In Visit, Cellist’s Quest for Lost Chord to His Youth

By DANIEL J. WAKIN for the New York Times
PYONGYANG, North Korea — For much of his 60 years, Valentin Hirsu has thought of those three Korean boys in his class.

It was at Music School No. 1 in Bucharest, Romania. The boys were North Korean orphans from the war that had torn up their country. One played piano, another clarinet, the third flute.

After about six years, they were taken home.

Mr. Hirsu never heard from them again. Now, in Pyongyang as a cellist with the visiting New York Philharmonic, he is asking about their fate.

"It’s a crime not to look for them if I’ll be there,” he said on the eve of the orchestra’s departure from Beijing. “I don’t know if they are alive or minister of culture. How am I supposed to know?” he said.

Mr. Hirsu kept a picture that includes the three Koreans among a clutch of students around a teacher, like a “mother hen,” he said.

He recalled the three boys as excellent students and good kids. “They were the best in drawing,” he said. “They were the best in geography, even Romanian, volleyball, everything.”

After graduating, Mr. Hirsu embarked on a successful career as a soloist in Romania. In 1975, he immigrated to Israel and a year later to the United States, where he almost immediately won an audition for the Philharmonic.

Mr. Hirsu gave the photograph to Fred Carriere, the executive director of the Korea Society, which helped the Philharmonic with logistics for the trip. Mr. Hirsu had a phonetic recollection of the names, but that did not prove to be much help. Mr. Carriere said Monday, after the orchestra arrived in Pyongyang, that he had had no success in locating the three.

A disappointed Mr. Hirsu said he would not give up, promising to ask every North Korean musician he encountered about them. “I can find them on my own,” he said.

U.S.'09 Budget for NK Shifts to Denuclearization

The U.S. budget for North Korea-related funds in fiscal year (FY) 2009 is spread out between the energy and state departments with a shift away from democratization assistance to nuclear disarmament.

The budget proposed earlier this month, and to start in October this year, includes the Energy Department's request for $ 140.5 million for Nonproliferation and International Security (NIS) which covers the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative. This program is specifically aimed at disabling, dismantling and verifying North Korea's nuclear program and at stopping spread of weapons of mass destruction.

``Another priority in FY 2009 is disablement, dismantlement, and verification of nuclear programs in North Korea,’’ the department's budget request says.

``In FY 2009, NIS will provide technical expertise required (for) dismantlement actions of the North Korean nuclear facilities, continue to verify the North Korean declaration of its nuclear program elements, support the six-party working groups, and undertake scientist engagement opportunities to support denuclearization and proliferation risk reduction.’’ (Yonhap)

From: The Korea Times

22 N. Koreans Executed for a Defection Attempt

Twenty-two North Koreans, sent back to the North by South Korean authorities earlier this month after their fishing boats drifted into South Korean waters, were reported to have been executed by a firing squad.

The North Koreans were shot dead last week by North Korean military authorities of South Hwanghae Province, which believed they had attempted to defect to the South, Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday, quoting an unidentified government source.

``The rumor (of the execution) has been spreading out among locals. Local people have been shocked that all of the 22 were executed by a firing squad without distinction of age or sex,'' the source said.

The 22 North Koreans included eight men, 14 women and three students.

North Korean fishermen often stray into southern waters because of bad weather or engine problems.

From The Korea Times

NK Intensifies Press Oppression

"North Korea executed a state-run company's director last year for having made phone calls abroad without government permission, an international journalist group said in its annual report released Sunday.

The case reflects a marked increase in executions for the offense of communication with people outside the totalitarian country, Reporters Without Borders said.
``North Korea is the world's most isolated country and the security forces are responsible for keeping it that way at all costs,’’ it said in the report.

`` North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is visiting media newsrooms, giving orders to reporters and correcting the editorials.’’

The group campaigning for freedom of speech also introduced burgeoning efforts to break the isolation. About a dozen North Korean reporters, who received secret training in China, launched the country's first magazine immune to censorship in November.

``Working closely with a Japanese news agency, Rimjingang has promised unprecedented news about the situation within the country,’’ it said. ``The first edition carried interviews with North Koreans and an analysis of the country's economic situation.’’ (Yonhap) "

From: The Korea Times

North Korea Diverts Food Aid to Military

The Korea Times, among others, reports that South Korea's food aid may actually be serving to feed the North Korean military, rather than the North Korean population as a whole:

Some of the rice given to North Korea by South Korea for humanitarian purposes has been funneled into the North Korean military units on the front lines, according to a military source Thursday. But Seoul has never raised the issue with Pyongyang.

``Since late 2006, we have noticed bags of rice clearly marked with South Korea's Red Cross logo being unloaded from trucks in North Korean military camps and some of them were left in a stacked there,'' an official said on condition of anonymity.

The bags, which contained rice, were also used for North Korea's military encampment. So far some 400 rice bags reportedly ended up in the North Korean military bases.

North Korean defectors have often said rice provided to the North by the South leaked to the military. Some even said the good quality rice goes to the military first.

It's an odd cycle, with South Korea feeding the very military that threatens to invade it. There are, however, more sinister implications regarding the regime's motivations. Must read analysis at the blog One Free Korea, which posits, among other things, the possibility that the North Korean regime, when given food aid, cuts back on importing food so as to free up more money to spend on other things while its people sit on the brink of starvation.