The Bridge At Cahors, France

This Medieval Bridge at Cahors, France (just south of the Dordogne Valley on the main north/south motorway to Carcassone and The Languedoc Region of southern France) was the dividing line between "English France," and French soil during the Hundred Years War. Its three massive stone towers and fortified gateways kept the two armies apart -- except after hours, when festive-minded soldiers from either side would sneak across the river in rowboats, wine and feast and carouse together, and return to their respective sides of the river with "fair warning" just in time for renewed hostilities at daybreak.


Friday, November 28, 2014



NORTH KOREA – THE STAGE IS SET AND THE ACTORS PLAY


The scene has been  set.  Our previous post outlined the previous 70 year history of North Korea under the demi-God Kims.  We have had a chance to look at the ways in which this oddest of countries continuously acts out its ongoing charade as a supposed leader of nations and a beacon of light to the working man.  Now we shall look at how this is enacted day by day for the benefit of visitors in this reclusive place.

Perhaps the best example in North Korea of the Napoleonic Complex addiction to “show” construction projects for the rest of the world is the Ryugyong Hotel, begun in 1987 as the world’s tallest hotel and still not complete 27 years later.  In fact, the massive three-lobed skyscraper remains a massive 330 meter topped-out shell, complete only with its radio mast summit and exterior wrap.  The building completely dominates the Pyongyang skyline.  But as is commonly whispered locally, “nobody stays there.”

The Ryugyong was begun as an intended jab in the eye to South Korea, which declined the North’s invitation to co-host the Olympic Games in 1988 (eventually held in Seoul).  So the Kims dedicated 2% of North Korea’s gross national product ($750 million) to construction of a monument to Juche strength.  The situation is similar to a small statured strip club owner with hugely padded shoulders snarling to the owner of the adjacent but much more elegant Copacabana: “Share the parking lot.  My place has twice the game as yours.”  The reality however, is that the hotel remains a hollow shell of dusty concrete tiers, plumbing stubs, and tangles of electric wire.

The 105-story showpiece was to have at least 3,000 guest rooms (this despite the fact only 2500 westerners  a year come to North Korea, primarily Europeans), five revolving restaurants, shops, a casino and eight revolving floors of luxury suites in its spaceship like upper tier.  When the Soviet Union dissolved two years after construction began, financing support evaporated.  Construction came to a lurching halt.

The building nicknamed the “Hotel of Doom” remained nearly untouched for 15 years, and was not continued until Egyptian Telecom giant Orascom put $180 million into the project (for which it received a 75 per cent stake in Koryolink, North Korea’s only mobile phone operator) to complete its pinnacle and glass siding in 2000.  Still awaiting completion funding, it was surpassed as the tallest hotel in the world in February of 2013 with completion of the 355 meter Marriott Marquis Hotel in Dubai.

Other venues that attempt to add authenticity or awe to the carefully managed impression of North Korean life and infrastructure, the women of Pyongyang themselves, a bowling alley, a clothing factory and secondary school in Pyong-sung (45 minutes away), the jingoistic drum beat of the “Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum,” a ride on the local tram, and our base for the five-day stay at the Yangeakdo Hotel.

By “We” I refer to the Koryo Tour Group, the Beijing based and longest standing tour promoters for westerners in North Korea.  You can NOT travel unaccompanied anywhere in North Korea, so the best way to visit is to attach to a tour group with already scheduled itineraries.  Normally for me, this method of travel is the kiss of death.  But I found an exception in that this highly efficient group expedited arrangements for North Korea very skillfully.  North Korea was actually easier to get into than most of the 35 other countries on this Around The World trip.

Five North Koreans were assigned to our small group of 16 as guides and handlers.  They included Pak (the driver), three gentlemen named Li (our photographer, junior guide, and primary guide), and Pang (our female senior guide).  We are told emphatically by the personable but very orthodox primary guide Mr. Li to practice “Single Minded Unity.”  Meaning:  Stick together. Don’t wander. Don’t go outside the lines. Remain in sight.

