North Korean abductions

[sukumvit boy]

Anyone following this in the News?
North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not only Japanese ,but lots of South Koreans and others abducted since the 1970's .
Chilling accounts of an abductor in "The Orphan Master's Son"
The Orphan Master's Son: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction): Adam Johnson: 9780812982626: Amazon.com: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41hQ4tttA-L.@@AMEPARAM@@41hQ4tttA-L

[Stavros]

A story from a young Korean woman who escaped with her family (minus one sister) and probably sadly typical of many lives there (first link below).
There is currently a lot of speculation about the Dear Leader Kim Jong-un, who has not been seen in public for a month. One report states he has been having ankle surgery, brought on by the Dear Leader's increase in weight (Swiss cheese being the culprit) and the elevator shoes he wears which can't carry his weight; another that the military stopped taking orders from him last year and have, in effect, mounted a coup; and so on. I believe there is supposed to be a meeting next Thursday which the Dear Leader would not normally miss, so with the NK delegation arriving in South Korea, there is a lot of speculation floating around.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...m-Jong-il.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...internalSearch

[sukumvit boy]

Thanks Stavros , interesting articles. I wish it was true that Kim Jong-un has been ousted by a military coup , as I think that might turn the tide on the cult of Kim.
I have been wondering why the North Koreans would suddenly decide to even bother to have these meetings . Perhaps something is changing.
Look at what has happened in Myanmar since 2011 with that military government. One can only hope .
I plan to visit Myanmar in early December.

[Stavros]

I don't think that Myanmar and North Korea are entirely comparable. Unlike in North Korea, the military government in Myanmar has never had full control of the country, fighting a guerilla war with the Shan and the Karen for many years (a truce since 2012 has been shaky, see the link below), making the border with Thailand porous in a way that does not exist with either China or South Korea.
However, I think that in Myanmar's case, the opportunity to make money has been a major motivation for the change in governance, but I also think it is motivated by a belief that Myanmar can do what China has done, which is to modernise the economy without creating a new political system. The military have a vested interest in the economy, as is often the case in military dicatorships, and is not going to relinquish that. The question is, as it is also in China, how long can a political system that does not change survive the changes happening in society and the economy? Perhaps in North Korea they see this, and are also mindful of what happened in the USSR where the Party did lose control and where many of the appparatchiks lost their jobs.
Having said that, I think it is also the case that South Koreans are wary of instant change, even of collapse in the North, and believe if there was to be change, it would have to be gradual, as a re-union of North and South would pose more problems than, say, the re-unification of Germany.
A lot also depends on what China's input is into the current situation, if they are not willing to continue supporting the North,this might be part of an impetus for change, but I don't expect it to be swift.

Shan state troubles
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myan...014190333.html

And in the Karen
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/myan...014180208.html

[sukumvit boy]

Yes , comparing Burma to North Korea makes no real sense , just wishful thinking on my part. Didn't mean to hijack my own thread.
The thing that fascinates me about these abductions is just that it offers a tiny window into the enigma that became North Korea over the last 60 years.
I have South Korean colleagues who inform me that abductions by North Korea have been common knowledge for decades. Including abductions of opera and cinema stars.

[Stavros]

Yes , comparing Burma to North Korea makes no real sense , just wishful thinking on my part. Didn't mean to hijack my own thread.
The thing that fascinates me about these abductions is just that it offers a tiny window into the enigma that became North Korea over the last 60 years.
I have South Korean colleagues who inform me that abductions by North Korea have been common knowledge for decades. Including abductions of opera and cinema stars.

I wonder, is it possible that this is a kind of 'reverse abduction' to punish the Japanese for the 200,000 or so women, mostly Korean who were abducted or purchased as sexual slaves during the Imperial period for the military and others?
Two reports, one from the BBC the other from Amnesty International.
If ever two wrongs did not make a right, this is another one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22680705

http://www.amnesty.org.nz/files/Comf...-factsheet.pdf

[sukumvit boy]

Hey Stavros , good articles ,thanks.
No , of course two wrongs don't make it right ,although the "Comfort Women" where more like ' the spoils of war' used during wartime by the Japanese ,rather than the strange secret abductions done by the North Koreans.
Not to get too far afield , but the Amnesty International article brought to mind a fascinating fact that I recently discovered while reading the new book about the Kim Philby , Guy Burgess , Donald Maclean spy scandal of the 1950's and 1960's.
Amazon.com: A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (9780804136631): Ben Macintyre, John Le Carre: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517so4gUXHL.@@AMEPARAM@@517so4gUXHL
Peter Benenson , the founder of Amnesty International . was among that circle of friends ,( "friend" being spy speak for "spy") although duped , as many other good people were by the double agents among them. Very interesting stuff!
Eaton , Oxford , Cambridge , Balliol College and Trinity College the "old boys network" .
Peter Benenson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cheers!

