[Cankor] Report #238

[cankor at cankor.ca]

Dear subscriber,

Welcome to issue #238 of the CanKor Report.

In this week's QUIDNUNC, Charles Burton, Tim Savage, and Leonid Petrov 
respond to the question:
All countries in the Six Party Talks pay lipservice to Korean reunification. 
Which country's interests would be served by a unified Korea?

For next week, answers are sought to the following question:
Why do DPR Koreans put so much emphasis on agriculture, when every 
specialist knows they will never be self-sufficient? (See New Year's Joint 
Editorial, CanKor #232)

Please send your answer (maximum 150 words) to: editor at CanKor.ca

The CanKor team.

For articles not original to CanKor, direct links are available in the 
Contents section, should you wish to consult the originals on the internet.

If the links no longer function, you may refer to the full text articles 
appended to the issue.

For back issues, archives and other content, please visit our website:
http://www.cankor.ca

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CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE

CanKor # 238

Friday, 24 February 2006
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The Executive Board of the UN World Food Programme approves a two-year plan 
to supply vitamin-and-mineral enriched foods produced in-country for young 
children and pregnant women, and food-for-work cereal rations for 
underemployed communities. Implementation modalities are yet to be agreed, 
amid concerns about staffing levels, monitoring restrictions and access.

While negotiating its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the ROK, Canada is 
inadvertently drawn into the growing disagreement between Washington and 
Seoul over whether to allow tariff-free imports of goods produced South 
Korean firms in the DPRK's Kaesong Industrial Complex. Foreign Affairs 
Canada declines to comment, given that negotiations are ongoing. It is 
anticipated, however, that Canada will find it problematic to afford 
favourable treatment to goods produced without the assurance of labour and 
environmental standards, and labour costs that undercut China's by 70-80 
percent.

The European Parliament is holding a hearing on DPRK human rights on 23 
March. US-based Freedom House moves the date for its next human rights 
conference -- financed with money allocated under the North Korea Human 
Rights Act of 2004 -- to coincide with the hearing. According to a letter 
sent to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by US lawmakers, not a single 
DPR Korean has been granted refugee status in the USA, despite the fact that 
asylum was a major component of the North Korean Human Rights Act.

Some of the most avid campaigners for human rights in the DPRK are Christian 
groups intent on spreading their faith to the northern part of the Korean 
Peninsula. This week's CanKor FOCUS, "A mission beyond human rights," 
highlights two articles by New York Times correspondent Norimitsu Onishi on 
the uneasy alliance between human rights activists and conservative South 
Korean Christians who in the past decade have generated the world's 
second-largest overseas missionary force after the USA.
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Contents:
1.   WFP GOVERNING BODY APPROVES DPRK AID PLAN
     http://www.wfp.org/english/?ModuleID=137&Key=2019

2.   FREE TRADE TALKS DRAW OTTAWA INTO KAESONG DEBATE
     http://www.asiapacific.ca/analysis/pubs/listing.cfm?ID_Publication=514

3.   EU PARLIAMENT TO HOLD HEARING ON DPRK HUMAN RIGHTS
     times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200602/kt2006022016155211990.htm

4.   US LAWMAKERS PROD RICE ON NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE ACT
     http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022301469.html

FOCUS: A mission beyond human rights
5.   CAMPAIGNING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND FISHING FOR SOULS
     http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/24/international/asia/24letter.html?ex=1141448400

6.   HELPING DPR KOREANS DEFECT IS "EASY PART"
     http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2005/12/19/international/asia/19missionary.html&tntemail1=y&oref=login

QUIDNUNC: Readers ask and respond to common and uncommon questions.
THIS WEEK: All countries in the Six Party Talks pay lipservice to Korean 
reunification. Which country's interests would be served by a unified Korea?
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1.   WFP GOVERNING BODY APPROVES DPRK AID PLAN
     World Food Programme Press Release, 23 February 2006

The World Food Programme's governing Executive Board today approved a 
two-year plan to build on the agency's ten-year record of humanitarian 
assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea by tackling 
nutritional deficiencies and chronic hunger. Valued at US$102 million and 
requiring 150,000 metric tons of commodities for 1.9 million North Koreans, 
the plan aims to provide vitamin-and-mineral enriched foods produced 
in-country to young children and women of child-bearing age, and cereal 
rations to underemployed communities to build and rehabilitate agricultural 
and other community assets.

