S. and the Republic

of Korea (ROK) and more recently including Japan,

France, the U.K., Canada and other U.S. allies. More

than 28,000 U.S. troops have been permanently

stationed in the ROK since the Korean war.

In such a situation, the U.S. claims of DPRK

human rights violations provide a convenient and

effective discourse to cloak the image of U.S. war

activities on the Korean Peninsula in a humanitarian

sounding dress. Hong writes that the ‘axis of evil’

narrative introduced by the Bush administration

against Iraq, Iran and the DPRK provided a means

whereby “war politics proceeded under the mantle of

rescue politics.” (Hong, p. 564)

Hong maintains that the ‘Responsibility to Pro-

tect’ (R2P) narrative provides the means by which

“would-be rescuers lay claim to a monopoly on the

virtuous use of violence….”

A fallacious WMD narrative which was provided

to the U.S. government by defectors and politicized

intelligence was used to camouflage the U.S. regime

change invasion of Iraq. Again, a false narrative using

unverifiable claim of defectors and politicized intelli-

gence is being dusted off for use against the DPRK.

Keeping in mind such recent examples as Iraq and

Libya, Hong observes that the claims of noble goals

provide a level of protection to the perpetrators of

invasions using the mantle of R2P. Instead of being

“viewed as human rights violations in themselves”

when they engage in acts of war like aerial bombard-

ment, military invasion, or an embargo on essential

goods, they are provided with the appearance of acting

as saviors.

Taken in such a context one can understand the

reluctance of nations like the DPRK to take the claims

of those promoting R2P and human rights as exhibiting

any but aggressive intentions.

Hong goes on to point out that any legitimate U.S.

concerns over human rights violations regarding the

people of the DPRK would have to begin by address-

ing the massive destruction against the civilian popula-

tion and civilian infrastructure of the DPRK carried out

by the U.S. and its allies during the Korean War and

harm to the civilian population since by its sanctions.

The Report the DPRK has produced refers not

only to the anti human rights activities against the

Korean people during the 35 years of Japanese occupa-

tion but also to the continuing saga of U.S. hostile

activities before and after the Korean War Armistice.

The Report is available as an official document of the

UN General Assembly (A/69/383) and of the UN

Security Council (S/2014/668).

The October 7 briefing by the DPRK broadened

the spectrum of understandings of the human rights

question available to delegates and journalists at the

UN. More such briefings should be welcomed and

encouraged.

Notes

Such a strategy with Libya resulted in ICC cases against key

Libyan officials weakening their fight against the NATO invasion

that brought regime change and subsequently a state of serious

instability to Libya. Discussing the Libyan example of regime

change, Joseph S. Nye, Jr explained that it is not the facts that

matter in “the information age.” Instead soft power, which

includes how the narrative describing a situation is framed, is as

important as, or even more important than military action, in

gaining one’s objectives. As he says in an online article, “In a

global information age, success is not determined just by who has

the biggest army, but also by who has the best story.” See the

article On Libya, Soft Power, and the Protection of Civilians as

Pretext.

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2011/04/30/libya_and_protection

_civilians_as_pretext/

Christine Hong, “The Mirror of North Korean Human Rights,”

Critical Asian Studies, 45:4, 561-592.

You can see the “Report of the DPRK Association for Human

Rights Studies” as an UN document at:

http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/

668

* A version of this article appeared on October 14, 2014 on the

Netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2014/10/14/dprk-human-rights-b

riefing-un/.

Page 18

Outside and Inside the UN

Contesting the UN Human

Rights COI Report on North

Korea*

by Ronda Hauben

[email protected]

A small demonstration that took place across the

street from the UN on Wednesday, October 22, 2014

was a sign of the problem represented by the Commis-

sion of Inquiry (COI) report by the UN Human Rights

Council on North Korea. The COI report had been

issued in March 2014.

The demonstrators carried posters challenging the

action by the UN. The posters portrayed the sentiment

that the report and UN actions around the report

represented an injustice. These posters included

statements such as:

“Stop Using N. Korean Human Right as a Weap-

on for Another Korean War,” “Stop Shameful Hypoc-

risy Pretending Human Rights Defenders,” “Stop

Psychological Warfare on the Korean Peninsula,”

“Remember S. Korean National Security Law an

Extreme Human Rights Violation! ,” “Guantanamo

Bay Detention Camp, Human Rights???,” “Human

Rights, Why Only N. Korea???,” “Mind Your Busi-

ness in the U.S.A.???”

The reason the issues raised by the demonstration

are important is that the UN has not attempted any

impartial investigation of the Korean conflict to

determine its roots and how to find a resolution. The

signs carried by these demonstrators provide clues to

the context in which this Commission of Inquiry

operated. If the COI report is intended as a weapon to

start another Korean War, as one of the signs pro-

posed, then the actions of the Human Rights Council

are but a pretext for an aggressive action against a

sovereign nation. Another poster asked if the Human

Rights Council had considered violations of human

rights such as the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

by the U.S. or the National Security Law by South

Korea? These are well-documented examples of

serious Human Rights abuses, but instead of doing

something to condemn such documented abuses, the

Human Rights Council is targeting North Korea where

there is little actual evidence that could be recognized

in a court of law of any such human rights abuses.

Instead the kinds of claims being substituted for

evidence are testimony of defectors, and supposed

satellite images. In the Iraq case in 2003, such so

called evidence proved inaccurate, yet provided a

pretext for the U.S. invasion and regime change

activity. Similarly, false claims were used as a pretext

for the NATO war against Libya in 2011.

The protest in October held outside the UN at

noon was in response to an event being held at the UN

later in the day. The event, sponsored by the perma-

nent missions of Panama, Botswana, and Australia was

held to present the testimony of two North Koreans

who had defected to South Korea and who were

making a plea that member states support an upcoming

resolution by the EU and Japan against North Korea.

The DPRK had not been invited to offer its

position, but its representatives did attend the event.

They were called on only as part of the question period

at the end of the event.

During the question period, the DPRK representa-

tives raised the criticism that the COI report did not

make any effort to be an all-sided report. Instead it

only presented the testimony of the defectors, of critics

of North Korea.

The content of the testimony presented at the

October 22 UN meeting included often repeated claims

of harsh treatment, but missing were clear statements

of what the circumstances were of the situations being

described. Nor was there any effort to provide factual

evidence supporting the claims.

