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Myanmar military delegation’s visit to DPRK in 2008

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

I stumbled on a set of photos taken by a Myanmar military delegation which visited the DPRK to shop for military accessories. The visit was from Nov 21-28, 2008, but there are no KCNA stories which report on the visit. I am not sure how the pictures made it out of Myanmar, but I am sure somebody got into trouble (UPDATE: See Tad in the comments). They have been in the public domain for some time I gather, but I had never seen them until recently.

I received the photo set in PDF format with Burmese captions. The image resolution was not great. You can see the original PDF here. I had the photo captions translated and matched up with a publication of the group’s membership and itinerary and I even took the time to locate some (though not all) of the group’s destinations on Google Earth. You can see the photos and translated captions here (PDF). It is a large file, so give it a minute to download. Apologies for any grammatical mistakes in this document. There are some small typos which I could not be bothered to fix. I relied on friends (and friends of friends) for all the translation work, but I believe it is all reasonably accurate.

Surprisingly, many of the stops on the delegation’s visit were typical tourist locations: Myohyangsan, West Sea Barrage, Tower of the Juche Idea, Arch of Triumph, Puhung and Yangwang Metro Stops. But below I identify some of the more unique shopping destinations.

1. The Myanmar military delegation stayed in a “special hotel” for dignitaries behind Kamsusan Palace. Previous guests have included the former King of Cambodia. Below are frontal and satellite images:

2. The delegation visited a facility called the “Model of Command Post” (Command Control System and National Air Defense Command System – PLUTO – 4S). Judging by the satellite imagery, this is a new facility.

3. Judging from the pictures, the delegation seems to have visited the Pipagot Naval Base near Nampo. The South Koreans allege this base was involved in the sinking of the Cheonan. We are not given this location in the pictures but we do know that the group was near Nampo at the time and that the pictures and satellite imagery of Pipagot are consistent.

4. I believe that the pictures also confirm the Myanmar delegation visited the Onchon Air Force Base. Again this is because we know the group was near Nampo, the photos and the satellite imagery of the area are consistent, and in the fourth photo below, the Burmese language caption acknowledges the existence of Onchon’s underground aircraft hangar.

5. And finally, the photos claim that the delegation visited a number of facilities in a place called “Tackwon”: A Women’s military unit, AA ammunition factory, anti-tank-laser-beam-guided-missile factory, radar factory, and Igla factory. This location is is actually Taegwan (Daegwan, 대관) in North Pyongan Province (40°13’10.48″N, 125°13’27.32″E). Of all the facilities mentioned in the itinerary, the only one from which we have ground-level photographs is the “Women’s Artillery Unit” and the “Radar Factory”.

As of 12/8/2010 the imagery for this location is in high resolution on Google Earth and we can now pinpoint these locations. The “Women’s Artillery Unit” is located at 40.218949°, 125.231670° and the “Radar Factory” is located at 40.228778°, 125.237964°. They are pictured on the left- and right-hand sides of the following image:

Posted in Arms shipment, Google Earth, Hoteling, Illicit activities, Manufacturing, Myanmar, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Leaked US military docs accuse NK of proliferation to al-Quaeda

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

UPDATE (8/9/2010): The Washington Post hosted a discussion on this topic which was interesting:

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst who once ran the agency’s bin Laden unit, doubts that the Taliban has bought North Korean’s version of the Stinger.

It doesn’t need them, he says.

“They have the weapons from non-North Korean sources, but why bother using them?” he said. “They are beating the U.S. and NATO with a smaller array of weapons than they needed to drive out 40th [Soviet Red] Army, so why use the stockpiled weapons if we are going to beat ourselves?”

Even if the Taliban has them, says Gary Berntsen, a former CIA officer in Afghanistan, the rebels would risk their lives every time they turned them on.

Instead, he said, “They have, and try to use, dishkas,” Russian heavy anti-aircraft machine guns “that can knock down a helicopter with troops.”

As soon as a spy reports the rebels dragging one forward for an attack, he said, NATO forces’ electronic ears and eyes start looking for it.

“It’s a dangerous game of cat and mouse,” said Bertnsen, who has returned to Afghanistan as a military adviser in recent years but is now the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York.

Of course, the report of the North Korea visit by Hekmatyar and bin Laden aide Amin al-Haq (or ul-Haq) might well have been false — or even fabricated to implicate Pyongyang, some sources said.

As one former senior CIA officer put it, “You are right to distrust information on this topic, since every serious intelligence organization in the world, and certainly our own, is probably engaged in disinformation as part of a general psy-ops program.”

Hekmetyar, he pointed out, could “get in touch with the North Koreans without a traceable trip to Pyongyang, like by sending an emissary to [their] embassy in Islamabad or some other Third World country nearby, including Iran.”

When the first reports of the helicopter shoot-down arrived in 2007, word spread in intelligence circles that the culprit was an Iranian-supplied weapon, one person familiar with the incident recalled. It was a time when hardline elements in the Bush administration were pushing for regime change in Iran, he noted.

