Updates on North Korea: Not Even North Korea is Safe From WikiLeaks
August 8, 2010
July naval exercises, leaks of North Korea’s support of terrorist groups, vitriolic rhetoric from Pyongyang, and symbolic UNSC efforts to punish the Kim Jong-il regime characterized another eventful month in the Korean peninsula. In early July, the United Nations Security Council delivered its council president statement to the Cheonan incident. The U.S. and South Korea, disappointed by the UN response, have now proceeded to explore alternative punitive actions, while they moved ahead with their long-planned joint naval exercises. North Korea’s reactions to the exercises were strong but expected. While much of July seems like a rerun of familiar episodes of tensions, the recent report of WikiLeaks of North Korea’s support for terrorism may be worth watching.
WikiLeaks & Terrorism: Can We Put North Korea Back on the List yet?
Proof that North Korea has been supporting terrorist activities around the world continued to surface in July. According to the Washington Post, WikiLeaks disclosed on July 25 a secret U.S. intelligence report that stated North Korea sold surface-to-air missiles to high-ranking insurgents in Afghanistan in 2005. Pyongyang has been widely suspected of being involved in the illegal sale of weapons to Afghan insurgents, but the WikiLeaks story, if substantiated, would be the first concrete report of the transaction.
According to the Post, the WikiLeaks report indicated, "On November 19, 2005, Hezb-Islami party leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Dr. Amin, Osama Bin Ladin’s financial advisor, both flew to North Korea departing from Iran," where they stayed for two weeks. "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." The weapons were likely shipped in early 2006.
The day before the WikiLeaks report, a federal U.S. court confirmed it was fining North Korea $300 million in punitive damages for supporting terror attacks in Israel in 1972. The U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico found the North guilty of helping the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Japanese Red Army plan attacks on Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. The attacks left 26 Puerto Ricans on a religious pilgrimage dead and more than 80 wounded. In a hearing in absentia last Friday, the court ruled for the families of victims in a civil suit. This event adds to a growing list of evidence supporting the argument that North Korea should be designated as a state that supports terrorism.
North Korea was put on the U.S. State Sponsors of Terrorism in January 1988 in the wake of its bombing of a Korean Air passenger airplane, but removed in 2008. Some US lawmakers are pushing to put North Korea back on the list. Despite these efforts, because no concrete evidence are currently available implicating the DPRK regime engaged in terrorist activities in the last six months, North Korea’s redesignation still remains a challenge.
Read more about how states are listed on and removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list here: http://www.keia.org/SPOTGuide.pdf
Cheonan Incident Receives Deep Response of the UN Security Council
The UNSC presidential statement was a disappointing outcome for the South Korea and US despite active imploring by these countries for the council to take strong actions against North Korea’s provocation. The statement deplored the tragic attack and called for resumed talks with North Korea, expressing deep concern and sympathy over the tragedy. Nowhere, however, did the UNSC directly blame the North for the attack. This outcome was the result of fierce opposition by China to further isolate or provoke North Korea.
Pleased by the weak response, North Korea claimed diplomatic victory and announced it was ready to rejoin the six-party negotiations. The North Korea Central News Agency reported, "We take note of the presidential statement saying that ‘the Security Council encourages the settlement of outstanding issues on the Korean Peninsula by peaceful means to resume direct dialogue and negotiation through appropriate channels."
Non Believers
China continues to reject the South Korea-led multinational investigation team’s findings of North Korea’s guilt behind the attack while simultaneously refusing to participate in any additional investigation. As of July 27, Russia was also reportedly still unconvinced of the South Korean government investigation results. Russian investigators suggest that their findings point to the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan to a sea mine, not a torpedo attack by North Korea.
And the "incident" certainly has not affected China-DPRK relations—at least, not on the surface. China’s Assistant Foreign Minister, Hu Zhengyue, is currently leading a delegation to the DPRK as a guest of the DPRK’s Foreign Ministry, a Chinese spokeswoman said on July 28, after being asked to comment on media reports. "It is a normal exchange between the two foreign ministries," Jiang said. Business as usual.
…So the U.S. and South Korea Take Punishment Matters into Their Own Hands
On July 22, during a joint visit to Seoul by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Clinton announced, "new" targeted financial sanction measures that the United States would be implementing against the North. No specifics on the financial sanctions were actually discussed. The announcement may have been more politically valuable for the alliance and to demonstrate solidarity between the United States and its ally during the 2+2 visit.