Yanggakdo International Hotel is the largest working hotel in North Korea. The hotel is located on Yanggak Island in the Taedong River, two kilometers to the south-east of the Pyongyang city center. It is 170 meters in height and has a revolving restaurant on the 47th floor. The hotel is said to contain 1,000 rooms and a total floor space of 87,870 square meters.  It was begun in 1986 and opened in 1995. The hotel is jokingly called “Alcatraz” because it is on an island, and there is nowhere to go even if you could escape.
Besides the top floor restaurant, the hotel features six dining rooms, Korean and western goods at highly inflated prices that nobody really seems interested in buying, a reception lounge, bar, bookshop, large suites, and basement featuring a bowling alley, pool room, swimming pool,  barber shop, casino, and massage club.
The illusion of “Alcatraz” comes from strict confinement when not on tour and being unable to get away and compare facilities or talk to real people -- at places that locals would stay at or congregate.  It is clear the North Koreans would love to have you believe this robust facility with its large and generously appointed rooms (that suffer frequent power outages, something that can never be hidden) are normal accommodations.  “We all live this way.  This type of facility is customary” is the contrived implication.
The women of Pyongyang are included in this staged presentation.  North Korea operates on a caste system.  The connected, the beautiful, the lithe of limb are allowed to live in Pyongyang.  They may be party members, athletes, government workers, professors, or approved artists.  I saw several apartment blocks in fact where professors and artists had been given preferred housing units, complete with free furniture.  The ultimate in “go along, get along” politics.
The Women Of Pyongyang are complicit.  It is hard to fault them.  In a nation where 10% of the population is starving, they will take the best offer in a system that maximizes shows of loyalty, joy, happiness, contentment, and being at peace.  Only those fitting this profile – or willing to model it – are allowed in the city (at least where tourists are allowed).  The whole visitor central area reminded me of Disneyland, with its painted on smiles and the required/rewarded/enforced behaviors being so evident.
My Koryo travel colleague Anjaly Thomas from Dubai writes about this extensively:
“It just so happened that every woman I met in Pyongyang be it at the hotel, the ‘tourist’ sites, the flower girls at Munsudae Hill, the police-women, the girls who served us beer or just about any woman in Pyongyang – were just the right kind of women to be seen in the capital city – by this I mean, the women were beautiful, very fair, without a blemish, tall and slim..  And they always smiled.
On the other hand, there was something about these Pyongyang women that I couldn’t help notice. If you asked them a question they were not trained to answer – their faces would turn expressionless, blanched with a sudden fear – which didn’t match well with an otherwise confident portrayal of their well-defined and scripted roles.
A classic example : When we finished dining at one of the tourist restaurants (with much food remaining afterward), I asked a particularly frail waitress if she had eaten. She reacted as though I had slapped her. The reason? The help always ate at only certain times of the day and their meals mostly contained local staples.  One did not, even in their wildest dreams, think of eating what the tourists had left over, because it did not fit in with their  ’socialist’ ideals. I think it had something to do with the ideology of the Great Leader who attributed “fancy dining” to laziness and immorality and showed disrespect to a nation that believed in sharing and the equal carrying of burdens (or at least the appearance of it).
Apparently if you weren’t one of the smiling Pyongyang girls, attractive, of a certain height, and slim, you could never be a tour guide, an interpreter, a police woman, or even a salesgirl currying to tourists.  You would be assigned to live out of town.  Probably to scratch out a living for yourself and others with your hands.  We saw very little mechanization once outside Pyongyang.
There are other faces I saw when visiting nearby villages.  Those people lived in their minimal houses, slogging away in government owned fields up mountain slopes, carrying heavy weights on their shoulders, living on meager meals of corn or rice and sometimes potatoes and cabbage.  They were definitely not smiling. This is a country made up of only a few classes of people.  Your work and residency assignments within North Korea depend on that class.  The rural/agricultural class has no say in their assignments and cannot aspire beyond them.”
This illusion of “Pyongyang presentability” showed up in a tram ride we experienced.  We were told over and over how privileged we were to share in this ride with local residents.  Said fellow travelers, of course, were carefully coiffed and buttoned down in bright, shiny clothing, uniforms, and shoes.  They spoke little English.  They also never initiated contact with us, though they were polite in response. Like props, they never alighted from our ride.
Immediately outside at one stop and allegedly quite by coincidence, we just happened to run into a stationary set of cheerful, smiling, waving and well-dressed school children.  They were each adorned in patriotic red Youth Explorer scarves and uniformly white shirts. They all spoke English.  What were the odds?  We were supposed to believe this was a genuine and spontaneous interaction that somehow reflected reality in North Korea.  We knew better.  Every Koryo group going through Pyongyang mentions this ‘chance’ encounter.
Roughly the same thing happened at a bowling alley we were encouraged to visit (either that or stay in the bus).  A choice much like “be staked out in the sun to be eaten alive by fire ants, or come inside for ice cream.”  Mixing was not encouraged.  There was no interaction with the locals.  Mostly party members and their friends and children habited this R&R retreat and stage for westerners.  What was being presented once again was: This is open to everybody.  We all have access to this.  Despite the airs power went out three times in one hour, making for rolling challenges to scorekeepers as blackouts repeatedly occurred in the middle of frames.
Another fascinating example of incongruity between reality and presentation exists at the otherwise marvelous Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang (built in 1993).  This is a beautiful world class military museum.  It commemorates the so-called victory of the DPRK over imperialist Americans during the 1950-53 Korean War.  As one of the few westerners visiting, the locals (many of whom are required to visit, including new recruits) looked me over like I was a war criminal.  And no wonder …
Inside were crude displays of US casualties on the battlefields of Korea, in macabre positions of disfiguration or being eaten by crows.  A particular section was devoted to “US Wartime Atrocities.”  Another spoke of over 80,000 violations by US troops since the Armistice agreement of 1953 … and none on the part of DPRK troops (South Korea is not mentioned).

The myths are sustained with crude propaganda films showing the US starting the war in June of 1950 by invading North Korea (only trouble was the films actually depict US counterattacks six months later, after narrowly surviving compression into the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea).  It did not matter that the US had less than 1000 troops in South Korea in June of that year.  Since that time the US has made peace with former enemies China, Russia, and Viet Nam.  The impression one is left with is that the world has moved on.  Yet North Korea still fights a war that ended 70 years ago.

Of particular fascination at the museum is the presence of the USS Pueblo, a US electronic spy ship which was captured by DPRK gunboats in 1968 while supposedly in International waters.  It took 11 months for the crew to be released, and only after signing apologies and detailed “confessions” admitting their alleged aggressions against North Korea.  The boat itself remains moored in Pyongyang.  New recruits to the North Korea Army are required to board.  The message: “This is what happens to bullies.  Mess with us at your own peril.  We have beaten you before, and we can do it again.”
A day trip to Pyongsung, about 45 minutes away (where much camaraderie was warmly cemented finally with our guides when they told jokes and sang to us in both English and Korean on the bus) resulted in impressive visits to the Pyongsung Taedonggang Clothing Factory and the Kim Jong Suk (Kim Jong-il’s Mother) Higher Middle School for gifted children.
The secondary school was solidly built, if somewhat boxy in design, with excellent lighting and electrical circuits.  The children were eager to query us and very eager to practice their English.  They were earnest in their curiosity about the thoughts of westerners in a frank if controlled question and answer session.  The school featured a basketball court, vegetable garden, solar panels, and especially a biology room with virtually every stuffed animal known to man that was smaller than a kid goat.
The illusory part of course, was that this was a common middle school.  We only learned that the children were gifted and had been previously identified and in some cases removed from their families earlier.  It saddened me in part, to see these bright faces stretching so diligently to connect, and yet knowing they would eventually become government functionaries and ideologues devoted to the state rather than captains of industry, guides, translators, doctors, writers, diplomats, and humanitarians.
Second verse, same as the first …The Taedonggang Clothing Factory in Pyongsung is a concrete shell displayed for us due to its production of sporting goods apparel primarily.  It turns out 50,000 pieces a month.  Management bragged about how the workers only had to work eight hours a day (six days a week) and received actual water breaks.  We noticed the labels on virtually every item said “Made in China.”
Once again, you can fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time, but … a few of us who were a bit more inquisitive went up to the fourth floor.  It was not monitored.  Only the lead designer was engaged there with new designs.  We looked out over hidden large interior courtyards at the rear of the factory, where the workers lived (tenements in East London in the last century were more picturesque).  Photos were taken.  The designer looked up and was startled at our cameras not being directed at her.  She yelled out for the handlers and monitors downstairs.  We were gone before they could arrive, taking care to switch out memory cards before descending the stairs.
One final event I wish to report on prior to describing some of the best aspects of North Korea (in my next North Korea post) is an unmonitored conversation I had with one of our guides during our five days of traversing the country by bus.  I mentioned that no, the United States did NOT start the Korean War by invading the north.  It was explained that is why the United Nations sent troops from 20 countries to assist South Korea.
I also mentioned we westerners are free to live where we wish, travel where we wish, work where we wish and for whom we please, and contact whomever we please as well.  I added that we got to select from among multiple candidates in elections.  That we could run for office ourselves without needing to be a member of a particular party.  That we did not have to worry about police breaking down our door at night in raids if the government was displeased with us. That we could travel as we pleased.  And most of all, we could criticize the government and even our leaders, without fear of reprisal.
I told him the world did not feel about the Kims or North Korea or Juche in the ways portrayed for him by his government.  The government told him what they wanted him to hear, and only allowed him to see certain realities … that they certainly were not allowing him to see or hear about regular DPRK executions or the high percentage of starving citizens in his country.  The young man reflected on this and said: “I think you are lying to me.”
But he continued to ask questions.  He admitted he’d seen photos of skyscrapers in South Korea and was aware how successful its economy was.  We discussed additional limitations in North Korea that westerners were aware of that could not be hidden.  We then contrasted those with western freedoms.
“You know,” I told him, “I can make a call to anybody in the world I want.  I can write a letter to anybody.  I can send a package anywhere.  I can fax wherever I wish.  I can read a newspaper from anywhere in the world.  I can send or receive e-mails from anywhere in the world. You can not say the same.  You have only one source of information -- your government.  I have every source of information from multiple countries available to me.  Think about that when you accuse me of lying.”