The head of the Commission of Inquiry, the

Australian Judge Michael Kirby played a major role in

this meeting at the UN. In response to a comment from

the DPRK representatives that the soliciting of the

testimony from the defector witnesses was politically

motivated, Judge Kirby responded that his experience

as a judge was such that he knew how to conduct such

questioning.

His response failed to acknowledge that the role

he is playing in the UN process is not the same as in a

national court of law, where there are expected to be

standards for evidence and due process for the ac-

cused. Also in a national court of law there are in

general appeals processes for the accused, as well as

the right of the accused to confront those who are

making the accusations. No such rights are accorded to

the accused by the process that Judge Kirby is in-

volved in. Instead he is acting as a prosecutor with no

rights for the accused to provide a defense.

Page 19

At the UN meeting, the representatives of both

Panama and Botswana spoke about their interest in

fulfilling the obligations of the Responsibility to

Protect (R2P) framework as part of why they are

supporting taking action against North Korea. The

problem with such statements is that they are ignoring

the abuse that occurred by NATO in Libya under the

mantle of R2P.

This event at the UN on October 22 was directed

at urging support for actions at the UN directed against

North Korea. But another event a few days earlier

demonstrated a very different approach to the question

of the stalemate in efforts to resolve the conflicts that

exist between the U.S./EU and North Korea.

This other event, which took place on October 20,

was sponsored by the U.S. Council on Foreign Rela-

tions (CFR) and was chaired by Donald Gregg, a

former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea.

The CFR program featured Gregg interviewing

Jang Il Hun who is the Deputy Ambassador for the

DPRK Mission to the UN, with time provided for

questions from those in the audience. Ambassador

Jang is the DPRK representative for the New York

channel for contact between the DPRK and the U.S.

The U.S. has no formal diplomatic relations with the

DPRK.

The tone of most of the CFR event provided a

striking contrast to the UN meeting held a few days

later.

Introducing the topic of the program, Ambassador

Gregg referred to a previous program held earlier in

the year with Judge Kirby discussing the COI report

process. During this earlier program at CFR, Ambassa-

dor Gregg reported he had asked Judge Kirby if he had

noticed any improvement in the situation in North

Korea. Judge Kirby responded that he had observed

improvement under Kim Jung Un. Gregg noted,

however, this judgment was not reflected in the COI

report.

Also, the issue of the stalemate in relations

between the U.S. and the DPRK was raised. Ambassa-

dor Jang was asked what could be done to help to

make a breakthrough to end the stalemate. In general

it was agreed that neither accusations regarding human

rights problems nor efforts to revive the long stalled

six party talks process would be a helpful direction.

Instead a visit by a friendly group organized by the

Council of Foreign Relations was proposed and

Ambassador Jang responded that if he received a

detailed proposal for such a visit, he could make

recommendations about it to his capital.

These three situations demonstrate that there are

substantive issues to be discussed through a diplomatic

process with the DPRK. The program at the CFR in

particular demonstrated that if an effort is made to

resolve problems with the DPRK, progress is possible.

Meanwhile actions being taken by nations like Japan

and by the EU in particular who are threatening to

bring a resolution against the DPRK, can only deepen

the conflicts. And holding meetings inside or outside

the UN where defector witnesses are encouraged to

urge member nations of the UN to condemn the DPRK

are but acts to fan the flames of hostility and conflict.

The demonstration in front of the UN and the CFR

meeting, though held outside the UN, reveal that the

obligations of the UN Charter are obligations that can

be met. And that the process of conflict resolution

needs the broad participation of all those who can

contribute to its success. There seem to be two tactics

being used in international relations with the DPRK.

Either hold punishment meetings or encourage dia-

logue. The UN Charter supports only the latter efforts.

Notes

http://www.cfr.org/north-korea/conversation-jang-il-hun/p33642

Gregg: “And I asked him, as I was the commentator, about 50

years, and have you noticed any changes during that period? And

he said, yes, there have been improvements under Kim Jong-un,

which I wish he’d said that in his report, but he at least said it in

response to my — to my question.”

JANG: Yes. If I receive any detailed proposal concerning the

proposed visit, then I can make recommendations for my col-

leagues in the capital.

* This article appeared on Oct. 25, 2014 on the Netizenblog at:

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2014/10/25/outside-and-inside-th

e-un/

13 Observations about North

Korea by a Western Visitor*

by Marcel Cartier

I had the unique opportunity to spend several days

in three different parts of the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea, more commonly just referred to as

‘North’ Korea. This was an exceptionally life-changi-

ng experience that challenged many of the

Page 20

preconceptions that myself and fellow western visitors

who accompanied me from Beijing had going in. Here

are some things about North Korea that may surprise

you, as many of them surprised me, as well.

1. Americans Are Not Hated, But Wel-

comed

The Koreans have a very high level of class

consciousness, and do not equate the American people

with our government. They make no secret of their

contempt for U.S. imperialism, but if you say you’re

an American, the conversation will usually revolve

around culture or sports more than politics. At the

Grand People’s Study House in Pyongyang (think your

local library on steroids, with more than 30 million

books), the most popular CD is The Beatles’ ‘Greatest

Hits,’ although Linkin Park is also requested a lot

among local youth. The young men seem fascinated

with the NBA, and know a lot more about the league

than just Dennis Rodman.

2. Customs and Border Patrol Were a

Smooth, Easy Experience

Many of the westerners who traveled to Pyong-

yang from Beijing with me were concerned that the

immigration procedure would be a long and intense

one. Everyone seemed quite surprised that passports

were stamped with no questions asked, and that only a

handful of passengers had a few items in their bags

looked at. Prior to traveling, it is strongly advised by

tour companies that people not bring any kind of books

on the Korean War or items that have American flags

on them. This may be solid advice, but immigration

didn’t really seem too concerned about what was

brought into the country.

3. Pyongyang Is Beautiful, Clean and

Colorful

Probably the most gorgeous city in the world,

Pyongyang is incredibly well kept. Considering that

the entire city was carpet bombed by U.S. forces in the

Korean War (what they call the Fatherland Liberation

War) and that only two buildings remained in 1953, it

is an impressive accomplishment. The statues and

grand buildings are awe-inspiring, as are the large

green spaces where you can see people relaxing. There

are many new apartment buildings sprouting up across

the city, but even the ones that are evidently older are

maintained well. It is often said that Pyongyang at

night is dark, and although it may be compared to a

western city, it does have beautiful lights that illumi-

nate much of the downtown area.