"We remain very concerned about the nutritional status of children in DPRK, 
so I appreciate this decision by our Executive Board, which will allow us to 
build on the progress we have achieved," WFP Executive Director James Morris 
said of the decision by the 36-nation governing board at the agency's 
headquarters in Rome, Italy. "The world, and DPRK, is a better place because 
of our presence in the country."

Several members of the Executive Board expressed strong concerns about the 
restrictions on monitoring and access that the DPRK government has imposed. 
These include a reduction in the number of international staff from a peak 
of 46 to just 10, and a reduction in the number of monitoring visits from 
approximately 400 per month to a much more limited number.

"Our board members have raised reasonable questions about our access to 
people in need and ability to monitor their donations. WFP shares these 
concerns and has worked hard to negotiate improved conditions for our 
operation," said Morris, who visited Pyongyang in December 2005. "We now 
look to the government of the DPRK to agree to conditions that will allow us 
to do our work properly, for the sake of the people who need our help... If 
we cannot reach a suitable final agreement on our operating conditions, we 
will be forced to withdraw," Morris told the Executive Board members.

WFP ended ten years of emergency assistance to the DPRK on 31 December 2005 
after the government, citing better harvests and domestic concerns about the 
emergence of a dependency culture and the "intrusiveness" of the agency's 
monitoring, declared it would in the future accept only assistance that 
addressed medium- and long-term needs. Approval by the Executive Board is 
just the first step in the process of resuming food aid to DPRK. WFP and the 
government must now agree upon the details of implementation -- including 
how many staff, their access to beneficiaries, and ability to monitor 
assistance -- to be formalized in a letter of understanding. Before food 
distribution can restart, additional commitments from donor countries will 
also be needed. (...)
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2.   FREE TRADE TALKS DRAW OTTAWA INTO KAESONG DEBATE
     Bulletin #247, APFC, 22 February 2006

[The following report was written by Sarah Tsang, Junior Research Analyst, 
Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Vancouver, B.C. Please note that 
"Gaeseong" is an alternate transliteration for "Kaesong". -- CanKor.]

While negotiating its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with South Korea, Canada 
has inadvertently been drawn into the growing disagreement between 
Washington and Seoul over ties with North Korea. The issue is whether or not 
Ottawa will allow tariff-free imports from the Gaeseong Industrial Complex 
(GIC), an inter-Korean special economic zone in North Korea located 60 km 
from Seoul and 160 km from Pyongyang. While South Korea has successfully 
lobbied for GIC products to be included in its FTA with Singapore (effective 
March 2, 2006), as well as in its pending FTA with the Association of 
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the US has already announced that Gaeseong 
will not be part of any FTA it negotiates with South Korea. This is hardly 
surprising, given Washington's long-standing sanctions on North Korea, its 
recent crackdown on Pyongyang's alleged counterfeiting of US currency, as 
well as its mounting frustration over the continued stalemate in the 
Six-Party Talks. On the other hand, the European Free Trade Area has agreed 
to allow tariff-free imports of Gaeseong goods, as long as 60% of the 
materials from which they are made are of South Korean origin. While it 
appears that proposed Canadian rules of origin in its FTA with South Korea 
do not cover the GIC, it is doubtful Ottawa will be able to avoid the 
Gaeseong debate as Seoul presses for its inclusion.

