Guess Who’s Buying Flowers for Pyongyang
At the best of times, North Korea’s regime ranks among the most vile on the planet, and this past week has not been the best of times. The totalitarian Kim dynasty carries on, and on, from grandfather to father to son — a brutal regime sustained by proliferation, extortion, and counterfeiting rackets abroad, and grotesque repression at home. This is the regime that targeted an estimated one million or more North Koreans for death by famine in the 1990s, and continues to eradicate dissent by means of such atrocities as incarcerating hundreds of thousands of people in Stalinist prison camps, as described in the recently updated report on “The Hidden Gulag.”
With the late Kim Jong Il now exalted as “general secretary for eternity,” his son, new ruler Kim Jong Un, has just reaffirmed the regime’s “military first” policy, and celebrated the advent of the 100th birthday of Kim Junior’s dead totalitarian grandfather, Kim Il Sung, by conducting a ballistic missile test — which North Korea’s propaganda organs dutifully translated for us as being an attempted satellite launch. There are signs that another North Korean nuclear test may be right around the bend, and this one may be uranium-based, which would be potentially more helpful to North Korea’s business pals in Iran than North Korea’s previous plutonium-based tests, in 2006 and 2009. North Korea’s regime collaborates with Syria and Iran on weapons development. And for its record of kidnapping alone — many of its victims never returned or even fully accounted for — North Korea deserves to be put back on the U.S. government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Yet, even beyond Tehran and Damascus, Pyongyang’s regime has its fans, and receives its share of tribute, including floral wreaths and letters, which the state’s Korean Central News Agency loves to report. For instance, KCNA tells us this week that the communist parties of Peru and Norway sent delegates, bearing gifts, to celebrate the 100th birthday of Kim Il Sung (what the gifts are, KCNA does not explain).
Curious to see who else was sending tribute to the Kim dynasty during this fraught week, I was scrolling through the KCNA site, and lo! What to my wondering eyes should appear but a KCNA report that on Friday — the same day as the missile test (which United Nations sanctions forbid) — “The dear respected Kim Jong Un received congratulatory letters from the offices of the World Food Programme and the United Nations Development Programme.”
Congratulatory letters? For what?
KCNA does not elaborate. To be fair, we can reasonably assume that the World Food Program and UNDP were not congratulating Kim on the missile launch (which was in any event not a successful launch, though such are the hazards of missile tests). And, of course, this is a report from KCNA, a state propaganda organ, prone to such paroxysms as its description Friday of Kim Jong Un as “a great statesman of literary and military accomplishments, who is possessed of outstanding wisdom, distinguished leadership ability, matchless pluck and noble revolutionary comradeship.” It would be unwise to trust entirely to KCNA’s reports.
Except I can find no account of either the World Food Program or the UNDP hustling to deny any such congratulatory letters. If they would like to do so, I would cheerfully write that up. In the meantime, here they are, both these august UN agencies, described by KCNA as orbiting the firmament of Kim Jong Un, the man of matchless pluck and noble revolutionary comradeship. Were they perhaps congratulating him on pioneering a third generation of totalitarian dynastic rule in North Korea? Or applauding the accomplishments of his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, in founding this family enterprise?
It gets worse. Scrolling further down the KCNA roster of Friday’s doings in North Korea, there’s a more detailed account of UNDP “staff members” laying “a floral basket before the equestrian statues of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il.” Apparently, after the UNDP staffers laid the floral basket before the statues of the two dead totalitarians, they “paid tribute,” according to KCNA.
Tribute? What does that mean? Did they bow? Toss coins? Drop off a few dual-use items, of the kind the UNDP got caught in 2007 importing into North Korea? Both these UN outfits have a troubling record in North Korea. The UNDP pandered so shamelessly to Kim Jong Il — dispensing cash, buying him dual-use equipment, and storing counterfeit U.S. $100 banknotes in its office safe — that in 2007 it was forced by the revelations of the Cash-for-Kim scandal to close its Pyongyang office for a while. And according to a report this past December by George Russell of Fox News, the World Food Program “may be helping the Kim regime stay afloat” — allowing the North Korean regime to insert itself as overpaid middleman in the supply chain of relief cargoes, with numerous “lapses” and “anomalies” turning up once the aid arrives in North Korea.
Whatever the World Food Program and the UNDP just wrote, or did, to congratulate Kim Jong Un, or pay tribute to his monstrous ancestors, one might have hoped the UN officials running these organization would have more sense. No doubt while operating in North Korea the UN comes under constant pressure from the regime to bow down, pay tribute, and thank the Kim dynasty for the privilege of sending other people’s money and goods its way. But surely we should also expect from the UN at least some slight grip on a basic moral compass.