4. Kim Jong Un Haircuts are Practically

Non-Existent

There was one man who sported the Kim cut who

I saw while en route from the airport to the city center,

and it wasn’t a good look on him at all! The haircut

was rumoured by BBC and Time, who picked up on a

South Korean tabloid story, to now be mandatory for

all North Korean men of university age. Not only is

this story not true, so is the allegation that the men in

the DPRK only have a select few styles to choose from

at the barber shop that are ‘state sanctioned’. It really

works just as it would in the west – there are flyers at

barbershops where styles are pictured, making it easier

for customers to say, “I want a number seven cut.”

But, just as in a New York barber shop, that doesn’t

mean that you are restricted to that particular look.

5. North Koreans Laugh, Smile and Joke –

a Lot

The question you are asking is probably, “but isn’t

that for show?” It would be a mighty accomplishment

indeed if with all of the genuine laughs I shared with

Koreans, they were putting on an act. Not only that,

but for vehicles speeding by on the streets, those

Koreans do an impressive job of making sure they’re

aware when there are foreigners passing so they can

pretend to laugh! Koreans have jokes for just about

everything, from Canadians and ice hockey (“why did

the Canadians have sex from the back? So they can

watch the hockey game”) to Americans at the DMZ

(“an American passes a DPRK soldier a cigarette

across the demarcation line. The solider smokes it, but

the American asks why if he hates Americans he is

smoking something from the U.S. The solider replies,

I am not smoking it but rather burning it.”)

6. Monolithic Ideology Does Not Mean

Monolithic Personality

This is a good reminder that individualism and

individuality are not one in the same. In fact, observing

people interact with one another in North Korea

provided the impression that a diversity of personality

types was just as strong there as it is in the ‘open’

west. People have a divergence of interests, from

sports to culture, and are free to pick what they enjoy

Page 21

and dislike.

7. People are Incredibly Well Dressed

Across the Country

Even in the countryside, Koreans dress in a very

dignified manner. There was not one place I traveled

to where people appeared in the least bit sloppy, or

wearing clothes that appeared to be old. Men and

women also don’t all wear the same style of clothing,

as we are often conditioned to think. It is common to

see women wearing very bright clothes, including pink

business suits as well as more traditional Korean

dresses. Men may often wear ties, collared shirts and

suit coats, but it is also common to see them in more

casual wear such as tracksuits depending on the

occasion.

8. Children Begin to Learn English at the

Age of Seven

The people’s command of English, particularly

among the younger generation, is very impressive.

While in previous decades, high school was the time

when English began to be learnt, this has been changed

to the third grade. Although many children are shy

(they don’t see that many foreigners, after all), I was

able to get many of them to shake my hand and even

exchange a few words in English. Popular languages

that are studied in high school include Chinese and

German.

9. Tourism Will be Boosted in the Near

Future

One of the aspects of the economy that will be

prioritized in the future appears to be tourism. The

entire Pyongyang Airport is under construction at the

moment and in the midst of major expansion. The

Koreans are keen to open up to the outside world, but

they are also certain to do it in a very different way

than the Chinese (after being in Beijing, the omnipo-

tence of some of the worst aspects of western culture

there gives them every reason to be cautious in this

regard). Air Koryo, which was given the only one-star

rating by the company SkyTrax, was in reality much

better in terms of service and comfort than at least a

dozen other airlines I had previously flown on. They

have a new fleet of Russian planes that fly between

Pyongyang and Beijing, provide in-flight entertain-

ment throughout the journey (the children’s cartoon

Clever Raccoon Dog is hilarious), and serve a ‘ham-

burger’ (not so good, but edible) and an assortment of

drinks (coffee, tea, beer, juice). The whole experience

was at least worthily of three-stars if we had to go the

rating route!

10. Koreans are Keen to Talk About the

Country Candidly

People are very open about the problems facing

the country, and don’t shy away from discussing some

of the more difficult aspects of life. For instance, they

would speak about the ‘Arduous March’ (think the

‘Special Period’ in Cuba) where drought, famine and

floods coupled with the loss of the majority of the

country’s trading partners brought big setbacks to a

country that until the 1980s had a higher standard of

living than the South. They will also discuss the

narratives regarding the Korean War and are keen for

a betterment of relations with South Korea in the

eventual hope of reunification. However, they are also

very firm on the fact that they will never renounce

their socialist principles in order to facilitate this

reunification.

11. Beer is Considered a Soft Drink, Micro

Breweries Are Popular

Almost every district in the country now has a

local brewery that provides beer to the local area.

There are a variety of different kinds that are enjoyed

around the country, and most meals are served with a

small quantity of beer. At Kim Il Sung Stadium where

the Pyongyang Marathon started and ended, it was

common to see locals having a drink as they watched

the exhibition matches between DPRK football teams.

Think Yankee Stadium, just without the aggressive-

ness of the crowd.

12. Most of the Tabloid Stories About the

DPRK are Utterly False

There were probably at least one hundred Ameri-

cans in Pyongyang at the same time as me, due in large

part to foreign amateur runners being allowed to

compete for the first time in the marathon. One couple

testified how this was their second visit after having

traveled to DPRK the year before. They mentioned

how they were a bit scared to come the previous time,

because it was right after a story had hit the news

about Kim Jong Un having had his ex-girlfriend and

others killed for making a porn tape. The couple talked

about how they walked into an Opera in Pyongyang,

Page 22

and as they sat down noticed that the very women who

were supposed to be dead were sitting directly across

from them. Walking dead, indeed! Other recent stories

to hit the western press via South Korean tabloids

regarding mass executions in stadiums or Kim Jong

Un’s uncle being fed to a pack of hungry dogs are also

said to be nonsense by westerners who travel there

frequently and know the country’s situation well. This

isn’t to say anything about the existence of political

reeducation camps or prisons, but an all-out

demonization campaign against the country that

completely distorts it is of no service to the Korean

people.

