InternatIonal
the Morung express
Monday 10 November 2014
Dimapur
9
North Korea release two American captives
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MccHORD, NOvEMBER 9 (AP): Two Americans released from captivity in North Korea returned to the United States after their departure was secured through a secret mission by the top U.S. intelligence official to the reclusive nation. Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae arrived late Saturday at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state. U.S. officials said the pair flew back with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. Clapper was the highest-ranking American to visit Pyongyang in more than a decade. Family members met both men with hugs as they emerged from their plane. “Thank you all for supporting me, lifting me up, not forgetting me,” Bae told reporters shortly after his return to the United States. He thanked the North Korean government for letting him come home. “It’s been an amazing two year. I learned a lot, I grew a lot, I lost a lot of weight,” said Bae, a Korean-American missionary with health problems. Asked how he was feeling, he said: “I’m recovering at this time.” His family has said he suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain. Neither Miller nor his family made an immediate public statement. It was the latest twist in the fitful relationship between the Obama administration and the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, whose approach to the U.S. has shifted back and forth from defiance to occasional conciliation. And it was an unusual role for Clapper, a retired general who doesn’t typically do diplomacy. “It’s a wonderful day for them and their families,” President Barack Obama said at the White House earlier Saturday. “Obviously we are very grateful for
their safe return. And I appreciate Director Clapper doing a great job on what was obviously a challenging mission.” U.S. officials did not immediately provide details about the circumstances of the Americans’ release, including whether Clapper met with Kim or other senior North Korean officials. They said the timing was not related to Obama’s imminent trip to China, Myanmar and Australia. A senior administration official said Clapper carried a brief message from Obama indicating that Clapper was his personal envoy to bring the two Americans home. The official spoke on a condition of anonymity without authorization to speak on the record. Analysts who study North Korea said the decision to free Bae and Miller from long prison terms probably was a bid by that country to ease pressure in connection with its human rights record. A recent U.N. report documented rape, torture, executions and forced labor in the North’s network of prison camps, accusing the government of “widespread, systematic and gross” human rights violations. North Korea seems worried that Kim could be accused in the International Criminal Court, said Sue Mi Terry, a former senior intelligence analyst now at Columbia University. “This human rights thing is showing itself to be an unexpected leverage for the US,” she said. Bae and Miller were the last Americans held by North Korea. Bae was serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-government activities. He was detained in 2012 while leading a tour group to a North Korea economic zone. Terri Chung, Bae’s sister, said she received word from the State Department Saturday morning that Bae and Miller were on a plane
that had left North Korean airspace. “We have been waiting for and praying for this day for two years. This ordeal has been excruciating for the family, but we are filled with joy right now,” Chung said in an emailed statement. Miller was serving a sixyear jail term on charges of espionage after he allegedly ripped up his tourist visa at Pyongyang’s airport in April and demanded asylum. North Korea said Miller had wanted to experience prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea’s human rights situation. Last month, North Korea released Jeffrey Fowle, who was held for nearly six months. He had left a Bible in a nightclub in the hope that it would reach North Korea’s underground Christian community. Fowle said his fellow Americans’ release is “an answer to a prayer.” He said he initially thought Bae and Miller had been released with him last month. “I didn’t realize they weren’t released with me until I got on the plane,” he said. Bae and Miller had told The Associated Press that they believed their only chance of release was the intervention of a highranking government official or a senior U.S. statesman. Previously, former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter had gone to North Korea on separate occasions to take detainees home. Victor Cha, a North Korea expert and former national security official in the George W. Bush administration, said Clapper was the most senior U.S. official to visit North Korea since then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went in 2000 and met with Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father. Cha said sending Clapper would have satisfied North Korea’s desire for a Cabinet-level visitor, while avoiding some of the diplo-
matic baggage of dispatching a regular U.S. government official. The U.S. and North Korea do not have formal ties, a legacy of the 195053 Korean War that ended without a peace treaty. The detainee releases do not herald a change in U.S. posture regarding North Korea’s disputed nuclear program, the main source of tension between Pyongyang and Washington, said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security matters. International aid-fordisarmament talks have been stalled since 2008. The last concerted U.S. effort to restart those negotiations collapsed in spring 2012. The U.S. notified allies of Clapper’s trip to North Korea and alerted members of the congressional leader- Kenneth Bae, right, who had been held in North Korea since 2012, talks to reporters after he arrived on November 8, ship once his visit was un- at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., after he was freed during a top-secret mission. Looking on from left are Bae's brother-in-law Andrew Chung, his mother, Myunghee Bae, and his sister, Terri Chung. (AP Photo) derway, the official said.