A military intelligence officer also theorized the report was fabricated, but by different parties, for a different reason.

“My thoughts are that perhaps the intelligence report might have been provided by a HUMINT [human intelligence] source under the hostile control of either Iran or Pakistan, to deliberately mislead us and turn attention away from them as the providers of such weapon systems and blame the North Koreans.”

The silence of the Taliban missiles, in short, remains a mystery.

Except, perhaps, to U.S. military officials in Kabul, who sound grateful.

“There’s been no recent activity suggesting that these weapons are a threat,” an unidentified U.S. official told CNN, “as attested by the volume of our daily air activity and the causes of aircraft incidents, which we report.”

ORIGINAL POST (6/27/2010): According to the Washington Post:

A powerful Afghan insurgent leader and a man identified as Osama Bin Laden’s financial adviser purchased ground-to-air missiles from North Korea in 2005, according to an uncorroborated U.S. intelligence report released by Wikileaks on Sunday.

“On 19 November 2005, Hezb-Islami party leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar [sic] and Dr. Amin [no last name], Osama Bin Ladin’s financial advisor, both flew to North Korea departing from Iran,” the undated report said.

“While in North Korea, the two confirmed a deal with the North Korean government for remote controlled rockets for use against American and coalition aircraft,” said the report, whose origin could not be determined from the version published on the Wikileaks site.

Wikileaks had previously said it planned to strip any markings from the documents that might help U.S. law enforcement agencies identify who leaked them.

The intelligence report said, “The shipment of said weapons is expected shortly after the New Year,” meaning the beginning of 2006.

The terms of the deal were not reported.

“The two men stayed in North Korea for two weeks, returning to Helmand, Afghanistan around Dec. 3,” the report said. Hekmatyar proceeded to eastern Afghanistan.

Then, about 18 months later, according a previously undisclosed after-action military report obtained by Wikileaks, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter was downed by a missile “shortly after crossing over the Helmand River.”

“The impact of the missile projected the aft end of the aircraft up as it burst into flames followed immediately by a nose dive into the crash site with no survivors,” the May 30, 2007 report added.

“Based on description of launch, size of round, and impact force of the projectile,” the report said, “it is assessed to be bigger then an RPG [rocket propelled grenade] and possibly a Surface-to-Air Missile.”

It added, “Witness statements from (troops) suggest (it) was struck by a MANPAD and is consistent with MANPAD event described by Arrow 25.”

The name of the alleged Bin Laden financial adviser who went to North Korea, “Dr. Amin,” could not immediately be found in media reports, scholarly papers or books. If such a man exists, he would be the latest of several individuals identified as filling that role over the years.

Nor could any previous reports linking North Korea to the Afghan insurgency be immediately located.

If true, it illustrates the length to which North Korea will go to kick the United States — and generate cash for its sanctions-strapped economy, experts said.

“If they are a paying customer, that would help the North Korean cash flow,” said one of them, Terence J. Roehrig, a professor of national security decision-making at the Naval War College who has written about North Korea. “Arms sales are an important source of income for the regime.”

The United States and and South Korea are conducting joint naval maneuvers in a show of force to North Korea. Pyongyang has vowed to respond with “a sacred war and a powerful nuclear deterrence.”

Read the full story here:
Wikileaks documents: N. Korea sold missiles to al-Qaeda, Taliban
Washington Post
Jeff Stein
7/26/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Illicit activities, Iran | Comments Closed

Burma-North Korea Ties: Escalating Over Two Decades

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

According to the Irrawaddy:

A recent New York Times op-ed article by Aung Lynn Htut, formerly a high-ranking Burmese military intelligence officer who defected in 2005 while he served as an attaché at the Burmese embassy in Washington, shed new light on the history of the still murky relationship between Burma and North Korea, two of the world’s most isolated, secretive and oppressive regimes.

Burma broke diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1983, when North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the South Korean president on Burmese soil. But according to Aung Lynn Htut, shortly after current junta-chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe assumed power in 1992, he surreptitiously moved to renew ties with Pyongyang.

“Than Shwe secretly made contact with Pyongyang. Posing as South Korean businessmen, North Korean weapon experts began arriving in Burma. I remember these visitors. They were given special treatment at the Rangoon airport,” Aung Lynn Htut said in his June 18 article.

The junta kept its renewed ties with North Korea secret for more than a decade because it was working to establish relationships with Japanese and South Korean businesses, Aung Lynn Htut said. By 2006, however, “the junta’s generals felt either desperate or confident enough to publicly resume diplomatic relations with North Korea.”

In November 2008, the junta’s No 3, Gen Shwe Mann, visited North Korea and signed a memorandum of understanding, officially formalizing military cooperation between Burma and North Korea. Photographs showed him touring secret tunnel complexes built into the sides of mountains thought to store and protect jet aircraft, missiles, tanks and nuclear and chemical weapons.