13. Koreans Will not Hesitate to Make You

Join in Their Fun

There were a number of events organized in

Pyongyang on the occasion of Kim Il Sung’s birthday,

which is a national holiday where people have two

days off of work. Some of these were publically

organized, like the ‘mass dances’ where hundreds of

people dance in large squares to popular Korean songs.

Others involved people in the park having family

lunches while the kids bought ice cream from vendors

and drunk grannies danced hilariously because they

had far too much homemade soju. But, just like in any

authoritarian state, you must participate! Being shy is

not an option, as they will pull you by the arm and

teach you every dance move even if they themselves

are not quite doing it correctly.

In short, I found the Korean people in the north to

be some of the warmest, most authentic human beings

I’ve ever had the chance to interact with. It would be

silly to refer to the country as a ‘workers paradise’ due

to the depth of problems it faces. As in all societies,

there are positive aspects and negative ones. However,

considering that they have overcome centuries of

imperial domination, the loss of about a quarter of

their population in the Korean War, and continue to

maintain their social system in the face of a continued

state of war, they have done tremendously well. The

accomplishments in free education through university,

the nonexistence of homelessness, and a proud and

dignified people should be presented in order to gain

a fuller, more nuanced picture of the country.

I must say that the way that the DPRK is por-

trayed in the western bourgeois media actually says a

great deal more about the effectiveness of our propa-

ganda apparatuses and brainwashing techniques than

it does about theirs. The fact that I even have to write

about the surprising things I witnessed in DPRK is

evidence of the serious lack of understanding we have

about the country. The problems facing Korea are

never contexualized as they should be as an oppressed

nation aiming to free itself from servitude to big

powers intent on gobbling up every remaining state

free from a dying unipolarity.

Oh, and I almost forgot about nuclear weapons!

Well, let’s consider if the North Korean military was

holding military drills annually off the coast of New

York that simulated the carpet bombing of Manhattan

and the occupation of the entirety of the country, of

which they already controlled the western half. Would

it not be sensible given that context for Americans to

develop a nuclear deterrent? The Koreans are not war

hungry or even ‘obsessed’ with the army or military.

However, given the way that the situation in Libya

played out, they are all the more convinced – rightfully

so – that the only reason their independent state

continues to stand is due to the Songun (‘military first’

policy) and the existence of nuclear capabilities. To be

sure, they have no intention of using it unless put in

that position to have to do so.

It is my sincere desire that there will be continued

cultural and people-to-people exchanges in the near

future between people from the DPRK and the western

countries. Pretty much all of the people who traveled

with me back to Beijing were in awe of just how

different their experience was compared to what they

had expected. They – like myself – gained a great deal

from the humanizing experience of interacting with

Koreans. Although westerners are relatively free to

travel much more so than DPRK citizens, it’s ironic

how the Koreans seemingly know a great deal more

about us than we know about them. That will need to

change in the years to come.

* This post appeared on the Existence is Resistance blog on April

21, 2014 at:

http://www.existenceisresistance.org/archives4222.

Marcel Cartier is a political rapper from the South Bronx, NYC.

Page 23

Enemy Image: What the

DPRK Is Really Like*

by Konstantin Asmolov

North Korea is one of the most unusual countries

in the world. In the West they call it a pariah state, and

President George Bush Junior even included the

DPRK in the “axis of evil.” The demonization of the

image of North Korea is promoted by the closed nature

of the state and also the fact that Pyongyang deliber-

ately cultivates a reputation as a “tough” regime that it

is better to have no contact with. It is only natural that

in these conditions myths proliferate around the DPRK

and totally implausible “canards” about the lives of

citizens of that country and the ways of the North

Korean authorities regularly turn up in the

press. Lenta.ru

has tried to get to the bottom of the

most widespread false impressions about the DPRK.

Let us begin with poverty and famine. Undoubt-

edly the situation in the DPRK is not ideal in this

respect, but neither extreme poverty nor constant

hunger and its associated problems exist in the coun-

try. References are frequently made to statistics

according to which the Northerners are shorter than

their Southern brothers. This is attributed to their not

receiving enough protein in their childhood. This is a

half truth, because it is not only a question of the

shortage of protein-rich food in the North but also the

change in the nutritional regime and the departure

from the traditional diet in the South, where European

cuisine is popular.

Another assertion becomes tiresome: “The inhab-

itants of North Korea gather grass to feed themselves.”

This is equivalent to the following statement: “In

modern-day Russia the food situation is so bad that

even urban dwellers are obliged to travel to rural

localities to collect mushrooms.” Shepherd’s purse and

a number of other grasses are traditional elements of

Korean cuisine, and gathering them has nothing to do

with the availability or otherwise of food.

The existence of the developed “parallel econ-

omy” in the DPRK also remains a secret to many

people in the West, although North Korean migrants in

China (shuttle traders rather than refugees) bring the

country more foreign currency than the Kaesong

Industrial Complex, which is frequently positioned as

the sole source of foreign currency (100 million dollars

as against 80 million dollars). And if you listen not to

propagandist horror stories but to the opinion of

specialists, it transpires that in practice there is, if

anything, more economic freedom in today’s DPRK

than there was in the USSR at the time of Perestroika.

Illegal economic ties permeate the whole of society,

and a significant number of state enterprises are

essentially private. The regime gives the “capitalist”

most-favored status, and he fulfills its strategic instruc-

tions and shares the profits with it.

The “primary accumulation of capital” is in full

swing in Pyongyang now. Residents of the city have

begun to dress better and expensive restaurants and

stores selling foreign-made goods are opening. The

new multistory housing districts in Pyongyang are

indistinguishable from those in Busan, South Korea,

The famine of 1995-1997 occupies perhaps the

main place in the demonization of the DPRK. Accord-

ing to the calculations of certain particularly “compe-

tent” authors the number of casualties reached three

million or even four million. However, these figures

were obtained by a highly original method: The

“assumed estimates of the situation in the worst-

affected individual regions” were extrapolated to the

whole country. Moreover, losses not directly con-

nected with the famine are added to the victims (for

instance, mortality from diseases in the context of

reduced immunity).

People in the West write that “the bodies of

people dead from hunger were piled up right there on

the streets.” As in South Korea, in the DPRK they

prefer to bury the deceased not in cemeteries but in

places that are favorable from the viewpoint of

geomancy. Therefore when famine hit the country, in

order to combat possible epidemics, it was recom-

mended that the bodies be buried in mass graves: A

truck would drive around the villages collecting the

bodies of the deceased, who would be carried to the

roadside beforehand. Journalists saw this and inter-

preted it in their own way.

