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Stalin and Korean War

Sunday, July 29th, 2007

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
7/29/2007

On September 30, 1950, at 11:30 p.m., the Eighth Department of the Soviet General Staff received a coded message from Pyongyang. It took about an hour to decipher it, and then a courier was dispatched to deliver it to Stalin’s residence on the outskirts of Moscow. It was 2:30 a.m., but the Soviet dictator liked to work at night. At any rate, the message was so important that perhaps they would wake him anyway. Kim Il-sung had reported that the North Korean army had ceased to exist, and that the only way to save the North Korean state would be through an urgent dispatch of troops from the USSR.

Stalin was hardly surprised. He was never an enthusiast for Kim Il-sung’s invasion plans, and when in January 1950 he finally granted permission to invade the South, he did so on the assumption that the U.S. would have no time, and perhaps, no will, to interfere. Hence, when Stalin learned of the Incheon landing, he was quick to appreciate what had happened.

Thanks to the recent efforts of historians, especially Alexander Mansourov and Pak Myong-rim whose research I use for this article, we know what was happening in Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang during the fateful two weeks which followed MacArthur’s amphibious operation in Incheon.

The landing did not come as a complete surprise: the Soviet _ and, obviously, Chinese _ intelligence expected something like it, and the Chinese even warned the North Koreans about the danger.

When Stalin learned about the large-scale landing, he realized that a disaster was looming. As early as Sept. 18, he cabled his instructions to Pyongyang. He requested a stop of the push toward Busan, and demanded the withdrawal of troops from the South to reinforce Seoul’s defenses. This was a reasonable suggestion, but Stalin did not appreciate the degree of U.S. military superiority. It is doubtful whether such a withdrawal would have accomplished much.

But Stalin’s representatives in Korea, including Gen. Shtykov, the first Soviet ambassador to Pyongyang, were even less appreciative of the new dangers. While the U.S. and South Korean forces were fighting their way to Seoul, soon to cut the North Korean troops off from their supply bases, both Shtykov and Kim Il-sung still hoped that the landing force could be contained. The documents confirm that even when the U.N. forces took over the Gimpo airfield and entered the outskirts of Seoul, the North Korean command still hoped to take Busan in the following few days.

The North Korean press remained silent about the landing. By Sept. 18, the sounds of battle were well heard in Seoul, but the official propaganda and communist activists assured everybody that nothing special was taking place. Kim Song-chil, a historian and author of a famous diary, described how his Communist interlocutors insisted that the sounds of distant artillery were merely produced by the field exercises of the North Korean troops.

On Sept. 20, Stalin repeated his demand, and required the withdrawal of forces from the southern part of the country to Seoul, in order to “establish strong frontline positions to the north and east of Seoul.” It indicated that Seoul should be surrendered to the U.N. forces. But Kim Il-sung, with his trademark stubbornness, kept pressing on toward Busan.

Only on the evening of Sept. 25, did Kim Il-sung admit that there was no chance of pushing the South Korean forces into the sea near Busan. He ordered a withdrawal, but it was too late. The next day, heavy battles unrolled into the streets in downtown Seoul where the North Korean forces tried to resist. They did what they could. Kim Song-chil wrote about their bravery with great admiration, and the historian was no fan of the communists.

Over the two days of Sept. 27-28, the North Korean command system disintegrated. Kim Il-sung could not even contact his own Defense Minister Choe Yong-gon, who was in Seoul doing his best to keep the city. An emergency meeting in Pyongyang created a new command structure, presided over by Kim Il-sung, himself. But he was a general without an army; after the battle of Seoul, the North Korean forces ceased to exist.

For a while, there was some hope that the U.N. troops would not cross the 38th parallel. But by Oct. 1, it became clear that such a turn of events was very unlikely. Thus, Kim Il-sung and Pak Hon-yong, his foreign minister and future victim of the purges, wrote a cable in which they desperately asked for help. They admitted “if the enemy were to take advantage of the situation and step up its offensive in North Korea, then we would be unable to stop the enemy by our own forces.” Accordingly they asked for Soviet troops.

But Stalin did not want to launch a third World War. He hoped that the Chinese would take the military responsibilities on. After all, their stake in the situation was greater than his. He eventually succeeded, but it took much effort on his part.

