Syrian Army Kills 38 In North, Reports Say

Most of the deaths took place in Jisr al-Shoughour, where residents said 25 people had been killed by helicopter gunships bombarding the town and machine gun-mounted armored cars prowling the streets. Ten were reported to have died in the nearby village of Khan Sheikhoun, where tanks stood sentry between the main highway and the city center and a sniper perched in the minaret of one of the town’s main mosques.

“It is a big massacre,” said Abu Hussein, a resident of Jisr al-Shoughour with family in Khan Sheikhoun. “The civilians have no electricity or water, and there are no ambulances to hospitalize the wounded.”

Syria has been gripped since mid-March by a popular uprising against four decades of iron-fisted rule by the Assad family, and the government has responded to the revolt with a violent crackdown occasionally tempered by offers of political reform.

But there was little holding back over the weekend. The government unleashed the helicopter gunships, and residents in several cities said security forces appeared to move north to join the attack on its towns. Terrified residents streamed through the fields to escape the fighting, with dozens crossing the Turkish border and a large number reported arriving in the nearby port city of Latakia. On Sunday night, local activists said many of the fields had been set alight, and smoke hung over the town.

“They are trying to punish the residents for protesting,” said Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Association for Human Rights. “Dozens have been arrested over the last two days.”

The number of protesters in Idlib swelled so much in recent weeks that “the whole area is rising up,” said Wissam Tarif, a rights activist. Parts of the province had come to the kind of standstill associated with the besieged southern town of Dara’a, he said, where the arrest and torture of 15 schoolchildren for spraying antigovernment graffiti sparked the wave of uprisings.

Government tanks were reported to have pulled back slightly from the city of Hama on Sunday, a day after they were sent in to confront mourners for the 65 protesters killed Friday. The city was the site of a 1982 massacre when security forces commanded by President Hafez al-Assad, the current president’s father, bombarded it in a siege that killed at least 10,000 people.

Bracing for a new onslaught, residents barricaded the streets with large trash-hauling bins on Saturday night, but a tense calm reigned on Sunday night.

Tanks remained “very close” to the city, said Radwan Ziadeh, an exiled human rights activist and visiting scholar at George Washington University, but residents reached by phone said many had appeared to move north. One resident, who gave his name as Abu Mohamed, said he watched 40 tanks move north from the city’s eastern approach along the road to Idlib, past barricades and burning tires laid in the road by protesters.

Tensions remained high in Hama, Abu Mohamed said. A general strike closed all the shops on Saturday and Sunday. And rumors swirled that the secret police were still lurking, recruiting cab drivers to kidnap “rebels” off the streets and infiltrating hospitals to kill the wounded.

Residents reported quiet in the central city of Homs as army units moved north toward Hama and Idlib, but its suburbs Rastan and Talbiseh remained under siege. Shelling killed at least 70 in Rastan last week, and both were reeling Sunday from days of arrests, said Abu Omar, a resident reached by phone. “They arrested almost everybody,” he said. “There are no more people.”

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North Sudan Takes Contested Town on South Border

NAIROBI – The northern Sudanese army has seized a strategic town along Sudan’s contested north-south border in a serious military escalation that has the potential of igniting an all-out civil war, Western officials said on Sunday.

A column of northern Sudanese tanks rolled into Abyei, a flashpoint border town on Saturday, after weeks of hit-and-run clashes between northern and southern forces.

The southern part of Sudan is gearing up to declare independence in July and both northern and southern Sudan claim Abyei, making it one of the most combustible issues between the two sides. The Abyei area produces a small amount of oil but more than that, it has become a potent, emotional symbol for both northern and southern Sudanese. It has been called Sudan’s Jerusalem because of the difficulties of resolving its status.

“The SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) have taken this evening the control of Abyei town and repelled the enemy forces, ” declared a Sudanese state television news bulletin on Saturday night. According to United Nations officials inside Abyei, there were at least a dozen northern tanks now prowling the town. But the United Nations monitoring team in Abyei was hampered from making more detailed observations because several mortar shells landed near the United Nations compound, and United Nations personnel were reluctant to venture into Abyei’s streets.