He thought about that briefly.  I could see the gears whirring in his head.  He bit his lip, looked at me, looked away several times, and looked at me again.  He finally spoke.  “Is it really true you can criticize your government, and your leaders?”

Thursday, November 13, 2014


NORTH KOREA – A CHARADE ATTACHED TO A  RIDDLE INSIDE AN ENIGMA


Where does one begin to describe the “Was that real or was that Memorex?” Alice in Wonderland charades that are the essence of The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?  The world’s ultimate quirky rabbit society crossed with the most xenophobic leadership on the planet.  That “Crazy Hermit Nation” we know globally as North Korea …

Let us start with the name.  There is nothing Democratic about the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.  Nor are its citizens thought of in any manner whatsoever during political decision making in the most secretive society presently known to man.  Nor is it a Republic.  More like an enduring personality cult, devoted to hero worship and deity making of Kim Il-sung and his patri-linear successors.

This hero worship is mandated in many forms and is reinforced night and day.  It is manifested constantly in martial music broadcasts in public places, patriotic posters, movies, radio, TV, film clips, slogans, photos, statues, and monuments.  There is only one purpose and one subject: homage to The Kims – Kim Il-sung, “The Great Leader” (1912 to1994), his son Kim Jong-il, “The Supreme Leader” (1941 to 2011) and now his grandson Kim Jong-un, the “Brilliant Comrade” and “Great Successor” (born either 1980 or 1981).

Unusual lengths are extended to play out this hero worship.  There is some question about who the intended audience is.  Is it the world stage, to show North Korea can not only flirt with nuclear weaponry and splashy rockets and the world’s largest monuments but also create a great society?  Or is it a captive audience of 24 million citizens, needing assurance that their starvation diets to support an overbearing military machine and a government controlling every aspect of their lives can truly lead them down a better path?

It is difficult to say, though my read leans toward the latter.  Those rare North Koreans who have been allowed to travel outside their own borders know the outside world is not as painted for them.  They know South Korea has one of the most productive economies in the world.  They have seen photos of modern Seoul.  They have seen satellite pix of South Korea at night, lit up like a torch while North Korea hibernates in near darkness.

No.  My studied guess is that an elaborate and continuous stage play of one-upsmanship of everything South Korean or American, is to reinforce for the northern populace that their sacrifices are not in vain, their pitiful standard of living is for a greater cause, and that continued hero worship of the all-knowing Kims is the only way forward in a hostile world lurking with predatory enemies.

I will detail my personal observations of five days in North Korea in my next post.  But for the moment, I wish to provide some necessary background on the three megomanical Kims that have led the country since 1945 (when the Soviet Union handed supreme political power to the senior Kim in their zone of control in the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, following Japanese surrender in World War II).

It is hoped this review might help explain the unique brand of leadership exercised by the Kims that somehow blinds the North Korean people, whose willing acceptance of regime proclamations contrasts so sharply with what they actually see, hear, feel, and experience in their daily lives.