According to Aung Lynn Htut, Lt-Gen Tin Aye, the No.5 in the Burma armed forces and the chief of Military Ordnance, is now the main liaison in the relationship with Pyongyang. Tin Aye has often traveled to North Korea as well as attended ceremonies at the North Korean embassy in Rangoon.

In September 2009, The New Light of Myanmar reported that Tin Aye went to the anniversary celebration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), held in a hotel in Rangoon. In February, Tin Aye, along with other senior officials, attended the birthday event of the Dear Leader of North Korea at the embassy.

Flights and ships from North Korea to Burma have been carrying more than just Burmese generals. Analysts, including Burma military expert Andrew Selth, say that for years Burma and North Korea have used a barter system whereby Burma exchanges primary products for North Korean military technologies.

In June 2009, a North Korean ship, the Kang Nam I, was diverted from going to Burma after being trailed by the US navy. Then in April, another North Korean ship, the Chong Gen, docked in Burma carrying suspicious cargo, allegedly in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which restricts North Korea from arms deals and from trading in technology that could be used for nuclear weapons.

In May, the seven-member UN panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said in a report that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Burma with the aid of front companies around the world.

According to the UN report, a North Korean company, Namchongang Trading, which is known to be associated with illicit procurement for Burma’s nuclear and military program and is on the US sanctions list, was involved in suspicious activities in Burma.

The report also noted three individuals were arrested in Japan in 2009 for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer—a dual-use instrument that can be employed in making missile control system magnets and gas centrifuge magnets—to Burma via Malaysia allegedly under the direction of another company known to be associated with illicit procurement for North Korea’s nuclear and military programs.

The UN experts also said that the Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation has handled several transactions involving millions of dollars directly related to deals between Burma and the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation.

With this string of events and the suspicions surrounding them as a dramatic lead in, on June 4, Al Jazeera aired a news documentary prepared by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) which was written by Robert Kelley, a nuclear scientist and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The DVB report claimed that the ruling military junta in Burma is “mining uranium, converting it to uranium compounds for reactors and bombs, and is trying to build a reactor and/or an enrichment plant that could only be useful for a bomb.”

The IAEA wrote to Burma’s agency representative, Tin Win, on June 14 and asked whether the information provided in the DVB report was true. Burma, which is a member of the IAEA, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a signatory to the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, responded with a letter stating that the DVB report allegations are “groundless and unfounded.”

“No activity related to uranium conversion, enrichment, reactor construction or operation has been carried out in the past, is ongoing or is planned for the future in Myanmar [Burma],” the letter said.

The letter also noted that Burma is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the agency’s so-called safeguards agreement. “As stated in the safeguards agreement, Myanmar will notify the agency if it plans to carry out any nuclear activities,” the letter said.

The regime, however, has not signed the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, meaning that the agency has no power to set up an inspection of Burma’s nuclear facilities under the existing mechanism known as the Small Quantities Protocol.

Previously, on June 11, Burma’s state radio and television news had reported the Foreign Ministry’s denial of the allegations in the DVB report. The denial claimed that anti-government groups in collusion with the media had launched the allegations with the goal of “hindering Burma’s democratic process and to tarnish the political image of the government.”

The Foreign Ministry denial also addressed Nyapyidaw’s relationship with Pyongyang. “Following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, Myanmar [Burma] and the DPRK, as independent sovereign states, have been engaging in promoting trade and cooperation between the two countries in the same way Myanmar is dealing with others,” the ministry said in its statement.

The regime did acknowledge that the Chong Gen docked at Thilawa Port near Rangoon in April. But the statement said the North Korean vessel was involved in importing cement from North Korea and exporting rice from Burma.

But in an article for Asia Times online, Burma analyst Bertil Linter noted that, “if carrying only innocuous civilian goods, as the statement maintains, there would seemingly have been no reason for authorities to cut electricity around the area when the Chong Gen, a North Korean ship flying the Mongolian flag of convenience, docked on the outskirts of Yangon.”

“According to intelligence sources, security was tight as military personnel offloaded heavy material, including Korean-made air defense radars. The ship left the port with a return cargo of rice and sugar, which could mean that it was, at least in part, a barter deal. On January 31 this year, another North Korean ship, the Yang M V Han A, reportedly delivered missile components also at Yangon’s Thilawa port,” Linter said.

Strategypage.com, a military affairs website covering armed forces worldwide, said, “Indications are that the North Korean ship that delivered a mysterious cargo four months ago, was carrying air defense radars (which are now being placed on hills up north) and ballistic missile manufacturing equipment. Dozens of North Korean technicians have entered the country in the last few months, and have been seen working at a military facility outside Mandalay. It’s unclear what this is for. Burma has no external enemies, and ballistic missiles are of no use against internal opposition.”

In his Asia Times online story, Lintner noted that on June 24, the DVB reported that a new radar and missile base had been completed near Mohnyin in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State, and he reported that work on similar radar and missile bases has been reported from Kengtung in eastern Shan State,160 kilometers north of the Thai border town of Mae Sai.

