“Struggle for Survival” fundraising event in Toronto

“Struggle for Survival” is an event supported by the Scadding Court Community Centre in Toronto, Canada, and the office of Toronto City Councillor Raymond Cho. Jihyun Kwon, one of the organizers, asked CanKor to help promote the event, whose purpose is to raise funds to assist North Korean refugees in Toronto. See details in the poster below.

The event is sponsored by “North Koreans in Canada,” a small non-profit, non-partisan organization devoted to serving North Korean refugees (both status and non-status) living in Canada. According to this organization, there are currently about 2,000 North Koreans who have found refuge in Toronto, but still struggling to survive.

Remembering the RAC, by Justin Rohrlich

[CanKor Editor Erich Weingartner talks to New York City based journalist Justin Rohrlich about the early days of the RAC, an expatriate bar and social club that attained a surprisingly worldwide reputation as a must-visit venue for foreign visitors in Pyongyang. This article was published on 23 April 2013 in NKNews.org. --CanKor]

Remembering North Korea’s ‘Random Access Club’

Canadian Erich Weingartner recounts how he helped set up an exclusive foreigner only bar in Pyongyang

“This was the T-shirt we produced back then,” Weingartner says. “As you can see, no reference to ‘Random Access Club,’ haha. On the back of the shirt were the names of the agencies, both UN and NGO, that were resident in North Korea at that time. 20 in all.”

Mirroring the experience of other expats that have lived in North Korea, Erich Weingartner says that when he arrived in Pyongyang in 1997 to head the Food Liaison Unit, a division of the UN World Food Programme, “there was literally nothing for foreigners to do” outside the Munsudong compound within which virtually all of them reside while in-country.

“In those days, they had a bowling alley, which still exists, and we used — we had our daughter’s birthday party there,” Weingartner tells me. “They had a couple of amusement parks in the city; there were some classical concerts you could go to; they had a zoo. I never went, it was apparently pretty sad to see the animals there, but it was available. Other than that, we mostly played volleyball and soccer and so on in the diplomatic compound.”

“The Russians had more access, for example, to a golf course, occasionally some hunting,” he remembers. “They’ve been there so long and have such a huge embassy, they have extra privileges in certain areas.”

But even though Weingartner, now Editor-in-Chief of CanKor, an Ontario-based initiative “seeking rational North Korea policy,” managed to obtain a North Korean driver’s license (the saga involved an interpreter who “sweetened” Weingartner’s incorrect answers to ensure he passed the oral portion of the exam and a road test that tested his ability to drive up a winding hill and halfway into a circular driveway, then back down to the bottom of the hill in reverse), his movements were still restricted.

Canadian NGO responds to BBC Panorama report on North Korea

[CanKor is often asked by journalists how to go about gaining access to North Korea. There was a time in the late 1990s when the DPRK experimented with allowing media to report on UN and NGO projects in the country. DPRK authorities quickly learned that market-driven Western media like to sensationalize the negative and ignore the positive. The door that was slightly ajar has since been locked tightly.

John Sweeney with DPRK military official at Panmunjom (frame capture from BBC documentary)

Having been denied access as reporters, some journalists have resorted to entering the country as part of tourist groups. A recent example is veteran newspaper reporter-turned TV journalist John Sweeney, who entered North Korea with his wife and a cameraman as part of a tour of students from the London School of Economics (LSE). The result was a half-hour documentary aired on BBC as a Panorama special.

LSE students and faculty have complained that the BBC’s actions were unethical and might endanger staff and students’ ability to work in difficult or hostile places in the future. Senior BBC executive Ceri Thomas defended the decision to send an undercover team. “This is an important piece of public interest journalism.” Asked whether that justified putting student lives at risk, he replied: “We think it does.”

Ethics in journalism is certainly a relevant issue to discuss. But is this really “an important piece of public interest journalism”?

United Church of Canada issues statement on the crisis in the Korean Peninsula

[The United Church in Canada on 15 March 2013 issued the following “Statement on the Crisis in the Korean Peninsula.” The original text can be accessed here. --CanKor]

The United Church of Canada is gravely concerned about the escalation of tension in the Korean Peninsula. We fear for the safety of the people in North and South Korea, and the whole of Northeast Asia, should a war erupt.

We are concerned by the ongoing joint military exercises of the United States and the Republic of South Korea and the mounting threats of military actions from the Governments of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States, and South Korea. We fear that these provocative actions are increasing the danger of armed confrontation in the region.