Another “beautiful image” connected with the

DPRK is the well-known “satellite photograph” where,

against the bright lights of the South, the DPRK looks

like a big, totally black patch. This is a very interesting

illustration of the way in which the staffers of Radio

Free Asia achieved the opposite result to what they

were hoping for. Taking a real NASA image, they

painted over some of the illuminations in the North so

that the difference would look bigger, but while doing

so they inadvertently blacked out Vladivostok and

several Chinese border cities, which apparently also

have no light at night.

Page 24

The belief that in a state like the DPRK there can

be neither culture, nor science, nor any other successes

except perhaps the military kind is equally absurd.

False premises produce false results. Sometimes quite

comical ones. Thus, when North Korean archaeologists

excavated the “Unicorn Cave” site, so called because

the mythical founder of the state of Koguryo (an

ancient state on the site where the DPRK now is)

supposedly kept this animal there, the Western press

started saying sarcastically: “North Korean scientists

have proved the existence of unicorns.”

The author of these lines even came across articles

about the “Potemkin” nature of the Pyongyang Metro.

Apparently there are only three stations, between

which they ferry foreigners, while locals are not

allowed in at all. But actually the North Korean metro

is a year older than South Korea’s. Incidentally, the

Northerners are also in the lead in the missile race and

even in another indicator, the literacy of the popula-

tion: 99 per cent of the population as against 97.9 per

cent in the Republic of Korea.

The DPRK is also not infrequently accused of

destroying the cultural heritage, the accusation being

that practically no architectural monuments of past

eras remain in the country and Pyongyang was com-

pletely rebuilt as a tribute to Kim Il Sung and Kim

Jong Il. Yet it is somehow forgotten that the cultural

sites were destroyed during the Korean War of 1950-

1953, toward the end of which the U.S. Air Force

officially stated that it had bombed everything it could,

including barrages and dams, while Pyongyang was

practically completely destroyed, so there was basi-

cally nothing there to demolish.

Now let us talk about the cruelty of the regime.

Here critics of the DPRK have become detached from

reality to a lesser extent. Although, in the context of

the traditional Confucian mentality that is characteris-

tic of many countries of the Far East, notions of

freedom and the relationship between the interests of

the individual and the collective differ significantly

from both European and Soviet notions. Furthermore

the DPRK is in the position of a “besieged fortress,”

which in itself presupposes numerous restrictions.

Nonetheless, the degree of state interference in the

private lives of citizens of the DPRK should not be

exaggerated. An example of this exaggeration is the

reports that female inhabitants of North Korea are

forbidden to wear short skirts or pants, although pants

are standard attire for the Far Eastern woman, while in

photographs of Pyongyang from various years it is

clear that Korean women certainly do not only wear

traditional dress. There was a similar story about

haircuts when, on the basis of photographs of exam-

ples of women’s and men’s haircuts and hairstyles that

were hanging on the wall in a hairdresser’s, it was

concluded that citizens of DPRK are only allowed

those haircuts. The recent “canard” – “everyone must

have the same haircut as the leader” – only continues

this trend.

One of the most widespread recent fables about

North Korea is the stories about the incredible cruelty

of its ruler Kim Jong Un. Thus, there was a lot of

ballyhoo about a report that an official was shot by

mortar fire on his orders. None of those who repro-

duced this news was bothered by the fact that it is

impossible in principle to shoot somebody with mortar

fire. The news that Comrade Kim fed his own uncle to

hungry dogs comes into the same category; it turned

out to be a joke by a Chinese blogger.

One should also treat with scepticism many

stories about torture in the DPRK. The defector Sin

Don Khek [name as transliterated], for instance, was

famous for describing such horrors. He reported in

particular how they tortured him by hanging him on a

hook over a fire. True, it is rather difficult to believe

that Sin actually went through all this: Surviving after

such things is problematic, and not becoming disabled

is entirely unrealistic. But all the same, the naive

reader takes the testimony of such “victims” at face

value even though their health, having been under-

mined in the “Korean Gulag,” is sufficient for press

conferences lasting many hours and propaganda tours

during which they speak several times a day.

There is a widespread impression that the DPRK

threatens its neighbors or possibly the whole world.

Pyongyang lays no claim to other countries’ territories.

Admittedly it regards the Republic of Korea as an

occupied territory, but Seoul also regards the peninsula

as a single country, part of which is temporary occu-

pied by an “anti state organization.”

It is not only the North Korean missile and nu-

clear programs that are subjected to mythological

exaggeration, but the DPRK Army as a whole. It is

emphasized that it ranks fourth in the world in terms of

numerical strength, but the fact that on this same list

the Republic of Korea comes sixth, while the South

Korean military budget exceeds North Korea’s by a

factor of 23-26[?],

is left out. While from the view-

point of a simple comparison of troop numbers the

North appears not to have a decisive superiority, if you

Page 25

take into account the quality of the armaments the

correlation of forces is simply disastrous for the North.

DPRK Air Force pilots have only 10-25 hours’ flying

time a year (for comparison, NATO’s pilots have a

minimum of 200). In the 1990s there were about 200

tanks at Pyongyang’s disposal (there are more than

8,000 in the American Army today). As one military

expert with whom this author is acquainted put it, “the

DPRK may have enough tanks to take Seoul, but I am

not sure they have enough fuel to get there.” The

DPRK has fuel for 30 days and food for 60 days of

war.

A “sensation” about the latest unmasked plan for

a terrorist act being prepared by Pyongyang turns up in

the media at least once a year. Thus, in 2006 in the

context of the first epidemic of bird flu it was reported

that “the DPRK is planning to develop a bacteriologi-

cal weapon based on this virus and has established

contacts with Al-Qaida in this connection.” In 2009

“Japan’s intelligence services have learned of a

planned DPRK missile strike against U.S. territory,

scheduled for 4 July 2009.” In 2012 the DPRK “de-

cided to disrupt the Seoul G20 summits, for which

purpose it was planned to release balloons against the

South, filled with poisonous gases or the spores of

dangerous microorganisms.”

