공지사항
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- '노란봉투'캠페인/국제연대..
- no chr.!
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2개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
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- 2006/10/27
- 조선민주주의..#3
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- 2006/10/27
- 反국가보안법 #1
게시물에서 찾기2006/10/27
관리 메뉴
조선민주주의..#3
관리 메뉴
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조선민주주의인민공화국
NORTH KOREA
"PARADISE OF THE
WORKING CLASS"..
..or - perhaps - only for the rulers (in the KWP/KPA)?
Following article was published yesterday in the German (of course bourgeois) magazine Der Spiegel (www.spiegel.de):
KIM JONG IL GOES SHOPPING
Another Toy for the Gluttonous Dictator
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il isn't just playing around with his country's latest products, atom bombs, anymore. He also has a penchant for high-quality German goods.
The order came as a big surprise to the sales staff at the all-terrain vehicle manufacturer Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeuge in Laupheim, Germany. In fact, they thought it was a joke at first. But the customer, who had mailed the request from an address in the Italian capital, was deadly serious. He wrote that he wanted to buy the Model 100, the smallest of Kässbohrer's PistenBully special-purpose vehicles, but with one modification: it had to come with a Mercedes Benz engine. The customer was an official at the North Korean embassy in Rome.
What on earth did communist dictator Kim Jong Il's poverty-stricken realm want with a German-made snow groomer? With whom exactly did the despot plan to go sledding?
The southern German company delivered the snow groomer in June 2003, and the customer promptly paid the purchase price of €98,000. Finally, a German shipping company transported the vehicle to a region of North Korea near the Chinese border, where snow is plentiful. Kässbohrer's mechanic arrived a few days later. The German company takes its service seriously.
In freezing temperatures, and under the watchful eyes of military guards, the German mechanic assembled the huge, caterpillar-like device and then taught the slope attendant how to drive the monster. "It was a hard trip for him," says one of the mechanic's coworkers.
Hardship is a relative term, especially when one considers that the North Korean people spend their lives staggering from one famine to the next. But while bad economic management routinely leads to humanitarian disasters, the diminutive dictator and his sybaritic entourage of obedient party officials have been living it up with imported Western luxury and entertainment goods for years, including the expensive equipment for their very own ski resort.
But in the wake of North Korea's underground test detonation of a nuclear bomb a few weeks ago, the country's unscrupulous leadership can expect to be running into a few obstacles if it hopes to continue enjoying its decadent lifestyle. A few days after the explosion, the United Nations Security Council imposed financial sanctions and an embargo on luxury goods.
The ban on luxury goods is intended to hit the dictator where it hurts, cutting off supply channels to feed Kim's seemingly boundless gluttony. As his personal chef revealed in a book about his experiences working for Kim, the dictator with the predilection for platform shoes and oversized sunglasses had no qualms about spending $15,000 on sea urchins.
A broad interpretation of the term "luxury goods" will not only affect Swiss luxury watchmakers, but also quite a few German companies. That's because Germany is one of North Korea's seven most important trading partners. In 2005 Germany exported goods worth about €51 million to the reclusive leader's realm -- not a huge sum for the Germans, but certainly a lot for North Korea.
A glance at foreign trade statistics shows that German exports to North Korea are no longer limited to mundane pumps, milling machines and electric motors. The list now includes everything from cases of beer, whisky, gin, vodka and Mosel white wine to strollers, handmade glasses, grand pianos and violins, even Christmas tree decorations, chandeliers and sculptures. Indeed, orders for well over €1 million are routinely posted under the categories of "oil paintings, water colors, pastel drawings" and "carousels, swing sets and shooting galleries."
Is all of this for Kim? Or is some of it intended for his entourage and foreign diplomats? Could the rest be going to Chinese who use their porous border with North Korea to circumvent their own high taxes on imports? Hardly anyone in Germany would venture to answer these sensitive questions. Even experts at the Hamburg-based German Asia-Pacific Business Association have refused to comment on the issue. In fact, the organization has yet to release its latest report on North Korea.
But Hans-Joachim Schnitger, a businessman from the northern German port city of Bremen, is more than happy to discuss his activities in Kim's Korea. His company, Helia, supplies goods to diplomats worldwide. This May, Helia began supplying merchandise to a recently opened Euroshop in Pyongyang, where affluent North Koreans use their hard currency to buy imported goods, including "their favorites, German products like cheese and processed meats," says Schnitger. Name brand cognacs are also available, starting at €30.
"We received an inquiry from the North Korean embassy in Berlin in December 2004," says Schnitger. Then the North Koreans even sent over an official to inspect the Bremen company's facilities. Schnitger has high hopes of expanding his business with the North Koreans. "They are very nice people," he says, praising his new trading partners. "Besides, they have a wonderful golf course and a very nice clubhouse in Pyongyang."
Like most German exporters, Schnitger uses Müller + Partner, a freight forwarding company based in the central German city of Fulda, to ship his products to the North Korean capital. The company's agent in Pyongyang is a former employee of North Korea's foreign trade ministry. Industry insiders say Müller's current contacts are the result of close relationships in the past between the North Koreans and the former East German foreign trade organization. When asked about historical ties, one of the company's directors claimed that he had "no knowledge of previous operations," nor was he willing to discuss the content of current shipments to Pyongyang.
