27개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
"Good News" from Pyongyang, resp. the (North)Korean "People's" Army (via today's KCNA):
KPA Panmunjom Mission Vows to Buildup Nuclear Deterrent
A spokesman for the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army issued a statement Sunday in connection with the fact that the U.S. and the south Korean authorities finally set about the DPRK-targeted Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military maneuvers.
The maneuvers clearly indicate once again that the U.S. and the south Korean authorities are the harassers of peace and warmongers keen to bring a war to this land.
Under the prevailing situation the Panmunjom Mission of the KPA is authorized to state as follows:
The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will no longer be bound to the Armistice Agreement and the north-south agreement on non-aggression (*).
There is no reason whatsoever for the DPRK to remain bounded to the AA and the non-aggression agreement now that the other belligerent party scrapped the AA and the other dialogue partner reneged on the non-aggression agreement.
The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will, therefore, legitimately exercise their force for self-defence, unhindered, just as they had determined to do.
The process for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will naturally come to a standstill and the DPRK bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defence given that the saber-rattling is proven to be nuclear war exercises and maneuvers for a war of aggression against the DPRK in its nature.
It is an inviolable right of the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK for self-defence to counter with powerful nuclear deterrent the U.S. nuclear offensive means threatening the territorial waters and air and land of the DPRK on account of exercises.
The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will be left with no option but to exercise merciless physical force as the rival is set to do harm to the DPRK no matter how dear peace, national reconciliation and cooperation are to it.
It is their stand to settle accounts with the rival by actual use of military force if it does not wish neither to conclude a peace treaty nor have reconciliation and cooperation.
All DPRK-U.S. and the inter-Korean military dialogues will be suspended as long as the DPRK-targeted war exercises go on.
It is illogical to sit face to face with the dialogue partner, who brings dark clouds of a nuclear war while leveling its gun at the other party, and discuss "peace" and "cooperation" with him.
The U.S. and the south Korean authorities should bear in mind that their reckless military acts will bring them nothing but bitter disgrace and destruction.
http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2010/201003/news07/20100307-04ee.html
* Sounds like a f*cking great idea (and a lot of fun)!!
Finally this begs the question: If NK (once again) "vows to buildup nuclear deterrent", about what TFH they wanna talk in Beijing ("6-party-talks")???
Related article:
☞ N. Korea puts forces on combat alert... (Yonhap, 3.08)
Yesterday in downtown Seoul: Hundreds of activists, mainly female members of different labour unions(organized in the KCTU), progressive civic groups and resistance organisations gathered to mark tomorrow's Int'l Women's Day...
(Source of the pics: KCTU)
Related:
☞ No progress in bridging gender gap (K. Herald, 3.03)
☞ Gender equality in S.Korea remains in a plateau (Hankyoreh, 3.04)
Hong Kong, last Sunday(2.28): IMWU's solidarity rally to support MTU(*):
* For more info please check out:
☞ 反이주탄압(국제연대) #6
Yesterday's Los Angeles Times published following piece:
Farmer Kang Ki-kab is one of South Korea's few working-class politicians (*). He says he's "tired of watching politicians ignore the lower classes and cater to the rich."
What South Korea's unlikeliest politician brings to the table
Farmer-turned-National Assembly member Kang Ki-kab went from obscure to infamous. His mission is to make the little guy heard, even if that means stomping around on top of an assembly leader's furniture.
Kang Ki-kab in action (2009.1.05, Nat'l Assembly)
Reporting from Seoul - Kang Ki-kab sighs. Life in Seoul, away from his family and the homestead he calls the Farm That Loves Soil, has proved a lonely existence for South Korea's unlikeliest politician.
He misses the simple chores, like milking his 90 cows, harvesting his sweet Korean plums...
...and tangerines.
He sits in his legislative office, hands clasped calmly on his lap, a monk-like anachronism with a wispy white beard and a flowing cream-colored robe tied with a large bow.
"Our ancestors wore these, why can't I?" he asks.
He strikes a pose.
"Isn't it elegant?" he says. "When I tie these strings, I have a moment to myself. It's good for my mental health."
Kang, 56, seems the very image of earnest serenity, a kind of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" meets David Carradine circa "Kung Fu."
But then you ask about the Table Dance.
After a member of the legislature's security detail accidentally broke Kang's finger while dispersing a January 2009 sit-in, Kang threw a very public tantrum. He jumped onto a table in front of one of the National Assembly's top administrators and, depending on who's telling the story, hopped about apelike or stamped like a child.
Then he overturned the table and stormed away to kick at the barricaded office door of another political opponent, and later chained himself to the entry of the legislature's main chamber.