The current crisis in the Korean Peninsula points to the unresolved issues in the region, including the failure to obtain a peace treaty to end the state of war, and the international sanctions against North Korea. The resolution of these issues requires re-engagement of all parties in finding lasting solutions to the problems in the Korean Peninsula.

We call on the Government of Canada to help in promoting an atmosphere conducive to renewed negotiations among the states involved in the conflict by renewing its engagement in confidence-building measures and contact with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea urging the Governments of the United States and of North and South Korea to return to the negotiating table.

Update on First Steps activities, by Susan Ritchie

[First Steps is a Vancouver-based Christian development organization whose primary purpose is preventing child malnutrition in North Korea through programs that provide essential nutrients to young children. Its founding director Susan Ritchie recently returned from a visit to the DPRK and sent us this report. For more on First Steps and Ms Ritchie, see the Chosun Ilbo article “Canadian Who Became 'Mother' to N.Korean Orphans”. --CanKor]

First Steps founding director Susan Ritchie explains her charity’s activities in North Korea while showing a picture taken in a factory she visited there. (Photo by Chosun Ilbo)

First Steps currently has two programs. First Steps’ soymilk program is currently reaching more than 90,000 children with a daily cup of soymilk. The micro -nutrient Sprinkles program is reaching approx. 70,000 pregnant women and babies from 6 – 24 months. Sprinkles prevent anemia and reduce morbidity (for example, deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia as well as rickets, etc.). As in-kind donations are becoming more available we are increasingly able to engage in relief work when there is a need.

We are shipping 3 larger food processing units to Wonsan in the coming weeks and expect that the total number of FS soymilk beneficiaries will soon exceed 100,000 children. The FS soymilk plants are working exceptionally well in the cities, counties and farms where we work. The food processing equipment that we send is a good fit for NK. Last year we shipped 280 metric tonnes of soybeans to supplement the local supply. We currently have 75 tonnes of soys en route.

I mentioned Deokchon in our last newsletter. It’s a city of 250,000 people, almost all of whom are engaged in mining coal (400 metres underground) or relevant activities to feed the coal plant in Pyongyang. We first visited the area after they had suffered a landside that took 46 lives and left more than 8,000 people homeless last summer. We partnered with ShelterBox to send in tents and then we sent in a 20′ container of relief foods for the children. Last week we visited the city again to confirm the arrival of the food, etc.

Canada and the perverse challenge of Northeast Asian regional security, by Paul Evans

[The following paper by CanKor Brain Trust member Paul Evans was originally presented at the “New Approach to Security in Northeast Asia: Breaking the Gridlock” workshop held on October 9th and 10th, 2012 in Washington, DC. The workshop was organized by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Evans is Professor at the Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia. --CanKor]

For a little more than a decade starting with the end of the Cold War in Europe Canada was an engaged, proactive and sometimes innovative player in multilateral security issues in Northeast Asia. It initiated the North Pacific Cooperative Security Dialogue between 1990 and 1993, a pioneering track-two process including the principal six in Northeast Asia plus Canada and Mongolia intended to lay the foundation for an inclusive regional process in a region re-framed as the North Pacific. It pursued an “engagement without illusions” approach to North Korea that included encouragement of multiple levels of academic and NGO connections and eventually led in 2001 to the establishment of diplomatic relations. The government provided financial assistance to KEDO and supported diplomats and academics in multiple track-two meetings on a multilateral and bilateral basis that focused on regional frameworks and initiatives, including on arms control, missile defense weaponization of space, and non-proliferation.

Resource constraints and a chill of relations with North Korea as the extent of its nuclear ambitions became clear tempered some of these ambitions between 2001 and 2005, though the Liberal government was inclined to support the possibility of Canada playing an active “second circle” role as needed to advance the Six Party Talks.

North Korea’s Canadian classroom

[We have reported several times before about CanKor Brain Trust member Dr. Park Kyung-Ae's Knowledge Partnership Program (KPP), which has recently completed the second year that North Korean economics professors attended economics courses at the University of British Columbia (see links at bottom of this article). The following article is taken from a National Post article by Tristin Hopper, which was published on 2 January 2013. --CanKor]

UBC’s latest exchange with hermit nation quietly draws to a close

The University of British Columbia’s campus, which played host to North America’s only academic exchange with North Korea. (Photo: Postmedia News files)

Two weeks ago, six professors packed up their dorm rooms at the quiet, Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia, boarded aircraft at the city’s international airport and began the Jacob’s ladder of flights that would eventually return them home to North Korea.

Just as quietly as it began, the second phase of the Knowledge Partnership Program (KPP), North Korea’s only academic exchange program with North America, had come to a close.