What’s behind release of Americans Eric Talmadge
Associated Press
While the details behind the release of the final two Americans held in North Korea — Matthew Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Kenneth Bae of Lynnwood, Washington — are still unclear, here are questions and some answers as to what might have motivated the North to let the two men out. WHAT DOES NORTH KOREA GET OUT OF IT? Pyongyang apparently got at least one thing it wanted: A senior U.S. official had to come personally to retrieve the two Americans. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, was the highestranking American to visit Pyongyang in more than a decade. A senior Obama administration official said
Clapper spent roughly a day on the ground and met with North Korean security officials — but not with leader Kim Jong Un. Clapper went with the sole purpose of bringing home the two detainees, although the U.S. anticipated that other issues of concern to the North would come up during his discussions, according to the official traveling with Obama to Beijing. The official said that North Koreans indicated in recent weeks that they would release the detainees if the U.S. sent a high-level official from Obama’s administration. Clapper’s visit in itself is something of a coup for Pyongyang, which has for months been pursuing a high-profile campaign to keep the detainees’ situation on Washington’s radar. As part of that effort, the North had allowed the
men, along with a third detainee, Jeffrey Fowle, who was released last month, to meet with The Associated Press and other media. The AP met with Fowle and Miller three times. Each time, they pleaded for a senior U.S. statesman to come and bail them out. That has been the pattern in past releases. Previously, trips have been made by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. WHY NOW? There is growing concern in North Korea over international pressure in connection with its human rights record. A recent U.N. report documented rape, torture, executions and forced labor in the North’s network of prison camps, accusing the government of “widespread, systematic and gross” human rights violations. North Korea strongly
denies those allegations, which it claims are based mainly on politically motivated statements from defectors. It released a counter document of its own in September, but is worried about efforts to bring the issue before the International Criminal Court. Its state media recently have been filled with angry accusations that the United States, South Korea and their allies are trying to use the human rights issue as a weapon to bring down the North Korean government, calling it a “racket” and pointing out problems with the United States’ own rights record. HOW DID THE AMERICANS END UP IN PRISON IN NORTH KOREA? Bae had been held since November 2012, when he was detained while leading a tour group in a special North Korean
economic zone. He was convicted of conducting “hostile acts” after being accused of smuggling in inflammatory literature and trying to establish a base for anti-government activities at a border city hotel. Bae, 46, is a KoreanAmerican missionary, and his family believes he was detained because of his Christian faith. Miller’s case remains mysterious. He entered the country on April 10 on a tourist visa, allegedly ripped up the document at Pyongyang’s airport and demanded asylum. North Korean authorities say he intended to conduct espionage while in the country. During his brief trial, prosecutors said he admitted having the “wild ambition” of experiencing prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea’s human rights situation.
