June 03, 2005
South Korea Expels Human Rights Activist to Appease North Korea
Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, the man who told the world about the horrors of North Korea, reports that he has been expelled from South Korea. Vollertsen, who admits allowing his South Korean visa to expire, had been in South Korea on a series of tourist visas, which require holders to leave and reenter South Korea for extensions. On a previous reentry, Vollertsen had been detained and asked to sign a statement agreeing to discontinue his political activities; he was released when journalists arrived at the location where he was detained. Vollertsen reports that South Korean officials have told him that he would not be granted further tourist visas because of his political activities.
The full text of Dr. Vollertsen’s e-mail message describing his expulsion is here. More information:
- Background on Dr. Vollertsen’s activities; more here.
- His book, Diary of a Mad Place, describing his time as a volunteer doctor in North Korea.
- News report on his arrest and beating by South Korean police for trying to launch balloons to carry radios into North Korea.
- News report on South Korean police and North Korean “journalists” beating him and others for peacefully protesting human rights violations in North Korea.
- My own discussion and defense of some of Dr. Vollertsen’s controversial activism.
- A report of the last time South Korea detained Dr. Vollertsen and threatened to expel him.
- Some of his reports as a member of a South Korean tsunami relief medical team (here, here, here, and here).
(Photo credit: Ki Ho Park, Time Asia)
February 05, 2005
North Korea Threatens U.S. Bases; South Korea Drops North as 'Main Enemy'
North Korea will turn U.S. military bases in the region into a “sea of fire” if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, North Korean media on Friday quoted a communist officer as saying. The North’s state-run news media highlighted the comment hours after South Korea released a new defense policy paper that revealed a U.S. reinforcement plan to dispatch 690,000 troops and 2,000 warplanes if war breaks out in Korea.
Most U.S. Army personnel in Korea are presently stationed within twenty miles of the Korean DMZ, within range of thousands of North Korean artillery pieces. Much of the North Korean artillery is sited inside underground roll-in / roll-out emplacements. Other U.S. installations are located in the middle of crowded residential areas in the South Korean cities of Seoul, Taegu, and Pusan.
For the first time, the South Korean Defense Ministry’s annual white paper does not list North Korea as its “main enemy.” Although attitudes among South Koreans have grown increasingly pro-North Korean and anti-American, the South Korean government recently asked the United States to slow down the planned withdrawal of one-third of the U.S. forces from South Korea.
Some South Koreans want to keep U.S. forces in their country to act as a “trip wire” in the event of a North Korean attack. Others fear the economic impact of U.S. troop withdrawals. Others want the troops to remain near the DMZ to restrict U.S. options. They believe that without thousands of U.S. troops in North Korean artillery range, the United States would be free to consider attacks against North Korean nuclear facilities.
American troops in South Korea have recently been the victims of a spate of violent assaults. Recent polling data suggest that the U.S. defense contribution to South Korea, which, according to the Cato institute, costs U.S. taxpayers $15-20 billion annually, has resulted in little appreciation from the South Korean people. According to one survey last year, more South Koreans consider the U.S. the greatest threat to their nation’s security than North Korea. In the event of war between the U.S. and North Korea, 20% of South Koreans say their country should take the North’s side; another 30% were undecided. Fifty-eight percent of South Koreans were disappointed that the Iraqi Army did not fight harder outside Baghdad, more than twice the number who said they were pleased with the quick Iraqi collapse.
January 31, 2005
South Korea's Ruling Party Launches Campaign Against Independent Media
Supporters of South Korea’s leftist President Roh-Moo Hyun have announced a fresh campaign to persuade citizens to cancel their subscriptions to the often-critical Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo, and to subscribe instead to the pro-government Kyunghang Sinmun and Hankyoreh Sinmun. The latter newspapers both strongly support the Roh administration’s policy of appeasing North Korea and assuming a more neutral role toward the United States, which maintains 34,000 troops in Korea for that nation’s defense.
The group, known as Nosamo, or people who love Roh Moo-Hyun (“Roh” is actually pronounced “Noh” in Korean) represents the core of the president’s Internet-savvy supporters, and would presumably not engage in a significant public campaign were the group’s namesake to express his opposition.
Since the elevation of the left-center Kim Dae Jung to the presidency in 1997, the government has feuded with both the Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo, primarily over North Korea policy and the President’s stalled initiative to move South Korea’s capital out of Seoul. The Korean National Assembly, in which the President’s party holds a narrow majority, recently passed legislation restricting media companies to a market share to 30%, or a cumulative 60% for the top three companies. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which has yet to release its 2004 annual report on South Korea, criticized the law in a letter to the ruling party, saying that the law “looks more like ideological revenge that an attempt to regulate the news sector.” RSF also praised the government for lifting decriminalizing news coverage the government perceived as favorable to the North Korean regime.
Previous government measures against opposition newspapers have included tax law prosecutions, libel suits, and vitriolic statements against both papers. The International Press Institute has suggested that the tax prosecutions were a politically motivated effort to silence the opposition media and noted with concern that three editors who were being prosecuted for tax evasion were jailed before they were tried. The Coordinating Committee for Press Freedom Organizations has stated that it is “no coincidence that the media companies most skeptical of President Kim and his sunshine policy of engagement with communist North Korea have been among those hardest hit by the audits.” A recent book by a former Hankyoreh reporter claims that the tax enforcement actions were part of a government-orchestrated plan to muzzle the opposition media.
Last October, Prime Minister Lee Hai-Chan made the following statements after drinking whiskey-beer boilermakers at a social function during an official visit to Berlin, Germany, at which members of the press were present:
Chosun, Dong-A, don’t plot against history. Don’t play with this administration. Both President Roh and I will fight you to the end. . . . The Chosun is behind the times. The Chosun and Dong-A are in my hand. . . . Don’t think you yourselves can take and shake this nation. Don’t pretend you have power, and don’t distort history. . . . Do you know how much the Dong-A Ilbo has attacked me? I read the Chosun Ilbo every morning, but the Chosun has never written anything that accords with the flow of history. . . . In the flow of history, the Joongang Ilbo seems to be finding the middle. . . . I will never forgive the Chosun Ilbo. Even if the Chosun makes unreasonable remarks, I won’t pay attention.
Other officials present at the event later expressed regret for the comments.
The efforts are reminiscent of the measures Russian President Vladimir Putin used to silence opposition media in Russia.