Little Red Blog

After North Korea, Without Rancor and N. Korea Lists Conditions for Negotiations, in the LA Times, the journalist behind both pieces has responded to Hugh Hewitt’s questions. Barbara Demick doesn’t expect to be on his show however. Hugh has posted her response and has sent three additional questions to her. Here are the questions and her responses, along with my commentary.

"Hello. I still need to get permission from my keepers to appear on the program, but I suspect it will not be forthcoming. Sorry about that. Here, though, are my answers to your questions.

Best, Barbara Demick

Do you think Kim Jong Il is an evil man?
- We reported last summer that Kim Jong Il spent millions importing gourmet foods, cookbooks and chefs for himself while his countrymen were starving. One can judge from there.

Indeed we can judge from "there" that you have reported a portion of his evil actions, but we cannot see that you believe him to be evil. Your latest coverage effectively ignored his actions and intent, choosing instead to report only his agents view of North Korea.

Do you think Kim Jong Il and his government are responsible for the famine of the '90s.
- Yes

How many people does your research tell you died in the famine?
- Up to 2 million, about 10 percent of the population

Did Kim Jong Il and his government obstruct international relief efforts during the famine?
- Yes

Good, good and good. Why then wasn’t it offered as a portion of the “Without Rancor” column? It would have been very simple to have reported the travesties suffered under the regime, and to have done so without unwarranted rancor. It is simply reporting the truth in conjunction with the propaganda offered by your businessman agent. Choosing not to showed a willingness to espouse the lies of the regime without the well justified inclusion of counter evidence. It was wrong to do so.

Do you believe Kim Jong Il and his government breached the 1994 Agreement with the United States by secretly pursuing nuclear weapons via uranium enrichment?
- technically, no, but in spirit, yes. The original agreement had several loopholes, which is why the administration now is insisting on CVID (Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Dismantlement)

Technically no. You’ve got to be kidding. The agreement called for the DPRK to live up to its 1992 agreement with the ROK to a denuclearized Korean peninsula and it called for the freezing of the graphite moderated nuclear plants and related facilities and for the IAEA monitoring of those facilities. The DPRK failed to act in good faith with the agreement by continuing its efforts to enrich uranium and by restarting the pre-existing nuclear plants without IAEA supervision or monitoring. Their assertion that they were building a deterrent and then eventually that they have nuclear weapons is not a spirit only violation of the agreement. It is a direct technical violation of the agreement and its requirement that they act to ensure a denuclearization of the peninsula.

How many Japanese and Koreans do your researches suggest the Kim Jong Il regime and his father's regime had kidnapped over the past forty years?
- Around 20 Japanese. South Korean intelligence says 486 of their people.

Has North Korea been forthcoming about these kidnap victims?
- Only about some of the Japanese

Is Japan correct to insist on an accounting of these kidnap victims?
- Yes

You have reported on the allegations of chemicals being tested on prisoners in the North. Do you believe these accounts?
- I believe the guy I interviewed for a story that ran March 2004. Can't vouch for the others.

Do you believe the accounts that pregnant North Korean women, caught attempting to escape from North Korea, are subjected to abortions as punishment? Do you believe the accounts that North Korean women, caught attempting to escape from North Korea, are forced to watch their children executed?
- Yes to the first. Not sure if it's a direct punishment for trying to escape the country, but NK women prisoners who are pregnant are required to abort. I'm not sure about the latter.

If North Korea were to open its borders and pursue an economy with the same policies as South Korea, do you expect it would be as successful as the South has been in building an industrial base and economic growth?
- No

Is Kim Jong Il capable of launching an attack on the South or on Japan without warning?
- Conventional, no. Assymetrical, yes.

This is amazing. You recognize that the regime aborts the children of pregnant women trying to leave the DPRK, recognize that the DPRK has used prisoners as subjects for chemical testing, recognize that the DPRK has kidnapped Japanese and South Korean citizens, and recognize that they possess the means to asymmetrical attack Japan or the South without warning, yet they aren’t evil and none of this was included in your "Without Rancor" column.

How many people do you estimate are kept in the prison camps of North Korea and how would you describe conditions there.
- The State Department says 150,000 to 200,0000 are held in extremely harsh conditions.

Do you believe the man you met with in Bejing and interviewed for Thursday's story was an intelligence operative of the North Korean government?
- His job is to bring foreign investment and development aid into North Korea. As all North Korean business is owned by the Workers' Party, government or military, he is a government official -- or agent, as it were. He spoke in ways that other people would get imprisoned for, which means, not necessarily that he was a spook, but definitely that he is elite with some kind of tie to the top that is his source of protection."

This form of moral ambivalence is astonishing. I would applaud a journalist for the effort, and risk, taken to meet with and interview foreign nationals and agents such as "Mr. Anonymous" who was interviewed for "Without Rancor." But only on the condition that the journalist was acting in the interest of reporting the truth. The truth would include the perverted view of the DPRK and the highly relevant facts that do not jive with the DPRK version. I can’t say more now. Maybe later.