Why is this mythologization, this distortion of the

image of the DPRK, dangerous? Scourging the vices

of this or that regime is fine when the vices are real

and we are talking about the real North Korea, not its

counterpart “in another universe.” However, today the

comic image of the DPRK is encroaching on reality

and supplanting it. This may be no bad thing for

propaganda, but because of the grotesqueness of the

image that has been constructed for North Korea, that

country, with its inhabitants and their problems,

becomes an object of jibes and not sympathy. And the

fact that fake news about the DPRK is regularly

exposed only intensifies this effect.

But there is an even more serious problem: The

distorted image of the DPRK is becoming established

not only among ordinary people but also in the heads

of the people who make the decisions and even the

propagandists themselves. So real political strategies,

which theoretically should be based on an understand-

ing of the opponent, are built on the basis of a “car-

toon” image. And attempts by specialists to explain

what is what, meet with a hostile reception because

“everyone already knows what is happening there!”

Notes

Lenta.ru is a Moscow based, Russian language news site with

over a reported 600,000 hits per day.

In 2012, the reported military budget of South Korea was

approx. $26.1 billion, that of North Korea was approx. $8.2 billion

giving a ration of more than 3:1 in favor of South Korea.

* This article appeared in Russian on the news website Lenta.ru

on Feb 2, 2015. Konstantin Asmolov is a scientific staffer at the

Center for Korean Studies, the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of

the Russian Academy of Sciences.

[Editor’s Note: The following article from the Strate-

gic Culture website analyzes the relation between the

U.S. and the DPRK and the cyber attack on Sony

Pictures Entertainment known as the ‘Sony Hack.’

This is Part II of a 2-part article. Part I can be seen at:

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/01/06/us

a-north-korea-and-hollywood-i.html.]

USA, North Korea and

Hollywood (II)*

by Alexander Vorontsov

The hackers’ attack against Sony Pictures on

November 24, 2014 threw the entire studio of the

Hollywood giant into disarray with the computers

wiped out. Media called it the biggest corporate hack

in history. A group purporting to be the Guardians of

Peace took responsibility for the act.

The data stolen

by hackers included personal information about Sony

Pictures employees and their families, e-mails between

employees, information about executive salaries at the

company, copies of unreleased Sony films and other

information to be made accessible via internet. The

perpetrators demanded to cancel the planned release of

the film The Interview

and threatened to attack

moviegoers. A message from the Guardians of Peace

group posted online warned of a 9/11-like attack on

movie theaters that screen the Sony Pictures Entertain-

ment film.

At some point people panicked. After the

threats of a terrorist attack the New York premiere of

the Sony movie was cancelled. Screenings have also

been cancelled at thousands of theaters across the

country. The U.S. administration was really concerned

over the goings-on. After some time it peremptorily

accused Pyongyang of complicity with no evidence to

Page 26

substantiate the claim. It only cited the results of the

FBI investigation.

The accusations were as groundless

as in the case of the Malaysian Boeing airliner that

went down in Ukraine. They followed the same

pattern: “We know who is guilty, we possess the facts

that cannot be made public because it’s hush-hush

information. So you have to take our word for it.” Here

is another example of the same tactics in use. In 2003

America accused Iraq of pursuing a WMD (weapons

of mass destruction) program though the U.S. adminis-

tration knew it was not true.

North Korea has twice flatly rejected such accusa-

tions. It offered its cooperation in finding the truth but

Washington refused. Instead it said Pyongyang was

welcome to compensate for the losses suffered by

Sony Pictures. In 2006-2007 the U.S. Treasury Depart-

ment conducted an operation against what it called

North Korea’s illegal economic activities. It froze the

Delta Asia bank accounts in Macao. The move nega-

tively affected the six-party nuclear talks held in

Beijing at the time. The U.S. never provided any proof

of the bank’s illegal activities or its connection to

North Korea’s nuclear program. Pyongyang offered to

launch a joint investigation but Washington refused as

it did in the case of Cheonan – the South Korean

corvette sank off the country’s west coast in the

Yellow Sea. Back then the United Nations Security

Council held an emergency session called upon South

Korea’s initiative. The evidence provided by Seoul

was not sufficient to blame North Korea for the trag-

edy. The U.S. regularly refuses to hold joint investiga-

tions with North Korea. It makes the accusations of

North Korean complicity in the hackers’ attack against

Sony Pictures not credible. The Russian Ministry of

Foreign Affairs statement says “Pyongyang suggested

conducting a joint investigation of the incident which

would open up additional opportunities for easing the

tension. In fact, the step is evidence of the North

Korean side’s sincere striving for investigating the

issue in every detail.”

Scared by threats movie theater owners delayed

the screening of The Interview. President Barack

Obama authorized additional sanctions on North Korea

in the wake of the “destructive and coercive”

cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. “We take

seriously North Korea’s attack that aimed to create

destructive financial effects on a U.S. company and to

threaten artists and other individuals with the goal of

restricting their right to free expression,” the White

House statement said. It called the sanctions “a re-

sponse to the Government of North Korea’s ongoing

provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions and

policies, particularly its destructive and coercive

cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment.” Obama

said the attack was technologically complex and

unprecedented in scope. He promised to take punitive

actions including returning North Korea to the list of

terrorist sponsors. The U.S. turns a blind eye to the fact

that some details don’t fit into the version of North

Korean complicity in the hackers’ attack. The opinions

differ even inside the United States. Stylometric

analysis says the linguistic features are not North

Korean, for instance, some digital crime perpetrators

could even be Russian speakers. Another version is

based on the facts ignored by Washington. The Guard-

ians of Peace told media they collaborated with the

company’s staffers to make Sony Pictures pay for

criminal business-practices. According to the stolen

data, there was only one woman out of 17 managers

with salaries exceeding one million dollars. There is

ground to believe that the attack was staged by former

Sony employees disgruntled with the management

policies.

The third version is related to the Chinese factor.

The United States asked China to help in the investiga-

tion as the North Korean traffic that goes through

Chinese cyber space. Beijing never detected any North

Korean trace.

The U.S. version states that the attack was techno-

logically complicated and it took about a year to

prepare it. It means there were many collaborators

inside Sony Pictures. In this case Washington has to

admit that Pyongyang was able to create a broad net of

agents working in the United States and it possesses a

capability to organize wide-scale subversive actions.

