[Cankor] Report #268

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CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE

CanKor # 268

Thursday, 30 November 2006
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Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay welcomes the DPRK's 
agreement to return to the Six Party Talks, while announcing that Canada 
is fully implementing UN Resolution 1718 on arms transfers as well as 
assets freeze and embargo on the export of luxury goods.

After two days of preparatory talks in Beijing, chief negotiators 
Christopher Hill (USA) and Kim Gye Gwan (DPRK) return to their 
respective capitals for consultations before setting a date for the 
resumption of Six-Party Talks. A diplomatic source in Beijing says that 
a US proposal to resume shipments of fuel oil to North Korea in return 
for shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear reactor had been received 
positively. A diplomatic source in Seoul says that during a meeting 
between US President George W. Bush and ROK President Roh Moo-hyun in 
Hanoi, Bush said that he is willing to sign a document declaring the end 
of the Korean War with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il if Pyongyang 
dismantles its nuclear programme.

This week's CanKor FOCUS, "Humanitarian Fallout", examines the prospect 
of further food shortages and possible famine in the DPRK in the wake of 
a poor harvest due to summer and fall storms and the reluctance of 
donors to assist a nation that tested its first nuclear device in 
defiance of the international community.

Two media reviews are featured in CanKor's RESOURCES section. Reviewing 
the new musical stage production "Yoduk Story," about life in a North 
Korean prison camp, John Feffer calls the production "a kind of 
anti-socialist realism." The Washington Times gives the film "Abduction: 
The Megumi Yokota Story," about the kidnapping of a 13-year-old Japanese 
girl by North Korean agents three and a half stars out of four.
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Contents:

1.   CANADA IMPLEMENTS UN RESOLUTION 1718
     
http://w01.international.gc.ca/minpub/Publication.aspx?isRedirect=True&publication_id=384634&language=E&docnumber=145

2.   NO DATE SET YET FOR SIX-PARTY TALKS
     
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200611/29/200611292153560879900090409041.html

3.   BUSH 'OFFERED TO SIGN END TO KOREAN WAR WITH KIM JONG IL'
     http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200611/200611300009.html

FOCUS: Humanitarian Fallout
4.   DPR KOREA HEADS TOWARD HUNGER
     http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1019/p01s04-woap.html

5.   LATE OCTOBER STORMS LEAVE 7,300 HOMELESS
     
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/11/08/news/nation/14_34_0611_7_06.txt

6.   DPRK EXPECTING LIMITED HARVESTS THIS YEAR
     
http://ifes.kyungnam.ac.kr/admin/upload_file/nk_brief/NK_Brief_061123.pdf

7.   RED CROSS SIGNS AID DEAL WITH DPRK
     http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200611/200611250011.html

RESOURCES
8.   ANTI-SOCIALIST REALISM
     http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3721

9.   NORTH KOREA'S OTHER AFFRONT
     http://www.washingtontimes.com/entertainment/20061126-105157-3279r.htm
*************************************************

1.   CANADA IMPLEMENTS UN RESOLUTION 1718
     Foreign Affairs Canada News Release #145, 30 November 2006

The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of 
the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, today announced that the 
government is implementing UN Resolution 1718 on the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea.

"Canada is fully implementing the Resolution, which is intended to bring 
North Korea back to the Six Party Talks and to encourage it to abandon 
all of its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes 
in a verifiable and irreversible manner," stated Minister MacKay. 
"Canada welcomes North Korea's agreement to return to the Six Party 
Talks and hopes that the meetings resume soon."

On November 27, the government tabled new regulations, made under the 
United Nations Act, which, together with existing relevant provisions of 
the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, enabled Canada to fully 
implement in Canadian law the sanctions mandated by Resolution 1718. The 
Regulations were published on November 29 in the Canada Gazette, Part II.

The regulations address the embargo mandated by Resolution 1718 on the 
provision and procurement of arms, related material and technical 
assistance. They also address an assets freeze and an embargo on the 
export of luxury goods.
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2.   NO DATE SET YET FOR SIX-PARTY TALKS
     by Brian Lee, Joongang Ilbo, 30 November 2006

After a second day of talks among North Korean, US and Chinese nuclear 
negotiators, officials in Beijing said yesterday no date had yet been 
set for a resumption of the six-party talks. They professed hope, 
however, that they would eventually succeed in restarting them.