Posted in Political economy, Russia | Comments Closed

S. Korea completes oil aid shipment to N. Korea under six-nation nuclear accord

Sunday, July 29th, 2007

Yonhap
7/29/2007

South Korea on Sunday sent 22,590 tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea, its last oil shipment to the communist neighbor under the first stage of a landmark nuclear disarmament deal.

Under a Feb. 13 deal signed with five other regional powers, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon in return for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil aid from South Korea.

The oil shipment, the fifth of its kind, left this southeast port at 1 a.m. and is to arrive at Sonbong Port in northeastern North Korea at 7 a.m. on Monday, South Korean officials said.

North Korea shut down the Yongbyon reactor after South Korea sent the first shipment on July 12. The February deal also calls for North Korea to disclose and disable all its nuclear programs in return for an additional 950,000 tons of oil or equivalent aid.

The six nations — the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan — met in Beijing earlier this month but the talks ended without setting a date to meet again.

Posted in Foreign aid statistics, International Aid, Oil, South Korea | Comments Closed

Two Koreas to conduct on-site survey of three mines in the North

Friday, July 27th, 2007

Yonhap
7/27/2007

South and North Korea will start a joint on-site survey this week of three zinc and magnesite mines in the North’s mountainous northeastern region, the Unification Ministry said Friday.

“The zinc deposit in Komdok mine is about 200-300 million tons, the largest in East Asia, and magnesite deposits in Ryongyang and Taehung are about 4 billion tons, the world’s third largest,” a ministry official said.

Ahead of the 15-day joint survey of the mines starting from Saturday, the South started shipment of light industry materials worth US$80 million to the North on Wednesday. The first shipment was 5 million tons of polyester fabric worth $800,000.

Earlier this month, the two Koreas agreed on how to cooperate in natural resource exploration in the North in return for the South’s provision of light industry materials.

In 2005, South Korea agreed to offer industrial raw materials to the North to help it produce clothing, footwear and soap starting in 2006. In return, the North was to provide the South with minerals after mines were developed with South Korean investments guaranteed by Pyongyang.

But the accord was not implemented, as North Korea abruptly cancelled the scheduled test runs of inter-Korean cross-border trains in May last year, apparently under pressure from its powerful military. The two Koreas carried out the historic test run of trains across their heavily armed border in mid-May.

Posted in Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, International trade, Light Industry, Manufacturing, Mining/Minerals, South Korea | Comments Closed

Ban on Japanese Cars Stronger Than Expected

Friday, July 27th, 2007

Daily NK
Kwon Jeong Hyun
7/27/2007

An order was made by North Korean authorities prohibiting the use of all Japanese cars until the year 2009. Though this only applies to old cars manufactured before 2003, it seems that the orders are being enforced stronger than expected.

The drivers seat of cars manufactured after 2004 are being changed to the right hand side by the Japanese Chongryon (General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan), informed a source on the 25th.

In addition, all Japanese cars have been banned from entering Pyongyang excluding cars with permits (such as governmental or company cars). As a result, many Japanese delivery services are experiencing hardship.

This kind of order was made around Kim Jong Il’s birthday on February 16th by central authorities with inspection conducted by the transportation department of the Social Safety Agency in both the rural districts and Pyongyang.

These orders were made amidst a time when relations between North and South Korea had worsened and when a broken down Japanese car blocked the road while Kim Jong Il was on his way to worship at his the Kim Il Song Memorial.

Regarding this, one safety traffic official of Pyongyang city informed, “Cars which have been produced with the South such as the “Hweparam (whistle)” and “Arirang” are being regulated by the nation. National income is being increased by selling these. Further, the regulations were enforced to control the people who were making lots of money by trading cars illegally.”

The Pyeonghwa Motors which operates under the control of the Unification Church has been working in collaboration with North Korea. Since 2002, cars and mini buses have been supplied after parts had been put together at the factory.

This order by North Korean authorities has been enforced strongly and has lasted much longer than expected. Hence many traders and individuals are expressing discontent.

Japanese cars are being sold at ridiculously low prices with yet another year and 2 months remaining until the ban is lifted. People who took out loans in order to purchase the cars are being pressured by their debtors, a source informed.