Catalonia holds informal China hosts friends, rivals; will it meet Japan? vote on secession
BEIJING, NOvEMBER 9 (AP): Will they or won’t they? Whether leaders of feuding China and Japan will meet during the Asia-Pacific summit has prompted much speculation. It’s the most — but not the only — awkward relationship testing the hospitality of an increasingly assertive Beijing. There were mounting indications that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would hold some kind of tete-a-tete, however brief and unsubstantial, during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Monday and Tuesday. On Friday, China and Japan reached agreement to ramp up high-level contacts, more than two years after Beijing froze them amid a dispute over islands
in the East China Sea and other contentious issues. The thaw came at a time when the relations need a nudge to get back on track, and the APEC gathering of 21 economies around the Pacific Rim, including the U.S., Australia, Mexico and South Korea, provides excellent cover to do so. “Until now the door was closed, unfortunately, but this agreement has achieved a momentum,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on BS Fuji television. The summit is the highest-level international gathering Xi has hosted since taking leadership of the ruling Communist Party two years ago. Yet, awkwardly, APEC also includes many countries that Beijing has alienated over the past year or more. China’s ties with both
Vietnam and the Philippines have been rocked by dueling territorial claims over islands in the South China Sea. Anti-Chinese riots broke out this summer after China moved an oil rig into waters claimed by Vietnam and vessels from the sides sparred in the area for weeks. Beijing has made no secret of its dislike of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, and actually disinvited him to a trade fair in China last year after he incensed China by seeking U.N. arbitration to solve the territorial disputes. Relations with Canada have been troubled by Canadian allegations of Chinese computer spying and China’s detention of a Canadian couple under murky circumstances. Xi’s warmest ties will likely be with Rus-
sian President Vladimir Putin and South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye, who is also at odds with Japan. Meanwhile, Beijing’s vital but complex ties with the United States are haunted by mutual suspicion, fed by economic, security and human rights concerns. Some of their most pointed exchanges have come over U.S. accusations of Chinese computer hacking that prompted Beijing to break off a bilateral dialogue on the issue. China will hope that all of these tensions can be put aside for the APEC forum as it pushes a regional free trade initiative, the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, as an alternative to the stalled, U.S.-backed arrangement called TransPacific Partnership, or TPP. The tensest relationship is
between China and Japan, which have had poor relations for decades. Japan fears China’s inexorable rise and Beijing feels that Tokyo has yet to show true contrition for its brutal twentieth century invasion of China. The animosity in recent years has focused on a dispute over a cluster of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China. The two sides have confronted each other repeatedly at sea and in the air around the tiny islands, called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan. Relations remained strained after the late 2012 election of Abe, a conservative nationalist who infuriated China when in 2013 he visited a Tokyo Shinto shrine honoring Japan’s war dead, including exe-
cuted war criminals — an act Beijing says shows Abe’s insensitivity to China’s suffering during the war. His government’s reinterpretation of Japan’s pacifist constitution to allow a greater role for its military has also has raised alarm in Beijing. Xi and Abe’s first interaction likely will come Monday at a welcoming banquet, and leaders of all 21 economies will attend the full summit on Tuesday. Most likely, Beijing will agree to break the ice with an informal session between the two leaders, said Feng Wei of the Center for Japanese Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “I don’t think it will achieve a breakthrough, but it’ll be a step by the two sides toward defusing the situation,” Feng said.
BARcELONA, NOvEMBER 9 (AP): Spain’s northeastern region of Catalonia opened polling stations on Sunday to hold an informal vote on independence. The regional Catalan government pushed forward with the vote despite Spain’s Constitutional Court ordering its suspension on Tuesday after it agreed to hear the Spanish government’s challenge that the poll is unconstitutional. Polling stations will be manned by more than 40,000 volunteers in defiance of the court’s suspension. Results aren’t expected until Monday morning. The ballot asks voters two questions: should Catalonia be a state, and if so, should it be independent. There was a festive atmosphere as hundreds lined up in front of a school in Barcelona, with some wearing pro-independence regalia. “I voted for independence because I’ve always felt very Catalan,” said Nuria Silvestre, a 44-year-old teacher. Catalan television showed similar lines of voters across the region. Spanish state prosecutors announced late Saturday that they were opening an investigation to determine if by holding the informal vote in defiance of the court’s suspension the Catalan government has broken the law. Catalonia has seen rallies of hundreds of thousands of pro-independence supporters for the past three years, after Spain’s economic downturn and the Spanish government’s repeated denial to grant Catalonia control over its financial future.