The southern Sudanese forces, who have tens of thousands of heavily-armed soldiers – some of them trained by the United States, have not indicated yet how they will respond. On Saturday night, Philip Aguer, a spokesman for southern Sudan’s military forces, told AFP, “The SAF have entered Abyei, there is still fighting but they have come with tanks, they are shooting and shooting. ”

“Our police have been fighting but the SAF have sent many soldiers in, ” he added, speaking by phone from Juba, the capital of southern Sudan.

The crisis comes right as a delegation from the United Nations Security Council is in Sudan, visiting both sides in preparation for the division of Sudan this summer.

Abyei has been a sore spot for years, a clear potential spoiler in the separation of north and south Sudan. It has a hybrid history, a dusty, arid patch of Sudan that is culturally and ethnically linked to the south and populated by mostly Southerners but incorporated administratively as part of the north for decades. Northern nomads cross through Abyei to bring their herds to watering holes and the area has been like a mosaic of cultures between north and south Sudan.

Abyei was supposed to have its own referendum to decide whether it would join the north or the south but that got shelved because of heated arguments over who was eligible to vote. Meanwhile, southern Sudan held a referendum in January in which more than 95 percent of Southerners voted for independence.

While its status is unresolved, Abyei has been administered by a joint north-south committee and the only soldiers in the area are supposed to units made up of Northerners and Southerners. But in the past few months, human rights groups have seen a sharp build-up by both sides around the contested border.

Over the past few weeks, northern and southern forces have been attacking each other in rural areas around Abyei town. On Thursday, southern forces ambushed a convoy of northern troops, killing more than dozen northern soldiers. Southern forces had staged a similar attack in early May.

One Western official on Sunday said that the southern forces had indeed provoked the north and that it was unlikely that northern forces would now withdraw from Abyei.

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China Delays Report Suggesting North Korea Violated Sanctions

China has tried to suppress a report at the United Nations suggesting that North Korea and Iran have been routinely sharing ballistic missile technology, United Nations diplomats said Saturday, expressing concern that Beijing was again working to shield the North.

The report, by a United Nations panel of experts, said prohibited “ballistic missile-related items” were suspected of being transferred between North Korea and Iran in breach of United Nations sanctions against North Korea. It said the transfers were believed to be taking place on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air, using air cargo hubs that had less stringent security than passenger terminals.

The panel’s findings, first reported by Reuters, said that the technology transfers had “trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.” The report did not specify which, but several United Nations diplomats identified that country as China, North Korea’s neighbor and most important ally.

The report was submitted to Security Council members over the weekend, but had been delayed for days before that after the Chinese expert on the panel refused to sign off on the report.

“The Chinese expert refused to sign the report, under pressure from Beijing, and this raises serious issues about a panel of experts that is supposed to be free from political interference,” said a senior United Nations diplomat, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue.

The panel is charged with monitoring the North’s compliance with United Nations sanctions, including a ban on trading nuclear and missile technology, an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of several North Korean individuals. Sanctions were imposed on North Korea after it conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and in 2009. North Korea has also conducted a battery of missile tests that have yielded mixed results, and it has come under scrutiny for selling its nuclear and missile technology.

China has in the past tried to block reports on North Korea and Sudan, and earlier this week Russia moved to suppress a deeply critical expert panel report on Iran. Both Russia and China, which are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, typically cleave to the view that the world body should not impinge upon the sovereignty of member countries.

 

North Korean Prison Camps Massive and Growing

Former inmates at the political labor camp at Yodok, North Korea, said they were frequently tortured and had been forced to watch the executions of fellow prisoners, the report said, noting that the North’s network of political prisons is estimated to hold 200,000 inmates.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International. “For decades, the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps. These are places out of sight of the rest of the world.” The report says that almost all of the human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the past 60 years “are ignored.”

After comparing recent satellite photos of prison camps with images from 10 years ago, Mr. Zarifi said, Amnesty International became concerned that the “prison camps appear to be growing.”

North Korea’s work farms and prison factories are the world’s most notorious, according to human rights experts. Political prisoners sentenced to hard labor initially included landlords, purged party officials and the religiously active, according to Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, the authors of “Witness to Transformation,” an authoritative study of North Korean refugees.