The Gaeseong zone has come to symbolize peninsular hopes for eventual 
reunification of the Koreas, beginning with economic partnership and 
cooperation. Identified as a "stepping stone for peace and prosperity of the 
Korean Peninsula" in South Korean government literature, the GIC took on 
further legitimacy when the first-ever joint North-South economic office was 
set up on-site last October. Currently, 15 South Korean companies are 
operating in the GIC, producing textiles, metal machinery parts and 
electronic goods under a "Made in Korea" label. Inter-Korean trade has 
progressed steadily over the years, from US$425 million in 2000 to US$1.56 
billion in 2005. Some of this growth can be attributed to the development of 
Gaeseong; the ratio of GIC-related trade to total inter-Korean trade has 
gone from zero in 2000 up to 16.7% in 2005. Under its "economic blueprint" 
for future reunification with the North, Seoul has ambitious plans to expand 
Gaeseong in three phases, to become a "city" covering more than 60 sq. km by 
2012.

The main problem at present is finding markets for Gaeseong-made goods. 
While China, Russia and ASEAN have no particular regulations against North 
Korean products, the long-term sustainability of the GIC will depend on 
gaining access to markets that are larger and farther afield, which Seoul is 
aggressively seeking in its FTA talks with various countries. Most recently, 
South Korea announced that it would begin discussions with India on a 
Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, the usual precursor to a 
full-fledged FTA.

Registering growth of 3.4% in 2005, the North Korean economy has tried to 
gain a boost by launching special economic zones, of which Gaeseong is the 
only success so far. Kim Jong Il's tour of China's economically prosperous 
southern region last month suggests that Pyongyang may be seriously 
considering further measures to supplement its 2002 economic "adjustments," 
which saw a very limited introduction of market forces into the economy. 
>From South Korea's perspective, given that the estimated costs of eventual 
reunification may top US$650 billion, it has often asked for regional help 
in economically integrating the North. In October 2005, Seoul made a formal 
proposal inviting Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum economies 
to participate in developing the abundant mineral deposits in the North.

There were no takers. Doing business in North Korea remains too risky, given 
the political uncertainties, lack of basic infrastructure and unavailability 
of insurance guarantees. Even in Gaeseong, the South Korean government is 
currently providing extensive tax exemptions and incentives to attract 
investment. For example, the GIC's corporate tax rate is lower than that in 
China's special economic zones.

As for the Canada-Korea FTA, officials from both sides confirm that the 
Gaeseong issue has already come up and is likely to do so again in further 
discussions. During the fourth round of talks that concluded in Seoul last 
weekend, Canada and South Korea began exchanging lists of tariff 
concessions. Beyond the expected controversial areas -- autos, agriculture 
and shipbuilding -- it appears that the talks are picking up pace, with the 
next round of talks to be held in Ottawa in late April. Although 
International Trade Canada has not set a firm deadline, Seoul has said it 
expects to conclude the FTA by the end of the year.

Despite Canada's past hesitancy in negotiating bilateral trade deals --  
talks with Singapore have been stalled since 2003 -- a successful outcome 
with South Korea would not be surprising. Canada and South Korea have a 
long-standing history of economic cooperation, beginning with the launch of 
a "Special Partnership" at the 1993 APEC Leaders' Meeting. In 1995, Prime 
Minister Chrétien and President Kim Young Sam pledged to boost two-way trade 
to C$10 billion by 2000 although the Asian financial crisis threw a 
roadblock into that plan. Merchandise trade between Canada and South Korea 
last year totaled C$8.1 billion, suggesting there is still room to grow. 
South Korea's strategic role as a gateway and supply-chain link to Northeast 
Asia meshes with Canada's own Pacific Gateway Strategy.

