-Caveat Lector- >From Int'l Herald Tribune ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paris, Saturday, February 13, 1999 A Painful Trade for North Koreans Girls Are Being Sold To Chinese as Brides So Families Can Eat ------------------------------------------------------------------------ By John Pomfret Washington Post Service ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WANGQING, China - On Dec. 30, the mother of Han Jin O and Han Eu No was arrested as she tried to sneak back into North Korea with a sack of rice on her back and her children by her side. The police let the teenage girls go but detained the mother. The next day, North Korean police came to the family's house in the northern city of Hyesan and demanded a $125 bribe - a fortune for poor North Koreans - to release the woman from one of North Korea's labor camps, the girls said. With a father so malnourished that he is unable to work, and with no savings, the family had no way to get her out of detention, they said. Until a gut-wrenching solution was found. A North Korean businessman with contacts in China promised to raise the money. His price? The girls. The girls said he told their father that there were many men in China who needed wives. He assured their father that he would settle the girls near the border, and with such relatives, the businessman said, the family would have the right to go to China. ''I was willing to be a bride so my mother could be free,'' said Han Jin O, an extremely thin 15-year-old who looks barely 12. ''I wasn't going to let them sell my sister.'' Han Eu No is 13. The Han sisters are part of a river of girls and women that is flowing out of North Korea as the isolated Communist country stumbles further toward famine and self-destruction. As many as 2 million people are feared to have perished in North Korea since food shortages swept the country in the mid-1990s, and refugees and aid officials on the border paint a picture of a society in desperate straits. Malnutrition and hunger are the norm, the all-consuming search for the next meal the obsession. (Page 3). Their countrymen, therefore, are turning the women and girls of North Korea into chattel to be traded for food and money. According to officials of private aid agencies working in North Korea, an increasing number of young women, many in their early teens, are being smuggled out and sold to Chinese farmers and laborers from across the country who have trouble finding wives. Other women and girls are sold to karaoke halls and brothels, which line the grimy streets of small cities in northeastern China. But most are sold to single men from villages that many young Chinese women have abandoned for what they see as the brighter vistas of bigger cities. Aid officials said they had no estimate on the number of women streaming into China. But several said they believed the number of smuggled women was increasing. The reason, they said, is that North Koreans already have cannibalized a large portion of their factories and clear-cut a large part of their forests to trade to China for grain. ''They need other things to trade,'' a South Korean aid worker said, ''so they are trading their girls.'' Chinese smugglers here, engaged in moving everything from spare parts to cars and women from North Korea to China, corroborated this view. In their den, a circle of three houses on Chinese territory just opposite the North Korean city of Musan, two acknowledged that the four women they were keeping in one of the red brick buildings were North Korean and bound for customers in China. ''They don't have anything else,'' said one of the men, referring to his North Korean partners. ''We've cleaned out the mine and the chicken farm,'' he said, speaking of what had been Musan's two biggest industries. ''Now we are taking their pretty girls.'' A person involved in the trade in Yanji, a regional center, said the price for a ''North Korean miss'' ranged from $800 to $1,150, depending on her age, looks and health. Health was very important, he said, because so many of the girls were malnourished and gaunt. He had arranged for the marriage in January of one woman who was smuggled to China. Kim Jin Hai, 23, of Hyesan and Piao Erzi, a 26-year-old ethnic Korean farmer, married in a village near Helong, about 30 miles from the border. Mr. Piao said that his new wife was the daughter of well-placed local officials in North Korea, but that even they had determined life at home was deteriorating. But she disagreed. ''Everything was fine at home,'' Mrs. Kim said. ''We lived better than these peasants.'' Mr. Piao countered, ''So why did you come to China?'' The Yanji smuggler said he paid $500 for Mrs. Kim but gave her to Mr. Piao, a distant relative, free. He said he had significant dealings with Mrs. Kim's mother, whom he described as part of a network of North Korean officials who travel regularly to the Yanji area on such business as selling antiques and ginseng and smuggling cars. The Chinese government is trying to fight the trade in wives. In the past two months, authorities have raised the fine for smuggling women to more than $1,000, local people said. But they said that had not dampened business much because smugglers could recoup the fine in a single sale. Private aid officials, often South Koreans, also are trying to stop the sale of women. They also try to keep them from border police who would repatriate them to an uncertain future in North Korea. Some have tried to help the women go, via Mongolia, to Kazakhstan, which has a large population of Koreans. The aid groups are operating illegally, for China does not recognize North Koreans as refugees and has outlawed any attempts to help them. Nevertheless, an aid worker was patrolling the border one night recently. In the headlights of his jeep, he saw two women being led by a man. ''Korean girls!'' he shouted to the driver. The pair jumped out into the snow and gave chase into the forest, shouting after the girls in Korean, ''We're here to help you, we're here to help you!'' But ''we reacted too slowly, the aid worker said as they returned to their vehicle. ''Those girls got away.'' Back at the jeep, nine North Korean refugees, mostly elderly women and men, waited, fearing capture by the border police. Aid officials did manage to rescue the Han sisters after a local Chinese resident tipped them off to the businessman trying to sell two teenagers. They would not say if they had paid for the girls. The Han sisters have been placed in the home of an ethnic Korean couple in Wangjiang, a small town 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the border. An aid agency is giving the family food to feed them. But the fate of their mother rests on their minds. ''Will you save her?'' Han Jin O asks. ''Will you save my mother?'