In a statement, China's Foreign Ministry said only that the negotiators 
had agreed the talks should resume as soon as possible. Christopher 
Hill, the US envoy at the talks, cancelled a flight to Seoul yesterday 
in what one South Korean official here said were "changing conditions on 
the ground in Beijing." Mr. Hill had planned to meet his counterpart 
from Seoul, Chun Young-woo, and then fly to Tokyo for talks there. He 
reportedly will return to Washington instead.

"It's too early to tell what will come out, but setting a date is not 
the main issue," the Korean official said. "There needs to be some 
clarification of each side's position; then we can discuss a date." 
Another official said that Mr. Hill is expected to return to Washington 
today in what is a move to give Pyongyang some time to ponder what was 
discussed between the two sides; Yonhap News has reported that North 
Korea is insisting on an end to US sanctions and the release of 
sequestered funds at a Macao bank before it will consider scrapping its 
nuclear programs and attempts to develop nuclear weapons.

A diplomatic source in Beijing said yesterday that a US proposal to 
resume shipments of fuel oil to North Korea in return for shutting down 
the Yongbyon nuclear reactor had been received positively. But an 
official here was cautious, saying that the five nations facing the 
North in the nuclear negotiations were intent on bringing the full talks 
to a successful conclusion and were wary of vague assurances by Pyongyang.

The difficult negotiations over when to resume negotiations suggest the 
degree of mistrust between Washington and Pyongyang. Although Washington 
has dangled the possibility of bilateral talks about the sanctions it 
has imposed to counter alleged money laundering and counterfeiting, an 
official here said Washington still considered those sanctions a matter 
unrelated to the nuclear talks.
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3.   BUSH 'OFFERED TO SIGN END TO KOREAN WAR WITH KIM JONG IL'
     Chosun Ilbo, 30 November 2006

US President George W. Bush told his South Korean counterpart he is 
willing to sign a document declaring the end of the Korean War with 
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il if Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear 
program. A diplomatic source in Seoul on Wednesday said Bush made the 
offer during a meeting with President Roh Moo-hyun in Hanoi, Vietnam on 
Nov. 18. "President Bush made remarks while talking about building a 
permanent peace framework on the peninsula," the source said. "As far as 
I know, he made remarks to effect that he is willing to sign an 
agreement with the two Koreas." That means Bush could meet with Kim, the 
source added.

White House spokesman Tony Snow after the summit said if Pyongyang 
dismantles its nuclear program, "we are willing to do a whole series of 
things...including a declaration of the end of the Korean War," but did 
not reveal Bush's offer. According to the source, Bush also said he is 
willing to offer new economic incentives to the North, though it was not 
clear what. The offers mark a significant shift in Bush's tack on North 
Korea, a country he included in the "axis of evil" and whose leader he 
described as a "tyrant."

Presidential security advisor Song Min-soon in a briefing after the 
summit said the two leaders discussed "measures that can be taken such 
as economic aid, regime security guarantees and a peace framework if 
North Korea dismantles its nuclear program." Cheong Wa Dae spokesman 
Yoon Tae-young on Wednesday declined to confirm Bush's offer. "We can't 
confirm what was discussed during a summit, especially what the 
president of the other side said," Yoon stated.

But experts say there are many obstacles to overcome before peace can be 
declared to replace the armistice, which officially still halts 
hostilities in the Korean War 50 years later. For Bush and Kim to sign a 
declaration, the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear problems must 
make significant progress once they resume. If they do, Washington and 
Pyongyang are to normalize relations, and the declaration could be one 
step ahead of the final leg in that process. The USA says the two Koreas 
should be the signatories to any declaration of the end of the war or a 
peace treaty, and if they sign first, the USA and China will offer 
guarantees. This is supported by Seoul, too. But Pyongyang insists the 
USA is the only other party to such agreements since Seoul had no part 
in agreeing the armistice. Some pundits say such procedural matters will 
pale once matters progress to the point where Washington and Pyongyang 
are ready to declare the war over.