There is much controversy about Kim Il-sung's political career before the founding of North Korea.  Some sources report he was an impostor assuming the name of a Korean war hero who died leading early Korean resistance against the Japanese.  One Russian officer who helped train Kim in Manchuria claimed he was essentially "created from zero." For one, his Korean was marginal at best -- he'd had only eight years of formal education, all of it in Chinese after being raised in Manchuria.
In 1935 Kim took the name Kim Il-sung, meaning "Become the Sun". Kim was appointed commander of a resistance troop in 1937 at the age of 24, controlling a few hundred men. While in command of this group he executed a raid on and briefly captured Poch’onbo, a small Japanese-held town just across the Korean border.  This minor victory was nevertheless considered a notable success at the time, when guerrilla units had experienced difficulty in capturing any enemy territory. This accomplishment elevated Kim among Chinese guerrillas, and North Korean biographies would later expand on it as a great victory for Korea (the Japanese themselves always lauded Kim as a fighter).
It was while fighting the Japanese that Kim met the man who would become his mentor as a Communist, Wei Zhengmin, his immediate superior officer. Wei reported directly to Kang Sheng, a high-ranking communist party member close to Mao Zedong unil Wei’s death in battle early in the war.
By the end of 1940, Kim was the only Korean guerilla army leader still alive. Pursued by Japanese troops, Kim and what remained of his guerilla army escaped into the Soviet Union. Kim was sent to a camp where Korean communist fighters were retrained by the Soviets. He became a Major in the Soviet Red Army and served in it until the end of the war.
The official version of Kim's guerrilla life is believed to be heavily embellished as a part of developing his subsequent personality cult, particularly his portrayal as a boy-conspirator who joined the resistance at 14 and had founded a battle-ready army at 19.
The Soviet Union belatedly declared war on Japan in August 1945 in the final days of WW II following the drop of atomic bombs by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Red Army entered Pyongyang with almost no resistance a few days later, on August 15th of 1945.  Red Army and Communist leader Joseph Stalin had instructed his chief of secret police to recommend a Communist leader for the Soviet-occupied territories.  Kim Il-sung was the party recommending to Stalin.
In December 1945, the Soviets installed Kim as chairman of the North Korean branch of the Korean Communist Party. With backing from the Soviets he became the premier Korean political leader in the North.  Kim needed considerable language coaching initially, including preparation to deliver a speech at a Communist Party congress three days after he arrived back in Korea.
To solidify his control, Kim established the Korean People’s Army (KPA), which was closely aligned with the Communist Party.  A core of guerrillas and former soldiers who had gained combat experience in battles against the Japanese and later against Nationalist Chinese troops provided its leadership. Using Soviet advisers and equipment, Kim constructed an oversized army skilled in infiltration tactics and guerrilla warfare.
Prior to Kim's invasion of the South in 1950 (triggering the KoreanWar) Stalin equipped the KPA with modern, Soviet-built heavy tanks, trucks, artillery, and small arms. Kim also formed an air force, equipped at first with Soviet-built propeller-driven fighters and attack aircraft. Later KPA pilot candidates were sent to the Soviet Union and China to train in jet aircraft at secret bases.
Despite United Nations plans to conduct all-Korean elections, the more heavily populated South Korea declared independence as the Republic of Korea in May of 1948.  With Kim as the Soviet puppet premier, North Korea followed suit and declared independence as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on September 9th, 1948. The Soviet Union recognized Kim's government a month later as sovereign of the entire peninsula, including the south.
By 1949, Kim and the Communists (called The Workers Party of Korea or WPK) had consolidated totalitarian rule in North Korea and all parties and mass organizations were either eliminated or consolidated into the WPK. Around this time, the Kim "cult of personality" was initiated by the Communists, the first statues of Kim appeared, and he began calling himself "Great Leader" – much like his counterpart in China, Mao Zedong.
The decision to invade South Korea was Kim's initiative and not a Soviet one, according to archival materials discovered since the fall of the Soviet Union. Soviet intelligence, through its espionage sources in the American CIA and British SIS, had obtained information on US limitations following decomissioning of troop levels and defense cuts at the end of the war, leading Stalin to conclude that the US Truman administration would not intervene in Korea.
The People’s Republic of China agreed reluctantly to the idea of Korean reunification after being told by Kim that Stalin had approved the action. The Chinese did not provide North Korea with direct military support (other than logistics) until United Nations troops led by the US had nearly reached China’s border at the Yalu River in late 1950.
At the outset of the war in June and July, North Korean forces captured Seoul and occupied most of the South except for a small section of territory in the southeast region of the South called the Pusan Perimeter. But in September, the North Koreans were driven back by a US-led counterattack which started with a UN flank landing at Incheon Island, followed by a breakout South Korean-US-UN offensive from Pusan.
By October, UN forces had retaken Seoul and invaded the North to reunify Korea for the first time since the end of WW II. On October 19th, US and South Korean troops captured Pyongyang, forcing Kim and his government to flee eventually into China.  North Korean history emphasizes that the United States had illegally occupied the South, with the intention of pushing north and eventually into the Asian mainland.  Based on these portrayals, it paints its invasion of the South as a defensive necessity.  
On October 25th of 1950, after sending various warnings of their intent to intervene if UN forces did not halt their advance, one million Chinese troops crossed the Yalu River and entered the war as KPA allies. Yet tensions grew between Kim and the Chinese government.  Kim had been warned of a bypass amphibious landing at Incheon which was ignored. There was also a sense that the North Koreans had made little sacrifice in the struggle against “imperialism” compared to the Chinese who had fought for their country for decades against foes with superior technology.
UN troops were forced to withdraw south and Chinese troops retook Pyongyang and then Seoul in January of 1951. In March, UN forces began a new offensive, retaking Seoul and advanced north once again, halting at a point just north of the now famous 38th Parallel. After a series of offensives and counter-offensives by both sides, followed by a grueling period of largely static trench warfare which lasted from the summer of 1951 to July 1953, the front was stabilized along what eventually became the permanent "Armistice Line" of July 27th, 1953. Over 1.2 million people died during the Korean War.
Chinese and Russian documents from that time reveal that Kim became increasingly desperate to establish a truce, since the likelihood that further fighting successfully uniting Korea under his rule was increasingly remote with the UN and US presence. Kim also resented the Chinese taking over the majority of the fighting in his country, with Chinese forces stationed at the center of the front line, and KPA troops being mostly restricted to the coastal flanks of the front.
Restored as leader of North Korea after the armistice, Kim immediately embarked on a large reconstruction effort. He launched a five-year national economic plan to establish a command economy, with all industry taken over by the state and all agriculture collectivized. The economy was focused on heavy industry and arms production. Both South and North Korea retained huge armed forces to defend the 1953 DMZ, although no foreign troops were permanently stationed in North Korea (all Chinese troops that fought with the KPA during the war were removed from North Korea by 1957).
During the late 1950s, Kim was seen as an orthodox Communist leader, and an enthusiastic satellite of the Soviet Union. His speeches were liberally sprinkled with praises to Stalin. But Kim sided with China during the Sino-Soviet split, opposing the reforms brought by Nikita Khrushchev.  Kim distanced himself from the Soviet Union, removing mention of his Red Army career from official North Korean history, and began aligning the country along its own independent course.
Kim was seen by many in North Korea, and in some parts elsewhere, as an influential anti-revisionist leader in the communist movement. In 1956, anti-Kim elements encouraged by de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union emerged within the Party to criticize Kim and demand reforms. After a careful “wait and see” period, Kim instituted a purge, executing many who had been found guilty of treason and forcing the rest into exile.
By the 1960s, Kim's relationship with the great communist powers in the region had become difficult. Despite his opposition to de-Stalinization, Kim never severed his relations with the Soviet Union. He found the Chinese unreliable allies due to Mao Zedong’s shifting policies.  The net effect was to leave the DPRK somewhere in between both sides. The Cultural Revolution in China eventually prompted Kim to side with the Soviets, a decision reinforced by the policies of Leonid Brezhnev. This infuriated Mao and the anti-Soviet Red Guards. As a result China immediately denounced Kim, fomented anti-Kim propaganda, and warmed relations with the United States.
At the same time, Kim was expanding his already pervasive personality cult.  North Koreans were taught that Kim was the "Sun of the Nation" and could do no wrong. Kim developed the policy and ideology of Juche (“Two Chay,” meaning self-reliance) rather than having North Korea become another Soviet or Chinese vassal state.
In the mid-1960s, Kim became impressed with the efforts of North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh to reunify Vietnam through guerilla warfare and thought something similar might be possible in Korea. Infiltration and subversion efforts were greatly stepped up against US and Korean forces and South Korean leadership. These efforts culminated in an attempt to attack the Blue House (South Korean equivalent of the US White House) and assassinate President Park Chung-hee.
North Korean troops thus took a much more aggressive stance toward US forces in and around South Korea, engaging US Army troops in frequent firefights along the DMZ. The 1968 capture of the spy ship USS Pueblo and its crew in international waters was part of this campaign.
A new constitution was proclaimed in December of 1972. Kim was named “Eternal President” of North Korea. In 1980, he had decided upon his son Kim Jong-il as his successor, and increasingly delegated  to him daily function of the government. The Kim family continued to be supported by the army, due to Kim Sr’s revolutionary record. 
From about this time, North Korea encountered increasing economic difficulties. The practical effect of Juche was to cut the country off from virtually all foreign trade in order to foster self-reliance. The economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in China from 1979 onward meant that trade with the skeletal economy of North Korea held decreasing interest for China. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union starting in 1989 added to North Korea's increasing isolation.
To ensure full adherence to the leadership of his designated successor Kim Jong-il, Kim turned over his chairmanship of North Korea's National Defense Commission—the body mainly responsible for control of the armed forces as well as the supreme command of the country's now million-man strong military force (the KPA) — to his son starting in 1991.
In early 1994, Kim began investing in nuclear power to offset energy shortages brought on by continuing economic problems. This was the first of many nuclear related crises in the DPRK. In May of 1994, Kim ordered spent fuel to be unloaded from western contested nuclear research facilities at Yongbyon. Despite repeated chiding from Western nations, Kim continued to conduct nuclear research with uranium enrichment. To the astonishment of the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Kim later agreed to stop his nuclear research program in exchange for economic aid and seemed to be opening up to the West.
By this time, North Korea was isolated from the outside world, except for limited trade and contacts with China, Russia, Vietnam and Cuba. Its economy was crippled by huge expenditures on armaments, and the agricultural sector was unable to feed its population. Floods and storms contributed to North Korea’s demise. At the same time, the state-run North Korea media continued to heap praise on Kim and crow about the nation’s status among nations.  Kim passed away July 8 of 1994.
There are over 500 statues of Kim Il-sung in North Korea. The most prominent are at Kim Il-sung University, Kim Il-sung Stadium, Mansudae Hill, Kim Il-sung Bridge and the Immortal Statue of Kim Il-sung at his mausoleum in Kamsusan Palace. Some statues have been reported to have been attacked by explosions or damaged with graffiti by North Korean activists.
Yŏng Saeng ("eternal life") monuments have been erected throughout the country, each dedicated to the departed "Eternal Leader", at which citizens are expected to pay annual tribute on his official birthday or the commemoration of his death. It is also traditional that North Korean newlyweds, immediately after their wedding, go to the nearest statue of Kim Il-sung to lay flowers at his feet.
Kim Il-sung's image is especially prominent in places associated with public transportation, and is visible at every North Korean train station and airport. It is also placed conspicuously at the border crossings between China and North Korea. Thousands of gifts to Kim Il-sung from foreign leaders (primarily tinhorn dictators) are housed in the DPRK’s International Friendship Exhibition.
The most telling legacy attributable to Kim Sr however, according to R.J. Rummel, an analyst of global politically-caused deaths, is Kim Il-sung's record with over one million regime deaths resulting from concentration camps, forced labor, and executions.
Soviet records show that his son Kim Jong-il was born Yuri Irsenovich Kim in the village of Vyatskoye in 1941, where Kim Il-sung commanded the 1st Battalion of the Soviet 88th Brigade (made up of Chinese and Korean exiles). Inside his family, Kim Jong-il was nicknamed Yura, while his younger brother Kim Man-il (born Alexander Irsenovich Kim) was nicknamed Shura.