"My critics may call it a show, but I desperately wanted to make a point about the country's wrongheaded direction," he says."When people refused to listen, I was angry -- I was outraged."
Kang, one of South Korea's first politicians to rise to national office from the working classes, symbolizes voters' growing resentment of business as usual in the capital. Many are disenchanted with a government run by male-dominated intellectual elites and hyper-successful entrepreneurs with little sense of what it's like for middle-class families coping with rising prices and stubborn unemployment.
Like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Kang emerged on the national political scene as an unknown from the hinterlands. Like Palin, his plain-spoken approach has charmed many voters.
He envisions a South Korea less dependent on U.S. military power, and he is against sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. He also wants to create a wider social safety net. He revels in his status as the consummate outsider, a politician who survives nicely, thank you, without the campaign contributions and old-boy connections most of his peers rely on.
"People like him as this unrepentant anti-modernist," says David Kang, director of the Korean Studies Institute at USC. "He represents this folksy Norman Rockwell view of politicians. He represents a Korean history that probably never existed, but still has its appeal."
Even as comics and the media lampoon him and colleagues privately wince, Kang Ki-kab insists on being himself, a fiercely independent country soul who says he entered politics to help protect the nation's farmers, a social outsider who feels trapped in the big city.
But before going home, he says, he has a mission to complete.
"I'm tired of watching politicians ignore the lower classes and cater to the rich, and I want to do something about it," he says. "In that way, I'm walking with the cross on my shoulder, like Jesus did."
Nobody expected Kang to win a second term in 2008 when he faced off against a ruling-party big shot and close friend of President Lee Myung-bak.
But the peasant's son from rural South Gyeongsang province, about as far as you can get from South Korea's seat of power, pulled off an election day stunner for his Democratic Labor Party.
Kang refers to himself as a political David prevailing amid Goliath-sized odds.
"I threw eggs and broke rocks," he says. "I always think I can win."
After his reelection, Kang was investigated on accusations of campaign irregularities, including defaming a rival candidate, but a judge imposed a fine rather than pursue criminal charges, preserving Kang's hard-won victory.
The former protest organizer for the Korean Peasant League first ran for the legislature in 2004, promising to aid the nation's lower classes -- the peasants, fishermen and farmers. In a national arena full of scrappy fighters, the father of four quickly stood out for his parliamentary antics and thirst for publicity.
Kang has waged at least six hunger strikes; the longest lasted 31 days. Most were attempts to focus attention on the plight of rural South Korea. Lacking subsidies, more than a third of farmers and their families have left the countryside for the city, he said.
To help fund his causes, Kang says, he returns nearly two-thirds of his $7,000 monthly salary to his party.
"He really is a true believer. It's clear that he's not in politics for the money," says Andy Jackson, a columnist for the Korea Times. "He is sincere. His problem is that he is a little too sincere.
"He seems to believe the people he's fighting really are evil. And if you believe that, it justifies the things that you do."
For Kang, the biggest villain is the United States. He is the chief opponent of the U.S.-South Korean free trade agreement and went on a fast to oppose the opening of local markets to U.S. rice.
South Korea already imports more than 70% of its food, Kang notes. Farmers simply cannot compete with cheap imports.
In 2008, protests he led against U.S. beef swept South Korea. He also opposes the American military presence here.
"The U.S. troops are unnecessary," he says. "The Korean War ended 50 years ago. If our nation goes to war, our own troops can do the fighting. The Americans should go home."
Detractors dismiss Kang as a political opportunist.
"He's not qualified to be a lawmaker in South Korea," says Seo Seok-gu, a lawyer and a member of the Assn. of U.S.-Korea Friendship. "He's too radical."
Kang doesn't like talking about the Table Dance, saying that events that day seemed to slip from his grasp.
As he was being dragged by security personnel seeking to end a sit-in by his party, a guard stepped on Kang's hand, breaking his finger.
That, and what he calls the ruling party's arrogance, set him off.
"I really want to work very gently, but my responsibility is to the people I represent."
He stormed into the office of Assembly Secretary-General Park Kye-dong. "He was sitting there, doing nothing," Kang recalls. "I couldn't hit him, but I wanted him to pay attention to me."
Park refused, calmly flipping through a newspaper, Kang says.
"I got up on the table. I jumped off and flipped it over," he says. "I was saying: 'Look at me! Pay attention to me!' But he wouldn't."
Kang was later sued by government officials for obstructing justice and public duties; a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
"I know I crossed a line," Kang says. "I was too angry, too extreme."
He gazes out the window.
"In the spring, that farm seduces me to return to it," he says. "I'd rather farm than do politics any day."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-korea-outsider2-2010mar02,0,5114262,full.story
* "Working-class politician"? Sorry, but (for me) he's looking more like an ancient feudal landowner/aristocrat...