Experts point out the offer marks a sea change in Bush's position on 
North Korea. Bush has variously called Kim a "pygmy", a "tyrant" and a 
"spoiled child" in remarks suggesting he does not regard the North 
Korean leader as a negotiating partner. "What Bush said means that the 
USA will accept Pyongyang's demand to give up its 'hostile' policy 
toward the North," Prof. Ko Yu-hwan of Dongguk University said. "The 
remarks can be understood as the best President Bush can do in words."

Experts have conflicting views on how the North will respond. Nam 
Sung-wook, a North Korea specialist at Korea University, said, "What the 
North wants right now is for Washington to lift financial sanctions 
including unfreezing Pyongyang's accounts in Banco Delta Asia, and 
light-water reactors, which are concrete measures. It won't be 
interested in the big picture." But a researcher with a state-run 
institute said the North will find Bush's offer "difficult to ignore 
because it symbolizes a retreat from the USA's long-held hostile 
position" toward the Stalinist state.
*************************************************

FOCUS: Humanitarian Fallout

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4.   DPR KOREA HEADS TOWARD HUNGER
     by Donald Kirk, Christian Science Monitor, 19 October 2006

Even as missile and nuclear tests alienate humanitarian aid donors, 
North Korea is facing a cold winter in which it is unlikely to be able 
to feed its people. The United Nations World Food Programme says it 
needs $100 million to battle food shortages. The danger of widespread 
suffering raises the critical question of how the world can unite in a 
forceful response to North Korea's nuclear test and still rescue the 
North's hungry people.

Compelled to ask for huge donations of food at the height of a famine 
that killed some 2 million people in the 1990s, North Korean leader Kim 
Jong Il was confident enough last year to order the World Food Program 
and other aid-givers to leave or vastly reduce their programs. But the 
North may again need aid -- at a time when missile tests in July, 
followed by the nuclear test this month, have reduced donors' desire to 
rush in to help.

"There is relatively little humanitarian assistance going in now," says 
Anthony Banbury, the UN World Food Program's regional director for Asia. 
"The willingness of donors to meet those needs has not been very strong."

The WFP says it needs $100 million this year to fulfill its goals for 
North Korea. So far, it has received only 10 percent of that total.

The United States has given more than $1.1 billion since 1995, 60 
percent of which has gone to food aid... The US cut donations to the WFP 
this year after North Korea ordered the WFP to slash the size of its 
mission in Pyongyang from nearly 50 people to 10 people and shut its 
five regional offices, from which inspectors tried to monitor distribution.

South Korea, which suspended food aid after the North's nuclear test, 
sharply reduced food donations, on which the North depended to make up a 
shortfall of more than 1 million tons of rice, after the July missile 
tests. It relented when North Korea pleaded for help after severe 
flooding in August. But it sent only half of the 100,000 tons it had 
said it would send in "emergency" aid -- compared with 500,000 tons last 
year. That was the largest source of food for the North after China, 
which is also believed to have sharply cut shipments. Both the Chinese 
and South Korean programs have been entirely independent of the WFP -- 
and monitoring has been weak.

The reluctance to try to stave off another famine contrasts with the 
response in 1995, when North Korea for the first time asked the World 
Food Program to help. By 1997, aid shipments through the program crested 
at more than 500,000 tons a year, with the US leading all donors. But 
the WFP last year sent in less than 100,000 tons, half of it from the 
US. South Korean officials oppose shutting off economic contacts, much 
less boarding and interdicting North Korean ships, but say they are in a 
quandary when it comes to donations of rice.

"It's a kind of dilemma," says Kang Jong-suk, an official at the 
Unification Ministry, which had been avidly pursuing reconciliation. 
"South Korea wants to send some humanitarian aid, but there is a barrier 
because of the UN resolution." He says as well "the problem of 
transparency" inside North Korea, which means that, "We cannot monitor 
what will happen."

That inability to monitor has played a significant role in other donors' 
willingness to offer aid. "The US has very strong reservations ... 
because of conditions imposed by the North Koreans," says Mr. Banbury of 
the WFP. "Those conditions are so onerous, it's very hard for donors," 
he adds. "It's not just specific restrictions. It's an overall 
atmosphere. It's a constant struggle to do our work in North Korea." (...)

