Pyongyang

groverat

Could someone please explain to me what the hell is going on with <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2845339.stm"; target="_blank">North Korea</a>?



I need some historical perspective here, it seems to only come up when someone is bitching about Bush's Iraq policy (if we could avoid that in this thread I would be very happy). I am very very curious as to what the history of this situation is.



It seems very kooky to me. They are shooting missiles to get us to negotiate with them and I'm not entirely sure what it's all about.



Someone who knows please explain, those who wish to bitch about Bush's Iraq policy please take it to another thread that deals with that issue.

colanderofdeath

Since when do you read the BBC?



Anyway, maybe they are fronting to get some bling bling on. Else how can they afford the new fitty cent CD what with prices being like $20 a CD? You know they can't get no mp3s. Spend all they money on Ballistic missile development and gots nothing left for broadband. Stupid Communists.

scott

I'm not sure anyone understands that country. It's said that the Chinese are sick of them and want nothing to do with them. NK refuses to deal with anyone but the US? They have yet to make good on just about anything.



This is one of the most interesting things I've ever read about NK.



<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=90000453"; target="_blank">A Prison Country

A report from inside North Korea.</a>



BY NORBERT VOLLERTSEN

Tuesday, April 17, 2001 12:01 a.m. EDT



[quote]I know North Korea. I have lived there, and have witnessed its hell and madness.



I was a doctor with a German medical group, "Cap Anamur," and entered North Korea in July 1999. I remained until my expulsion on Dec. 30, 2000, after I denounced the regime for its abuse of human rights, and its failure to distribute food aid to the people who needed it most. North Korea's starvation is not the result of natural disasters. The calamity is man-made. Only the regime's overthrow will end it.



Human rights are nonexistent. Peasants, slaves to the regime, lead lives of utter destitution. It is as if a basic right to exist--to be--is denied. Ordinary people starve and die. They are detained at the caprice of the regime. Forced labor is the basic way in which "order" is maintained.



I will recount some of my experiences. Early in my spell in North Korea I was summoned to treat a workman who had been badly burned by molten iron.



I volunteered my own skin to be grafted onto him. With a penknife, my skin was pulled from my left thigh and applied to the patient. For this, I was acclaimed by the state media--the only media--and awarded the Friendship Medal, one of only two foreigners ever to receive this honor.

....



<hr></blockquote>



[ 03-13-2003: Message edited by: Scott ]</p>

colanderofdeath

Of course the Chinese dont want nuttin to do with them. All they NK refugees be tripping and running into embassies and shit. Asylum seeking mother****ers. Plus the Chinese don't care but nothing these days but exporting shit to countries who want to buy shit. North Korea aint got no consumers to buy shit so China dont care bout them. Shit, North Korea cant even feed they population on they own, how they gonna buy shiny new Chinese goods?

colanderofdeath

Did you be reading the companion articles from the sidebars and shit?



<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2754077.stm"; target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2754077.stm</a>;

scott

Here's another quote from the good Doctor.



[quote]I feel it is my duty to expose this satanic regime...<hr></blockquote>



Talk about axis of evil?

fellowship

North Korea is a prison. The people are not free in any way. No rights. The leaders in control use fear and slave labor to keep the people in their place as it were. North Korea is isolated and has no real trade other than mass killing tools. The world has been tight with their money and for reasons of domestic politics has been missing from dealing with this sad state in NK. The people in NK are living a life of hell. We are guilty by not doing a damn thing. This is something the wealthy countries should be ashamed of. It is a crime. It is inhumane. We will be judged by what we are not doing.



Fellowship



[ 03-13-2003: Message edited by: FellowshipChurch iBook ]</p>

samantha joanne ollendale

North Korea: It as authoritarian as society can get. It surprises me they don't get more respect in some circles....



To gain favor with the world, NK should implement Chinese style economic reforms which encompass capitalism while not having to sacrifice the iron fisted grasp on power with little/no regard for human rights and conduct becoming of a civilized . society. Should Kim Jong Il should implement these reforms right away, he could sooner or later gain international "respect" (!), perhaps even MFN trading status with the U.S. without having to compromise his brutal hold on power.

matsu

<img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />

samantha joanne ollendale

[quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

<strong> <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



<img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" /> , <img src="graemlins/oyvey.gif" border="0" alt="[oyvey]" />

pfflam

Pico Iyer, te travel writer who wrote Video Night In Kalmandu also wrote a book called, I think Lonely Placces. in it he visits NK: it sounds like it is right out of the pages of Orwell



probably the worst place in the world . . . .