Last week, Seoul announced plans to allow international firms into the GIC 
as soon as possible, subject to "consultation with the North." While there 
has been no expressed interest among foreign companies yet, all the heads of 
overseas South Korean missions were recently given a tour of Gaeseong, to 
help them in their "diplomatic activities in the future." As with the 
Six-Party Talks, the key remains not only how Pyongyang responds, but also 
how South Korea's partners will respond to such overtures. Canada has to 
decide if it will break ranks with Washington's hard-line stance toward 
Pyongyang to help Seoul develop an economic bridge to North Korea.
*************************************************

3.   EU PARLIAMENT TO HOLD HEARING ON DPRK HUMAN RIGHTS
     Korea Times, 20 February 2006

The European Union (EU) parliament will hold a hearing next month on the 
human rights situation in North Korea, and a US group will hold its serial 
conference to coincide with the hearing, sources here said Sunday. The 
hearing is slated for March 23, led by nongovernmental organizations that 
will bring North Korean refugees to testify. The US-based human rights group 
Freedom House has moved up the date for its conference on North Korea to 
coincide with the hearing, sources said. Freedom House, with money allocated 
by the US Congress under the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004, has 
hosted two previous conferences in Washington and Seoul.

The closely guarded Pyongyang regime is accused of running gulags and prison 
camps to quell dissent. North Korea's treatment of its people has been 
decried for years in human rights reports, which criticize its denial of 
basic freedoms.
*************************************************

4.   US LAWMAKERS PROD RICE ON NORTH KOREAN REFUGEE ACT
     by Paul Eckert, Reuters, 23 February 2006

The US government has failed to implement 2004 legislation aimed at 
promoting human rights in North Korea and giving asylum to refugees from 
that communist state, senior US legislators said. In a letter this week to 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, US senators and congressmen said the 
State Department must swiftly implement the North Korean Human Rights Act 
and take the lead in tackling the North's refugee crisis.

"Not one North Korean has been offered asylum or refugee status in the 16 
months since the unanimous passage of the legislation," said the letter, 
signed by nine lawmakers including Henry Hyde, an Illinois Republican and 
chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee.

The act set aside $24 million a year for activities including the resettling 
of refugees from North Korea. But the letter said the Bush administration 
did not include funds to implement the act in its 2007 budget request. 
Experts say US inaction -- especially after President George W. Bush's 
repeated condemnation of North Korea's human rights record -- makes 
promoting human rights in the North harder and leaves America open to 
charges of hypocrisy.

"It's become increasingly indefensible to have no refugee admissions," said 
Doug Anderson, an adviser to Hyde's committee. He noted that Belgium and 
several other European states have started admitting North Korean refugees. 
A major cause of the delay was overlapping jurisdiction over refugee 
screening between agencies including the State Department and the Department 
of Homeland Security, said Anderson, who was closely involved in drafting 
the act. Funding was held up in part because the bill was signed by Bush so 
late in 2004 that it missed the 2005 budget and was not factored into the 
2006 budget request, he added. (...)
*************************************************

FOCUS: A mission beyond human rights

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5.   CAMPAIGNING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND FISHING FOR SOULS
     by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, Seoul, 24 February 2006

After spending 18 months illegally in China in the mid-1980's and converting 
to Christianity, Kim Tae Jin was locked up for four years in North Korea's 
infamous prison camp No. 15 at Yodok. He fled North Korea a few years after 
his release and in 2001 found his way to South Korea, where he is a 
co-chairman of NK Gulag, a private group focusing on human rights in North 
Korea. For Mr. Kim, while securing those rights is an important goal, it 
comes second to a far more consequential one: evangelizing in North Korea.

"God never ordered us to fight for human rights, but he ordered us to spread 
the word to the end of the earth," Mr. Kim, 50, said, adding that the 
group's leaders were North Korean converts to Christianity. Their faith, he 
said, buttressed their political work. "Because we are North Koreans and 
Christians, we feel responsible for leading the fight for better conditions 
in North Korea."

In South Korea, the issue of human rights in the North has been spearheaded 
by conservative Christians whose aim is to take their faith to the northern 
half of the divided peninsula. Although the movement's most visible 
spokesmen are North Korean defectors, its core is made up of South Korean 
Christians who in the past decade have grown into the world's second-largest 
overseas missionary force after the United States. The Korean Christians, 
along with evangelical American Christians, have formed a sometimes uneasy 
alliance with conservative American politicians. All share a distaste for 
negotiating with North Korea over any issue, from human rights to nuclear 
arms, and a desire for a change of government in the North. They fiercely 
criticize the South Korean government's engagement of North Korea, which 
they say has led to an immoral silence over abuses in the North.