The irony, in the view of Banbury, is that the UN Security Council 
resolution specifically exempts humanitarian assistance from the 
categories barred for shipment to North Korea, ranging from luxury goods 
to components for missiles, nuclear warheads, and other heavy weapons. 
One reason that North Korea cut down inspections was apparently 
confidence that harvests would improve. The harvest was better last 
year, but this year, flooding and erosion have damaged prospects.

"So you have less food, a smaller harvest, and a large number of people 
who do not have access to food," says Banbury. He opposes giving up. 
"Walking away would stop assistance to millions of people and would stop 
an avenue of dialogue," he says. "It's better to stay engaged than to 
not stay engaged."

Opinions vary widely, though, on how firmly to enforce the sanctions 
imposed by the UN -- or whether to renew efforts to reopen dialogue. Kim 
Dae Jung, the former South Korean president who initiated the Sunshine 
policy of North-South reconciliation after his election in 1997, 
supports dialogue -- not just renewal of the six-party talks on the 
North's nuclear program, but direct US-North Korean dialogue.

"The US objects to talking directly to North Korea," he says, citing as 
precedents President Nixon's visit to China in 1972 and US negotiations 
with North Vietnam before the signing of the 1973 Paris peace agreement. 
"We have to encourage them to talk," Mr. Kim goes on. "There have to be 
negotiations and giving and taking." More sanctions, he says, will 
invite "strong responses" leading to an escalation of tension and "new 
problems" in which China will step to the aid of the North and 
"countries like Cuba and Venezuela will try to help North Korea."

For aid-givers, the overriding concern is keeping North Koreans from 
starvation regardless of sanctions. "We take the news that the internal 
situation is deteriorating very seriously," says Kay Seok, North Korean 
researcher for Human Rights Watch. "The right of food is one of the most 
fundamental human rights. If you die of hunger, what is the point of 
talking about freedom?"

But others wonder about the degree to which food aid is alleviating 
suffering. "Reports show the malnutrition rate did not improve very 
much" as a result of food donations, says Joanna Hosaniak, senior 
officer with the Citizens Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, which 
aids North Korean refugees. "Refugees from the northern part of North 
Korea say they didn't receive humanitarian assistance, or it was 
diverted after the monitoring group was gone," she adds. The only 
solution, she says, is for North Korea to "divert resources from 
developing nuclear weapons to feeding its people."

Erica Kang at Good Friends, a South Korean group that analyzes North 
Korean issues and advises on policies, summarizes the aid conundrum. 
"Everyone wonders if they should go on with humanitarian aid," she says. 
"It's pretty much the ordinary people who suffer the most. This is a 
winter coming. Thousands of North Koreans are suffering the consequences 
of problems they didn't
*************************************************

5.   LATE OCTOBER STORMS LEAVE 7,300 HOMELESS
     by Burt Herman, Associated Press, 7 November 2006

Heavy weather that battered North Korea's eastern coast in late October 
left more than 7,300 people homeless, an international aid group said 
Tuesday, but no deaths were reported due to a successfully functioning 
early warning system. The storms from Oct. 21-23 caused huge waves that 
struck North Korea's Kangwon province, destroying or partially 
destroying 732 houses and flooding 366 others, the International 
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement.

However, only 14 people were reported injured because an early warning 
system was activated two days ahead of the heavy weather and people had 
evacuated their homes, the Red Cross said. The delay in news getting out 
about the storm isn't unusual, because North Korea strictly controls all 
information and no independent media are allowed to operate freely in 
the country. Rebuilding and repairs have already begun in the storm 
area, said Jaap Timmer, head of the international Red Cross in the North.

"The national Red Cross society is getting more and more effective for 
this type of activity," he told The Associated Press from Pyongyang. 
"This can be handled by themselves."