There was recently in a Harper's magazine, an article written by a woman who escaped from a prison camp in NK: her descriptions of the goings on in that camp, which are populated by the populace . . by whowever they feel like jailing, are just absolutely horrific . . . they make Hussain look like a nice guy.

artman @_@

How do North Koreans name there children?

They drop silverware on the floor.



I'm sorry. Sooo sorry. But I like France more than I like North Korea.



Iraq's "No Fly Zone" does not make Korea's "Check Point Charlie". North Korea is the next big annoying situation we've all got. It seems though that we have to go through Iraq to get to it.

drewprops

North Korea is not, however, an island. To the south exists the very pained populace of its sister state. The younger generation are all into that new fad: animosity for the United States.



They greatly desire reunification, and not many can blame them. I would hope that the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) is gone in 20 years and that it it disappears as peacefully as the Berlin Wall.



And Sammy Jo,

I would expect an educated person such as yourself to be more capable of making a point than resorting to crass comparisons of the current administration to a ruthless dictatorship. Get over yourself! Loosen that bun a little.

colanderofdeath

To say that South Koreans greatly desire reunification overstates and simplifies what many of them think. Many many South Koreans while generally in favor of reunification have serious reservations.



South Koreans know full well the problems that the Germans have gone through culturally and particularly economically. Dramatic differences still manifest themselves a dozen years later in infrastructure, education and an unemployment rate in the former East Germany which is double that in the former West Germany.



Korean unification will arguably be even more messy. While the younger generations want normalized relations and tend to be less hawkish than their parents, they also have fewer ties to individuals on the other side and they lack the personal historical context of a single Korea. It is not surprising at all then that the younger generations are also perhaps even less willing than previous generations to bear the burden financially and socially that reunification would necessitate on their comfortable lifestyles. I don't entirely blame them; North Korea is as we all know a human catastrophe and correcting that even if possible politically post Kim Il Jung will be an enormous task.

drewprops

There was a news program that I watched several Sundays ago that explored a series of recurring rallies in which the United States is singled out and vilified in speech and song. Most of the attendees looked to be in their 20's and 30's.



The older generations are still very thankful to the allied forces who fought against the North in the Korean War. The younger generation only knows the war from stories and monuments and dry history lessons. That age group strongly desires reunification and are hardly likely to consider the financial lesson of East/West Germany.



That sage admonition to learn from the past is an almost unattainable goal when you're talking to massive groups of people. They'll have to learn their own lesson, and it's theirs to learn.

samantha joanne ollendale

[quote]And Sammy Jo, I would expect an educated person such as yourself to be more capable of making a point than resorting to crass comparisons of the current administration to a ruthless dictatorship. Get over yourself! Loosen that bun a little.<hr></blockquote>



Why are you fabricating that I make a direct comparison between Bush and Kim Jong? That's manipulative and unrealistic! The political foundations and traditions of the USA and North Korea are so wildly different that the point is moot anyway. North Korea is the nastiest place to live on Earth...its citizens are subjected to "existence" in a prison state



I was implying that North Korea is repeatedly shooting itself in both feet with their intransigent ultra-paranoid, isolationist position. If they adopted capitalistic reforms instead of the always-doomed-to-failure traditional Stalinist model, they would definitely find favor with the rest of the world. The process would be gradual, but look what happened in China...the USA is now China's largest trading partner, and they now have a system of 'selective capitalism' where a percentage of China's people, albeit very small are on the make. However, the huge majority of the Chinese people are living in abject poverty and under the thumb of what is still a brutal authoritarian regime where human rights abuses are a way of life.



If NK stopped their paranoia re. other nations and opened up for business, abandoned their nukes etc, then the sanctions could be lifted, and they could get out of the hole they are digging for themselves. The powers-that-be wouldn't have to give up their long-held authoritarian restrictions on their people, maybe just modify it a little on the surface that gets exposed to international media. Human rights concerns always are always very low on the pecking order when it comes to international relations and market forces, despite the untrue and sanctimonious claims made by some prominent leaders.



Wow...fancy that..Wackenhut Inc. or the Corrections Corporation of America could even win the contract to build a series of new modern super-jails in an enriched North Korea!

drewprops

I think the Korean word is TAK.



It now seems that the South Korean anti-American protesters are starting to get a little more conservative. Interesting, no?



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