One way or another, experts believe Washington’s

reaction was disproportional. Digital crimes have

become routine but nobody ever tried “to punish”

sovereign states for such nefarious deeds. A close

scrutiny of the incident against the background of U.S.

policy toward North Korea may provide some clue. It

is called the policy of “strategic patience” which

various American experts believe to be a version of

“strategy of containment” aimed at toppling the North

Korean government. Many researchers point out it was

a surprise when Obama took a tougher stance on the

issue than his predecessor George Bush. The instru-

ments used to implement the “strategic patience”

policy include increased pressure, sanctions, isolation

and rejection of meaningful dialogue and “engagement

Page 27

policy.” In 2014 many peace initiatives put forward by

Pyongyang were rebuffed by Washington and Seoul as

acts of propaganda. The previous year Pyongyang

abstained from nuclear tests and long-range ballistic

missile trials. Still, the United States and the allies

continued to conduct large-scale exercises near the

North Korean border. The military activities serve as

means of political pressure. The campaign against

human rights violations in North Korea has gained

unprecedented proportions. It had never been that

tense, as well as it had never been made part of the

United Nations General Assembly’s agenda with an

aim to refer the case to the International Court in the

Hague. No matter the United Nations structures have

strictly divided responsibilities, the North Korean issue

was added to the agenda of the United Nations Secu-

rity Council. The very idea that the alleged or real

human rights violations in North Korea could pose a

threat to international security and become an issue for

consideration by the United Nations Security Council

in accordance with the UN Charter is ridiculous. The

Security Council will hardly come up with a unani-

mous ruling due to the opposition of Russia and China

– the states which adamantly oppose the politicization

of the human rights issue in relation to North Korea.

At that the pressure on North Korea continues. The

hackers’ attack against Sony Pictures is used for the

same purpose. The main goal is finding new pretexts

to introduce new sanctions against North Korea. If the

other countries don’t join in, the U.S. will do unilater-

ally.

Many experts believe that the goal of unfriendly

actions undertaken by Washington and its allies is to

provoke North Korea into renewal of nuclear tests. It

will make it easier for the West to introduce a new

package of anti-North Korean sanctions. It is worth to

note what North Korean experts say. They are sure that

since the autumn of 2014 the United States started

another offensive to impede the ongoing economic

progress in North Korea that has been lasting for a few

years now. Under the leadership of Kim Jong-un the

country has achieved economic growth. Many social

programs have been implemented, including high

quality housing for the researchers of the Academy of

Sciences, the professors of universities in Pyongyang,

a water park, modern skiing resort, an equestrian sports

complex, etc.

For North Korea 2014 was a year of growing

tensions, as well as the time of continuous economic

growth that the country reached even being under

international sanctions. It was also the year when

military and political leadership consolidated its ranks

thanks to the efforts of young Kim Jong-un. In 2014 a

three-year mourning period for the late leader Kim

Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong-un, ended. It was also

the time of increasing cooperation with friendly states,

first of all Russia and China. Perhaps all these things

will make the regime’s opponents realize that the

hopes for regime change in North Korea are ground-

less. Perhaps it will help to revive a substantive dia-

logue on the problems of the Korean Peninsula.

Notes:

Donnelly, Matt. “Sony Hackers Have Flashed A ‘Disturbing’

New Warning On Staff Computers,” Business Insider, December

11, 2014,

http://www.businessinsider.com/sony-hackers-new-warning-on-

computers-2014-12.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/rolling_news/2014/12/141208_r

n_hackers_sony_kim (in Russian)

“Sony hackers threaten theaters with 9/11-style attack,” USA

Today, December 16, 2014.

http://www.wcnc.com/story/news/2014/12/16/sony-hackers-thr

eaten-theaters-with-911-style-attack/20490371/ contains the

original article but now the original link goes to “New York

premiere of ‘The Interview’ canceled.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2014/12/16/sony-ha

ckers-threaten-movie-theaters/20485591/

“U.S. Said to Find North Korea Ordered Cyberattack on Sony,”

The New York Times, December 17, 2014,

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/world/asia/us-links-north-

korea-to-sony-hacking.html?_r=0

* This article appeared in the Strategic Culture Foundation on-line

journal, Feb 7, 2015,

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2015/01/07/usa-north-ko

rea-and-hollywood-ii.html.

Page 28

[Editor’s Note: The following Global Citizens’ Decla-

ration and Call were received while this issue of the

Amateur Computerist was being edited. The Declara-

tion and Call were being circulated by two South

Korean NGOs, People’s Solidarity for Participatory

Democracy (PSPD) and Solidarity for Peace and

Reconciliation of Korea (SPARK). Endorsements were

requested from individuals and organization.*]

Global Citizens’ Declaration:

A Call for an End to the

Korean War and the Elimina-

tion of Nuclear Threats on the

Korean Peninsula

Let’s Create a Nuclear-Free World

by Signing the Peace Treaty and

Declaring a Nuclear-Free Zone

This declaration proposes a fundamental and compre-

hensive resolution of military tensions and the nuclear

crisis around the Korean peninsula, which make it

difficult to achieve a region and a world without

nuclear weapons.

Our Proposals

!First: Immediately reconvene the lapsed Six-

Party Talks in order to find ways to establish a nu-

clear-free zone on the Korean peninsula to resolve the

nuclear crisis.

!Second: Parallel to, or preceding, the Six-Party

Talks, the countries involved – including South Korea,

North Korea, the U.S., and China – should conduct

negotiations that would lead to ending the armistice

system and replacing it with a permanent peace sys-

tem, based on the conclusion of a peace treaty.

!Third: Parallel to, or preceding, the Six-Party

Talks, North Korea-U.S., and North Korea-Japan

bilateral talks should be initiated in order to compre-

hensively improve relations between these states.

!Fourth: The two Koreas should expand their

dialogue and cooperation with each other, with the

active support and encouragement of neighboring

countries.

!Fifth: There must be an end to the U.S.-Japan-

ROK military cooperation, including the missile

defense system, which perpetuates the arms race on the

peninsula and in the wider East Asian region.

!Sixth: Japan must be prevented from exercising

the right of collective self-defense, as interpreted by

the Abe administration, because this would nullify the

Japanese peace constitution, particularly article 9,

which has served as an anchor of peace in East Asia.

