Posted on 07/09/2009 9:00:07 PM PDT by Jet Jaguar
North Korea has not yet sent two convicted U.S. journalists to a prison labor camp in a possible attempt to seek talks with Washington on their release, a scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday.
Laura Ling and Euna lee, who work for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media group, are being kept at guest house in the North Korean capital and have not yet been sent to a prison camp as called for in their sentences, University of Georgia political scientist Han Park said.
"I heard from North Korean officials that the American journalists were doing fine at a guest house in Pyongyang," Park told South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Park, originally from South Korea, arrived Thursday in Seoul following a trip to Pyongyang.
Ling and Lee were detained near the North Korean border with China and were sentenced last month for to 12 years of hard labor for entering the country illegally and for "hostile acts."
Park said North Korean officials were angry at the journalists for trying to produce a program critical of North Korea. But Park said the issue could be resolved.
A South Korean who helped organize the journalists' reporting trip to China, the Rev. Chun Ki-won, said in April that the women traveled to the border region with North Korea to interview women and children who had fled the impoverished country.
"North Korea's move not to carry out the sentence suggests that it could release them through a dialogue with the United States and they could be set free at an early date, depending on the U.S. gesture," Park said.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Ping
"This definitely means that they have not gone through with standard DPRK rule of law (??) which mandates that 10 days after final sentence is passed, the prisoner is to be mandated to the place of sentence, in her case, a work prison camp. What this means is they continue to use her as a pawn and are no doubt double dealing behind the scenes with State Department (probably Al Gores office on the side, dont count out the Carters, the Richardsons, the Jesse Jacksons of the world), and the DPRK UN mission in New York City and/or through China or maybe Sweden or Switzerland. Maybe there will be a DPRK $$$$$ payoff, who knows. If she and the other girl had been sent to Yodok Camp or elsewhere like that last week: a) they would not be making international calls b) they would not even be alive, I would imagine they would commit suicide; or even if allowed a call out, they would be incoherent from shock of what they are seeing in the North Korean camps. Our only conclusion is that they are more or less safe and well fed in a Guest House or a Foreigner's Hotel in Pyongyang under 24/7 watch, while the terms are being negotiation (cash amounts, etc.). Good for the girls and their sister back in the states, but their misbehavior on the Chinese border is an IMMENSE transgression against American foreign policy and our program of trying to reign in North Korea and give them no sticks or chips at the card table. These two San Francisco libs represent very potent poker chips. 9 posted on July 10, 2009 10:01:44 by AmericanInTokyo"
Thanks for the PAWN update.
Thread bump
Well if they weren’t in the gulag before they will be after this report. Way to go AP.
It’s all very strange.
But, It is NK.
They are an important bargaining chip and investment for North Korea. They are not going to “damage the goods” as long as they are able to get diplomatic recognition or a years’ worth of gasoline/electricity, or some other major concession from the US government for their return. I have thought by now they must have been raped and hooked up to car batteries but on second thought, I revised that theory. The “Guest House” stay story confirms it. For if one of two of them goes Karen Carpenter on them up there in the North, they are going to be in deep sh*t (well, MAYBE...they would be under a Republican Administration).....This is probably heir apparant Prince Kim Jong Un’s first major “project” seeing as he is essentially in charge of all of Pyongyang now and more than likely tasked on this incident. He may have even talked to the women so far as we know.
How on earth 25 million people up there will be unbrainwashed when and if the place is freed, is beyond me. Now THERE is a BIG future business for lots of psychologists fluent in Korean.
Most NK diplomats who leave NK are surprised how well things are going in any country they visit.
Imagine the masses trying to understand it.
DPRK materials (posters, badges, CDs/tapes, flags, etc) will be real collectors items, that’s for sure—when freedom breaks out up there. Everything with a tinge of Kim Il Sungism will be trashed, or burned or ripped to tiny shreds, when the North Korean “masses” learn how they have been lied to and denied so many things for 60 years by a dynastic, psychotic cult. I have some Kim il Sung buttons and some other assorted piddly Norkie crap that I am NOT parting with on E-Bay until the prices are really up there.
Sound plan.
So they stay put in an unnamed third country until the bidding can begin and US laws are not broached.
Wow, and I never knew North Korea HAD B&Bs. This should give their tourism industry a nice summer pop.
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