(photo source: LAT, 3.03)
Last Sunday(2.28) in Hong Kong: Activists of the Indonesian Migrants Worker Union, an affiliated member of the HKCTU, protested in front of the S. Korean consulate against the ongoing repression against MTU and demanded its immediate official recognition (as a labour union) by the S.K. gov't.
The activists later handed over following protest letter to the consulate's staff:
Legal status and recognition for MTU!
Stop crackdown on MTU!
Crackdown on Migrant Trade Union (MTU) in South Korea is a shame act that has been shown by South Korea governments. This brutal act is denied the contribution of working class in South Korea, including migrant workers. Indonesian Migrant Workers Union also condemn South Korea Government which committed to union busting act by arrested and deported MTU officers and members on this several years also.
MTU it’s founded in 2005. At that time the Ministry of Labor rejected MTUs official union status, claiming that undocumented migrant workers do not have the right to freedom of association and union activities. MTU carried out a legal battle against this decision and eventually won in the Seoul High Court on 1 February 2007. However this verdict was appealed to the Supreme Court, where a decision is expected to be reached by the middle to end of this year. The Ministry of Labor bases its appeal on the claims that the right of undocumented migrant workers to freedom of association is not protected in the South Korean Constitution or stated clearly in international law. However, we know that workers are workers, entitled to the same labor rights, no matter what country they reside in under what visa status. This was clearly shown in the High Court decision, which ruled that undocumented migrant workers are the subjects of equal labor rights under South Korean law and in rulings of the ILO Committee on Freedom of Association (UGT [2001], AFL-CTM [2002]) and the Inter-America Court of Human Rights (17 Sept. 2003), which show that international law protects the union rights of undocumented migrant workers.
International law to which South Korea is party including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) all protect the rights of workers, regardless of social status, to freedom of association. In particular, the CERD General Recommendation No. 30(2004) states that “guarantees against racial discrimination apply to non-citizens regardless of their immigration status” and that “all individuals are entitled to the enjoyment of labor and employment rights, including the freedom of assembly and association, once an employment relationship has been initiated until it is terminated.” In addition, ILO Convention No. 87, which South Korea is bound t! o uphold as a member of the ILO, protects the right to freedom of association for all workers, “without distinction whatsoever” and has been shown to apply to undocumented migrant workers through CFA recommendations (UGT, 2001 and AFL-CIO/CTM, 2002).
We are concerned that the Ministry of Labor’s denial of MTU’s union status is in contradiction to these international conventions and to South Korean domestic law. It is our position that countries that adhere to international human and labor rights standards must protect the right of migrant workers, regardless of visa status, to freedom of association. As such, it is our position that the denial of MTU’s legal union status should be reversed and MTU should be granted recognition.
Therefore we, Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (IMWU) demand to South Korea government as follow:
Legal status and recognition for MTU;
Stop Crackdown on MTU;
Legalize all undocumented migrant workers;
Hong Kong, 28 February 2010
Sringatin, IMWU Chairperson
Wishful Thinking and the (F*cking) Reality
While Clinton sees signs of progress for the 6-Party Talks, according to Yonhap (2.26) it might well be that the reality is a bit(^^) different, as D. Kirk assumes in the following piece, published in Asia Times (2.27):
Conflicting priorities on North Korea
Professor Wang Jisi of Beijing University may not speak for his government, the Communist Party or his country, but his view of efforts to get North Korea to give up its nuclear program provides a startling note of realism that seems to have escaped non-Chinese negotiators.
"The DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea - North Korea] will keep going nuclear, period," he told a small audience here this week. "There is no other endgame, at least from Pyongyang's point of view." That's the kind of blunt declaration that United States and South Korean nuclear envoys do not seem capable of making or even thinking, to judge from their public utterances.
United States envoy Stephen Bosworth while on a swing through the region repeated the mantra of urging North Korea to return to the six-party talks and promised that all topics would be open for discussion. And South Korea's negotiator Wi Sun Lac, meeting Bosworth after both of them had conferred with China's negotiator, Wu Dawei, in Beijing, talked about "the need for the parties to resume six-party talks".
Both the Americans and the South Koreans acknowledge, however, that the whole process remains stuck on North Korea's insistence on conditions that have no immediate chance of acceptance. These include the demand for a Korean War peace treaty - a deal the North couples with the withdrawal of the remaining 28,500 US troops from the South - and an end to United Nations sanctions imposed after its long-range missile test and then its nuclear tests last April and May.