The North suffered severe floods from storms in mid-July in central 
portions of the country that are believed to have killed hundreds and 
also knocked out numerous roads and bridges. South Korea's intelligence 
agency has said the number of dead and missing is likely around 800-900. 
However, no precise information on that disaster has been released by 
the North Korean government and international aid workers haven't been 
allowed to visit that area.
*************************************************

6.   DPRK EXPECTING LIMITED HARVESTS THIS YEAR
     ICNK, NK Brief, 23 November 2006

Harvests from North Korea's small farms are expected to be only 
one-third the amount of last year's yield, according to the November 2 
issue of 'North Korea Today', a newsletter published by the DPRK human 
rights advocacy group, Good Friends. In this issue, it was mentioned 
that much farmland in the DPRK's south-central region was washed out 
during summer flooding, and in border regions, drought led to severely 
reduced yields. It also stated that the lower yield partially could be 
attributed to the fewer individual farming plots (as compared to last year).

Because the North Korean government reinstituted the rationing system in 
the fall of last year, authorities required individual plots to be 
registered for taxation purposes, so that rather than reducing rations 
for those producing their own food, a 'land tax' and a portion of each 
harvest had to be turned over. This prompted a significant number of 
North Koreans to abandon efforts at individual farming.

The report emphasized, "As the rumor circulates that the food shortages 
will become grave in the future, those with money have been purchasing 
and storing between 1 and 3 tons of corn each... while on the other 
hand, farmers without money have been stealing food from collective 
farms." In addition, "As October rolled around, the first grains were 
harvested and food prices dropped slightly, but there was no significant 
difference... Citizens worried about food supplies focused their efforts 
on amassing provisions."

Currently, flood-damaged regions are receiving rations in two-, three-, 
and five-day intervals. Up until now, food deliveries have been 
comparatively good, but it is difficult to predict how long this can 
continue. With harvests amounting to around two million tons, or less 
than half of what was collected last year, the outlook is dismal. As 
food rations have been used up in rain-damaged regions, the residents in 
these areas face disease and starvation. Having exhausted every 
resource, these people cannot survive in the market. There is much 
speculation that any curtailing of rations by government authorities 
will lead to a large number of defections and mass movement of residents.
*************************************************

7.   RED CROSS SIGNS AID DEAL WITH DPRK
     by Arirang News, Chosun Ilbo, 25 November 2006

The international Red Cross has signed an agreement with North Korea to 
combat the North's chronic food shortages, and provide relief to victims 
of natural disasters. The three-year deal includes assisting the North 
with water supplies, disaster prevention and medicine from countries 
like Sweden, the U.K. and the Netherlands. More than 8 million residents 
of five North Korean provinces are expected to be covered by the 
agreement. The world's largest humanitarian organization warns large 
numbers of North Koreans suffer from famine and disease.
*************************************************

RESOURCES

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8.   ANTI-SOCIALIST REALISM
     John Feffer, Foreign Policy In Focus, IRC, 17 November 2006

[John Feffer is the Co-Director of Foreign Policy In Focus 
(www.fpif.org) for the International Relations Center.]

It's the rare musical that addresses massive human rights violations. 
Cabaret chronicles the rise of Nazism, and Les Miserables presents a 
tableau of poverty and injustice in mid-19th century France. But since 
their subject matters are sufficiently remote in history and virtually 
all of the abuses take place off-stage, these musicals produce only mild 
frissons in the audience without edging over the line into the truly 
macabre.

In contrast, the horrors graphically described in the new and 
controversial musical Yoduk Story are occurring today in North Korea. 
Through song and dance, Yoduk Story depicts the conditions inside a 
prison camp that is, by all accounts, still functioning. The plot is, if 
not ripped from the headlines, drawn from stories buried in the 
unfortunately more obscure recesses of current newspapers. A 
high-ranking North Korean family suffers a political fall from grace and 
ends up in the gulag. There the family members are tortured, raped, and 
ultimately shot. It's certainly not feel-good entertainment. The musical 
caters more to Korea's tragic sensibility than to the happy endings that 
American audiences crave like sweets.

Having debuted in South Korea in spring 2006, Yoduk Story recently 
played three nights to a mostly Korean and Korean-American audience at 
the Strathmore, a theater outside Washington, DC. Though the venue was 
not sold out, the production attracted a respectable number of people, 
including 20 officials from the Bush administration on opening night, 
and the crowd gave a standing ovation at the end.

