Corea del Norte (Continuación)

MundoAsia

When a man walks down the street firing a gun over your head, it is difficult not take it personally. When a dictator with a million-strong army and a well documented dislike for the “imperialist aggressors” of the West, lets off a nuclear weapon, it feels much the same. This sentiment informed foreign reaction to North Korea's nuclear test yesterday, from Washington to Tokyo to Helsinki: how dare he do this to us?

“North Korea's attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile programme, constitute a threat to international peace and security,” President Obama said. But there is another way of thinking about North Korea and its dictator, Kim Jong Il, just as there is about the armed loser who shoots up the neighbourhood.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

It happens that desperadoes hold groups of people hostage - for instance in planes or banks. Sometimes the police or military take some quick action or try some ruse to remove the danger. Sometimes they refrain from moving an inch for fear that hostages will be killed or some disastrous explosion set off. They may seek to talk the desperado out of his corner, perhaps offer to fly a plane hijacker to another destination after releasing his hostage. In many cases, they simply wait. Often - but not always - tiredness and exhaustion bring an end without drama.

Are we in a similar situation with North Korea?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Twenty years after the demise of the communist Evil Empire, the world has begun to struggle when it comes to credible international supervillains. Robert Mugabe? Horrible, certainly, but also rather pathetic. Vladimir Putin - sinister, perhaps, but hardly foe to all humanity. Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran lacks the edge somehow, and it's been far too long since Osama bin Laden put in an appearance. In the global obnoxiousness rankings there is only one serious contender, leagues ahead of anyone else: the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il.

He's got the bizarre personality cult (“Dear Leader”, “Lodestar of the Twenty-First Century” etc).…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Not so long ago, when we wanted to learn why hostile leaders were hostile, we studied their ideologies. Nowadays, having learned that ideology is either dead or an arbitrary system of signs, we analyze leaders by “putting ourselves in their shoes” — in other words, by assuming that everyone thinks the way we do.

So it is that North Korea watchers who speak no Korean can confidently tell the rest of us what motivates Kim Jong-il. His country is poor, so he wants aid. We bombed his country flat in the Korean War, so he’s afraid of us. That missile launching Pyongyang has said it will carry out next week?…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Will North Korea ever give up its nuclear weapons?

To test its intentions, I submitted a detailed proposal to Foreign Ministry nuclear negotiator Li Gun for a "grand bargain" in advance of a visit to Pyongyang last month. North Korea, I suggested, would surrender to the International Atomic Energy Agency the 68 pounds of plutonium it has already declared in denuclearization negotiations. In return, the United States would conclude a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War, normalize diplomatic and economic relations, put food and energy aid on a long-term basis, and support large-scale multilateral credits for rehabilitation of North Korea's economic infrastructure.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

It is not unprecedented for a diplomat to have starkly different views from the president he serves. After George Washington's administration negotiated Jay's Treaty with Britain, the Thomas Jefferson faction in the government went into disloyal revolt. James Monroe -- Jefferson's protege and the American minister to France -- urged French officials to disregard all messages from the president and assured them that they were free to retaliate against American shipping.

The most recent example of such vigorous, diplomatic independence would be Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the architect of America's North Korea policy. It is difficult to imagine a Bush administration official more at odds with the president's broad foreign policy instincts.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Tema: Este ARI trata de la interrupción del desmantelamiento del reactor de Yongbyon por Corea del Norte, los desacuerdos en relación con la verificación y la evolución de la política estadounidense hacia la República Popular Democrática de Corea.