Just in case anyone doubted the North's position, the North Korean military came out with an appropriately tough statement warning of the consequences of joint US-South Korea war games scheduled for next month. It was one thing to vow to "mercilessly destroy the bulwark of aggression", as the Korean People's Army warned, but another to promise "all offensive and defensive means, including nuclear deterrent".
Nobody expects North Korea to drop any atomic bombs from its decrepit fleet of MiG fighters or attach a nuclear device to one of its vaunted missiles. In fact, it's quite uncertain whether North Korean engineers and scientists have actually figured out how to deliver a warhead. Nonetheless, the statement would seem to leave one clear point: North Korea intends to remain a nuclear power.
Wang Jisi, delivering a paper at a forum in Seoul on North Korea's nuclear problem, expanded on his realistic outlook - one that is difficult to dispute unless you're either a US or South Korean negotiator or an academic equally prone to wishful thinking.
Wang did not have to refer specifically to Bosworth's mission to Pyongyang in December to get across the futility of it all. From all that has gone before, he said, "It is hard to imagine any genuine progress on denuclearization - even if North Korea-US contacts were upgraded or the six-party talks were to be resumed soon."
Wang did not claim any real inside knowledge of what North Korean leader Kim Jong-il talks about in meetings with the generals he commands from his pinnacle as chairman of the National Defense Commission, the center of power in Pyongyang. For that matter, he did not let us know if Kim talks to his generals at all. For all anyone knows, maybe he just tells them what to do and think, they bow in assent, and that's it.
"It is almost impossible for outsiders to know whether there were any debates within the North Korean leadership about the pros and cons of going nuclear," he said. Why bother, was the rhetorical implication. "Even if there had been any doubts and hesitations," he said, clearly "the perseverance to attain nuclear weapons is serving the leaders' interests very well".
The logic was simple, from Wang's perspective. "Achievement of nuclear arms should help consolidate their position at home and increase diplomatic leverage," he said. "They feel little increased military pressure while they know how to take one step forward in nuclearization and then pause to show an ostensible readiness to negotiate over denuclearization."
All the while, as Wang noted, humanitarian aid and economic assistance continue to flow into the North.
The degree to which Wang reflects the outlook of Wu Dawei and others in Beijing is not exactly clear, but it seems more than likely that he gets to lecture at home and abroad as both analyst and a messenger of high-level thinking. Looked at that way, Wang's pessimism about North Korea giving up its nukes comes across as a sign of what Beijing sees as a higher priority, that is, propping up the North Korean regime against the danger of collapse and chaos. Wang got that point across too with a candor that's not readily apparent in narrow official pronouncements from Beijing.
"Unlike other partners," he said, in a jibe at the Americans and possibly the South Koreans, "Beijing would look at a possible political implosion in North Korea in most negative terms." For that reason his government "would never try to destabilize that country or join others" in attempting "to do so".
Indeed, he added for good measure, it was "a consensus among many observers in China that the Pyongyang government, with the social order it maintains, may survive for a long time to come" in view of "traditional friendship" between Beijing and Pyongyang, a not-too-subtle allusion to Beijing's rescue of North Korea in the Korean War, as well as "shared interests".
Not that China is supporting whatever North Korea does. Reports persist that China is anxious somehow to tamp down North Korea's nuclear ambitions, to discourage the North from another nuclear test that many observers here are predicting will happen this year - and to engage in serious, effective economic reform.
Japan's influential national daily, Asahi Shimbun, for instance, this week cited diplomatic sources in Beijing as saying that China had responded with "an unexpectedly harsh reaction" to the North's nuclear test of May 25.
"The Communist Party of China told North Korea to reform and open up its economy, end its hereditary succession of political power and abandon its nuclear development programs," said Asahi, attributing those sweeping demands to party sources. It was against this background, said the article, that Kim Jong-il's third son, Kim Jong-un, visited Beijing while his father eased up on disastrous economic reforms.
Wang's remarks, however, may not have convinced influential North Korea-watchers in Japan and the US. The differences were apparent at the same forum, held at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a think-tank financed in large measure by Hyundai money and led by Han Sung-joo, a former foreign minister noted for his moderately conservative views.
Evans Revere, president of the Korea Society in New York and a former diplomat with a long background in Korea, Japan and China, warned that "China could be forced to make hard choices between traditional support for its ally/partner and a new approach".
Nor did Revere seem all that happy about the outlook of South Korea's government. He did not seem impressed by President Lee Myung-bak's repeated declarations that North Korea must give up its nuclear program as a precondition for the aid the North was accustomed to receiving in the decade of the "Sunshine" policy of reconciliation initiated by the late president Kim Dae-jung in 1998.
The South "will need to decide whether it must now get tougher", said Revere, while the North "must ask itself whether intransigence risks sowing the seeds of even further isolation".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/LB27Dg02.html
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