Posted in Automobiles, Chongryun, International trade, Japan, Pyonghwa Motors, Transportation | 1 Comment »

Inter-Korean Trade Jumps 28.6%

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Korea Times
Jane Han
7/26/2007

Inter-Korean trade rose 28.6 percent in the first half of 2007 from a year earlier, the country’s leading trade agency said Thursday, attributing the boost to the Gaeseong joint industrial complex and the eased tension between Seoul and Pyongyang.

Trade amounted to $720 million during the January-June period, the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) said.

While South’s exports to the North dropped 9.4 percent to $330 million, imports from the North jumped an impressive 63.3 percent to $390 million.

The trade group credited the big import leap to the expanded number of items produced in the industrial complex located at North Korea’s western border city.

But unlike the positive performance of the two-way trade, the Mt. Geumgang tour business has dropped 7.2 percent.

South Korean companies are currently employing about 15,000 North Korean workers in the Gaeseong complex and the number is expected to rise as the facility undergoes expansion.

Symbolic of the cooperation between the Cold War rivals, the industrial park began construction in June 2003 and its operation started the following year.

Posted in Foreign aid statistics, International trade, Korea International Trade Association (KITA), Mt. Kumgang Tourist Special Zone, South Korea, Tourism, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

North Korea’s living exports

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

Asia Times
Bertil Lintner
7/25/2007

It has been known since the early 1990s that North Korea exports manpower to eastern Russian logging sites. But two remarkable incidents over the past years reveal that the foreign-currency-strapped nation also sends laborers to other, somewhat less expected places in the world.

When North Korea won a soccer game over Japan at the Asian Games in the Qatari capital Doha last December, its cheerleaders became so excited that they rushed on to the field and carried the players on their shoulders around the grounds. They could do that, because the North Korean cheerleaders were not, as cheerleaders usually are, young, petite women. They were all male – sturdy, middle-aged construction workers who belonged to the contingents of laborers that the North Korean government is sending to work in the Middle East.

Then, in January, the managing director of an unnamed construction firm was found slashed to death, and one of his workers hanged, in a building in the East Malaysian riverside town of Sibu, on the fringes of the jungles of Sarawak. The businessman was identified as Ri Won-gil, 52, and the worker as Kim Kwong-ryun, 47 – both North Koreans. Their company had “been doing contract work here for years”, the Malaysian Star newspaper reported, although it was not clear what kind of work that was.

As many as 70,000 North Koreans are currently working in various countries, Kim Tae-san, a defector who testified last year on North Korean migrant labor to the European Parliament, told US-financed Radio Free Asia (RFA) this year. Other estimates are considerably lower, but it is evident that labor export is becoming an important source of income for the government in Pyongyang.

Today, North Korean workers are found not only in Russia, Malaysia and Qatar but in Dubai, Mongolia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and possibly also some African countries. Many are dispatched through labor agencies based in China, and most of their salaries end up in the coffers in Pyongyang. As North Korea does not publish any economic statistics, it is not known exactly how much it earns from exporting labor to other countries, but is it believed by North Korea-watchers to be bringing in millions of US dollars annually.

In addition, tens of thousands of North Koreans are working illegally in China, and sending money home to their relatives. This may not directly benefit the Pyongyang regime, but it helps alleviate poverty in the country, and therefore stifle possible social unrest on the level that actually hit the North Korea during the great famine in the early and mid-1990s. On a more organized level, trusted citizens are sent by Pyongyang to work in North Korean-run restaurants not only in China – Beijing and Shanghai – but also in Russia, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. Profits from those enterprises are, naturally, sent to Pyongyang, or to support the activities of North Korean diplomatic missions in those respective countries.

Russia, or the erstwhile Soviet Union, is the oldest destination for North Korean labor, and it probably began when in 1967 Soviet secretary general Leonid Brezhnev and North Korea’s Kim Il-sung reached an agreement to bring manpower to sparsely populated eastern Russia. In September 1996, Amnesty International stated in its “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea/Russian Federation: Pursuit, Intimidation and Abuse of North Korean Refugees and Workers”, one of the earliest reports on the subject: “North Korea brought in the manpower and ran the logging sites, while the Soviet Union provided the natural resources. The profit, reportedly many million dollars over the years, was split between the two countries.” Some of the income was also reportedly used to pay off North Korea’s debt to Russia.