“Since Myanmar is not known to have imported radars and missile components from any country other than North Korea, the installations would appear to be one of the first visible outcomes of a decade of military cooperation,” Lintner said.

Lintner also reported that Western intelligence sources know that 30 to 40 North Korean missile technicians are currently working at a facility near Minhla on the Irrawaddy River in Magwe Division, and that some of the technicians may have arrived overland by bus from China to give the appearance of being Chinese tourists.

North Korea has also issued adamant denials with respect to allegations regarding its relationship with Burma.

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), on June 21 Pyongyang said, “The US is now making much fuss, floating the sheer fiction that the DPRK is helping Myanmar [Burma] in its nuclear development.”

The KCNA often highlights the close relationship between North Korea and Burma.

On June 20, the Pyongyang news agency reported that ex-Col Than Tun, deputy chairman of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd., sent a statement cheering Kim Jong Il’s 46th anniversary at the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

On April 18, Korean state-run- media reported that Than Tun also issued a statement cheering the 17th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s chairing of North Korea’s National Defense Commission.

“Kim Jong Il’s field inspection of KPA [Korean People’s Army] units served as a main source that helped bolster [North Korea’s] self-reliant defense capability in every way,” the statement noted.

Military sources said the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd, managed by the junta, is responsible for purchasing imported weapons for Burma’s armed forces, including transferring money to overseas banks such as Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation.

Meanwhile, in addition to its escalating relationship with North Korea, the Burmese military regime has recently boosted ties with Iran, which according to the UN report is also allegedly receiving nuclear and missile technologies from North Korea.

In recent years, Burmese and Iranian officials visited their counterparts homeland for the purported purpose of improving economic ties. Observers, however, said Than Shwe has made a tactical decision to develop relationships with other “pariah states,” particularly enemies of the US, to relieve Western pressure on his regime.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Fathollahi met Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win and Minister of Energy Lun Thi during his trip to Burma on June 15-17.

“The two sides reiterated their desire to further expand the ties of friendship and economic cooperation and to increase cooperation in the regional international forums such as [the] United Nations and Non-Aligned Movement,” The New Light of Myanmar reported on June 18.

Fathollahi’s visit came three months after Maung Myint’s visit to Iran on March 8-11, when he met Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki and Deputy Minister of Petroleum H. Noghrehkar Shirazi.

Read the full story below:
Burma-North Korea Ties: Escalating Over Two Decades
Irrawaddy
Wai Moe
7/7/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Energy, Illicit activities, Korea Kwangson Banking Corp., Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (aka Kapmun Tosong, KOMID), Military, Mining/Minerals, Myanmar, Namchongang Trading Corporation, Nuclear, Sea shipping, UN Security Council | Comments Closed

The DPRK Missile Show: A Comedy in (Currently) Eight Acts

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Draft paper by Robert Schmucker and Markus Schiller
May 5, 2010

Download the PDF here.

Summary
Today, there are at least seven different missile types of longer range available in North Korea – Scud B, Scud C, Scud D, Nodong, R-27/BM-25, Taepodong 1 and Taepodong 2/Unha-2. All were developed during the last three decades, each of them within a few years, and six are subject to the INF treaty. Some of the missiles have common roots, but their diameters vary significantly, ranging from 0.88 m over roughly 1.3 m and 1.5 m to about 2.5 m. This means that North Korea managed to develop at least four completely different lines of missiles to perfection and serial production, all of them with a negligible number of test launches. A total of roughly a dozen missile tests was actually observed before 2009, a number that is even today insufficient for only one military missile development in the USA, Russia, China or France. The repeating reports of North Korean “short range missile tests” are irrelevant – at those tests, the DPRK launches small anti ship missiles that were purchased in China or Russia. This has nothing to do with ballistic missiles.

It is often argued that the North Korean missiles are tested in other countries, namely Syria, Pakistan and Iran. This argument is insufficient. Combining all Scud B, C, D and Nodong launches in these countries, they are still not enough for a respective indigenous development, and the other missile types were never launched outside the DPRK. The choice of launch sites in the respective countries also is a clear indication: Pakistan tests its missiles close to Cashmere at the border to India, and as previously mentioned, Syria launched Scud D at the Israeli border. If the missiles head in the wrong direction – what is not uncommon at development tests –, this would have catastrophic consequences. Therefore, it must be assumed that these missiles had already had finished their development programs.

Aside of their small number, the sequence of North Korean tests is also noteworthy. There were only sporadic launches from 1984 to 2006, with a total of roughly ten. This was followed in 2006 and 2009 with an event of about a half dozen missile launches within a few hours, respectively, both including a large satellite launch vehicle. There might be a link to Iran’s and Pakistan’s orientation towards modern solid rocket technology. Russia can offer nothing on this market because of the imposed restrictions of the INF treaty – there are no old Soviet solid fueled missiles of this performance class, and new developments in this class are not allowed by INF – the required tests might be observed by the USA. Iran also increases its indigenous activities, resulting in a foreseeable loss of this source of funding. No wonder that the DPRK now has to demonstrate larger systems to stay in the proliferation game.