However, Kim Jong-il's official biography states he was born in a secret military camp on Baekdu Mountain in Japanese occupied Korea on February 16th, 1942. Biographers claim that his birth at Baekdu Mountain was foretold by a swallow, heralded by the appearance of a double rainbow across the sky over the mountain, and a new star in the heavens.

At the time Kim Jr had been appointed his father’s successor the title "Dear Leader" and “Supreme Leader” was adopted as the government began building another personality cult around him patterned after that of his father, the "Great Leader." Kim Jong-il was regularly hailed by the media as the "fearless leader" and "the great successor to the revolutionary cause."

In 1994, North Korea and the United States signed an accord designed to freeze and eventually dismantle the North's nuclear weapons program in exchange for funding of two power-generating nuclear reactors. Eight years later, Kim Jong-il's government admitted to having produced nuclear weapons since the 1994 agreement. Kim's regime argued the secret production was necessary for security purposes — citing the presence of US controlled nuclear weapons in South Korea and renewed tensions with the United States under President George W. Bush. On October 9th, 2006, North Korea's Korean Central News Agency announced that it had successfully conducted an underground nuclear test.

Kim Jong-il was the beneficiary of the elaborate personality cult developed for his father. Defectors have reported that North Korean schools deify both father and son. One defector wrote, "To my childish eyes and to those of all my friends, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il were perfect beings, untarnished by any base human function. I was convinced, as we all were, that neither of them urinated or defecated. Who could imagine such things of Gods?"