Despite the admirable efforts of its director and the enthusiastic 
response of crowds, however, Yoduk Story is not likely to be the next 
Broadway hit. Its topic is grim, the audience needs some background on 
Korean culture to understand the story, and, unfortunately, the 
aesthetic merits of the production are dubious. Indeed, the musical, 
written and directed by a North Korean defector, is little more than 
propaganda: a kind of anti-socialist realism.

Yoduk Story suffers from an improbable plot, kitschy songs, and 
heavy-handed symbolism. True, such failings have not prevented other 
musicals from hitting the big time. But the drawbacks of this particular 
musical are actually more interesting and significant. They testify to 
the risks of turning contemporary events into compelling drama (like My 
Name is Rachel Corrie, now playing in New York), and they graphically 
illustrate the challenges that face the two Koreas across their 
geopolitical and cultural divide.

HIGH MELODRAMA
Yoduk Story begins with a song-and-dance sequence of praise to the North 
Korean system, a scene over which a statue of North Korean leader Kim 
Jong Il presides. The lead singer Kang Ryun-Hwa, a famous performer, 
gives her all in the precisely choreographed paean. Although meant to 
serve as a contrast to all that follows, the accurate parody of the 
saccharine nationalism and aggressive simple-mindedness of North Korea's 
official culture in this opening sequence unintentionally echoes 
throughout the play. (For a glimpse of this official culture, check out 
the new book by Jane Portal, Art Under Control in North Korea, which is 
loaded with pictures of posters, dances, and sculpture).

After the opening segment of North Korean kitsch, the plot quickly moves 
into familiar territory, that nightmarish reversal of political fortunes 
described by such chroniclers of state repression as Arthur Koestler, 
Danilo Kis, and Malika Oufkir. When her father is accused of being a 
spy, Ryun-Hwa and her entire family are dragged off to Yoduk. There, the 
captain of the prison guards rapes the former singer and she becomes 
pregnant. Her father is roped to a cross and whipped. Her entire family 
struggles to survive on meager rations.

Then suddenly the plot forks. Somehow the inmates manage to help 
Ryun-Hwa give birth and protect her infant child. Somehow a love affair 
springs up between Ryun-Hwa and her rapist. And somehow a prison break 
is thwarted in such a way that everyone dies in a ghastly shootout.

It is high melodrama, as if Andrew Lloyd Weber decided to put an Amnesty 
International report to music. The titles of the songs give some 
indication of the plot's trajectory: "Careful, Be Careful," "Hellish 
Prison Yoduk," "Kill Him!," "Until My Heart Bursts," "Don't Even Dare to 
Dream," "Prayer," "This Moment May Be Our Last," and "Save Yoduk." The 
characters are either angels or demons, with only a soupcon of moral 
complexity added to the mix. Though its designations are reversed, the 
North Korean system traffics in the same stark moral contrasts.

There is a flatness to both Yoduk Story and the propaganda it intends to 
strip away. The reductive dualism of North Korean ideology -- you're 
either with us or against us -- can be detected in the deep structure of 
the musical. In the same way that high-ranking defector Hwang Jang Yop 
went from architect of the North Korean system to its greatest detractor 
with his ideological inflexibility intact, the director of Yoduk Story 
has switched sides without fully escaping the sentimental education that 
has so shaped his worldview.

THE REAL YODUK
There is no shortage of information about the conditions inside North 
Korea's gulag. The famine of the mid-1990s sent thousands of North 
Koreans across the border into China. A percentage of those ended up in 
South Korea. The accounts of a smaller but significant portion of these 
defectors -- inmates and guards -- provide much detail about the inner 
workings of the North Korean penal system.

As researcher David Hawk has detailed, beatings, insufficient food, and 
extremely hard labor are routine. There have been credible accounts of 
executions and infanticide. Kang Chol-Hwan, who lived at Yoduk for 10 
years from the age of nine, provides a chilling account in his book 
Aquariums of Pyongyang. "The newly arriving prisoners were usually the 
first to die," he writes. "If you made it through the adjustment period, 
though, you could expect to live for a good ten years more. The most 
important thing was fighting malnutrition, which was more punishing than 
even mistreatment by guards. Most of the camp's diseases were not very 
serious, but in our weakened state a simple cold could kill."