Few here would argue with the assessment of organizations like Human Rights 
Watch that the North Korean government is "among the world's most 
repressive," engaging in arbitrary arrests and the pervasive use of torture. 
North Korea is a place, Human Rights Watch points out, with no fair trials, 
no political opposition, no independent civil society and no freedom of 
information or religion. But the North Korean human rights issue has become 
so politicized that the actual plight of North Koreans is often emphasized 
or de-emphasized for other ends.

"Right now, both Koreans and Americans have ulterior motives in focusing on 
North Korean human rights," said the Rev. Benjamin H. Yoon, who ran Amnesty 
International's South Korea office for many years before founding the 
Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights in 1996. It is the oldest 
private group concerned with abuses in the North. Mr. Yoon's group is 
critical of the Christian groups for linking human rights with evangelizing 
and the South Korean government for failing to speak out on the subject.

The South Korean government contends that it is putting a priority on peace 
on the Korean peninsula by refraining from spotlighting human rights 
violations by the North Korean government, which regards such criticism as a 
threat to its hold on power. South Korea says it is promoting human rights 
in the North by increasing economic ties and nudging it toward more 
openness. To South Korea, harsh talk on human rights is a cover for 
hard-liners here and in the Bush administration to scuttle six-nation talks 
over the nuclear crisis. Just as the Bush administration's recent focus on 
the North's counterfeiting after more than a decade of silence has outraged 
the North Koreans, the continuing focus on human rights has handed North 
Korea another excuse not to resume talks.

By contrast, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently that she 
planned to focus more attention on North Korean rights abuses. "We've talked 
about this issue with South Korea, which is not always an easy 
conversation," Ms. Rice told the House International Relations Committee.

The politicization of human rights is reflected in South Korea's recent 
history, Mr. Yoon said. During South Korea's military rule, proponents of 
democratization, including Roh Moo Hyun, now the president and a former 
human rights lawyer, fought for human rights and "were considered 
progressive and leftist," Mr. Yoon, 76, said. "Now, because of the 
government's engagement policy toward the North, speaking out against human 
rights abuses in the North is regarded as reactionary and rightist," he 
said.

Until the start of its "sunshine policy" of engagement in the late 1990's, 
the South Korean government highlighted the North's human rights violations. 
The Korean Central Intelligence Agency debriefed North Korean defectors and 
urged some to transform their statements into books. One such account became 
"The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag," a memoir 
by Kang Chol Hwan, a defector who was invited to meet President Bush in the 
White House last year. Mr. Kang, who has said that intermediaries connected 
with the intelligence agency helped him publish his memoir after he arrived 
here in 1992, is a co-chairman of NK Gulag, which is supported by the 
National Endowment for Democracy. Against this political backdrop, it is an 
open secret that some North Korean defectors, and their backers, exaggerate 
their experiences in North Korea.

"They exaggerate their stories for money and fame," said the Rev. Joseph 
Park, the Christian Council of Korea's mission director. "They say that they 
were political prisoners when they were ordinary prisoners, or that they saw 
something they only heard about."

Critics also say that some Christians, while professing their commitment to 
human rights in the North, are actually endangering the lives of North 
Koreans through their evangelizing. The Rev. Kim Tae Hyun, an official with 
the National Council of Churches in Korea, which supports the South Korean 
government's low-key approach on human rights in North Korea, criticizes 
missionaries who send North Koreans living in China back into the North to 
proselytize secretly. "They are putting the defectors at great risk," Mr. 
Kim said.