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ >From Kanwa http://web.ica.net/~kanwa/english/index.html NORTH KOREA'S MOTIVE FOR THE ENHANCEMENT OF THE MILITARY COOPERATION WITH VIETNAM ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <Picture>NKB by KWIC ( KWIC news Feb.04 Toronto) North Korea's recent sales of its small-sized submarines to Vietnam merit a high degree of attention. According to the report of the JDW of Britain, North Korea sold two small, old-fashioned submarines to Vietnam eighteen months ago. With their respective displacement of 290 tons, these two submarines can be loaded with four torpedoes and can carry as many as thirty people. In addition, they have the capability of laying water mines. The KWIC believes that they are just a kind of the small YOGO-class submarines that now equip both the North Korean Navy and the Reconnaissance Bureau of the People's Army. They are mainly used for the special military operations, such as the infiltration of people into the enemy waters. Generally, however, they don't possess such a real fighting capability as a modern submarine. North Korea's motive for the sales of weapons to Vietnam at this time is worth a high degree of attention. First of all, this movement will arouse the vigilance of China. Vietnam is a country that has a serious dispute with China on the territorial waters. At present, both China and Vietnam are expediting the upgrading of their respective equipment. More importantly, according to the KWIC, it is highly possible that by this movement, Korea hopes to obtain through Vietnam the advanced weapons and technology of Russia and the other East European countries. After the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between Russia and South Korea in the 1990s, China and Russia discontinued one after another their supply of the heavy-duty weapons to North Korea. Now, North Korea's weapons and devices are mostly obsolete and the equipment of its navy and air force can hardly meet the demand of the modern warfare. On the contrary, Vietnam has greatly enhanced its military relationship with Russia. It is reported that ever since 1997, North Korea has been hoping to obtain from Moscow the military equipment that reflects the development level of the 1980s, including the KILO-class submarines. Considering its special relationship with South Korea, Russia has made a prudent response to the request of North Korea ( Kanwa news ). WILL KIM JONG IL VISIT CHINA? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kanwa Editorial Feb.04 1999 <Picture>Kim by TV SBS via Yihong Zhang monitored Several Western media have reported the statement made by the Chinese ambassador to South Korea. In his recent statement, the ambassador publicly called for the visit of Kim Jong Il to China. Some observers of the east Asia affairs in Washington believe that China has put pressure on Kim Jong Il in the hope that he will visit China. The KWIC believes that the Chinese ambassador's call does not mean that the relationship between these two countries has improved to such a level as to create the atmosphere suitable for Kim Jong Il to visit China in the near future. On the contrary, such a statement made in the capital of the number one enemy of North Korea precisely indicates that the relationship between China and North Korea is in the state of frigidity and that China believes North Korea is to blame for the attitude the latter takes. Up until the early 1980s, Kim Il Song, the great leader of the North Korean People, had visited China almost once a year "just like visiting a relative". At that time, there were several channels for the exchanges between the two parties, governments, states, and armies and the internal "circulation of information" was conducted on a regular basis. This was what the Chinese scholar of North Korea affairs described. It is imaginable that in that situation, the exchange of visits between the two supreme leaders was totally the internal affairs between the two "brotherly parties". It didn't need to be called for publicly. There are indications that since last fall, there has been no positive sign of improvement in the bilateral relationship even though China made the timely delivery of 80 thousand tons of crude oil this year as an aid to North Korea. Most noticeably, last October, the Da DI Monthly of the October issue published by the People's Daily of China made a sarcastic criticism of the feudal hereditary politics of Kim Jong Il's regime. It was the first time in the history of the Sino-North Korean relationship for the Chinese official news media to make a public verbal criticism of Kim Jong Il himself. In August, the KWIC was the first one to report that in the Zhong Jiang area on the border, North Korea was setting up the underground missile base aimed at different targets. This location was less than 100 kilometers from the missile base of the Chinese Second Artillery in Tong Hua. Ever since 1989, North Korea has changed its original defence strategy of only paying absolute attention to "the south" and instead, has started to address the issue of defence against "the north" (China and Russia). Its 10th Group Army stationed at the border area has been expanded. The Western intelligence source has recently claimed that there are, actually, as many as four missile bases on the North Korean side of the border. This year, a fishing dispute occurred around the border area and even violent attacks happened. According to a report in Hong Kong, North Korea may even enhance its bilateral relationship with Taiwan, including the cooperation in intelligence. More noticeably, at the fourth quadrilateral meeting that ended in January, North Korea didn't make any public positive response to the new proposals made by China on the solution to the relevant problems. At the bilateral meeting between North Korea and the USA immediately following the quadrilateral meeting, North Korea decided to make a unilateral compromise on the inspection of its underground facilities. Later, the Foreign Ministry of North Korea announced at a press conference that progress had been made, in order to indicate that North Korea had gained the initiative at the meeting. North Korea was opposed to the so-called quadrilateral meeting even in the very beginning. Instead, it hoped to hold a trilateral meeting and to obtain the recognition of the USA through its negotiation with the USA and South Korea so that it could proceed with the talks on the normalization of its relationship with Japan. It was for the consideration of "not heightening the position of North Korea in the diplomatic negotiations" that the USA tried to draw China into the circle. This year, there has been no indication that China and North Korea will try to hold the high-level contacts. Even the exchange of visits between the prime ministers and the foreign ministers can hardly be realized. How can the summit talks become a reality? ( Kanwa Yihong Zahng ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A<>E<>R The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