Political prisons, they said, also now hold “anyone guilty of political or ideological crimes or even suspected of disloyalty,” adding that the system shows “little pretense of due process.”

Son Hyang-sun, a woman who defected from North Korea 15 years ago because she was starving, said she was caught on her first escape attempt. She was convicted and jailed for four months.

“They tortured me with an electric stick, yes, a cattle prod,” she said in an interview with The International Herald Tribune. “They stuck it everywhere.”

A recent State Department report on human rights in North Korea said “detainees and prisoners consistently reported violence and torture” as well as virtual starvation rations. In various accounts, escaped inmates have reported eating earthworms and rats to get enough protein to survive.

Jeong Kyoung-il, a former Yodok inmate who was interviewed last month by Amnesty, said that deaths in the prison occurred almost daily. But the deaths of fellow prisoners came to be seen in a depraved and desperate light. “Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it, rather than feel sad, because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food,” Mr. Jeong said.

 

North Korean Prison Camps Massive and Growing

SEOUL — New satellite images and firsthand accounts from former political prisoners and former jailers in North Korea have confirmed the massive scale and bleak conditions of the penal system in the secretive North, according to a report released Wednesday by the human rights group Amnesty International.

Former inmates at the political labor camp at Yodok said they were frequently tortured and had been forced to watch executions of fellow prisoners, the report said, noting that North Korea’s network of political prisons, known as “kwan li-so,” is estimated to hold some 200,000 inmates.

“North Korea can no longer deny the undeniable,” said Sam Zarifi, the Asia Pacific director of Amnesty International. “For decades the authorities have refused to admit to the existence of mass political prison camps. These are places out of sight of the rest of the world, where almost the entire range of human rights protections that international law has tried to set up for the last 60 years are ignored.”

After comparing recent satellite photos of prison camps with images from 10 years ago, Mr. Zarifi said, his group became concerned that the “prison camps appear to be growing in size.”

North Korea’s work farms and prison factories are the world’s most notorious, according to human rights experts. Political prisoners sentenced to hard labor initially included landlords, purged party officials and the religiously active, according to Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland, the authors of “Witness to Transformation,” an authoritative study of North Korean refugees.

Political prisons, they said, also now hold “anyone guilty of political or ideological crimes or even suspected of disloyalty,” adding that the system shows “little pretense of due process.”

Son Hyang-sun, a woman who defected from North Korea 15 years ago because she was starving, said she was apprehended on her first escape attempt and was taken back to the North. She was convicted and jailed for four months, spending part of that time in a political prison.

“They tortured me with an electric stick, yes, a cattle prod,” she said in an interview with the International Herald Tribune. “They stuck it everywhere.”

A recent U.S. State Department report on human rights in North Korea said “detainees and prisoners consistently reported violence and torture.”

A former Yodok inmate who was interviewed last month by Amnesty, Jeong Kyoung-il, said that deaths in the prison were almost daily occurrences. But under the perilous conditions in the camp, the deaths of fellow prisoners came to be seen in a depraved and desperate light.

“Frankly, unlike in a normal society, we would like it, rather than feel sad, because if you bring a dead body and bury it, you would be given another bowl of food,” Mr. Jeong said.

“I used to take charge of burying dead people’s bodies. When an officer told me to, I gathered some people and buried the bodies. After receiving extra food for the job, we felt glad rather than feeling sad.”

 

Carter Criticizes U.S. for Withholding North Korea Aid

SEOUL, South Korea — Former President Jimmy Carter, after a 48-hour visit to North Korea, sharply criticized the United States and South Korea on Thursday for their refusal to send humanitarian assistance to the impoverished North, saying their deliberate withholding of food aid amounted to “a human rights violation.”

Mr. Carter, who was not traveling on behalf of the United States government, had been invited to North Korea for discussions with senior political and military officials as a way to perhaps ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which he said were “at rock bottom.”

Mr. Carter, 86, traveled with two other former presidents, Mary Robinson of Ireland and Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, and former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway. All four are members of the Elders, an independent group of world leaders established by Nelson Mandela.