Durihana, a South Korean missionary group that is also increasing its 
lobbying in the United States, engages in the practice. "We don't force them 
to go back," said Chun Ki Won, 50, Durihana's director. "We send only 
volunteers." Mr. Chun did not deny that he and others might have other goals 
in emphasizing human rights in the North. "The US may be using human rights 
to have leverage in the nuclear negotiations," he said. "But whether it's 
political or not, there is the reality that there are executions and human 
rights violations in North Korea, and we can't forget that."
*************************************************

6.   HELPING DPR KOREANS DEFECT IS "EASY PART"
     by Norimitsu Onishi, New York Times, Seoul,19 December 2005

In from the freezing cold on a recent Sunday morning, sitting on the heated 
floor of a cozy apartment in northeast Seoul, the North Korean defector 
seldom looked up at the South Korean missionary who had been trying, for the 
last year, to convert him to the Christian faith. The North Korean 
mechanically checked the messages on his Samsung cell phone and restrained 
his two daughters from using hymn sheets as telescopes to peer at the 
half-dozen North Koreans in the home church. When the South Korean started 
strumming his guitar and led his congregation in a hymn, the North Korean's 
lips barely moved, even as a young man next to him raised his hands, palms 
up, and intoned, "Can't replace the Lord with anything!"

After the service, the North Korean said, "Even when I pray, I'm not sure it 
comes naturally." Perhaps realizing that the South Korean missionary, Peter 
Jung, sat within earshot, the North Korean softened his words. "When you've 
had the kind of life I've had, it's difficult to believe in anything," said 
the North Korean, who, fearing for his relatives in his hometown, asked that 
he be identified only by his surname, Park. "It's even difficult to believe 
in myself."

Mr. Jung made no attempt to hide his frustration after Mr. Park had left, 
holding himself "responsible" that the North Korean, after a year, had yet 
to "feel the Holy Spirit."

"If I can't spread the Word," said the missionary, who spent 16 months in 
prison for proselytizing in China, "God might as well put a stone around my 
neck and throw me into the ocean."

As the two Koreas have moved closer in recent years, the complicated 
relationship between defector and missionary has come to symbolize, perhaps 
more than anything else, the yawning gap of a half-century of division. 
While the North remains Communist, the South has grown into the foothold for 
Christianity in Northeast Asia.

With a nearly 30 percent Christian population, the South has the world's 
second largest missionary movement, after the United States, with 14,000 
people abroad. An estimated 1,500 are deployed in China, evangelizing 
secretly and illegally among Chinese and among North Koreans living in 
China -- a population that various estimates say ranges from 10,000 to as 
many as 300,000. South Korean missionaries shelter North Koreans and have 
brought thousands here to the South; others train them to return home to 
proselytize, as well as smuggle Bibles into the North.

For the South's missionaries, converting people from the North, where 
Christianity first spread before the peninsula's division, dovetails with 
their dream of a reunified peninsula. "Oh Lord, please send us, for our 
brethren up North," reads a verse in the most popular hymn among 
missionaries working with defectors, "Evangelical Song of Unification." It 
is also part of a larger dream of spreading the Gospel along the Silk Road 
back to its source.

"Only when we open up China, with South and North Korea as one, will we be 
able to go back to Jerusalem," said the Rev. Cho Gi Youn, the manager of 
missions at the Christian Council of Korea, whose missionary school 
graduates 300 students a year.

Behind these movements, though, are personal ties between defector and 
missionary, complicated by a balance of power tipped in the South Korean's 
favor and the inevitable mix of religion, politics and money. To the North 
Korean defectors, some South Korean missionaries seem more concerned about 
brokering deals to smuggle them out of China and using them in Seoul as 
publicity tools against North Korea. To South Korean missionaries, who have 
risked their lives to evangelize in China, some North Korean defectors 
appear ungrateful. Although no precise figures exist, only a fifth to a 
third of North Korean defectors ultimately convert to Christianity, 
according to most South Korean missionaries interviewed.