It is the product of a little-known relationship forged even before Canada had opened relations with the Stalinist country, and the University of British Columbia is the only academic institution in North America — and possibly the West — to host regular delegations of North Koreans. Little is known of the program and details are carefully guarded from public scrutiny, but just as a U.S. ping pong team helped open Maoist China to the West, proponents contend that one of UBC’s most obscure international programs may hold the key to opening the borders of one of the world’s most closed countries.

“Particularly when we do not have active interactions between Canada and North Korea, I think academic exchange is really needed,” said Kyung-Ae Park, a UBC political scientist and founder of the KPP.

The Canada-DPRK Knowledge Partnership Programme, by Park Kyung-Ae

[CanKor Brain Trust member Park Kyung-Ae has for the second year in a row hosted six DPRK economics professors for further study in Western-style economics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. This article about the Canada-DPRK Knowledge Partnership Programme (KPP) was first published on our partner-site 38North. --CanKor]

Knowledge sharing is a powerful tool to promote economic growth and improve quality of life in developing countries. It gives participants access not only to practical information, but the worldview, motivations, and experiences of their partners. Sharing of this nature facilitates mutual understanding between individuals that, in turn, builds empathy, compassion, and patience—the foundation for all relationships, whether between individuals or states. Knowledge partnerships that focus on human resource development through various academic and practical programs can be one of the most successful areas of cooperation between North Korea and the outside world. Such programs are particularly important in this context because they create alternative, non-governmental avenues for dialogue that can remain active when the political environment limits official lines of communication.

DPRK Business Monthly Volume III, No.10

The DPRK Business Monthly, an international business report edited in Beijing, has been made available to CanKor readers by its editor, Paul White. Please check the  current October 2012 edition here:  DPRK Business Monthly Vol III, No.10

Titles of articles found in this issue include:

• N. Korea signs air service deal with UAE
• Knowledge Sharing Promotes Growth, Understanding
• NK Missing `Golden Moment’ to Stem TB
• North, South Groups Remember Independence Fighter
• NK Cabinet “Flexing Muscles”
• New Consumer Culture Seen Emerging in NK
• NK Has 1.5 Million Mobile Subscribers
• More Chinese Inroads into Rason?
• ROK May Build 2 More Daycare Centers at Kaesong

…plus a number of other items, including a selection of North Korean tours by various tour operators.

Canada’s Relations with the Korean Peninsula, by Dean J. Ouellette

[The following is taken from a paper by Dean J. Ouellette, Assistant Professor, Kyungnam University in Seoul. A Canadian friend of CanKor since the early days, Prof. Ouellette edits the Institute of Far Eastern Studies IFES Forum. The paper from which this excerpt is taken is a revised version of an article that recently appeared in Asia-Pacific Business and Technology Report, vol. 4, no. 3 (September 2012). To read the complete paper, which begins with Canada-ROK relations, please follow this link. --CanKor]

Crossed flag pin by Promex GmbH

Early History

Canada and Korea share a history that dates back to the late 19^th century, when Canadian missionaries arrived on the peninsula, and introduced Western medicine and education, and helped with organizing and fundraising to build hospitals and schools. One early Canuck even supported Koreans during the March 1, 1919 Independence Movement, and ended up being deported by the Japanese colonial authorities.

Official Canadian government involvement in Korea began in 1947 when Canada participated in the United Nations Commission supervising liberated Korea’s then free elections. Canada later formally recognized South Korea in 1949. Canada also got involved in the Korea War (1950 – 1953) — although reluctantly at first — by recruiting and sending a “special force” of battalion strength to participate in combat operations in support of the United Nations’ contingent. Canada’s troops first saw action in February 1951. Two months later in April 1951, this special force distinguished itself at the battle of Kapyong. Soon afterward, Canadian forces would be augmented to an entire brigade (the 25^th Canadian Infantry Brigade). By the time the armistice negotiations brought the fighting to a halt in 1953, Canada had sent a total of 26,971 military personnel to the Korean peninsula, the third largest contingent of the UN forces. A total of 516 Canadian soldiers laid down their lives — although only 312 were killed in action; the others died of disease and other causes. If Canada learned anything from the Korean War, it was, as renowned Canadian historian Pierre Berton recounts, to stay out of them, and concentrate on peace and international peacekeeping. [Pierre Berton, Marching As to War: Canada’s Turbulent Years 1899–1953 (Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2001), p. 576.]

(…)

Canada-DPRK Relations

While the Canada-South Korea relationship looks to expand, Canada’s relations with North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) are anything but normal.