Kim Jong-il was always the focus of attention during his reign in the DPRK. On his 60th birthday, mass “spontaneous” celebrations occurred throughout the country. Many North Koreans believed that he had the "magical" ability to control the weather. North Korea media reported in 2010 that Kim’s distinctive clothing had set worldwide fashion trends.

The prevailing point of view internationally is that the people's adherence to Kim Jong-il's cult of personality in the DPRK was solely out of respect for Kim Il-sung or out of fear of punishment for failure to pay homage. DPRK sources refer to this apparent awe and respect as inspired hero worship. The song "No Motherland Without You", sung by the KPA State Merited Choir, was created especially for Kim in 1992 and is frequently broadcast on the radio and from loudspeakers on public streets.

According to a 2004 Human Rights Watch report, the North Korean government under Kim was "among the world's most repressive governments," having up to 200,000 political prisoners.  Also cited in the report were no freedom of the press or religion, political opposition or equal education: "Virtually every aspect of political, social, and economic life is controlled by the government."  Kim's government was also accused of "crimes against humanity" for its alleged culpability in creating and prolonging the 1990s famine.

The field of psychology has long been fascinated with the personality assessment of dictators, a practice that resulted in a lengthy personality study of Kim Jong-il. The report, compiled by Frederick L. Coolidge and Daniel L. Segal (with the assistance of a South Korean psychiatrist considered an expert on Kim Jong-il's behavior), concluded that the "big six" group of personality disorders shared by dictators Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Saddam Hussein (sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid and schizotypical) were also shared by Kim Jong-il — coinciding primarily with the profile of Saddam Hussein.

Following his death on December 17th of 2011, North Korea tagged Kim Jong-il the "Eternal Leader" and announced his body would be displayed along with his father at Pyongyang's Kumsusan Memorial Palace. Officials indicated they would also install statues, portraits, and "towers to his immortality" across the country. His birthday of February 16th has been declared "the greatest auspicious holiday of the nation", and has been named the “Day of the Shining Star.”

Before Kim Jong-il’s preservation wax had hardly settled the following announcement emenated from Pyongyang: "Respected Comrade Kim Jong-un is our party, military and country's supreme leader who inherits great comrade Kim Jong-il's ideology, leadership, character, virtues, grit and courage."  The Korean Central News Agency described Kim Jong-un as "a great person born of heaven", a propaganda term only his father and grandfather had enjoyed, while the ruling Workers' Party said in an editorial: "We vow with bleeding tears to call Kim Jong-un our supreme commander, our leader."
Many reports indicate that the human rights violations under the leadership of Kim Jong-il are continuing under Kim Jong-un and have in fact been amplified.  Such violations include ordering the killing of defectors, conducting public executions and sending large numbers of citizens to political prison camps. It is assumed that Kim Jong-un was involved in the sinking of a South Korean vessel and the bombardment of South Korean islands to strengthen his military credentials and facilitate a successful transition of power from his father.
A 2013 report on the status of human rights in North Korea by United Nations Special Rapporteur Marzuki Darusman proposed a United Nations commission of inquiry to document the accountability of Kim Jong-un and other individuals in the North Korean government for alleged crimes against humanity. The report of the commission of inquiry was published in February 2014 and recommends making Kim Jong-un accountable for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.
One report by the Japanese Asia Press in January 2013 claimed that in North and South Hwanghae provinces more than 10,000 North Koreans had died of famine. Other international news agencies have begun circulating stories of cannibalism. One informant based in South Hwanghae, said: "In my village in May, a man who killed his own two children and tried to eat them was executed by a firing squad.”

After Kim Jong-Il's death in 2011, people who were deemed not to have mourned intensely enough, were sent to a labor camp for six months by Kim Jong-un.

In October 2013, it was reported that Kim Jong-Un ordered the execution of his ex-girlfriend Hyon Song-Wol because she had a popular hit song in North Korea. However, she appeared on North Korean state television the following May delivering a speech. Days after she reappeared in public, Kim ordered the execution of engineers and architects involved in the construction of a Pyongyang apartment block which had collapsed days earlier.  More than 500 people are said to have died in the collapse, which was blamed on shoddy workmanship.


Kim himself went missing from public view in early September of 2014, prompting claims that he may have been overthrown.  Upon his return six weeks later, defectors report he ordered the execution of six senior officials.  Kim was also accused in a rumor out of China to have removed his uncle as a threat to his leadership by stripping him naked and forcing him into a large room to be eaten alive by 120 starving dogs.

