Defector Offers Insights into North Korean Arms Buildup

North Korea began building centrifuges to enrich uranium in the late 1990s, a high-ranking North Korean defector said Tuesday. "There is a factory in Huichon, Jagang Province that builds centrifuges," the defector said.

There are fears that centrifuges manufactured in Huichon could have been moved to the nearby Yongbyon nuclear facility north of Pyongyang. Huichon is just 57 km from Yongbyon and the two cities are connected by road and railway.

In November North Korea took U.S. nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker to a facility in Yongbyon that contained around a thousand centrifuges. U.S. and South Korean intelligence officials believe that the centrifuges were made elsewhere.

A North Korean source said, "It takes a considerable amount of electricity to operate centrifuges. There are suspicions that North Korea wants to turn Huichon into a uranium enrichment center after completing the hydroelectric plant." The senior defector said North Korea is incapable of producing the engines that are a crucial component of centrifuges and had to import them from Japan, France and Russia.

Turning to the North's existing nuclear weapons, the defector said their efficiency still needs to be improved, so North Korea will try to boost its nuclear capability by conducting a third nuclear test. 

"There is almost no chance that North Korea will start a war at this point," he added. "High-ranking North Korean military commanders know their country is incapable of sustaining a war."

Chosun Ilbo

Former top US envoy to visit North Korea

A former top U.S. negotiator with North Korea will visit the communist nation this week, amid efforts to revitalize long-stalled nuclear disarmament talks on Pyongyang.

North Korea has invited Charles Pritchard, Washington's special envoy to the North under former President George W. Bush, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing a diplomatic source.

"We have learned that Pritchard will visit the country around November 2 or 3 at the North's invitation," Yonhap quoted the source as saying.

Pritchard, who also served as senior director for Asian affairs for former President Bill Clinton, now heads the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute.

Six-party talks aimed to curb the North's nuclear ambitions have been at standstill since the last meeting in December 2008.

The players on the Kim Jong-un regime team

North Korea has several people who are expected to assist heir Jong-un when he takes over the reins.

From left, Hong Sok-hyong, Kim Yang-gon, Kang Sok-ju, Kim Yong-chol and Jang Song-taek 

Presumed economic experts are Hong Sok-hyong (74), the director of the Planning and Finance Department, and Tae Jong-su (74), the director of the General Affairs Department.

Kim Yang-gon (68) was put in charge of dealing with South Korea and Kang Sok-ju (71) with the U.S. Lt. Gen. Kim Yong-chol, the director of the Reconnaissance Bureau, will likely continue to be in charge of military operations against the South.

U Dong-chuk (68), the first deputy director of the State Security Department, the North's intelligence agency, was appointed to the Central Military Commission and as an alternate member of the Politburo. Ju Sang-song (77), who heads the Ministry of Public Security, the North's police, was appointed as a full member of the Politburo.

They will come under the direct supervision of Jang Song-taek (64), the director of the Administration Department who is Kim Jong-un's uncle.  A North Korean source speculated, "Jang, U and Ju will serve as a troika of aides to guard Kim Jong-un's regime."

Kim Kyong-hui (64), Kim Jong-un's aunt, became a full member of the Politburo.

The most prominent military officer is vice marshal Ri Yong-ho (68). Many senior members of the Army general staff, including Choe Bu-il, its deputy chief, were promoted or appointed to major posts in the Central Military Commission.

Choe Ryong-hae (60) was appointed to three senior positions at the same time -- an alternate member of the Politburo, party secretary and member of the Central Military Commission. 

[Chosun Ilbo]

North Korea, the Kim Family Regime

The 28,000 American troops stationed near the 38th parallel use a simple acronym to refer to North Korea: KFR, the Kim Family Regime. The fact that the Kim Family Regime has lasted this long is a puzzle to many Western observers. While the leaders feast on imported lobster and drive luxury cars, there is not enough electricity to light the country at night.

 

Yet despite their poverty, North Koreans remain politically loyal to the Kims, with almost half the people who leave the bankrupt state returning voluntarily, according to Korea specialist B.R. Myers."Even today, with a rival state thriving next door, the regime is able to maintain public security without a ubiquitous police presence or a fortified northern border," he remarks.