It was a year ago that Mr. Park and Mr. Jung, now both 38 years old, met in 
Seoul through a mutual friend. The missionary had just returned here after 
spending several years in China. The defector had arrived here with his wife 
and two girls after spending several years in China. Although the defector's 
wife had converted to Christianity in China, he remained ambivalent, despite 
his friendship with the missionary.

"There are missionaries who look like con men to me; they're just interested 
in taking money from defectors in China," said Mr. Park, who fell victim to 
such a swindler before making it out of China. "But Peter even went to jail 
to help North Korean defectors. I wonder how can he love so much that he 
would put himself in jail for us? ... He's a pastor, he's a good friend, 
we're the same age, so I go to church," the defector went on. "But if you're 
a Christian, you have to feel from the bottom of your heart. Even though 
Peter is right next to me, I still haven't felt that. But I'm very, very 
grateful to him."

Peter Jung became a missionary after spending a chunk of his childhood 
studying and sleeping in the local church where his mother sent him when his 
father had drunk too much. He studied theology in the 1990's, just as South 
Korea's missionary movement was furiously growing, and decided that there 
was only one place to spread the Gospel: China. From 1997, the missionary 
worked in northeast China, near the border with North Korea, evangelizing 
among Chinese and North Koreans there. China views the North Koreans as 
illegal economic refugees and often deports them to the North. Typically, 
Mr. Jung would be in charge of taking care of a couple of defectors, 
sheltering and feeding them.

"After they'd settle down, I'd start teaching them the Lord's Prayer," the 
missionary said. "But it wasn't easy to change their hearts into 
Christians."

Mr. Jung was more cautious than other missionaries, refusing to send North 
Koreans to smuggle Bibles across the border and sing hymns inside home 
churches. Still, in mid-2003, he and his colleagues, as well as several 
North Koreans in their care, were arrested. After he was released from 
prison, Mr. Jung was deported here.

It was around the same time that Mr. Park, the defector, found his way here. 
In the North, he lived in a town along the border with China, not far from 
the Chinese city Yanji. A member of the Korean Workers' Party, he said he 
had been assigned to work at a mining company but never went. Instead, Mr. 
Park made money in the growing unofficial trade between North Korea and 
China. A strong swimmer, he smuggled people back and forth across the Tumen 
River, charging about $60 for the 30-minute swim and sometimes making as 
much as $1,000 a month. He often bribed a North Korean intelligence official 
to protect him. At the time, while most people in his town counted 
themselves lucky if they ate three meals of corn a day, he and his family 
ate chicken, pork and rice daily. He said that he liked the freedom and 
opportunities in South Korea, but that he missed his relatives and the power 
he had back home.

"Here I'm just a follower, but over there I was a leader," the defector 
said. "It's not because I was a party member, but because capitalism is 
creeping into North Korea, if you have a lot of money, you can have power."

But in the middle of one night, in 1999, the friendly intelligence officer 
woke him up. He told Mr. Park that he had been implicated in a case and 
warned him to flee to China. With his wife, seven months pregnant with their 
second child, Mr. Park swam across the river, barely making it to the other 
side. A month later, he returned to North Korea one last time, to get his 
older daughter and money for a lattice machine for his wife. In China, a 
missionary couple arranged for his wife to be admitted at a hospital, and 
visited often. Mr. Park's wife delivered safely and persuaded him to name 
their second daughter Mary as a reflection of her new faith.

In South Korea since late 2003, Mr. Park recently started a job as a real 
estate agent, hoping that will give him the experience to buy land one day. 
His wife, busy with two jobs, entrusts him to attend Mr. Jung's home church 
every Sunday.

"There are times I'm tired and I don't want to come here," the defector 
said. "But my wife says it's good for the children... My wife was never a 
party member, so it was easier for her to accept Christianity," he said. "I 
was a party member for 10 years, and they indoctrinated us with the party 
ideology. When I hear Christian preaching, it sounds similar to the party 
teachings. Christians praise God, but North Koreans praise Kim Il Sung and 
Kim Jong Il," the founder of the North Korean state and his son, the current 
leader. "At least, they are mortal and we can see them. In Christianity, 
they ask me to praise the Lord, whom we cannot even see."