Conclusion
This is the visible North Korean situation: A country that has absolutely no other technical and economic merits offers a variety of quickly reverse engineered and indigenously developed high tech weapons, all of them with typical Soviet characteristics.

Every other country in the World had to rely on outside help of experienced institutions for their missile programs: China on Russia, India on the US and France, Pakistan on China and France, and so on. Even the US and the Soviets acquired German expertise after World War 2. Every country had foreign support for their missiles – except the DPRK.

It should be noted here that the common view of North Korea’s reverse engineering capabilities seems to come from one single source in the late 1980s, without any further proof. Today, this source is reported to see these claims with different eyes.

To get back to the analysis method that was introduced at the beginning: The three aspects country, program and missile are not compatible. The DPRK has no capabilities on any other area than rocketry, the programs are invisible or nonexistent, but a selection of operational missiles is offered that should even have countries like France, for example, go green with envy.

It is also strange that Russia silently watches the DPRK cloning and selling Soviet products, thus earning hundreds of millions of dollars, and doing this without any financial compensation for the Russians.

These antagonisms can be explained on several ways. Some claim that in the age of computer simulations, a single test is enough to proof functionality of highly complex machines such as missiles. After that, the missile goes straight into serial production. But this obviously only works in the DPRK: The new Russian submarine missile Bulava, for example, seems to have failed in 7 of its 12 flight tests so far – operational deployment is far from any discussion.

There is a different explanation that is much simpler – a connection to Russian institutions. All of the North Korean missiles were procured from Russia or at least realized with foreign support. Some, as Scud B, might come from old stocks, single remainders of old Soviet prototypes certainly were among them, and others might still be in production. A guided North Korean licensed production of simpler components can also not be excluded. In any case, the indigenous contributions of the DPRK are small at best. It is not said, though, that the Russian government or the leadership of the institutions in question know of this: Much happens in dark alleys, as was illustrated by the example of the Gharbiya gyros for Iraq.

The DPRK will of course try to reverse engineer parts and components, and it will try to acquire the capabilities for indigenous development and production. Due to this, single engine tests should be observable, not only to demonstrate indigenous activities, but also to learn and to slowly increase the DPRK’s competence on the missile sector.

But in the public opinion, this explanation is wrong, because – well, because it cannot be right. Because there is a well established view of North Korea that is also confirmed by defectors: The rockets are secretly designed, tested and produced in huge underground facilities, and these efforts are directed by an evil and megalomaniac villain who threatens the free world with his missiles.

How to best counter this type of threat should be known from the movies – just call James Bond.

UN accuses DPRK of viloating sanctions

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

According to the BBC:

A United Nations panel has accused North Korea of continuing to export nuclear and missile technology in defiance of a UN ban.

The experts said North Korea has used front companies and intermediaries to sell weapons and provide illegal assistance to Iran, Syria and Burma.

The preliminary report was compiled by a seven-member group that monitors Pyongyang’s compliance with sanctions.

…

The 47-page report outlined a broad range of techniques used by North Korea to evade sanctions imposed by the UN after the North’s nuclear tests of 2006 and 2009, the Associated Press reports.

The report said North Korea had moved quickly to replace banned individuals and entities with others to enable it to continue the nuclear trade.

Among a number of “masking techniques”, it said the North describes exports falsely, mislabels shipping container contents, falsifies information about the destinations of goods and uses “multiple layers of intermediaries, shell companies, and financial institutions”.

The report said North Korea has a range of legitimate trade offices but also sustains links with international criminal organisations to pursue the banned trades.

An unnamed diplomat told Reuters the findings were “not entirely surprising”.

“The point is that North Korea has been providing that kind of aid to Iran, Syria and Burma,” he said.

The report comes before a crucial day of talks in New York about the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It also comes at a time of increased tension surrounding what international investigators say was a deadly North Korean torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March.

Read the full article here:
North Korea ‘trading nuclear technology’ says UN panel
BBC
5/28/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Illicit activities, International trade, Nuclear, UN Security Council | Comments Closed

Can North Korea be safe for business?

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Geoffrey Cain writes in Time:

Few investors can boast the one-of-a-kind global pedigree of Felix Abt. Since 2002, the Swiss businessman has found his calling as a point man for Western investments in — of all places — North Korea, where he helped found the Pyongyang Business School in 2004. He also presided over the European Business Association in Pyongyang, a group in the capital that acts as a de facto chamber of commerce. A few years ago, that position led him to help set up the first “European Booth” featuring around 20 European companies each year at the Pyongyang Spring International Trade Fair, an annual gathering of 270 foreign and North Korean companies currently underway in the hermit kingdom until Thursday.