The loyalty stems from a racial belief, instilled by propaganda, that Koreans are too pure to survive in the world without the protection of first the Great Leader and then his son. To the rest of the world, Kim Jong-il appears petulant and capricious but to North Koreans his vulnerability compared to his father and his steadfast fight against perceived American aggression make him a "dear" leader.
But the remarkable personality cult is waning as more and more information confronts the official line. Judging from the occasional leaked reports, the government is beginning to lose its iron grip. If the succession does not go according to plan, the world faces the prospect of a nuclear-armed state spiralling out of control and 22 million people needing emergency relief.

American soldiers are aware that they face the possibility of having simultaneously to conduct a relief operation and fight off the 100,000-strong North Korean special-operations forces lining the Demilitarised Zone. Then there is the question of whether or not the US Army has liaised with the People's Liberation Army about a contingency plan. What happens when Chinese and American soldiers find themselves face to face on North Korean soil?

To preserve its fragile stability, North Korea's only solution is to change rapidly. "If the regime does not open up economically, the country will barely progress. But even with a little more openness, North Korea can make enormous economic gains," says Ulrich Kelber, a German MP who recently visited Pyongyang.

[The Telegraph]

North Korea in peace talks

After a weeklong war of words, North Korea and the U.S. met at the U.N. Command  in Panmunjom, a hamlet on the frontier separating the two Koreas.

Colonels from both sides sat down to discuss how they could restart stalled negotiations to secure peace on the peninsular between the nations that are technically still at war since the 1953 cease-fire.

In condemning a four-day military exercise by South Korean and U.S. forces close to the demilitarized border, Pyongyang had threatened military action, a move that prompted its staunchest ally China to ask for calm by all sides.

BBC

Helping Hands Korea meeting with UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights

Helping Hands Korea, represented by founder Tim Peters, was one of several NGO’s invited to meet in Seoul with UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights, Dr. Vitit Muntarbhorn.

The Special Rapporteur is preparing an important annual report on the North Korean refugee situation and solicited data from NGO’s to help him to make the report as comprehensive as possible.

Fact Sheet on North Korean Refugees

Below are excerpts of a fact sheet submitted by Tim Peters of Helping Hands Korea, to UN Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights, Dr. Vitit Muntarbhorn. The following is based on Helping Hand Korea’s experience and assessment of the North Korean refugee situations in China and surrounding countries.

China

· Estimate of roughly 300,000 to 450,000 North Korean refugees living in fear and hiding throughout China.

· As the Beijing Olympics approach, there is stronger and stronger evidence of yet another crackdown by Chinese authorities, similar to the "Strike Hard" campaigns in earlier years of this decade.Proliferation of CN_NK border surveillance cameras, heat & motion sensors.

· The Chinese leadership continue to ignore their nation's obligations as a signatory to the 1951 Convention on the Protection of Refugees by its policy of forceful repatriation of North Korean refugees by the thousands every year.

· Courageous NGO activists have suffered long prison sentences in China for sacrificially assisting NK refugees.Sadly, all too often South Korean diplomats in China have done very little to come to the aid of their citizens in prison, choosing rather to echo the accusations of the Chinese government, scolding activists for their refugee assistance on Chinese soil.

Mongolia

· Although the Mongolian government has been relatively cooperative to NK refugees by not sending them back to China when they cross the Sino-Mongolian border, still the harsh geographic and climatic conditions of the Gobi Desert have resulted in the needless deaths of many scores of NK refugees who risked their lives to flee repatriation in China.

Thailand

· There are currently approximately 600 NK refugees in Thailand. At present, there are approximately 400 NK refugees in the International Detention Center (IDC) near Bangkok. 300 of the internees are women and 100 are men.

· Conditions within the IDC have been deteriorating for many months, especially since the coup in September of 2006. Overcrowding, the extreme shortage of toilets and showers have made conditions extremely difficult for the NK refugees, even prompting hunger strikes.

· Up until early 2007, the South Korean embassy was processing a mere trickle 10 NK refugees per month for resettlement and transporting them to Seoul. During 2007,the pace of resettlement processing by the embassy increased to 40/wk. just after the presidential elections on Dec. 19, 2007.

Laos

· NK refugees consider Laos to be marginally better than conditions in China, but not nearly as safe as Mongolia or Thailand due to its communist government.

Vietnam

· Following the wrong-footed massive airlift of 469 NK refugees from Vietnam by the South Korean embassy in Hanoi in 2004, the Vietnamese government gave the embassy an ultimatum to stop processing NK refugees there.

Russia

· The Russian border patrol has history of sending NK refugees back to China if they enter Russian soil from that country.