N.Korea Tribunal Demands U.S. Apology, Compensation

[Khephra]

N.Korea Tribunal Demands U.S. Apology, Compensation
Fri July 25, 2003 11:24 AM ET
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) - North Korea, ahead of this weekend's commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Korean War truce, demanded the United States apologize and give compensation for crimes ranging from genocide to drug smuggling.

The "International tribunal on U.S. crimes" Friday pronounced President Bush and his 10 predecessors going back to Harry S. Truman guilty of crimes against the U.N. charter, human rights declarations and "the principles of the military tribunal of Nuremberg" among others.

"The U.S. government must make an official apology for all its criminal acts in Korea, and make due compensation for physical, mental and material losses inflicted upon the Korean people," North Korea's KCNA news agency quoted the verdict as saying.

Those responsible for the "crimes" should "be sentenced to criminal punishment" and the U.S. Congress should "investigate and address this issue," it said.


more.........................

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3160941

[Muddleoftheroad]

1. North Korea

Reading North Korean press reports is like reading The Onion.

[Bandit]

3. Just remember there are TWO sides to every story

:-)

[Muddleoftheroad]

4. Sometimes

The sides are right and wrong. In this case, NK is the latter.

[teryang]

2. Incorrect statement

<At talks leading to the truce signed 50 years ago Sunday, North Korea acknowledged that there were no foreign troops in South Korea at the time of the June 25 invasion, but said the U.S.-led intervention "prevented the peaceful settlement of the internal problem of Korea," according to historic transcripts.>

Then who were the thousands of Americans who retreated to the Pusan perimeter?

The reliability of these reports is suspect.

[On the Road]

5. I've Never Felt Like I Really Understand the Situation There

Chomsky writes occasionally about Korea. His take is that the US put the Japanese fascists and their Korean collaborators back in charge of SK after the war. The SK people were subject to bloody repression and denied democracy for a long time (1970's?).

I'm sure the situation is exaggerated by NK and used to justify its own brutality. I do suspect that their charges have some merit. Like most negotiations, it's difficult to come to an agreement if one or both sides denies large parts of the relevant history.

[teryang]

6. The history is well known but

recent breaches by the American side of the 1994 agreed framework precipitated the current crisis and are not publicized in American media. The US failed to deliver the nuclear power plant it promised on time (2003) and then repudiated the obligation alltogether. The US also stopped the 500,000 tons of fuel delivery. The US obligations were compensation for the N.Korean shut down of its Soviet style reactors. These reactors were used to power the Korean economic infrastructure. The US wanted them shutdown to prevent proliferation. To add insult to injury the US won't admit it breached the agreement and also calls the agreement a reward for bad behavior which is total nonsense. The missile issue was never part of the Agreed Framework and the US has consistently refused to negotiate away this threat although the N.Koreans were quite ready to do so.

The absence of nuclear power is aggravating the humanitarian crisis there as well. The famine caused by a series of natural diasters, scarce farmland, short growing season and inefficient organization is now compounded by the inability to distribute water and irrigate because of the lack of power. To top it off, the US have cut their humanitarian food aid down to small fraction of what it was. All of this is a neocon plan for regime change in Pyongyang which is a tactic which is rejected by Seoul and criticized by former Sec. of Defense Perry who is considered by some to be an authority on the subject.

[teryang]

7. More background on N.Korea situation

This is a comprehensive review and analysis of the current crisis. The machinations and misrepresentations are examined in detail. The article is quite long discussing the nuclear, economic, political, and diplomatic situation in N.Korea in great detail. The article describes a very disturbing dishonesty by our regime rivaling that preceeding the Iraq invasion.


http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ELI307A.html

The Nuclear Frame-up of North Korea
by Gregory Elich
www.globalresearch.ca 4 July 2003


<Outside the U.S., not everyone bought the story. The South Korean Defense Ministry questioned the assertion that North Korea had already built plutonium nuclear weapons and pointed out that these bombs – "if they exist, would weigh between 2 and 3 tons because of lack of technology to make them lighter." The weight of such weapons would exceed the delivery capability of North Korea’s missiles and bombers. (18) Russian military analysts concluded that North Korea lacked the "military and economic potential" to produce nuclear weapons and that the "existing military potential of the DPRK is quite definitely of a defensive nature." (19) U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton visited Russia and presented evidence backing the American accusation of a North Korean nuclear weapons program, hoping to persuade the Russians to support the application of pressure on North Korea. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov was distinctly unimpressed with the quality of such evidence, stating that "the Russian side has not yet received any convincing evidence of the existence of such a program." (20) South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-Hyun suspected that the U.S. was not being entirely honest. "I am afraid that Kang Sok-Ju’s remarks were quoted without their full context." Lim Dong-Won, South Korean Presidential Advisor for Security and Unification, commented that the timing was suspicious. "The U.S. notified us of the secret program in August <2002>, when Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi planned to visit Pyongyang and the two Koreas embarked on reconnection of railways and roads." (21) Adding to the suspicion concerning the timing of the announcement was the expectation that it would have an effect on the South Korean presidential election scheduled to take place two months later, on December 19.<snip>