Today, according to Moscow’s Ministry of Economics, 90% of North Korea’s “exports” to Russia consist of workers. An estimated 2,500 North Koreans are to be found in Primorye, or the maritime region adjacent to the Sea of Japan, and almost all of them work at construction sites in Vladivostok and Nakhodka. According to local sources, they sleep in dormitories and eat together under portraits of the late Kim Il-sung and his son, current ruler Kim Jong-il.

Political classes are held every week under strict supervision of members of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party. The supervisors, who belong to North Korea’s security police, also collect their salaries from the Russian construction companies that have hired them, and give the workers only food and some pocket money. The bulk of their incomes are sent back to Pyongyang, or used to buy computers and other electronic equipment for North Korea’s small but burgeoning information-technology industry.

Many more North Koreans – the exact figure is not known but is believed to be at least 10,000 – work under similar conditions in logging camps in Khabarovsky krai (region) and Amursky oblast (province). The main camps in Khabarovsky krai are around Chegmodyn and Alonka in the Verkhnebureinsky region, in the wilderness some 680 kilometers north of Khabarovsk. In Amursky oblast, logging camps with North Korean workers are found in the north along the Yuktali, Yukcha and Gilyui rivers, and along the Arkhara River in the southeast. Fenced off with barbed wire, these camps are in extremely remote areas from which it is almost impossible to escape.

Some Russian logging firms – now all privately owned since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its communist system in 1991 – pay in cash, while others reportedly let the North Koreans keep 40% of the timber they fell as payment. Those logs are sent to North Korea by train, and resold to China, or used in North Korea itself, which has almost no forests left and therefore no timber.

According to Lyudmila Erokhina of the Vladivostok State University of Economics and Services, North Korean workers are preferred in the Russian Far East because they work hard and never complain: “They were brought up as law-abiding citizens in a strictly controlled society.” On the other hand, Chinese and Vietnamese guest workers in the Russian Far East are known to have raised demands for better working conditions, and are alleged by many Russians to be engaged in sometimes dubious local businesses, often in black or gray areas.

The good behavior of North Korean workers and their willingness to put up with harsh conditions may have been selling points when in more recent years Pyongyang began sending laborers to the Middle East, where they, according to RFA, mostly perform “low-skilled labor, such as plastering and bricklaying. The North Korean workers receive meager wages, even lower than the Nepalese workers, who have been known to receive the lowest pay of all foreign laborers” in, for instance, Qatar.

“The entire wage received by North Korean workers goes to the North Korean authorities. In order to make some money they can keep, they have to moonlight,” RFA quoted a South Korean resident in Qatar as saying. Thousands of North Korean construction workers are reported to be living under similar conditions in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

In the Czech Republic, hundreds of North Koreans, mostly women, work in factories producing auto parts, or as seamstresses in the garment industry. According to the US State Department’s 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report, the North Korean regime “provides contract labor for private industry in the Czech Republic. There are allegations that this labor is exploitative, specifically that the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] government keeps most of the wages paid to the North Korean workers and that workers’ movement is controlled by DPRK government ‘minders’.”

Since the formerly communist Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004, it has been compelled to investigate the conditions of North Korean workers in country. But according to the US report, the Czech government “to date … has not confirmed that they enjoy freedom of movement away from DPRK government ‘minders’ and are not subject to other coercive practices, such as the collection of a majority of the workers’ salaries by DPRK officials”.

Soon, however, the North Koreans in the Czech Republic may be going home because of international pressure. No new work permits will be issued to them, and those who have permits will not have them renewed, which means that by the end of this year there will be no more North Korean workers in that country. The main problem from the Czech government’s point of view is that, since it joined the EU, tens of thousands of its own workers have left to seek higher wages in western Europe, so foreign labor is badly needed. And who could be better than hard-working, compliant North Koreans?

But if they are no longer wanted in the Czech Republic, there are many other countries willing to hire North Koreans – and, as long as Pyongyang needs foreign currency, the export of labor is also likely to continue.