Germany mark 25 years since fall of Berlin Wall
BERLIN, NOvEMBER 9 (AP): German Chancellor Angela Merkel led celebrations Sunday marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, calling it an example of the human yearning for freedom and honoring those who helped bring down the barrier that for 28 years symbolized the Cold War. On the night of Nov. 9, 1989, thousands of East Berliners streamed through the once-closed border crossings after communist authorities caved in to mounting pressure and relaxed travel restrictions that had prevented their citizens from going to the west for decades. “The fall of the Wall has shown us that dreams can come true,” Merkel said at the main memorial site for the Wall on Bernauer Strasse. “Nothing has to stay the way it is, however big the
hurdles are.” The fall of the Wall was the climax of weeks of popular protests, spurred by changes that had already taken place elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Merkel noted the important examples set by the democracy movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and praised those East Germans who were inspired by them to stand up to the dictatorship. She also honored the many who suffered under the communist regime, including the 138 people who died at the Wall. Merkel noted that Nov. 9 is a significant date in Germany history also for being the day when, in 1938, Nazi paramilitaries launched a pogrom against the country’s Jewish population in what became known as Reichskristallnacht — the “Night of Broken Glass.”
“That was the opening note for the murder of millions,” said Merkel, adding that on Nov. 9 each year “I feel not just joy, but the responsibility that German history burdens us with.”
es, guard towers, hidden alarms and dog walkways. Communist leader Walter Ulbricht called it an “anti-fascist protective wall,” though in reality its purpose was to stop the flood of people leaving for Five things to know about the West. the Berlin Wall GREAT ESCAPES PROTECTION AGAINST Despite the formidable ‘FASCISM’ obstacle and threat of stiff At 1 a.m. on Aug. 13, punishment if caught, thou1961, East Germany sealed sands of people tried to esoff the border between the cape by tunneling under, Soviet-controlled eastern swimming past, climbing sector of Berlin and the or flying over the wall. Many western sectors controlled took advantage of Berlin’s by the Allies. extensive sewer and subOver the following way network. Others used weeks, workers erected a fake passports made out to 155-kilometer (96-mile) West Germans, who were barrier encircling West Ber- allowed to visit East Berlin. lin. The Wall itself — up to Some dug their own tun3.6 meters (12 feet) high — nels, often with help from was merely the outermost people on the other side. part of a heavily fortified In one case, an entire famstrip that variously includ- ily escaped using a homeed barbed wire, metal fenc- made cable car.
WALL OF DEATH At least 136 people, including several children, lost their lives along the Cold War barrier, according to the Potsdam Center for Historical Research. Some were shot by East German border guards, others drowned in the chilly river Spree. Crosses now mark many of the locations where people died trying to reach freedom.
WALL’S FALL On the evening of Nov. 9, 1989, West German television broadcast the news that communist authorities had decided to lift travel restrictions and allow East Germans to travel more or less freely. The reports were based on a confusing announcement by a senior East German official who had failed to spell out various caveats to the new policy. Before the communist
People hug each other after they put flowers in a crack of the former Berlin Wall to commemorate the victims of the wall at the Berlin Wall memorial site at Bernauer Strasse in Berlin, Germany onNovember 9. 25 years ago - on November 9, 1989 - the East-German government lifted travel restrictions and thousands of East Berliners had pushed their way past perplexed border guards to celebrate freedom with their brethren in the West. (AP Photo)
authorities could set the record straight, thousands of East Berliners had pushed their way past perplexed
border guards to celebrate freedom with their brethren in the West. The communist dictatorship was
swept away within months. On Oct. 3, 1990, East and West Germany became one country again.