Yet Abt, 55, who lives in Vietnam and therefore won’t be attending the trade fair this year, laments the giant cloud hanging over the country: in recent years, political turmoil on the peninsula has raised the stakes even further for doing business in North Korea — even for the country’s main patron, China. Though investors have always faced the prospect of sanctions, he says, the situation has worsened after the United States ratcheted up sanctions on the government in 2006 on allegations that it was counterfeiting U.S. dollars. And in 2006 and 2009 the Kim Jong-il regime tested two small nuclear bombs, prompting heavier sanctions from the United Nations in 2006. Recently, tensions with Seoul have spiked over the March sinking of a South Korean corvette in waters near the North.(See pictures of the rise of Kim Jong-il.)

Those measures hit home for Abt. While he was running a pharmaceutical company in Pyongyang called Pyongsu in the mid-2000s, he learned that the U.N. Security Council had imposed sanctions on certain chemicals — a move that could have forced him to completely stop manufacturing medicine. Thankfully, he adds, he had already secured a large stock of the substance beforehand. “Whatever business you are involved in,” he says, “some day you may find out that some product or even a tiny but unavoidable component is banned by a U.S. or U.N. sanctions because it can, for example, also be used for military purposes.”

Those dilemmas haven’t stopped Abt. In 2007, he co-founded an information technology firm in Pyongyang called Nosotek, whose 50 or so employees design software applications for the iPhone and Facebook. The venture has already seen its share of success: one of its iPhone games ranked first in popularity for a short while on Apple’s Top 10 list for Germany — though he can’t name the software out of concern for protecting his contractors from bad publicity.(See pictures of North Koreans at the polls.)

For some companies, the stigma of a “Made in North Korea” label matters less than the competitive edge gained from having low overhead costs and a diligent workforce whose wages remain less than outsourcing powerhouses like China, Vietnam and India. In the past, North Korea has attracted the interest of multinational corporations looking for cheap labor in fields as diverse as electrical machinery and cartoon animation. Yet few multinationals show their faces at this month’s fair, a decline from the early 2000s when Abt says they were appearing regularly to look for opportunities in electricity, infrastructure, transportation and mining.

Not all foreign ventures in the North are driven by profit margins alone. The 2005 animated Korean movie Empress Cheung, a popular fantasy film drawn jointly by South and North Korean animators, brought attention to the animation industry in North Korea. Nelson Shin, head of the Seoul-based animation studio that started the project, claims he worked with North Korea for a greater cause than cheap labor. “It wasn’t so much because of cost efficiency as because of cultural exchange between the two Koreas,” he says.

For a country so poor, North Korea has churned out a remarkable number of talented engineers and scientists who fuel some of these small sectors (along with its controversial nuclear weapons program). In the 1960s and 1970s, the government pushed the country to become self-sufficient through development projects, a part of its ideology of “Juche” that promotes absolute autonomy from foreign powers. The communist regime of Kim Il-sung prided itself on its universities and public housing system, in particular. “It was an advance from pre-World War II days,” says Helen-Louise Hunter, a former CIA analyst now in Washington, D.C., who researched North Korea during those decades. “Kim Il-sung was genuinely interested in improving his people’s standard of living, and was off to a good start in a couple of areas compared to South Korea in those early days.”

Yet North Korea fell behind after the South’s own military dictators put their country into industrial overdrive throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Then the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, depriving North Korea of valuable aid. Then came a famine in the mid-1990s that delivered the final blow, leaving up to 3 million people dead and crippling the capacities of the already isolated state.

Today, the pariah regime of Kim Jong-il is allegedly known to raise money through illicit activities like trafficking narcotics and money laundering. But it’s not known how much those activities figure into the country’s GDP of $28.2 billion in 2009 and its $2 billion worth of exports in 2008, the most recent year data is available. “Not that much income comes from illegitimate operations if you mean drugs and counterfeited dollars,” says Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in Seoul. “More come from arms sales, though, but I would not describe this as an illegitimate trade.”

Abt shakes off the image of Pyongyang being the center of a mafia state. He sees himself and other foreign investors as the potential movers and changers of Kim’s hermit regime. “Cornering a country is ethically more questionable than engagement,” he says. “Foreigners engaging with North Koreans are change agents. The North Koreans are confronted with new ideas which they will observe and test, reject or adopt.”

Read the full story here:
Can North Korea Be Safe for Business?
Time
Geoffrey Cain
5/20/2010

Posted in Animation, Arms shipment, Counterfeiting, Drug smuggling, Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, GDP statistics, Health care, Illicit activities, International trade, Military, Pharmaceuticals, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

Myanmar buying DPRK military equipment

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

According to Interconnected World:

Secrecy normally shrouds military relations between Burma and its strategic allies such as China and North Korea, but intelligence sources suggest ongoing military ties with these two countries are helping the Burmese generals’ to achieve their military ambitions, including that of becoming a nuclear power.

Intelligence sources said top junta generals have held late- night meetings in Naypyidaw in the last two months, discussing military modernization, foreign relations, tension with ethnic groups and suppressing dissidents in urban areas.