Müller also shipped Kässbohrer's PistenBully. But the North Korean government opted to go with an Austrian lift manufacturer, Doppelmayr, when it came time to order the equipment for the ski resort's chair lifts.
According to Ekkehard Assmann, Doppelmayr's director of marketing, "the military was there and helped out in the construction work." That's the nice thing about dictatorships: there are always plenty of willing workers.
PS:
According to the Swiss Watch Industry Association the DPRK imported between 1995 and 2004 for US$ 24,000,000 (luxury) watches from Switzerland.^^
反국가보안법 #1
관리 메뉴
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S. KOREA MUST ABOLISH
NATIONAL"SECUTITY"LAW!! (*)
Following was reported in the latest editions of SK newspapers:
Politicians held for contacting North's agent (JoongAng Ilbo)
Democratic Labor Party deputy among 5 persons now in custody
Seoul prosecutors and the National Intelligence Service said yesterday they had arrested a senior official of the Democratic Labor Party on charges of contacting a North Korean agent during a visit to China.
His arrest and that of one other suspect were a significant enlargement of an investigation into 1980s-era student activists. So far, at least five people, including incumbent and former officials of the left-wing political party, are in the prosecution's sights.
Sources at the prosecution said the five could eventually be charged with espionage, but it appears that the authorities do not yet have sufficient evidence to accuse them formally of that crime. For the present, those in custody have been charged with unauthorized contacts with a North Korean.
Investigators from the Seoul Central District Public Prosecutors Office and the intelligence agency raided the home of Lee Jeong-hun, a former central committee member of the Democratic Labor Party, on Tuesday and detained him for alleged violations of the National Security Law. Yesterday, the prosecution said it had applied for warrants to extend his detention and to keep two other activists arrested at the same time, Jang Min-ho and Sohn Jong-mok, in custody. Prosecutors said all three visited China in March for meetings with a North Korean agent. Mr. Sohn and Mr. Jang also allegedly traveled to North Korea via China without South Korean government authorization.
Yesterday, the investigation widened with the arrest of Choi Gi-yeong, deputy secretary general of the Democratic Labor Party, and another activist. They were also charged with contacting a North Korean agent in China.
"We obtained the arrest warrants early in the morning and took Mr. Choi into custody at his home," Ahn Chang-ho, a prosecutor in charge of the case, said yesterday. "The National Intelligence Service is currently questioning Mr. Choi."
The pair allegedly accompanied Mr. Lee when he contacted the North Korean spy, the prosecution said, adding that the investigation would focus on the possibility that they had received instructions from the agent and engaged in "anti-government activities" after returning to this country. Such activities would also support an espionage charge.
Mr. Jang, a 44-year-old game developer and former student activist, was accused of working under the North's orders for more than a decade. After dropping out of Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul during his sophomore year, prosecutors said, he went to the United States and was a pro-North Korean activist there. Officials added that he is believed to have visited North Korea three times since the mid-1980s.
During the raid at Mr. Jang's home, investigators reportedly seized documents with instructions on how to contact and report to a North Korean agent. The prosecution said Mr. Jang admitted to some of the charges and waived his right to a court hearing on a detention warrant.
The Seoul Central District Court heard the cases for warrants yesterday against Mr. Lee and Mr. Sohn. Mr. Lee contended he was in China on business and had received no instructions from North Korean agents. "This is a Roh administration conspiracy to suppress civic movements and to create instability," he complained.
Mr. Lee, a history graduate of Korea University, was a well-known student activist. He was arrested in 1985 for leading the occupation of American Cultural Center in central Seoul. He was also convicted in 2000 of trying to enter North Korea by sea.
The Democratic Labor Party complained in a statement yesterday that the arrests were "clear political oppression" of the party. It demanded the release of all those arrested, accused the spy agency of fabricating evidence in a conspiracy to maintain its influence and demanded the repeal of the National Security Law.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200610/26/200610262221584239900090209021.html
About the same case the "left"-liberal daily Hankyoreh wrote following article:
3 arrested for allegedly meeting N.K. agent in China
Korea Herald published this:
Probe of pro-N.K. activists widens
In K. Times it's the "top" story:
Spy Scandal Shakes Labor Party
Dong-A Ilbo:
Activists Arrested for North Contacts
And last but not least the extreme conservative Chosun Ilbo:
Prominent 386ers Help for Espionage
* ..but unfortunately, even likely the majority(??) of the S. Koreans is against N"S"L, there is - (just) in my opinion - no real mass movement to struggle against N"S"L.
PS:
Already 4 years ago I finished one of my articles about N"S"L (on Base21, the former English section of Jinbonet) like that: "Last weekend around 450 people protested against the NSL. This in a city with over 10 million inhabitants, in a country with nearly 50 million citizens. If this is the beginning of a movement it could be good. But if this is the whole movement, in 50 years we'll still have the lovely NSL."("The struggle against the National Security Law needs a peoples' movement").
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