Bush reading book critical of North Korea regime: White House source

Yonhap News (South Korea) ^ | May 9, 2005 | Kim Kwang-tae

[HAL9000]

SEOUL, May 9 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President George W. Bush is reading a North Korean defector's book revealing gruesome human rights abuses in the Stalinist country, according to a White House source contacted in Seoul over the weekend.

"I am in the middle of reading 'the Aquariums of Pyongyang,'" the White House source quoted Bush as saying in a recent meeting with aides.

The White House source, whose name is being withheld by the Yonhap News Agency for privacy, told a friend in Seoul that Bush "appeared to be very concerned" about the plight of the 23 million North Koreans living under a dictatorship.

The book, written by Kang Chol-hwan, an escapee from a North Korean concentration camp, divulges gross human rights violations -- forced labor, frequent executions and near-starvation rations.

The 238-page book appears to have vindicated and reinforced Bush's negative perceptions of North Korea and its dictator Kim Jong-il. Recently, in a similar case, Bush was impressed by former Israeli Cabinet minister Natan Sharansky's book, "The Case for Democracy."

Bush, who lavished praise on Sharansky's book and gave a copy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, reportedly borrowed Sharansky's ideas when he set out his policy goals in his second-term inauguration address on Jan. 20: expansion of freedom around the world and an end to tyranny.

Sharansky, who served eight years in a Siberian jail before being released in the late 1980s, had long been dismissed as naive for his idea of spreading democracy across the world. But now he has the most powerful man in the world to back him up.

"If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy, read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy," Bush told reporters earlier this year. "It's a great book."

Kang, 37, served 10 years in a concentration camp in Yodeok, about 100 kilometers northeast of Pyongyang, at the age of nine along with his entire family before defecting alone to South Korea in 1992.

His description of thousands of prisoners at Yodeok is so gruesome that it defies belief. Yet, his accounts are supported by a growing body of other testimonies. Kang himself witnessed 15 executions. Once inside the camp, the prisoners had no contact with the outside world and most would remain there until their death.

Kang, now a reporter at South Korea's leading conservative newspaper, the Chosun Ilbo, is waging a campaign to dismantle the North Korean gulags, with the assistance of Amnesty International and other international human rights groups. Outsiders estimate that the North is holding about 200,000 political prisoners at about a half dozen camps.

North Korea has strenuously denied holding any political prisoners as well as allegations of torture and other human rights violations. It dismisses such allegations as U.S. attempts to topple its communist regime.

Apparently, as was the case with Sharansky, Kang has gained the attention of the world's most powerful leader whose negative view of North Korea is not new. In his 2002 State of the Union message, Bush labeled North Korea as part of "an axis of evil," along with Iran and pre-war Iraq.

Bush abhors Kim Jong-il, accusing him of being a "tyrant" who starves his people while trying to make nuclear weapons. In late April, Bush again attacked the North Korean leader, calling him a "dangerous person" who operates "huge concentration camps."

North Korea fired back, calling Bush a "hooligan" and a "philistine." The exchange is deepening enmity between the two countries which have not been on speaking terms for a long time. North Korea remains on a U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

Under a law that went into effect in January, the Bush Administration is allowed to spend up to US$24 million annually during the 2005-2008 period, mostly to help North Koreans fleeing their poverty-stricken homeland.

In its latest global human rights report released in March, the United States said North Korea is a dictatorship with an extremely poor human rights record, extrajudicial killings, disappearances and arbitrary detention.

[tahotdog]

There are a dozen or so feral regimes in the world which need to be gotten rid of. Nobody is safe on a planet with something like the NK government on it.

[byset]

Sharansky has described Bush as the world's leading dissident, or somesuch. This is further proof.

[Baraonda]

Who cares what an unperson like Skaransky says? Skaransky is a propagandist.

We got the best president who reads books, to boot.

[elhombrelibre]

Sharansky was complimenting Bush.

[Baraonda]

So am I, but I don't get to be in the news.

You were born under the Libra zodiac sign? Or, does it mean the free man?

[PzGr43]

Wait wait.... let's not make the same mistake as last time.

Don't rush into this and destroy all that bought-and-paid-for capital - North Korean gulags. Yes - we need to empty them after North Korean finally goes under, but don't shut them down - fill them up. Start with Al Queda. These gulags are fully staffed by experienced operatives, and would be very cheap to run by Western standards. No point killing OBL - the dead don't suffer any more. Why should they got off Scot-free ?

We lost the Soviet Gulags in 1989. And the Iron Curtain, the death strip from Archangel to Black Sea was just ripped-up. Wasted.

There is a bit of testimony from ex-NK gulag inmates on the web, and a good chapter in "The Little Black Book of Communism". I never thought I would view the Soviet Gulag as warm and fluffy, but that is what the NK gulags make them look like: A holiday camp.