Resumen: A mediados de agosto, Corea del Norte tomó la decisión de interrumpir el desmantelamiento del reactor de Yongbyon en respuesta a la decisión estadounidense de no retirar al país asiático de la lista de Estados que promueven el terrorismo hasta que este último consintiera en un sistema de verificación acorde a los estándares internacionales, una aceptación que no se ha producido hasta principios de octubre.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Step out of the bus, walk across the courtyard, stop in front of the low-built, blue buildings: Here, in the Joint Security Area -- a neutral space between North and South Korea, under U.N. jurisdiction since the 1953 armistice -- is one of the world's weirdest scenes. About a hundred yards ahead, North Korean soldiers are watching from a balcony, expressionless: Walk toward them and you've defected. Directly behind, equally expressionless South Korean soldiers in sunglasses stand with their arms at their sides, fists curled: If someone walks toward us, they may shoot.

No less odd a scene plays out inside the blue buildings, where a negotiating table has stood for 50 years, precisely along the line that marks the border.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Many will criticize the Bush administration's decision to remove North Korea from the terrorism blacklist last weekend, over the objections of close U.S. ally Japan, as a Hail Mary pass by an administration desperate for good news. Did President Bush, reeling from the U.S. financial meltdown and still struggling to achieve success in Iraq, finally relent to North Korean saber rattling and prematurely "delist" a country he once deemed part of the "axis of evil"? Perhaps so. But other factors may have been at play in this controversial decision. In any case, a McCain or Obama administration is likely to reap the benefits of this move.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

China's announcement on Saturday that negotiators have agreed on a blueprint for verifying North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is being seen as the latest in a string of hopeful signs. For a while, the drumbeat in Washington has been that the so-called six-party talks are going well and the North Korean nuclear program is well on its way to being contained. If only that were true.

In fact, the Kim Jong-il regime is getting exactly what it wants and using American hunger for diplomatic success to split us from our most important regional allies in the process. If this were high-stakes poker, the North Koreans would be biting their lips to hide their smiles at the cards in their hands.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAméricaMundoAsiaMundoOriente Próximo, , ,

The Bush administration is to be commended for completing a deal with North Korea that persuaded the reclusive regime to disclose details of its nuclear power and nuclear weapons capabilities. But, had George Bush been willing to negotiate six years earlier, the US and its partners would have got a better deal and the world would be more secure.

In the summer of 2002, long before Pyongyang had the bargaining chip of having tested a nuclear device, the Bush administration had an opportunity to strike a deal. At that time the North Koreans took a series of steps that signalled a strong willingness to forgo their nuclear programme.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

The Bush administration's North Korea strategy is being criticized from the right and the left for letting Pyongyang off the hook. Some advocate scuttling the six-party talks. Others suggest slowing our own compliance with the agreement to get North Korea to make a full declaration of its nuclear program first. We disagree with both positions. Our mantra should be: It's the plutonium, stupid.

North Korea does have the bomb -- but a limited nuclear arsenal and supply of plutonium to fuel its weapons. The Yongbyon plutonium production facilities are closed and partially disabled.

In separate visits to North Korea in February, we concluded that the disablement was extensive and thorough.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

The Bush administration gives plausible reasons for a bad nuclear deal with North Korea.

The proposed deal would lift key U.S. legal sanctions against the North while Pyongyang shelves many of the commitments it made in a prior agreement.

The United States would stomach North Korea's latest evasions because, for all of its risks, the deal at hand offers some movement on the most immediate problem, reducing North Korea's plutonium capabilities, and it keeps the door open to diplomatic solutions to eliminate Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.

But these reasons are not enough. If the administration accepts North Korea's hedging and reneging once again, it will increase, not decrease, the likelihood of confrontation down the line.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Corea del Norte es una de las dictaduras más opresivas, cerradas y brutales del mundo. Tal vez sea el último ejemplo vivo de totalitarismo puro: control por el Estado de todos los aspectos de la vida humana. ¿Es semejante país el lugar idóneo para que actúe una orquesta occidental? ¿Puede alguien imaginar a la Filarmónica de Nueva York, que actuó con gran aclamación en Pyongyang, haciéndolo para Stalin o Hitler?

Todos los sistemas totalitarios tienen una cosa en común: al aplastar todas las formas de expresión política, excepto la adulación del régimen, confieren carácter político a todas las cosas.