To the extent that Yoduk Story has introduced the general situation of 
North Korean human rights to new audiences, it has done an important 
service. There are no new revelations in Yoduk Story. Although the 
director was never imprisoned at Yoduk, he has relied on accounts of 
others who were there, so the details of children catching rats to eat 
or conflicts among the inmates have a ring of truth. For dramatic 
purposes perhaps, Jeong Song-san has portrayed Yoduk as the worst that 
North Korea has to offer. But as Kang Chol-Hwan points out, Yoduk was 
not the worst of the camps. Guards carried revolvers but rarely took 
them out of their holsters. "Harassing inmates for its own sake was 
rarely part of the program," he writes. And many detainees held on to 
the hope that they would one day return to society at large, as Kang and 
his family eventually did.

The dramatic decision to make Yoduk the exemplar of the gulag glosses 
over differences within the camp system and between the camps and 
society at large. Indeed, what makes Aquariums of Pyongyang fascinating 
-- and what Yoduk Story so painfully lacks -- is Kang's honest attempt 
to provide a nuanced picture of North Korea. Yoduk Story provides only 
the briefest glimpse of privilege before plunging into the unrelenting 
terrors of the camp. Life for most North Koreans, however, falls 
somewhere in the middle. By ignoring the average North Korean 
experience, the play is able to present a stark contrast between good 
and evil that permits only one possible solution.

WIPE THE SLATE CLEAN
For all its emphasis on Christian charity and forgiveness, Yoduk Story 
culminates in a shoot-'em-up scene that would not be out of place in a 
Hong Kong action thriller or Japanese gangster manga. There is even the 
ultimate standoff with the two principal antagonists pointing guns at 
each other's faces, an iconic scene in the Asian cinema of hyperviolence.

The improbable shootout is an odd combination of apocalyptic 
Christianity, hard-line politics, and dead-end scriptwriting. The best 
way to change North Korea, Yoduk Story suggests, is by wiping the slate 
clean. There can be no change from within. Even the virtuous are somehow 
tainted. Only a cleansing violence -- like the Flood or the Rapture or a 
US attack on Pyongyang -- can do the trick.

But what about the rest of the country? The musical implies that all 
North Koreans are trapped in an equally horrifying hell and would 
welcome regime change and Christian evangelism even at great personal 
and communal risk. All grand attempts at social engineering, whether the 
Great Leap Forward or the Iraq War, are sustained by precisely such a 
lack of concern for their effects on the lives of ordinary people. 
Attempting to persuade victim and victimizer alike, agitprop provides a 
distorting lens and soothing words to ease moral qualms. For those who 
recommend doing away with North Korea altogether, and the sooner the 
better, Yoduk Story offers a stirring soundtrack.

By an overwhelming majority, however, South Koreans recoil from the 
prospect of war on the peninsula. They have also supported engaging the 
North economically and politically. The defector focus on human rights, 
showcased in Yoduk Story, sits uncomfortably with this engagement ethos. 
Indeed, the conservative daily Chosun Ilbo reported on allegations that 
the South Korean government tried to get director Jeong Song-san to tone 
down his script. Conservatives used these allegations to buttress their 
arguments that Seoul was trying to sweep the issue of North Korean human 
rights under the rug to preserve a cozy relationship with Pyongyang.

Given that defectors have published accounts of their travails and 
newspapers regularly cover the issue, Seoul's efforts at controlling 
information have been largely ineffectual. It is frequently noted that 
Yoduk Story's creator had such difficulties raising the cash to produce 
the play that he used his kidney as collateral for a loan. A skeptical 
marketplace is, however, even less accommodating than a skeptical 
government. Investors may well have shied away from backing a musical 
about a prison labor camp less for fear of the government than fear of 
losing their money.