For that matter, both the World Food Program and the UNDP are entrusted with taxpayer dollars meant to provide resources for helping hungry and impoverished North Koreans — not to be spent buying flowers and writing letters to glorify mass-murdering tyrants. Would the UN condone sending flowers to honor the memory of Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao?
And if the KCNA reports were dead wrong, if the World Food Program sent no such letter, if the UNDP did not purchase flowers and pay tribute to Kim Il Sung, it should not require the questions of a reporter to persuade them to issue a public denial of these KCNA stories. They should be calling press conferences at their headquarters, in Rome and New York, to explain they would never engage in such acts. Swathed as they are in diplomatic immunity, they might even try calling a press conference to this effect in Pyongyang — provided they’re not too busy penning love notes and buying bouquets for this third generation military-first regime still starving its people while readying its next nuclear test.
“Would the UN condone sending flowers to honor the memory of Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao?” Yes, of course it would. Socialists have always loved Stalin and Mao, while Islamists love Hitler. Add to that mix that the UN is obviously dominated by a combination of socialists and Islamists and you have your answer!
You beat me to it.
On the other hand… did the UN send flowers to Reagan?
All institutions ultimately become radicalized to the Left. I forget why but the United Nations are now controlled by the United Tyrannies. Let us fund the United Democracies instead whose job, like Mission Impossible, is to kill the three worst tyrants in the world every year, all of whom are necessarily excluded from the organization. It would help millions and make the world a much better place. A tyrant is easily defined. Someone who does not stand for periodic contested elections under a written constitution, excluding any who declare electoral victory in excess of 80%. (Castro, of course, despite pre-revolution promises, never stood election for any post, over the course of decades). The behavior of the tyrants under annual examination would improve mightiily after the first five or six are killed. Universal and permanent war against drug cartels by hte UD would be required as well, until those people and their supporters are all dead and buried, or worse. Improving the world is not all that difficult if we give the free, Anglo Saxon trained democracies free military reign everywhere, and start killing the bad guys as soon after trial and conviction as possible. No war. Just targeted assassination after trial and conviction. Much more economical.
I’m sure the bums in Iran sent flowers too. The only time we should send flowers to Kim is if somebody actually assasinates that fat pig. Notice the North Korean rulers are always fat while their own people starve. Tells you something about the people ruling North Korea. It’s a horrible regime and we should have nothing to do with it. Send them nothing, and if the people get tired of starving, then maybe they will have to good sense to rebel against the regime and bring Kim and his henchmen down. Revolution is going on right now in Syria, so maybe it’s time for one to take place in Korea, too. If the North Korean Army gets tired of seeing their own people starving to death, maybe they will finally do the right thing and rebel against this psychotic dynasty that rules this pathetic country. Maybe.
Under Clinton, Secretary of State Madeline Albright took a basketball as a present to Kim Jong Il. http://newsbusters.org/node/8314
See also this funny video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h3GPc_yMCE&mode=related&search=
Among the reasons that the world accepts and respects the Kim Dynasty is the fact that nobody knows that Marxism means famine. Marxism has always meant famine. It necessarily means famine.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/TheGreatLeapBackwards.html
That is how they keep people subject to them. As for the comment suggesting that perhaps the people will rise up and overthrow their government: too late for that-they are terrified of one another. One wrong word and your neighbour will report you to the police and you’re dying in a gulag. People all live in fear of one another and the hunger they experience daily has depleted them of all motivation. They are dispirited,starved and frightened. Read: “The Aquariums of Pyong Yang,” by the young man who did 10 years in a gulag and was released at age 19, then through desperate measures (including bribes etc) he escaped to South Korea. He was interviewed for over an hour by George Bush after his escape. It is hard for us, who are used to free speech (not that it achieves much if anything-we too, have an autocratic govt.)and full stomachs, to understand the psychological effects of decades of fear and starvation.
Koreans, some Koreans, thought Father Kim Il-sung was the worst. South Koreans did not get rid of him. Then came the Son Kim Jong-il. Koreans, some Koreans, thought Son Kim Jong Il would be worse than Father Kim Il-sung. He was. Much worse. South Koreans did not get rid of him. Koreans, some Koreans, throught Grandson Kim Jong-eun would be worse than Grandpa Kim Il-sung or Father Kim Jong-il. They are right. Grandson Kim Jong-eun is and will be much worse than his grandpa and/or his pa. South Koreans will not get rid of Kim Jong-eun either. They are too fat and selfish.
Kim Jong-eun ordered all the defectors who fled from NK to China during his father’s funeral were to be executed, three-generations, no questions asked. Kim Jong-eun ordered some of the ‘traitors’ were to be executed not by rifles/bullets but by cannons/bombs in order to obliterate the bodies.
This kid is and will be a monster of the millenium. All of the above are true so far.
Among the things that are not well known about North Korea is its passionate hatred of Israel.
http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/NorthKorea.html