Mrs. Robinson echoed Mr. Carter’s concerns about what she called the “very serious crisis” over food supplies in North Korea because of a harsh winter, severe flooding and an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. She said the withdrawal of American and South Korean food shipments had aggravated the already-dire situation, which had become, she said, “a matter of life-and-death urgency.”

Dr. Brundtland cited a lack of running water in hospitals, even in maternity and pediatric wards, and a deep shortage of what she called “essential medicines.” She said a third of all North Korean children were stunted because of malnourishment, which “also permanently affects their brain development.”

Mr. Carter and his group had asked to meet with the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, but they were rebuffed. On their way to the airport Thursday, the group was called back to the guesthouse where they had been staying in Pyongyang, the North’s capital, for what they were told was an urgent message.

They were greeted there by Kim Yong-nam, the head of the North Korean People’s Assembly, who read them a written message from Kim Jong-il. Mr. Kim’s letter told the visitors that he was amenable to a summit meeting with Lee Myung-bak, the South Korean president.

“He sent word he’s ready to negotiate with South Korea or the U.S. or with the other five powers on any subject at any time and without preconditions,” said Mr. Carter, making reference to the other members of the so-called six-party talks that focused on the dismantling of North Korean nuclear programs. The six-party process ended in 2009 when North Korea withdrew.

Mr. Carter and his group were also denied a requested meeting with Mr. Lee, the South Korean president.

South Korea has insisted that North Korea apologize for the sinking of a warship, the Cheonan, which killed 46 of its sailors last March. The apology has become a precondition before South Korea will hold substantive bilateral talks with the North.

North Korea has denied any role in the sinking, and Mr. Carter said Thursday that senior North Korean officials told him they would “not apologize or admit culpability for the Cheonan incident.”

The North Korean officials did express to him “their deep regret” over the deaths of the sailors as well as two civilians who were killed during a North-South artillery exchange in November, Mr. Carter said.

Mr. Carter said he was disappointed not to have won the release of an American man, Eddie Yong-su Jun, who was detained by North Korean authorities last November. Mr. Carter said that he and the other Elders had signed an appeal for Mr. Jun’s release on humanitarian grounds but that it was rejected.

It has been reported that Mr. Jun entered North Korea on a valid business visa but was detained for inappropriate or illegal religious activity. Mr. Carter said Mr. Jun had not been officially charged by the authorities, a status that complicated his release.

Mr. Carter said the Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang had visited Mr. Jun four times and had reported that he was being treated well. Because the United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, its interests are sometimes represented there by Sweden.

On Thursday, Mr. Jun’s family issued an open letter to North Korea to appeal for the release of “our loving father and husband.”

The letter said that Mr. Jun had medical issues and that “We strongly doubt that our father’s health can withstand the stress of a trial or further detainment.”

“Therefore, we beseech his release as an act of humanitarianism that your nation can bestow upon him and our family.”

 

Balloon-Borne Messages to North Korea Have Detractors on Both Sides of Border

 

IMJINGAK, SOUTH KOREA — On a pleasant spring day, with the wind breezing up from the south, the quirky little tourist outpost of Imjingak — with its Peace Land amusement park, some souvenir sheds and a Popeye’s chicken stand — hardly seemed like a possible flash point for violent hostilities between North and South Korea.

Imjingak, the site of a ferocious battle during the Korean War, has become a favored launching site for some of the South Korean activists who send propaganda balloons northward. The balloon campaign has so angered North Korea that its military has threatened — as recently as last Friday — to “mercilessly” shell Imjingak and other border towns if the launchings continue. North Korean artillery units are dug in a few kilometers away, just across the world’s most heavily militarized border.

It is flying season now, with robust winds blowing through the Korean Peninsula, and the activists are eager to get their balloons and leaflets in the air. Some of the balloonists are political agitators, others are Christian proselytizers, most are North Korean defectors. If the wind is at their backs, they say, millions of leaflets will be sent aloft in the coming weeks.

“North Korea has said they would fire surgical strikes at those of us sending up balloons, so this highly allergic reaction clearly shows what we’re doing is working,” said Park Sang-hak, 43, the son of a former North Korean spy who defected along with his family in 1999.

