Posted on 07/31/2003 3:56:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Ten Koreans, possibly from the communist North, sneaked into the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok on Thursday, diplomats said, apparently seeking political asylum.
The group - consisting of four men, four women, a boy and a girl - entered the embassy compound through a gate when it opened to let a car in, said embassy spokesman Toshihisa Takata. They passed beside the car shouting "North Korea" in English.
"They are safely in the building of the Japanese Embassy. We are now investigating their names and their wishes, those sorts of things," Takata told reporters.
He said they speak only Korean. "They don't speak Japanese or English but we are trying to communicate with them," he said.
"About whether or not they are trying to seek asylum we are investigating," Takata said.
A security guard stopped them inside the gate and they were escorted into the building where they were later provided lunch.
"It seems to me their health condition is normal and they seem to be reasonably relaxed at the moment," Takata said, adding that he doesn't know how long they had been in Thailand.
In the past, North Koreans have attempted to sprint into Japanese missions in China to seek political refuge.
In Tokyo, the national Kyodo News, citing unnamed sources, said the Foreign Ministry was cautioning embassies and consulates abroad that people who have fled from North Korea may be asking for protection.
In March, four people, all apparently from North Korea, entered the Japanese School in China's capital carrying letters asking for Tokyo's help in seeking asylum.
In May last year, five asylum-seeking North Koreans dashed into a Japanese consulate in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang and were forcibly removed by Chinese authorities. The incident spurred recriminations between Beijing and Tokyo.
Scores of North Korean asylum-seekers have sought refuge in foreign missions in China over past years.
As its biggest ally, China has a treaty with Pyongyang requiring it to send back any illegal escapees. Yet, it hasn't always done so in cases that have become public for fear of international backlash, and many asylum-seekers have eventually made their way to South Korea via third countries.
But, by all means, share. If you are of two cultures, it would seem you're only willing to criticize the American side.
Given that the Japanese tried to outlaw importation of American beef because of the peculiarly and wonderfully distinct Japanese digestion...there are few more insular (a nice nuanced word for racist) cultures than the Japanese.
Hey, anyways chingu, lighten up, go have an OB Beer and a fastidious plate of bulgogi beef and a delicious side plate of kimchi. I think you would be the better for it, and might even become a little more cultured and open minded if we could get a few of those North Korean refugees to live next to you and show you some of their Korean culture and you likewise show them how to play baseball or how to set up an American style barbeque. In fact, I would hope they would live near you. You would be the better for it, 'phobie.
For one thing, we've got a heck of a lot more room.
In any case, I don't think it's the immigrants who are the problem so much as the socialist giveaway programs that some of them take advantage of.
But then the 'phobes and FRacists step in and direct their shotgun wrath at the new immigrant rather than the corrupt/decrepit AMERICAN who does not manage the situation properly.
Cute. Read back--"don't look like 'Muricans." etc. You clearly implied that NKoreans weren't wanted because they didn't look European.
Fact is, 'Muricans tried to adopt a lot of non-Euro children and were prevented from doing so by SK authorities. And they needed to be adopted because they are stuck in a society which doesn't welcome the stranger or the orphan.
You're welcome to make a long list of Japanese generosity to the stranger--their citizenship requirements make for some good reading.
The fact is, AminT--it is a hard thing in human nature to cope with cultures and appearances radically different from those we grow accustomed to. All people are alike in that way--suspicion of the stranger, xenophobia.
What is different about the US is that it is a nation that, by policies and laws and culture, reach out to those different. Neither Japan nor Korea can say the same, and they need to do some *changing.* Criticism of the US Coming from the context of those two semi-Western Asian countries is simply hard to take.
We struggle, in this country, with a destabilizing flood of illegal immigration that benefits a few elites and burdens the rest of us. The schools are an obvious example--the hospital system is headed for a breakdown. We cannot afford to help everyone all the time.
Time for those wealthy countries, mired in insularity, to transcend their human nature and step up to the plate.
For one thing, we've got a heck of a lot more room.
Are you trying to be funny, here? Why not just say--from each according to his resources, to each according to his need?
In any case, I don't think it's the immigrants who are the problem so much as the socialist giveaway programs that some of them take advantage of.
Like I said, your assertion is contradictory on it's face. First you claim the "need", then denounce our socialism?
I'll always stand by those perceptions and those assertions.
I base some of these not only upon the writings of the close-minded, insular and offensive parties in a particular FR thread, but also based on analysis of things they have offered and positions they have adopted in other threads, via FR archives.
No criticism here of whole nations as I've said. None today of 'racist' Japan, or 'racist' S. Korea, or 'racist' America.
Just criticism of racist individuals who might feel 'overwhelmed' by the 'hordes' 'swarming in' of those not just like them. Sorry. :-)
My local hospital maintains translators for immigrants and refugees. It connects with a network of translators to try to provide the non-paying patients who stream in with communication and medical care. But resources are ever scarcer, and the fabric strains at the seams and is unravelling fast. In order to maintain services for those immigrants we have, we cannot provide for an infinite number of new ones.
I could tell similar stories about schools, police, etc.