La invitación a la Filarmónica de Nueva York iba encaminada a dar lustre a un régimen, dirigido por el Amado Dirigente, Kim Jong Il, cuya reputación es tan mala - incluso en su vecina China-, que necesita todo el lustre que pueda conseguir.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

North Korea is one of the world's most oppressive and closed dictatorships. It is perhaps the last living example of pure totalitarianism - control of the state over every aspect of human life. Is such a place the right venue for a western orchestra? Can one imagine the New York Philharmonic, which performed to great acclaim in Pyongyang, entertaining Stalin or Hitler?

All totalitarian systems have one thing in common: by crushing all forms of political expression except adulation of the regime, they make everything political. There is no such thing in North Korea as non-political sports or culture. So there is no question that the invitation to the New York Philharmonic was meant to burnish the prestige of a regime, ruled by the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, whose standing is so low - even in neighbouring China - that it needs all the burnishing it can get.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

For the past six decades, North Korean music lovers have had little to sing about. Like everything else in that dark and shuttered country, music is part of the system of communist oppression presided over by Kim Jong Il: “Dear Leader”, tyrant and, inevitably, musical expert.

Mr Kim is said to compose his own music, of a spectacularly dreary and self-idolising sort. Back in 1968 he set down the inviolable principles of North Korean music: there should be no “uproarious Western music”, but only “lively and militant marches” celebrating his father, Kim Il Sung.

The last concert that Kim Jong Il attended included such catchy hits as No Motherland without You, with the lyrics: “Even if the world changes hundreds of times, people believe in you, Comrade Kim Jong Il!…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

Today in Pyongyang, the New York Philharmonic, the most prominent U.S. cultural institution ever to visit North Korea, performs live on state TV and radio. Many observers have cautiously dubbed this a prelude to a thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. But for North Koreans, a very real thaw, unseen by the musicians, has been transforming life for years.

A famine that killed a million people in the 1990s has driven fundamental societal changes in North Korea. As people struggled to survive, they were forced to defy many restrictions imposed by the state, which has consequently lost much of its control.

Before the famine, North Korea could plausibly be called a hermit kingdom.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia, ,

By my count, at least five former high-level Bush administration officials are deeply disillusioned with the current policy on North Korea.

This brewing discontent broke into open revolt two weeks ago when Jay Lefkowitz, the special envoy on North Korean human rights, committed the gaffe of stating the obvious: North Korea is not serious about nuclear disarmament. The current six-party talks will do little to change that fact. And the price we are paying to pursue those talks is silence about the suffering of a brutalized, friendless people.

Afterward, even some of Lefkowitz's supporters complained that he had ventured "out of his lane."…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsiaMundoOriente Próximo, ,

Either Kim Jong Il or Pervez Musharraf is lying about whether Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove, Abdul Qadeer Khan, gave centrifuges to North Korea for uranium enrichment. Unless the truth can be established, the hitherto-promising denuclearization negotiations with Pyongyang are likely to collapse.

Khan has been shielded from foreign interrogators since his arrest three years ago for running a global nuclear Wal-Mart. Musharraf wrote in his memoir, "In the Line of Fire," that the former czar of Pakistan's nuclear program provided "nearly two dozen" prototype centrifuges suitable for uranium enrichment experiments to North Korea -- a charge flatly denied by Pyongyang.

"Why don't you invite A.Q.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia

The optimism with which the October agreement with North Korea was welcomed has faded amid accusations that the North again is not keeping its commitments. First came word that "disablement" of nuclear facilities was slowing. Then there was the missed Dec. 31 deadline for North Korea to declare the full scope of its nuclear program, including its plutonium stockpile and uranium enrichment activities. And earlier in the fall, North Korea was accused of helping Syria construct a nuclear facility in its desert, reportedly a reactor.

The finger-wagging, told-you-so naysayers in and out of the Bush administration should take a deep breath.…  Seguir leyendo »