!Seventh: Together with the conclusion of the

Korean peninsula peace treaty, hostile military alli-

ances must be phased out, stage by stage, and replaced

by peaceful reciprocal relations, in order to contribute

to the common security of the Korean peninsula and

all East Asian countries.

A Call for an End to the Ko-

rean War and the Elimination

of Nuclear Threats on the

Korean Peninsula

Seventy years ago, the atomic bombs dropped on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought catastrophic humani-

tarian consequences, not only to the Japanese people,

but also to around 70,000 Korean workers who had

been forcibly taken to Japan by the colonial-imperial

government. As a result of the Cold War, the Korean

peninsula was divided and finally torn apart by the

Korean War. Under the unstable armistice system, the

Korean peninsula has become the powder keg of East

Asia, with the world’s most concentrated accumulation

of weapons-including nuclear weapons. The fear of

nuclear war continues.

Conflicts and Mutual Distrust in the Last

20 years Regarding North Korea’s Nuclear

Program

21 years have passed since the Agreed Framework

between the United States of America and the Demo-

cratic People’s Republic of Korea was signed in 1994.

Since then there have been several additional agree-

ments to peacefully resolve the nuclear problems on

the Korean peninsula, but no agreement has been fully

implemented. As a result, North Korea has carried out

nuclear tests on three different occasions.

The U.S. and South Korean governments have

argued that it was North Korea that broke the agree-

ment and developed nuclear weapons while dialogues

Page 29

were proceeding. However, this argument is not

persuasive, because it is not based on observed facts.

The history of interaction between North Korea and

the U.S. shows numerous instances when the U.S., a

major nuclear power, broke agreements to give nega-

tive security assurance to North Korea, or provoked

the North by implementing rigid, hostile policies. The

nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula has been

aggravated because of accumulated distrust between

the U.S. and North Korea, North Korea and South

Korea, and neighboring countries and North Korea. It

is not the fault of only one country. All must accept

responsibility.

An Unrealistic Resolution Ended in Failure:

Hostility and Containment

In the last 20 years, unilateral hostile U.S. policies

against North Korea, such as pressure and contain-

ment, the reinforced nuclear umbrella for South Korea

and conventional weapons, have been put into effect in

concert with the U.S.’ partners and allies. These have

proved ineffective in the effort to resolve North

Korean nuclear issues. The history of conflicts that

have developed around North Korea's nuclear program

demonstrates that when dialogue and negotiations were

pursued, Pyeongyang slowed or suspended its nuclear

program. The reverse was the case when the North saw

itself as the target of pressure and isolation in the name

of “hostile neglect” or “strategic patience.” In those

conditions North Korea intensified its nuclear program

activities and developed long-range missile capabili-

ties. In particular, the situation has become worse

whenever the policy has been to halt dialogue, in the

vain hope that regime collapse or transition was

imminent.

The U.S. and South Korean governments insist

that they are “open to dialogue, but only when North

Korea shows that it is sincerely willing to give up its

nuclear weapons.” However, demanding that North

Korea must make the first move, by dismantling its

nuclear program as a prerequisite to any dialogue,

automatically perpetuates the long-standing deadlock.

This attitude does nothing to help solve problems

related to North Korea. The North has carried out three

series of nuclear tests in defiance of sanctions. In order

to elicit a positive response from North Korea, new

methods must be applied. We need to bring into a new

level of dialogue the kinds of bold, constructive

proposals that are acceptable to both sides.

A New, Comprehensive Solution: Signing

a Peace Treaty, Normalizing Relations,

Establishing a Nuclear-Free Zone

Above all, we must present comprehensive

solutions that will link the transition from the current

armistice system to a peace system on the Korean

peninsula, normalize relations between North Korea

and the U.S., and between North Korea and Japan, and

eliminate North Korea’s nuclear program. This is

because the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula is

ultimately due to the continuation of the armistice

system. Once that is understood, it can be seen that the

first step toward resolving the nuclear crisis on the

Korean peninsula is to resume talks among the states

concerned, which aim to bring about the conclusion of

a Korean peninsula peace treaty. The treaty would be

based on six-party agreement on a joint statement and

on bilateral talks that would lead to normalization of

relations between North Korea and the U.S., and

between North Korea and Japan.

Second: Following this, we should go beyond

Korean denuclearization and seek a more comprehen-

sive solution that would definitively eliminate all the

nuclear threats facing Northeast Asian countries.

Resolving the Korean peninsula nuclear crisis is not an

end in itself, but a necessary component of dealing

with the Northeast Asian and global nuclear crises.

The most effective way to eliminate nuclear threats on

the Korean peninsula and in the larger Northeast Asian

region is to establish a nuclear-free zone in Northeast

Asia, not only on the Korean peninsula.

Third: We should make an effort in order to

change the various disputes and military conflicts on

the Korean peninsula into reciprocal, cooperative

relationships. The unstable, fragile armistice system

resulted from historical conflicts created after World

War II. If this historical context is ignored, allowing

Japan to exercise its right to collective self-defense,

and reinforcing U.S.-Japan-ROK military cooperation

using the justification of nuclear and missile threats

from North Korea, it will intensify the already extreme

military tension and accelerate the vicious cycle of the

regional arms race. Key elements in creating an East

Asian peace and cooperation system are the preserva-

tion of Japan's peace constitution and the conclusion of

a Korean peninsula peace treaty.

For more information or media inquiry, please contact:

Page 30

People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), Ms.

Gayoon Baek, gay[email protected]rg, +82 (0)10 9436 0316

Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK), Ms.

Hyeran Oh, spark946@hanmail.net, +82 (0)2 711 7292

* Those wishing to endorse the declaration were asked to send

their name/organization and country to gay[email protected]

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

The Amateur Computerist invites submissions.

Articles can be submitted via e-mail:

mailto:[email protected]

Permission is given to reprint articles from this issue in

a non profit publication provided credit is given, with

name of author and source of article cited.

The opinions expressed in articles are those of their

authors and not necessarily the opinions of the Amateur

Computerist newsletter. We welcome submissions from

a spectrum of viewpoints.

ELECTRONIC EDITION

ACN Webpage:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

All issues from1988 to present of the Amateur Computerist

are on-line at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/NewIndex.pdf

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