Fact is, the employers who enjoy the cheap and subservient labor are getting a free pass from the citizens who pay taxes and suffer ruinous insurance premiums to support the off-the-books labor's social needs. Those who are big-hearted enough to open the gates to a destabilizing mass of immigration don't much care to pay the hospital bills--
The North Koreans have wealthy brothers to the south who apparently are too self-loving to help them, brothers the US has helped to make wealthy in the first place through death and sacrifice and war (lots of them who were--how did you put it--occidental ) just fifty years ago.
In my reading I discovered that "oriental" is politically incorrect. How is it that occidental is OK? Have you written yourslf a double-dealing rhetorical pass?
I see. So I am supposed to sit here and list up all the things that ROK and Japan do with UNHCR, WFP, WHO, International Committee for the Red Cross, Japan Red Cross, Korea Red Cross, to assist not only refugees in East Asia but around the world? From my work in refugee camps in Asia years ago, nearly 1/3 of the people I saw around were from Japan NGOs, JICA, you name it. Each of these have websites, so you go take your own sweeeeeeet time and look through the annual and supplementary funding for these projects, the fact that Japanese NGOS have given their lives in places such as Cambodia, shot by the Khmer Rouge when in Khmer refugee assistance programs, etc. and if its not true what I say, then you can call me a liar. Millions and millions of dollars (yen and won) and assistance and resettlement help and public training programs (yes, for refugees in Japan and RO Korea as well) have been instituted. How about the dangerous work of the Japan Ground Self Defense Forces in the Kibumba Refugee camp in Rwanda? How about Japanese NGO response to the Turkish earthquake and the teams headed there to help? Care to talk about the Japan Air Self Defense Force units flying one-way flights of nearly 1,000 kilometers almost daily, for a total of 98 flights in all and transporting more than 3,400 non-japanese passengers (Africans), 900 of whom were personnel of NGOs, as well as 510 metric tons of supplies, 210 metric tons of which has been requested by the UNHCR? Or maybe we can talk about Japan's visible contribution for supporting Afghanistan, in response to requests from the UNHCR where they supported nearly 20% of the requested funds by the UNHCR (even though there are 150 countries in the world). Japan transported items to Pakistan by Self-Defense Force (SDF) aircraft back the, my friend, and Japan also provided hundreds of tents, medicine, advisors in Pakistan. Those racists Japanese, I'll tell you. You risk proving your ignorance even more so by your recent posts. As I've said here, you have a weak concept of the level of support ROK and Japan give to international refugee situations, your generalizations are much too sweeping. You offer little to no statistics to back up your apparant assertion, that those two countries have had no role shows how bankrupt your arguments are. The fact of the matter is, you are probably frustated by illegal immigration and come across this situation in your daily work or experience perhaps, and apply it to legal immigration or political asylum cases, which are different.
If you can think of a clever and safe way for a North Korean to simply walk south across the DMZ into the south and take advantage of the asylum there, let me know. Until that time, they are eventually going to be going to China and then onto South Korea through Japan, this case, Thailand, and the Philippines. The final destination desired by many of them is S. Korea in the first place. So what's the problem with you. I think you are talking illiterate and illegal Mexicans when I am talking political refugees seeking asylum who in many cases will transit these countries and eventually seek residence in the ROK. The USA is a beacon of light and hope when it comes to the North Korean political refugee/defectors issue and our humanitarian assistance, as it should be, and I stand with our President in support of that noble policy.
Japan has also surprised me over their interest in taking a leadership role in dealing with Kim--in the past they have retreated into "non-imperialism" , an insular and self-serving post-WWII pacifism.
Don't forget to praise and thank Roh for the 700 non-combat troops that he sent (was it last month they arrived?) to Baghdad.
I don't see how the status of immigration stress (illegal vs. refugee) figures in the burden that the American citizen now carries for non-citizens, illegal or otherwise. The fact remains that our government has no interest in enforcing our generous immigration laws. It's not taxes alone that crush the American middle class--the lack of affordable health insurance is another. Since your insurance must also cover the uninsured, soon you won't be able to afford your own premiums. Or won't be able to find coverage, at all. Government regulation of business in the US also is driving jobs overseas--a whole new spin on immigration.
Generosity itself will become a scarce commodity, as the back bends farther and father from the weight.
So, it is far from reasonable to expect the US to shoulder the burden of NK refugees. Further, it is not racist to expect the very wealthy South Korea to take care of its closest neighbor and former "spouse. " Germany managed reuinification, Korea will. Korea is far wealthier than Germany was. It might be a good idea to open up the orphanages again to American would-be parents, too.
More, "to each accding to his need" thinking?
But consider how well-adapted are the Japanese to living in extremely close quarters....
And wouldn't the Japanese like to do the SKoreans a favor for a change--you know, there are a lot of SKoreans today who are children of imperialist Japanese soldiers. There's a filial duty here.
I believe their economy is third in the world--I'm not sure of its exact place, somewhere in the top ten economies--but it is surely an impressive economy for a tiny place with so few natural resources beyond the human. Korea is the example, bar none, of what freedom can do when combined with ambition and energy.
And they can afford to both defend themselves from Kim, and to help with the transition of NK to freedom when Kim inevitably falls.
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