Posted on 04/04/2006 5:52:51 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Seoul Fears U.S. Could Brand N.Korea a Financial Pariah
Seoul is urgently studying its options in case Washington designates North Korea a “primary money-laundering concern” under its Patriot Act, a move that would create enormous difficulties for anyone doing business with the country and could deal a blow to growing inter-Korean trade.
Government sources on Tuesday said Seoul is focused on the possibility that following the designation in December, 2002 of the Ukraine and the small Pacific island of Nauru as areas of "primary money-laundering concern," North Korea could be next in line for such a designation. (The designation of the Ukrainian government was later revoked in April of 2003).
A source said there was a real threat that North Korea could find itself branded since it continues to delay implementation of its commitment to dismantle its nuclear program under an agreement reached in six-party talks in Beijing last September. Seoul fears growing calls for fundamental change in North Korea could lead to the designation, which would effectively block all the country’s financial transactions with the outside world, according to the source.
Under the Patriot Act enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., entire countries as well as financial institutions can be designated money-laundering concerns. The U.S. already nailed down the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia as a primary money-laundering concern for North Korea in September. According to the latest Newsweek magazine, 40 percent of the bank's accounts had been withdrawn just one week after the announcement.
By the same token, the designation of North Korea as a whole would likely paralyze its transactions with any international financial institutions, which must maintain a place of business in the U.S. if they are to conduct dollar transactions. “It would mean North Korea is in effect kicked out of the international financial world, where the U.S. exercises the greatest influence,” a government official said.
A long-expected hammer on S. Korea could be finally raised. I suspect that this would come eventually if neither N. Korean regime nor S. Korean gov. changes its mind in time.
In the meantimes, on the streets of N. Korea, ...
Dollar Soars in N.Korea’s Black Market
While North Korea’s closed economy may hide most of the effects of financial sanctions the U.S. has imposed on the communist country since September, sources just back from the North say the black-market value of dollars is skyrocketing there. The official exchange rate in the North is W150 per dollar. But in the black market, the greenback had soared from around W2,000 to W2,600 by late last year. “It varies from region to region, but the dollar now seems to have risen to W3,000 because of the financial sanctions,” a South Korean official said.
A North Korean defector says in some black markets in Pyongyang and Shinuiju $1 will fetch W3,800-4,000 and rising. An expert on North Korea said rumor has it that some people are hoarding dollars in the expectation that their value will keep going up.
Given that the average monthly income of North Korean workers is around W3,000, the surge has effectively reduced their wage to less than $1 a month.
Ping!
If North Korea doesn't want to be labeled a "financial pariah" maybe they should stop counterfeiting everyone else's currency.
I can't think of a better definition of a financial pariah.
We will starve the pariah to death financially.
The current government in South Korea is an appeasement government and a thorn in the side of our policy against North Korea.
The conservative opposition in South Korea describes some of the leading figures around the current government as "the Politburo."
The North is a ruthless regieme that has spent over 50 years spying and infiltrating its way into the South.
You may remember how the North kidnapped Japanese so that they could study the language, learn how to spy on Japan and infiltrate agents into that country.
I figure their agents have made it into important positions in the South and helped to create this appeasment policy and mentality in the South.
I suspect some may have reached the top circle. Many useful idiots are snookered, as far as I can tell.
More and more I get the feeling we're on the DMZ border to keep these two apart rather than protecting one from the other.
I would think that only a fool would launder money through North Korea. Who would trust the output to be anywhere near the input? A money launderer must be trustworthy.
You figure right.
Outsiders are not laundering money through North Korea. The North Koreans themselves are laundering the money on the way out to hide its criminal origins.
Most interesting ramifications.
Do you know your credit rating? Excellent, adequate, poor, pariah?
South Korea's government leadership in Seoul has shown itself to be totally willing to be an accomplice to North Korea's schemes. Regarding the "U.S." as the problem...while a nuclear dagger is prepared in Pyongong. We should get out. Rather than prop up this criminal band of moles in South Korea...and prepare contingency plans to saturate the whole Peninsula with appropriate megatonnage.
The leftists won't be in charge forever. We need to stay there. The chicoms would love us to get out. There are plenty of good conservative Koreans. I'm sure they feel as we did when the clintonites were selling us out.
Yes. But they are the political minority...as recently demonstrated. And the entire educational establishment has been coopted to indoctrinate their children in a revisionist set of pro-NK falsehoods. Eventually those who remember history will run for the tall grass under the pressure of the Orwellian mind police establishments being erected right under their noses.
One would have hoped that they would awaken sooner...but we can't afford a nuclear North Korea. If they want to save their bacon...they need to emigrate now. There won't be much left after North Korea explodes.
I have not made it to the pariah level yet. That takes a really special talent.:)
The way the current government is acting makes Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik in 1970s Germany look like a hardcore conservative hawk platform. I really wonder if the politicians in charge in Seoul are so naive into believing the North will either willingly give up power, or at least reunify, and let the South "live and let live". And even if it is true Kim Jong-il is prepared to allow the South live as it is, and Korea reunified into a "confederation", can they really in their conscience accept their northern relatives continue living as slaves of the "Great Leader"?
President Roh owe us his answers to these.
They are not naive. Their ideology just blinded them. They would rather die than accept the fact that their sworn enemies, past S. Korean (military) governments, were indeed right when it comes to N. Korean regime. In their mind, since past S. Korean governments were evil, their enemies must be right, or at least decent.
An one-demensional thinking that can be frequently seen among hardcore zealots.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.