Friday, November 7, 2014

BEIJING – THREE MONUMENTAL CHINESE ACHIEVEMENTS: SUMMER PALACE, FORBIDDEN CITY, AND TIANANMEN SQUARE


The Summer Palace is a vast grouping of aesthetically pleasing lakes, gardens and imperial retreat buildings on the outskirts of central Beijing.   Built around 1750, it is dominated by the artificially created mound of Longevity Hill, which rises steeply 60 meters above vast Kunming Lake (one was excavated to pile up the other). The hill covers an expanse of 180 acres.  The hand-excavated lake itself covers an astounding 540 acres.
A smaller imperial retreat sitting atop an existing prominence which preceded Longevity Hill was named Wang Hill Palace.  It was created in the Jin Dynasty (265 – 420) when emperor Wanyan Liang first moved his capital to the Beijing area. In the Yuan Dynasty (1279 – 1368) 1000 years later, the hill was renamed Jug Hill. This change is explained by a legend in which a ceramic jug with treasure inside was said to have been found on the hill.
The present name of Longevity Hill derived from the Quianlong Emperor (of the Qing Dynasty, 1644–1911) commissioning additional work on existing imperial gardens and buildings on the hill in celebration of the 60th birthday of his mother, Empress Dowager Chongquing.
This new Summer Palace and its expanded gardens began in 1750 as the “Garden of Clear Ripples.” Artisans reproduced the architecture styles of popular palaces and their grounds throughout China. Kunming Lake was created though a huge army of manual laborers extending an existing body of water.
The palace complex has suffered two major destructive attacks. The first came at the hands of the British and French during an invasion in 1860, and the second 40 years later during the Boxer Rebellion in an attack by eight largely European powers during which the garden and buildings were largely destroyed. Most of the palace artifacts were divided among the eight attackers. The Summer Palace has been under restoration since that time.  A primary obstacle to full recovery has been the lack of original blueprints.
Today’s Summer Palace is like a giant family picnic grounds, with elegant and well-maintained buildings to examine, refreshment kiosks, benches to rest on beside the shore of Lake Kunming, and both large and small Dragon Boats to ride on its placid waters as you look up into the commanding heights of Longevity Hill.
One of the most unusual sites I encountered on a relaxed afternoon there was outside the Palace entry walls, adjacent to the visitor entry gate.  A Chinese man was stoically painting as tourists passed by and occasionally dropped currency into his hat.  Not such an unusual site, really.  Except that this particular artist was horribly maimed.
He had no arms, only shoulder stumps.  He had evidence on his scalp and bare back of having been burned and mutilated.  Yet he carefully painted and crafted calligraphy drawings by grasping an ink brush between his toes.
We made eye contact a number of times.  I know he saw the questions in my eyes.  And he probably sensed that I would have given my right pinkie finger to speak with him.  Did his condition occur as a result of an industrial accident?  As a result of warfare?  As a result of government torture and abuse?  Vehicular tragedy? How did he learn to paint like that?  And how long did it take him?
But tourist traffic and presumed language differences prevented that conversation.  I watched him for about ten minutes.  Then nodded to him silently, made a small bow, and dropped money into his hat.  He nodded back ever so slightly, and for just a moment his eyes softened their determined gaze. But he never changed his facial expression a bit.
Even more impressive is The Forbidden City in the heart of Beijing, the best-preserved imperial palace in China. Today it remains the largest ancient palatial structure in the world, and stands as the crowning achievement of traditional Chinese architecture. It was home to 24 emperors of the previously mentioned Ming and Qing Dynasties. It served also as the ceremonial and political center of the Chinese government.
It is recognized as one of the five most important palaces in the world (the other four being the Palace of Versailles in France, Buckingham Palace in the UK, the White House in the US, and the Kremlin in Russia). In 1987, The Forbidden City was selected as a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage site as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.
The Forbidden City covers an area of about 178 acres with a total ground area of nearly 150,000 square meters.  This expanse is divided among 90 palaces and courtyards, 980 buildings and 8,704 rooms.  The complex is enclosed by a ten meter high outer wall with a perimeter of 3,430 meters – surrounded in turn by a wide, picturesque moat. At each corner of the Forbidden City is sited a massive watchtower.

Construction began in 1406 during the fourth year of the reign of the Ming Dynasty Yongle Emperor (Zhu Di) and lasted 14 years.  More than a million workers, civilians and soldiers plus over 100,000 craftsmen were said to have worked on the project.  Materials used included whole logs of precious phoebe zhennan wood found in the jungles of south-western China, and blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing. Floors of major halls were paved with specially baked "golden bricks."

Other unusual materials or methods included masonry stonework, mortise and tenon joinery, ceramic tile roofs, lacquer painting, extensive use of silk, paper covered walls, wood carvings, marble and stone sculptures, and gold leaf foil highlighting.  Decorative  and paint scheme emphasis was on the colors yellow, gold, purple, blue, green, and red.