At the home church on Sunday, the missionary, in his sermon, counseled his 
congregation that winning the lottery or marrying Julia Roberts would not 
bring eternal happiness. Only God's love would.

"In North Korea, there is no God," the missionary said. "There is only Kim 
Jong Il and Kim Il Sung. But there are North Korean defectors who have 
stopped worshiping them and have gotten the Holy Spirit. It's a miracle that 
they come to believe in God as quickly as they do."

After everyone had left, though, the missionary said he knew he had not won 
over Mr. Park. He knew that Christianity reminded Mr. Park, as well as other 
defectors, of North Korean ideology. "It's understandable," the missionary 
said. "We can only pray that he'll meet the Holy Spirit one day. Only God 
knows where and when that will happen."
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QUIDNUNC
In this section of CanKor, we invite readers to send questions, answers, or 
responses. Answers should be under 150 words and may be edited for space.

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ALL COUNTRIES IN THE SIX PARTY TALKS PAY LIPSERVICE TO KOREAN REUNIFICATION. 
WHICH COUNTRY'S INTERESTS WOULD BE SERVED BY A UNIFIED KOREA?
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Reunification would serve the interests of all six parties except for the 
United States. With the end of the Korean War that this implies, Korea would 
likely request that the USA withdraw its military presence from Korean soil. 
China-Korea economic relations would grow stronger, fueled by the economic 
boom engendered by Chinese-style "opening and reform" in the former DPRK 
region. Russia, China and Korea would develop the Tumen Delta into an 
important hub for global trade. But reunification would only occur in the 
context of a weakened USA, with significantly reduced global influence due 
to a crisis of confidence in the US economy, comparable to the decline of 
the former Soviet Union in the 80s and 90s. Japan in this case would have 
little choice but to fall into a China-dominated Asia-Pacific. Without US 
protection, Taiwan would cease to be able to maintain de facto independence 
of China and would "return to the embrace of the motherland."

Charles Burton, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Brock 
University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
*************************************************

That completely depends on what form a unified Korea takes. A unified Korea 
that is outside of the US-Japan security alliance, and maintains good 
relations with China, would absolutely be in Beijing's interest. On the 
other hand, a unified Korea closely aligned with the United States would 
mean the loss of the "buffer zone" that North Korea represents. Conversely, 
a unified Korea that is within the US orbit would benefit both Washington 
and Tokyo by providing a foothold on the Asian mainland, while a unified 
Korea that moves closer to China would rekindle age-old fears about the 
"dagger pointed at the heart of Japan." To prevent these types of rivalries, 
it would be necessary for all the parties involved to reach some sort of 
accommodation, such as agreeing to keep US troops south of the 38th 
parallel, or even some form of guaranteed neutrality.

Tim Savage, Nautilus-Korea
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Among the Six Party Talks' participants only Russia seems to be genuinely 
interested in the soonest and peaceful reunification of Korea. The 
Trans-Korean Railway would open for Russia a direct access to the 
resources-hungry workshops of South Korea and significantly extend the 
Russian Trans-Siberian Railway. Neither Koreans nor Russians have any 
territorial disputes, leaving little grounds for irredentism. The Russian 
Far East is very much interested in the economic development of the DPRK's 
northeastern provinces that would be spurred by the arrival of South Korean 
capital. Should the two Koreas unify, no foreign military presence would be 
justified on the Korean peninsula. That will serve Russia's defense and 
strategic interests. Alternatively, all remaining five members of the Six 
Party Talks have good reasons to maintain the status quo and see Korea 
divided.

Leonid A. Petrov, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian 
National University, Canberra.
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WHAT NOW?

Why do DPR Koreans put so much emphasis on agriculture, when every 
specialist knows they will never be self-sufficient? (See New Year's Joint 
Editorial, CanKor #232)

[Answers should be e-mailed to: editor at CanKor.ca]
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End CanKor # 238

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