They said the junta bought weapons from China and North Korea including mid-range missiles and rocket launchers in April, and suggested the war office in Naypyidaw chose the month when the Burmese celebrate new year in order to avoid public scrutiny.

Equipment necessary to build a nuclear capability was reportedly among imported military supplies from North Korea that arrived at the beginning of the holidays.

A report from Rangoon in April also referred to an undisclosed vessel believed to be connected with North Korea that was seen at Thilawar Port, near Rangoon. Burmese officials at the time said the vessel was there to load Burmese rice destined for North Korea.

Military relations between Naypyidaw and Pyongyang have been attracting attention from analysts, diplomats and journalists in recent years. In August 2009, an article in Sydney Morning Herald alleged the Burmese junta aims to get an atomic bomb in five years using Burmese enriched uranium and North Korean nuclear technology.

Apart from nuclear know-how and equipment, Pyongyang has also provided the Burmese junta’s armed forces with truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles and technology for underground warfare since the early 2000s, according to experts on Burma’s military like Andrew Selth.

“Pyongyang needs Burmese primary products, which Naypyidaw can in turn use to barter for North Korea arms, expertise and technology,” wrote Andrew Selth in the Australian Journal of International Affairs in March.

Read the full article here:
Burma said buying arms from China, North Korea
Interconnected World
5/10/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Illicit activities, International trade, Manufacturing, Military, Myanmar | Comments Closed

The DPRK’s illicit international activities

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

The Strategic Studies Institute has published a paper on the DPRK’s illicit activities. You can download the paper here (PDF). It has been added to my DPRK Economic Statistics page. Here is the forward:

The authors of this monograph have exposed a key piece of the puzzle which helps to provide a better understanding of North Korea’s surreptitious international behavior. For years, North Korea’s military provocations have been obvious to the world, however, much of its decisionmaking is shrouded in secrecy, particularly that of a wide-range of clandestine activities. This monograph is unique in the way that it sheds light on the illicit activities of the regime, and how those illegal activities are used to support its military programs and the government itself.

From drug trafficking to counterfeiting, from money laundering to cigarette smuggling, North Korea’s Central Committee Bureau 39 is an active participant in the criminal economy of the region with tentacles extending well beyond Asia. The authors discuss how these activities have negative strategic consequences for a number of stakeholders and nations throughout the region while describing how such activities provide critical funding streams for military programs and regime supporters.

As a result, North Korea is not just a “rogue state,” but practices what is essentially criminal sovereignty whereby it organizes its illegitimate activities behind the shield of non-intervention while using the tools of the state to perpetrate these schemes abroad. The authors argue that this arrangement has important links to succession issues within the regime. They also argue that policy makers who are concerned with the development of future policies and strategies aimed toward North Korea must view those new policies from a different perspective than that used in the past.

This paper draws heavily on information from Kim Kwang-jin who is working at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. Without Mr. Kim’s contributions, much of this activity would remain unknown to us. You can make a donation to support Mr. Kim’s work here in the US at this web page.

Posted in Arms shipment, Banking, Counterfeiting, Drug smuggling, Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, Illicit activities, Insurance, International trade, Statistics, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

Hermit economics hobbles Pyongyang

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Aidan Foster-Carter writes in the Financial Times about some poor decision-making coming out of Pyongyang:

Great Leader? Pyongyang’s fawning hagiography not only grates, but is singularly unearned. Even by its own dim lights, North Korea’s decision-making is going from bad to worse.

Last year saw two spectacular own goals. Missile and nuclear tests were a weird way to greet a new US president ready to reach out to old foes. The predictable outcome was condemnation by the United Nations Security Council, plus sanctions on arms exports that are biting.

Domestic policy is just as disastrous. December’s currency “reform” beggars belief. Did Kim Jong-il really fail to grasp that redenomination would not cure inflation, but worsen it? Or that brazenly stealing people’s savings – beyond a paltry minimum, citizens only got 10 per cent of their money back – would finally goad his long-suffering subjects into rioting? Forced to retreat, officials even apologised. One scapegoat was sacked – and possibly shot.

By his own admission, Mr Kim does not do economics. In a speech in 1996, when famine was starting to bite, the Dear Leader whined defensively that his late father, Kim Il-sung, had told him “not to get involved in economic work, but just concentrate on the military and the party”.

That awful advice explains much. Incredibly, North Korea was once richer than the South. In today’s world, this is the contest that counts. “It’s the economy, stupid” is no mere slogan, but a law of social science.

Having taken an early lead, Kim senior threw it all away. He built the world’s fourth largest army, crippling an economy that he refused to reform, viewing liberalisation as betrayal. His own personality cult was and is a literally monumental weight of unproductive spending.

Used to milking Moscow and Beijing, in the 1970s North Korea borrowed from western banks – and promptly defaulted. That was not smart; it has had to pay cash up front ever since.