A couple weeks later, Robert Einhorn, the State Department’s special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, traveled to Seoul along with U.S. Treasury’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, Danny Glaser, where the two announced that new U.S. sanctions against North Korea will be finalized within several weeks time. They provided a few more details about the financial sanctions on North Korea, but so far, nothing suggests a repeat of the 2005 measures taken against Banco Delta Asia.
In fact, U.S. officials have acknowledged that the sanctions will not be new. The US government will simply add more detail to previous sanctions. There already is a list of 23 North Korean entities, including an individual, who are blacklisted under Executive Order 13382 for their involvement in activities related to weapons of mass destruction under another executive order. The intention is to add a new executive order that makes that list grow to target a wider range of illicit transactions including narcotics-trafficking and distributing counterfeit cigarettes and banknotes.
Einhorn also said that financial institutions in other countries would also be urged to abandon their ties with the North. The U.S. plans to make "diplomatic" requests to those third country governments to pressure those institutions, he said. "If we see an illicit North Korean trading company in a third country, we will approach the government of that country and say, look at this activity, you need to shut it down. We will go out diplomatically and seek their cooperation and their cooperation will be very important," he said at a press briefing in Seoul.
In a major victory, the Swiss government appears to be supportive. On July 31, Radio Free Asia reported that the Swiss government will investigate secret North Korean accounts in its banks if it gets evidence of such funds. The Sanctions Unit at the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affair is already complying with sanctions on Pyongyang applied under UN Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874.
South Korea continues to halt most of its support of North Korea. Announced just last week, companies operating in North Korea will once again be banned from shipping goods and materials for consignment trade with North Korea from early next month, the Unification Ministry said Wednesday. The application deadline is set for August 10, when the temporary lift of the existing ban will end, the ministry said. On May 24, South Korea prohibited all shipments to the North but some activity was allowed to continue. August will see the end of such shipments, leaving the sole two forms of inter-Korean exchange to be the Kaseong Industrial Complex and deemed-necessary humanitarian medical aid for North Korean women and children.
U.S.-ROK Planned Military Exercises: Another Opportunity for the North to Stretch its Mouth
South Korea and the U.S. closed out their joint large-scale drills Wednesday, July 28, off the South’s east coast. Seoul officials stated that the allies accomplished their mission of sending a clear message of deterrence to North Korea. Though the exercises had been planned long before the Cheonan incident, key changes were made, including the focus on Cheonan-style North Korea infiltration incidents, the focus on anti-submarine drills, and the addition of a later West Sea training for the ROK. (Originally planned entirely for the West Sea, China protested heavily, reacting sensitively to military maneuvers near its territorial waters, and drills were moved to the East Sea for the first series. Subsequent drills, however, were planned for the Yellow Sea to begin August 5).
About 20 ships and submarines, including the 97,000-ton aircraft carrier USS George Washington, 200 aircraft and 8,000 U.S. and South Korean military personnel were mobilized for the exercises. At the launch of the four-day naval and air exercises, Seoul and Washington made clear that "Invincible Spirit," the dubbed name of the exercises, was to deliver a "clear message" to the North that any future provocations will not be tolerated.
The day before the drills began, North Korea’s powerful National Defense Commission declared that the North "will start a retaliatory sacred war of their own style based on nuclear deterrent any time necessary in order to counter the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet forces deliberately pushing the situation to the brink of a war." "The army and people of the DPRK will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises to be staged by the U.S. and the South Korean puppet forces," the commission said in the statement published by KCNA.
Then, on Tuesday, August 3, North Korea warned South Korean fishermen to stay away from disputed border waters and threatened a "strong physical retaliation." North Korea’s western military command "made a decisive resolution to counter the reckless naval firing projected by the group of traitors with strong physical retaliation," reported KCNA. Threatening to "return fire for fire," the North warned civilian ships not to approach waters around five South Korean border islands.
In addition, the North Korean military appear to make preparation to relocate its long-range artillery guns, which is set up in mountain caves, from near the southern gate of the caves to the northern gate and building a protective cover in an attempt to make it more difficult for long-range artillery fire to cause significant damage.
by Nicole Finneman (nmf@keia.org)
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