Origins for the name of this imperial palace came from the belief in ancient times that the emperor was said to be “A Son of Heaven” -- therefore Heaven’s supreme power was bestowed upon him. An attempt was made to construct the emperors’ residence on earth  as a replica of the Purple Palace where God was thought to reside in Heaven.  Such a divine place would of course be strictly off limits to common people.  It was at first called the “Purple Forbidden City” and only shortened later.
After being the home of 24 supreme rulers – 14 emperors of the Ming dynasty and 10 from the Qing dynasty – the Forbidden City ceased being the political center of China in 1912 with the forced abdication of Puyi (the last Emperor of China). Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was transferred to public use.  Puyi was later evicted after a coup in 1924.
Public access to The Forbidden City was initiated in 1925.  It was at that time The Palace Museum (now located in nearby Tiananmen Square)was established.  Since that date the museum (with its extensive collection of Chinese artwork and artifacts based upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties) has been in charge of the entire Forbidden City.  The Palace Museum remains the premier treasure house of Chinese cultural and historical artifacts due to its unrivaled standing in the development of Chinese architecture and culture.
Currently The Palace Museum is overseeing a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all buildings in the Forbidden City to their pre-1912 state.
In 1933, Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures in the Forbidden City.  Much of the collection was returned at the end of World War II, but the majority of it was evacuated to Taiwan in 1948 under orders of Chiang Kai-shek, whose Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communist Party in 1949. The high quality collection remaining with the Nationalists was relocated to the National Palace Museum in Taipei, and put on public display finally in 1965.
After establishment of the (communist) People's Republic of China in 1949, some damage was done to the Forbidden City as mainland China was swept up in revolutionary zeal epitomized by the Cultural Revolution of 1966. During the uncertainties, however, further destruction was prevented when party elites sent army troops to guard the culturally priceless city.
Tiananmen Square is the dominant city gathering place in the center of Beijing and adjacent to The Forbidden City.  It is named after the Tiananmen Gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace) formerly located to its north and separating it from The Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the fourth largest city square in the world at 440,000 square meters (109 acres). It has major cultural importance as the venue of many highly significant events in Chinese history – including proclamation of The People’s Republic of China on October 1st, 1949.
In recent times the square is best known outside China as the focal point of the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989, in which a pro-democracy movement was ended tragically on June 4th of that year with declaration of martial law in Beijing by the Chinese Communist government and the killing of several hundred (possibly thousands) of unarmed civilians by soldiers.
To this day, the Communist Chinese Party and national government refuse to acknowledge the massacre ever took place.  All discussion of the event is forbidden in any public forum.  All sharing of newsbits, photographs or videos remaining of the event are suppressed and then purged.  At the time of my arrival in July of 2014, I was told internet traffic was slowed to a crawl three weeks prior to the 25th anniversary of The Massacre so as not to allow any renewed organization of protests or memorialization of the slaughter.
Tiananmen Square was designed and built in 1651, seven years after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and shortly after heavy fighting between that set of rulers and its Qing Dynasty successors led to destruction of the Tiananmen Gate (built in 1415) leading to the Forbidden City.  The square has since been enlarged up to four times its original size.
Near the center of today's expanded square stood the "Great Ming Gate", the one-time southern gate to the Imperial City, renamed "Great Qing Gate" during the Qing Dynasty, and "Gate of China" during the Republic of China era. This was a purely ceremonial gateway that had a special status as the "Gate of the Nation" whereby it normally remained closed except when the Emperor passed through.
British and French troops who invaded Beijing in 1860 pitched camp near the gate and briefly considered burning down both the gate and the entire Forbidden City. They decided ultimately to spare the Imperial Palace and to burn instead the emperor's Summer Palace. The Qing emperor eventually agreed to let the foreign powers barrack troops – and later establish diplomatic missions – in the area, resulting in the Diplomatic Quarter seen today immediately to the east of the modern square.
In 1954, the Gate of China was demolished, allowing for enlargement of the square. Four years later a major expansion of Tiananmen Square started, and completed  a year later. This followed the vision of Communist Party “Great Leader” Mao Tse Tung to make the square the largest and most spectacular in the world, intended to hold over 500,000 people. As a result, a large number of residential buildings and other structures within its confines were demolished.
On its southern edge, the dominating Monument to the People's Heroes was erected. As part of the Ten Great Buildings Project begun in 1958 to commemorate the Ten-Year Anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the Great Hall of The People and the Revolutionary History Museum (now National Museum of China) were erected on the western and eastern sides of the square.
The year after Mao's death in 1976, his mausoleum was built on top of the site of the former Gate of China (now in the middle of the square). In connection with this project, Tiananmen Square was further increased in size to accommodate 600,000 people. 
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, commonly known as the “June Fourth Incident” or more accurately the Democracy Movement in Chinese, were student-led popular demonstrations in Beijing taking place in the spring of 1989.  The protests received broad support from city residents, exposing deep splits within Communist Party leadership.  The protests were eventually forcibly suppressed by hard line leaders who ordered the military to ruthlessly enforce martial law in the country's capitol.
The crackdown that initiated on June 3–4 became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre or the June 4 Massacre as troops with assault rifles and tanks inflicted mass casualties on unarmed civilians trying to block the military's advance towards Tiananmen Square, which demonstrators had occupied for seven weeks.
The protests were triggered in April 1989 by the death of former Communist Party General Secretary General Hu Yaobang (a liberal reformer, who was deposed after losing a power struggle with hardliners over the direction of allowable party political and economic reforms). University students marched and gathered in Tiananmen Square to mourn Yaobang, who had also voiced concern over inflation, limited career prospects, and party corruption.
The protesters called for government accountability, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and restoration of workers' control over industry. At the height of the protests, approximately one million people assembled in the Square.
The government initially took a conciliatory stance toward the protesters. The student-led hunger strike galvanized support from other demonstrators around the country. Protests spread to 400 cities by mid-May.  Communist Party chairman Deng Xiaoping and other central committee leaders ultimately resolved to use force to quell the unrest. Party authorities declared martial law on May 20, mobilizing as many as 300,000 troops around Beijing.
In the aftermath of the crackdown, the government conducted widespread arrests of protesters and their supporters, cracked down on other protests around China, expelled foreign journalists and strictly controlled coverage of the events in the domestic press. Police and internal security forces were strengthened. Officials deemed sympathetic to the protests were demoted or purged. 
Political reforms were largely halted and economic reforms did not resume until 1992.  The Chinese government was widely condemned internationally for the use of force against the protesters. Western governments temporarily imposed economic sanctions and arms embargoes, which have been essentially erased since as China has become “the world’s manufacturer.”
Walking near the square today certain things are chillingly obvious.  Surveillance cameras dot the lampposts and vertical columns for blocks around.  Numerous uniformed and plainclothes police are readily evident.  Police do their best to prevent self-immolation suicide protests – fire suppression equipment has been placed in many locations within the square.  Others are posted to prevent suicides jumps into nearby moats and rivers.
In 2004, a Beijing citizen named Ye Guoqiang had attempted just such a fatal jump as a protest against forceful eviction from his home in order to make way for an Olympic Games construction project. He was sentenced to two years in prison for embarrassing the state.

One Chinese writer reported:  "If you want to kill yourself," the judge told him, "at least do it in the privacy of your own home, not beneath the Chairman's (Mao) nose." The writer went on to cynically observe that citizens can allow themselves to be shot dead by the army below Mao's mausoleum portrait, but not to commit suicide there.
Entry to the square must now be made from underground tunnels, from which access is easily controlled – there is no entry from street level any longer.  Visitors are questioned and frisked.  Large accordion style portable zipper gates can be extended at a moment’s notice to control pedestrian traffic for blocks around.  In times of … public excitement … it is possible to seal Tiananmen Square off completely.
Twenty-five years after The Massacre, the Chinese appear to have made a faustian pact with their government, agreeing to forsake demands for political and intellectual freedom in exchange for increased material comforts. They live relatively more prosperous lives, yet any expression of their thwarted collective political will remains expressly forbidden.

Like in Russia post 1989, it is fine in mainland China today to make money.  Lots of money.  And just as in Russia, it is completely acceptable to become a billionaire oligarch.  What is not okay, is to politically poke the standing order.  It remains unacceptable to challenge the powers that be in the realm of ideas or power sharing.
   
Mario Vargas Llosa, 2010 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, observed recently:  “It is hard not to feel a great deal of sadness at the backwardness totalitarianism has imposed on China, Russia and Cuba. Any social progress communism may have brought these societies is dwarfed by the civic, cultural, and political retardation it caused, and the remaining obstacles standing in the way of these countries taking full advantage of their resources and reaching a modernity that encompasses democratic ideals, the rule of law, and liberty.”
When party chairman Deng Xiaoping announced after the 1989 massacre that the Chinese people needed more “education,” and when his government launched a systematic effort to snuff out Chinese political longings and cast citizens into “patriotic” subjects focused on nationalism and money, he could have pointed to famous playwright Bertolt Brecht’s quip: “The people have lost the confidence of the government; the government has decided to dissolve the people …” and mold another.