[Stavros]

Eton , Oxford , Cambridge , Balliol College and Trinity College the "old boys network
-you left out Christ Church, the richest college in Oxford.

"Of the 54 UK Prime Ministers to date, 41 studied at Oxbridge, 10 did not attend a British university, and only 3, Earl Russell, Neville Chamberlain, and Gordon Brown, went to non-Oxbridge universities (Edinburgh, Birmingham and Edinburgh respectively)".

http://www.ox.ac.uk/about/oxford-peo...rime-ministers

[Ben]

The tyranny you haven’t heard of:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...d27_story.html

[JenniferParisHusband]

I wonder, is it possible that this is a kind of 'reverse abduction' to punish the Japanese for the 200,000 or so women, mostly Korean who were abducted or purchased as sexual slaves during the Imperial period for the military and others?
Two reports, one from the BBC the other from Amnesty International.
If ever two wrongs did not make a right, this is another one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22680705

http://www.amnesty.org.nz/files/Comf...-factsheet.pdf

Hey Stavros , good articles ,thanks.
No , of course two wrongs don't make it right ,although the "Comfort Women" where more like ' the spoils of war' used during wartime by the Japanese ,rather than the strange secret abductions done by the North Koreans.
Not to get too far afield , but the Amnesty International article brought to mind a fascinating fact that I recently discovered while reading the new book about the Kim Philby , Guy Burgess , Donald Maclean spy scandal of the 1950's and 1960's.
Amazon.com: A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (9780804136631): Ben Macintyre, John Le Carre: Books
Peter Benenson , the founder of Amnesty International . was among that circle of friends ,( "friend" being spy speak for "spy") although duped , as many other good people were by the double agents among them. Very interesting stuff!
Eaton , Oxford , Cambridge , Balliol College and Trinity College the "old boys network" .
Peter Benenson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cheers!

I've actually had the dubious honor of visiting both Myanmar, and North Korea, both during some of the harsher periods. There is no comparison at all. North Korea is absolutely terrifying.

The North does strange things. Some of the stars that were mentioned in the thread above, they were kidnapped to start a movie industry, and made some really horrible Godzilla rip offs, among other movies. Not for an industry in the DPRK, but to make propaganda for the rest of the world, and to try to convince them that these stars came willingly to their "workers Paradise." When you go to North Korea, everything they do is for a reason. It's strange to say this, but they don't have time to waste on revenge, the kidnappings are more "practical." They want to have DPRK agents who are bred with Japanese to look Japanese, who can speak like native Japanese, and know the culture, and can pass it on to people who will infiltrate Japan. The same is true of South Korea. When you listen to South Korean television, the language has evolved in a way that is different in many respects from that in the north. If you listen to a soccer game, unless you know the words in both languages, you won't have a clue what they are talking about in the North. And since the south has passed them by, they kidnap people to help keep them up to date on culture, trends, technology, etc. It sounds like the plot to that show "The Americans" but they have had some credible spies in the past, using their schools.

They don't really care about revenge, they don't even care about conquest of the south. They care about preserving their regime, and to do that, they have to keep others from challenging them, like South Korea. But they have to be credible when they make threats, if you can have someone from your backwards, behind the times country infiltrate theirs, perfectly, it makes for a credible threat.

When you visit the north, it's like being stuck in the 1950's. Change is incredibly slow there. I liken it to the Amish trying to infiltrate Las Vegas. Sure they can do it, but if they don't want to get caught in 5 seconds, they really need to learn how to operate in that environment. Everything about the DPRK is for a purpose, usually to serve some high political or military officer's pockets or bellies, but mostly to keep power, and they know that they best way to do that is to constantly threaten, agitate, and probe these other countries, but they also have to be legitimate when they threaten, agitate, and probe. So they won't spend money on providing electricity or helping people grow food, but the war college has specialized schools for Japanese, South Korean, and even English. It's no secret, the guys who are paid to shadow you around Pyongyang will boast about it. And in the past, N. Korea has had people perfectly infiltrate the south and assassinate people, and in Japan, they've even been found in high level positions in their companies. So, it's kind of worked already.

I mean, to an extent, the revenge issue is always going to be a factor. The Comfort Women is an Asia-wide thing that pisses everyone else off at Japan, and people in China and South Korea still think of Japan as the enemy at times, at lot of which goes back to WWII. With the North, they've never let go of the old division lines from the Korean war, which are part of WWII, Japanese colonization, and countless other things. So yeah, it's a small part, but they're really just fighting their grandfather's enemies in words only. I don't think the DPRK regime truly cares about Japan, the USA, or South Korea, they're mostly concerned with staying in power, and to do that, they need to keep the old enemies away, which helps keep the people in check. But it costs a lot of Won to kidnap, feed, and maintain those people, they wouldn't do it without a strategic reason.