Pyongyang also resorts to less orthodox financing. In 1976 the Nordic nations expelled a dozen North Korean diplomats for trafficking cigarettes and booze. In December a Swedish court jailed two for smuggling cigarettes. More than 100 busts worldwide over 30 years, of everything from ivory and heroin to “supernotes” (fake $100 bills), leave scant doubt that this is policy.

Yet morality aside, it is stupid policy. Pariahs stay poor. North Korea could earn far more by going straight. The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), where South Korean businesses employ Northern workers to make a range of goods, shows that co-operation can work. Yet Pyongyang keeps harassing it, imposing arbitrary border restrictions and demanding absurd wage hikes.

Now it threatens to seize $370m (€275m, £247m) of South Korean assets at Mount Kumgang, a tourist zone idle since a southern tourist was shot dead in 2008 and the north refused a proper investigation. Even before that, Pyongyang’s greed in extorting inflated fees from Hyundai ensured that no other chaebol has ventured north. Contrast how China has gained from Taiwanese investment.

In this catalogue of crassness, the nadir came in 1991 when the dying Soviet Union abruptly pulled the plug on its clients. All suffered, but most adapted. Cuba went for tourism; Vietnam tried cautious reform; Mongolia sold minerals. Only North Korea, bizarrely, did nothing – except watch its old system crumble. Gross domestic product plunged by half, and hunger killed up to a million. Now famine again stalks the land. The state cannot provide, yet still it seeks to suppress markets.

All this is as puzzling as it is terrible. China and Vietnam show how Asian communist states can morph towards capitalism and thrive. Kim Jong-il may fear the fate of the Soviet Union if he follows suit. True, his regime has survived – even if many of its people have not. Yet the path he is on is patently a dead end. Mr Kim’s own ill-health, and a belated bid to install his unknown third son as dauphin, only heighten uncertainty. Militant mendicancy over the nuclear issue – demanding to be paid for every tiny step towards a distant disarmament, then backsliding and trying the same trick again – will no longer wash. North Korea has run out of road; the game is finally up.

What now? A soft landing, with Mr Kim embracing peace abroad and reform at home, remains the best outcome. But if he obdurately resists change, we need a plan B. The US and South Korea have contingency plans for the north’s collapse. So does China, separately. Tacit co-ordination is urgent, lest future chaos be compounded by a clash of rival powers – as in the 1890s. Koreans have a rueful proverb: when whales fight, the shrimp’s back is broken.

But Beijing will not let it come to that. China is quietly moving into North Korea, buying up mines and ports. Some in Seoul cry colonialism, but it was they who created this vacuum by short-sightedly ditching the past decade’s “sunshine” policy of patient outreach. President Lee Myung-bak may have gained the Group of 20 chairmanship, but he has lost North Korea.

Nor will Mr Kim nuzzle docile under China’s wing, though his son might. As ever, North Korea will take others’ money and do its own thing. In early 2010 new fake “super-yuan” of high quality, very hard to detect, started appearing in China. They wouldn’t, would they?

Read the full article here:
Hermit economics hobbles Pyongyang
Financial Times
Aidan Foster-Carter
3/30/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Banking, China, Counterfeiting, Drug smuggling, Finance, Fiscal & monetary policy, Foreign direct investment, Illicit activities, International Governments, International trade, Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), Mt. Kumgang Tourist Special Zone, Private property | 6 Comments »

Russia and Japan extend DPRK sanctions

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

According to the Associated Press:

Russia’s president has signed an order formally implementing U.N. Security Council-approved sanctions against North Korea.
The sanctions were passed in June by the Security Council, which includes Russia, after the country conducted a nuclear test. The sanctions are aimed at pushing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

To conform with the sanctions, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday ordered that all sales or imports of North Korean weapons and materials connected to them are forbidden.

It also bans weapons exports to the reclusive Communist country and bars transport of North Korean weapons through Russian territory, including its waters and airspace.

And according to Reuters:

Japan will extend sanctions against North Korea first imposed after the reclusive country tested a nuclear device and ballistic missiles in 2006, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The sanctions, previously set to expire on April 13, ban imports from North Korea and prohibit North Korean ships from calling at Japanese ports.

“Basically, I don’t see any reason for not extending (the sanctions),” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano told a news conference.

Asked whether the government would consider shortening the duration of the sanctions to six months from one year, Hirano said it would assess the outlook for multilateral talks that seek to persuade North Korea to roll back its nuclear program.

Japan has called for Pyongyang to return to the disarmament-for-aid talks hosted by China, in addition to pressing the country to reveal the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.

Japan also banned exports to the country last year although the impact was seen as being small given limited trade flows.

Read the full stories here:
Russia implements North Korea sanctions
Associated Press
3/30/2010

Japan to extend sanctions against North Korea
Reuters
Chisa Fujioka
3/31/2010

Posted in Arms shipment, Illicit activities, International trade, Japan, Russia, UN, UN Security Council | Comments Closed

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