South Korea, unlike North Korea, is a market democracy where ideas and 
opinions proliferate. The ideological rigidity of North Korea and those 
who escape it contrast sharply with the more nuanced and heterogeneous 
political culture of the South. Yoduk Story is one of the first cultural 
opportunities for South Koreans to ponder the human rights of their 
northern brothers and sisters. Perhaps the next attempt, if it conveys 
the subtle complexities of the North captured neither by Yoduk Story nor 
North Korea's own agitprop, will help South Koreans bring together the 
worlds of human rights and engagement.
*************************************************

9.   NORTH KOREA'S OTHER AFFRONT
     Washington Times, 27 November 2006

North Korea's nuclear capabilities have kept many an American awake at 
night, but a new documentary reveals a smaller tragedy that unfolded 
with little fanfare stateside. "Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story," 
which opened at the Landmark E Street Theater in Northwest on Friday, 
recalls the communist government's 1977 kidnapping of a 13-year-old 
Japanese girl and its global ramifications. Husband-and-wife 
District-based filmmakers Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim let the key 
Japanese players tell the story without interference. There was little 
they could have added to such a harrowing saga.

Young Megumi left for school one day, a day like any other, but never 
returned home. Her parents were tortured by not just her disappearance 
but a total lack of clues as to what happened to her. Mr. Sheridan says 
few people in Japan believed the Yokota family when, 20 years after 
Megumi's abduction, they discovered the truth behind her disappearance 
after receiving a tip gleaned by a local journalist.

"People said, 'Gimme a break.' ... They were very skeptical. [The 
Yokotas] had to do a lot of work to convince them this really happened," 
Mr. Sheridan says.

The family did just that, working tirelessly to find out the full story 
behind not just their daughter's abduction but that of 12 other Japanese 
citizens who had gone missing over the years. North Korea needed 
captives to teach their spies how to emulate Japanese customs and 
language traits for future missions. Young Megumi, though, was the only 
child ensnared in the plot.

"There's something incredibly tragic about a child, on the cusp of the 
rest of her life, being swept away to who knows where," Miss Kim says. 
The film's poster features one of the last pictures taken of Megumi by 
her father. She is standing outside, dressed in her mother's red kimono 
and wearing lipstick for the first time. "You can see all the 
possibility of her life crystallizing in that picture," Miss Kim says.

The story's tragic elements are clear, but gaining the trust of Megumi's 
family took time. "The Japanese people are very private. It's hard to 
get inside their lives," Mr. Sheridan says, adding that neither he nor 
his wife speak much Japanese.

Watching "Abduction" shows just how much the family eventually embraced 
the duo. The film lets us share personal moments with the older couple, 
from the mundane to episodes where they can't contain their grief. The 
filmmakers, who freelance for CBS News and National Geographic, maxed 
out their savings and credit cards to provide the project's funding, 
which ultimately reached $450,000. The documentary drew the attention of 
the BBC toward the end of the editing process, and the company "saved 
the day" by helping defray the film's costs, Mr. Sheridan says.

The couple received a creative assist from Oscar-winning filmmaker Jane 
Campion, a longtime friend of Miss Kim's. The writer-director of 1993's 
"The Piano" served as the executive producer and helped the filmmakers 
winnow down their vision into a movie that didn't indulge in 
histrionics. "We definitely needed those third eyes and Jane Campion was 
that for us," Mr. Sheridan says.

The film has already had an impact in Japan. "We thought the Japanese 
people wouldn't care about it. They see it on the news every night. The 
opposite happened. It started a firestorm of interest," he notes.

"Abduction" has made a mark stateside, too, playing at a dozen film 
festivals and picking up six awards along the way. "It played to 
predominantly non-Asian crowds," Miss Kim says proudly.

It's hard to fathom any audience not relating to the families at the 
heart of the story. The impact of the abductions is devastating. The 
Yokotas' lives are never quite the same. The mother of another victim 
suffers severe anxiety and becomes a shell of her former self. 
"Abduction" is the kind of ominous tale that will make viewers hug their 
loved ones a bit tighter while walking out of the theater. It also might 
make Kim Jong Il's next saber rattle a bit more frightening.

For Mr. Sheridan and Miss Kim, the film could be the start of a 
promising big-screen career. At the very least, the couple has made 
lifelong friends of Mr. and Mrs. Yokota. "I feel like they're close 
relatives by now," Mr. Sheridan says. "It doesn't matter that we don't 
speak the same language."

[See also: http://www.abductionfilm.com/ --CanKor.]
*************************************************

End CanKor # 268

*************************************************

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