Posted in Banking, Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, Forestry, International trade, Labor conditions/wages, Russia | 3 Comments »

Lease of North Korean Embassy in Germany

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
7/24/2007

The North Korean Embassy in Berlin has leased its premises of the building in order to pay for its expenses, the Sankei Shimbun reported on the 24th.

According to the newspaper, an 5 stories building, 8160㎡ in area was leased out by the North Korean Embassy to a total of 15 companies including a design company and psychology association.

The North Korean Embassy did not publicize any external advertisements. However, a Germany affiliate is apparently conducting all the paperwork at an office located at the entrance of the building, the newspaper informed.

During the Cold War, North Korea constructed a large scale embassy in Berlin for propaganda and ostentation like other socialist blocs at the time.

However, with the fall of East Germany and the amalgamation with West Germany, the majority of socialist forces receded including the North Korean embassy. Now there are only a dozen or so employees working at the embassy and 70% of the building vacant.

The area is on lease for 8 Euros per ㎡ which is considerably cheaper than other locations in the busy area of Brandenburg Gate which costs at least $10~15 Euros.

Posted in Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, Germany | Comments Closed

U.N. relief agency considers stepping up food aid to N. Korea: report

Saturday, July 21st, 2007

Yonhap
7/21/2007

A U.N. relief official said North Korea currently receives only a small portion of the food aid it needs and his agency is considering stepping up aid to feed almost 2 million more people, a U.S. government-funded radio station reported Saturday.

In an interview reaching here Saturday through the Korean version of the VOA’s Web site, Robin Lodge, a spokesperson for the World Food Program (WFP), said international relief agencies, including the Office of Food for Peace, recently gathered in Rome, Italy and discussed the possibility of sending the communist state additional food that could feed 1.9 million people there.

Lodge was also quoted by the U.S.-funded broadcaster as saying North Korea currently receives from his agency only about 10 percent of what it needs to feed the 7 million believed to be suffering from starvation.

North Korea does not release any official data on its food situation but many outsiders believe that more than 2 million people died when famine swept through the country in the late 1990s.

Good Friends, a Seoul-based relief group dedicated to North Korea, said in its latest weekly newsletter on Wednesday that a growing number of North Koreans died of starvation or hunger-caused diseases recently, especially in remote areas.

“Famine-driven deaths began to occur across North Korea in late June,” the report said. “In some cities and counties in the provinces of North Pyongan, Ryanggang, Jagang and South and North Hamkyong, the number of deaths is on the increase daily.”

The reports contradict widespread reports that the North’s food situation has improved significantly in recent years.

On Friday, Seoul started sending 50,000 tons of rice aid to North Korea overland as part of its promised loan of 400,000 tons of rice aid.

Over the next five weeks, the South is to deliver 30,000 tons of rice to the North via a road passing through the border town of Kaesong, while another 20,000 tons will be transported across a paved road on the east coast. South Korea is delivering 350,000 tons of rice to the communist country by sea.

South Korea resumed shipping rice aid to North Korea in late June after more than a one-year hiatus, as the North shut down its nuclear facilities in the first step toward eventual nuclear dismantlement.

Posted in Foreign aid statistics, Good Friends, International Aid, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

FBI Holds Korean American for Spying on N.Korea

Friday, July 20th, 2007

Choson Ilbo (hat tip One Free Korea)
7/20/2007

A Korean American businessman has been arrested by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation on charges of hiding his activities as a spy for the South Korean government, AP reported Thursday. According to court documents obtained by the wire agency, Park Il-woo, also known as Steve Park, was a legal resident in the U.S. for the past 20 years and conducted business with North Korea. Park provided information he obtained from his frequent trips to North Korea to the South Korean government in return for payments.

U.S. law requires anyone acting as an agent of a foreign government to register with the U.S. government and disclose the nature of the activity. The FBI met with Park three times to ask about his activities between 2005 and 2007. But each time, Park denied his contacts with or knowledge of certain South Korean officials. Park was expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon.

PR Newswire
7/19/2007

To: NATIONAL EDITORS

Contact: Yusill Scribner of the Office of United States Attorney Michael J. Garcia, Southern District of New York, +1-212-637-2600

NEW YORK, July 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Park Il Woo, a/k/a “Steve Park,” was arrested today on charges that he repeatedly lied to FBI agents about his activities in the United States on behalf of the Republic of Korea (commonly known as South Korea), from 2005 to the present, announced Michael J. Garcia, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Mark J. Mershon, Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Agents also executed a search warrant at Park’s Manhattan residence simultaneous to the arrest. According to the complaint and search warrant affidavit, incorporated by reference in the complaint:

Park, 58, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, engaged in conduct in the United States on behalf of the South Korea by, among other things, obtaining information from officials of another foreign government and providing that information to South Korean officials in exchange for payment.

For example, during a recorded telephone call, Park relayed to a South Korean official working in Manhattan that officials of the other foreign government had asked Park to help them obtain certain items, including insecticides and anesthetics. However, the complaint alleges, on three occasions in 2005 and 2007, Park gave false information to FBI agents regarding his contacts with or knowledge of certain South Korean officials.

For example, on March 20, 2007, FBI agents showed Park photographs of certain South Korean officials working in Manhattan, and Park stated that he did not know two of the officials. Park then drove directly from that FBI interview to a restaurant in New Jersey, where he met with one of the South Korean officials he claimed not to know.

Park is scheduled to appear this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald L. Ellis in Manhattan federal court. Mr. Garcia praised the efforts of the FBI for their efforts in this continuing investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jennifer G. Rodgers and Stephen A. Miller are handling the prosecution.

The charges and allegations contained in the complaint and documents incorporated by reference are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

Posted in Alcohol, International trade, USA | 1 Comment »

North Korea Tech Transfer

Friday, July 20th, 2007

Wall Street Journal
Melanie Kirkpatrick
7/20/2007

Of all the evidence turned up by the U.S. concerning irregularities in the United Nations Development Program’s operations in North Korea, some of the most disturbing concerns the transfer of dual-use technology.

As reported last month, the U.S. has uncovered documents showing the UNDP procured and delivered to North Korea in May 2006 technology that could be used for military purposes: global positioning system (GPS) equipment, a portable high-end spectrometer and a large quantity of high-specification computer hardware. According to packing lists and confirmation receipts, the items were intended for a “GIS” — geographic information system — project.

The equipment “is the type of technology subject to (U.S.) export controls,” says a spokesman for the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which is responsible for issuing export licenses. So how did it end up in Pyongyang? It would seem more than passing strange that Commerce would have issued the requisite export licenses. The answer is: It didn’t.

U.S. officials, led by Ambassador Mark Wallace at the U.S. mission to the U.N., have spent a year looking into the UNDP’s operations in North Korea. Now, at the request of the State Department, Commerce searched its archives and found no record of any application for export licenses for the GPS, spectrometer or other equipment for the GIS project in North Korea.

Over the past 10 years, Commerce has received more than 200 license applications to export U.S. technology for U.N. projects in North Korea. Of those applications, the UNDP was named in a grand total of two, including one for software for the same GIS project that was equipped last year. That application was rejected.

Previously undisclosed documents show that the UNDP had been trying to equip the GIS project since at least 1999, when the application for an export license for mapping software was denied. Commerce cited concerns over the lack of safeguards in the project that could result in the software being diverted to the North Korean government and used for military purposes.

Yet seven years later, the UNDP procured and transferred sensitive technology to the same, unsafeguarded project — this time without bothering to apply for a license. And while there’s no evidence the UNDP went ahead and purchased the software for which it had been denied a license, that possibility must be considered, since GPS equipment is useless in such a project without mapping software.

The denial notice for “Case Number: Z177037” is dated Sept. 18, 1999. The “consignee in country of ultimate destination” is listed as the UNDP in Pyongyang. The one-page notice is written in prose that is clear and unambiguous: “The Department of Commerce has concluded that this export would be detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests.”

The 14 items on the UNDP’s wish list were all classified “EAR99,” which means they are subject to Commerce jurisdiction but didn’t specifically appear on the Commerce Control List of items restricted for export. In discussions over the past several weeks with State Department officials, Commerce officials who examined the archives explained their agency’s decision to deny the export license. During the interagency review of the UNDP request, they say, questions were raised about whether the software would stay in North Korea after the UNDP international staff left and whether North Koreans would have access to the software.

Supporting documents show that the answer to both questions was yes. A letter dated April 5, 1999, from the software manufacturer that was seeking the export license on behalf of the UNDP, explains: “The project is supposed to be completed in three (3) years and the software will be left with the state agencies.”

Emails from the UNDP to Commerce offer further information about the UNDP’s security controls — or lack thereof. An Aug. 3, 1999 email from the UNDP’s Shankar Manandhar, in response to a Commerce query, says, “We would like to inform you that the North Korean nationals will have access to the computer in the project office in [the] presence of UNDP staff.” In another email, Mr. Manandhar notes that the software will be “utilized in the project office.”

The Defense Department recommended to Commerce that the application be denied. In a memo dated July 20, 1999, Defense explains that “These items could pose both national security and proliferation issues for the US and allies if diverted to the North Korean military.” Among the list of potential military applications cited are “planning a nuclear weapons infrastructure or missile launch sites.” And, “it could also be used for targeting.” In the end, as one Commerce official explained, since this type of mapping software can be used for military purposes, it was deemed to be “too great a risk of diversion.”

The Commerce official also says the case notes for the denial specify that several earlier licenses granted to the UNDP in North Korea had been conditioned in such a way that no North Korean nationals were to have access to the licensed items. Oh, really? Based on the UNDP’s replies to Commerce’s questions regarding the 1999 application, the official says that the licensing officer at the time believed it was “highly likely” that the UNDP was violating the terms of its previous licenses by allowing North Koreans access to licensed items. We now know — as confirmed by the U.N.’s preliminary audit of the UNDP’s North Korea operations — that the agency’s local staff were Ministry of Foreign Affairs employees assigned to the UNDP by the government.

It’s also worth noting the year these events took place: 1999. That is, the denial notice originated in Bill Clinton’s Commerce Department, part of an administration that was “conducting a one-sided love affair with North Korea,” in the felicitous phrase of Christopher Cox, then a Republican congressman closely monitoring Asian issues. On Sept. 17, 1999, the day before the issuance of the denial notice, the administration announced it would ease economic sanctions on North Korea. But approving the sale of sophisticated mapping software was a bridge too far even for the Clinton administration.

Since the U.S. went public in January with evidence of the UNDP’s lack of oversight of its programs in North Korea, the agency hasn’t exactly been forthcoming. At first, the UNDP denied that it had purchased dual-use equipment for North Korea, referring instead to “rice husk removers” and “plotters to help the [Korean] authorities more accurately produce maps for environmental monitoring.”

Next it look the line that the GPS equipment, portable spectrometer and computers delivered in May 2006 “do not represent state-of-the-art technology,” as Ad Melkert, the No. 2 UNDP official, put it in a June 28 letter to Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. An annex to Mr. Melkert’s letter describes the technology as “not high-end or sophisticated” — an assessment at odds with the representations of the manufacturers. Trimble, for example, maker of the GPS GeoXT Handheld sent to North Korea, describes its product as having “a powerful 416 MHz processor running the most-advanced operating system available.” Mr. Melkert says in the annex that the UNDP is investigating “whether the vendors [in the Netherlands and Singapore] were required to obtain export permits for these items” — which sure sounds like an effort to shift responsibility.

Since January, when the U.S. concerns were made public, the UNDP has pulled out of North Korea and the U.N. audit has confirmed extensive violations of U.N. rules regarding hiring practices, the use of foreign currency and site inspections. The latest U.S. revelations raise far more serious questions about the UNDP’s oversight. Under the most generous interpretation, the agency was negligent of its legal responsibilities to keep dual-use technology out of a country that is on the U.S. list of terror-sponsoring states. At worst, it deliberately transferred the technology, knowing it was breaking U.S. law and helping to strengthen Kim Jong Il’s military dictatorship.

These questions — and many more concerning the UNDP’s record in North Korea — highlight the need for an independent, external inquiry of the UNDP’s programs world-wide. The U.S. first went public with its concerns in January, after months of pressing the UNDP for more transparency. If anything, as the latest U.S. evidence shows, things are worse than anyone thought.

Ms. Kirkpatrick is a deputy editor of the Journal’s editorial page.

Posted in Communications, Computing/IT, International Aid, Singapore, UN, UNDP, USA | Comments Closed

North Korean Economy Watch