Mr. Park now heads Fighters for a Free North Korea, a human rights group in Seoul that has become the most aggressive balloon-launching outfit in the South.

Mr. Park and other balloonists do have their domestic political opponents, principally the organizations that seek a return to South Korea’s so-called sunshine policy, which favors a conciliatory approach to the North. Some of these groups occasionally try to sabotage the showier balloon events, and Mr. Park, who has had 24-hour police protection since 2008, once fired a tear gas pistol during a violent melee at Imjingak.

“We get threats against him quite often now,” said a plainclothes police officer who was guarding Mr. Park before a recent launching.

For much of the previous decade, the South Korean government tried to block the balloon launchings, which pushed the activists to work clandestinely. But the policy changed dramatically in the spring of last year after the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, and the deaths of 46 sailors. The South has blamed a North Korean torpedo attack; the North says it was not involved.

“Previously we tried to persuade the balloon guys not to do anything because it badly affected inter-Korean relations,” said a senior official in the Unification Ministry, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. “But after the Cheonan, our position changed,” the official said. “We don’t block them now. It’s a matter we leave to the local police.”

Police officials have allowed the balloon launchings to continue at Imjingak — no special permit is necessary — and they intervene only if there is violence.

Mr. Park, an engaging and energetic man, honed his technique alongside Lee Min-bok, an evangelical Christian and the other leading figure in the balloon campaign. Beginning in 2003, looking for a way to poke the North Korean regime, they started out by tying a few handwritten leaflets to some tiny children’s balloons bought at a party store.

Once devoted colleagues, the men are now bitter rivals.

“I’m the original,” said Mr. Lee, who had been an agricultural scientist in North Korea. He said he fled in 1995 after his suggestions about economic reforms were not well received by his superiors.

His operation is financed by donations from churches and conservative Christians. He said he launched 1,500 balloons a year and accounted for 90 percent of all propaganda leaflets being sent into the North, about 250 million so far.

Mr. Lee, who uses various covert launching sites along the border, ridiculed Mr. Park’s launchings at Imjingak as little more than publicity stunts. He said the wind conditions were so unfavorable that Mr. Park’s balloons often ended up floating back into South Korea.

Mr. Park, for his part, called Mr. Lee “a Christian zealot” who was voted out of their secular group several years ago because he wanted to emphasize religion in their leaflets.

 

Clinton Visits Seoul to Discuss North Korean Denuclearization Talks

 Jason Strother | Seoul ?April 16, 2011

South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-Hwan walks together with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a meeting room at the Foreign Minister's Residence in Seoul, South Korea, April 16, 2011

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Seoul Saturday for a two-day visit.? Her trip comes as multinational efforts to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program remain deadlocked.? The visit started days after Pyongyang said it is holding a U.S. citizen on unknown charges.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Seoul to discuss efforts to resume six-nations talks on North Korea's nuclear program.

Those talks, which involve the United States, both Koreas, China, Japan and Russia, have been on hold for more than two years.

The United States and South Korea say the discussions cannot resume until North Korea shows it is sincere about honoring past promises to dismantle its nuclear program.

Some analysts say other South Korean preconditions are making it more difficult for the talks to resume.

Moon Chung-in, a politics lecturer at Seoul’s Yonsei University, says Seoul’s insistence that Pyongyang apologize for last year’s sinking of a South Korean warship and shelling of a South Korean island is preventing the negotiations from starting again. ?

"South Korea has been calling for inter-Korean talks first and get an apology from North Korea.? Then it will allow to resuscitate the six party talk process.? But Washington and Beijing appear to have a sense of urgency in resuming the six-party talk processes," said Moon.

North Korea denies it had anything to do with the March 2010 sinking of the South Korean ship, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.? An international investigation said the ship was torpedoed.? Pyongyang also says it was provoked by the South’s military to bomb Yeonpyeong Island, an attack that killed four.

The United States and South Korea also want to bring North Korea’s uranium enrichment program to the United Nations Security Council.? Pyongyang had denied for years that such a program existed, but last year revealed it to a visiting American scientist.

Moon says China, which has so far blocked any discussion of the enrichment program at the U.N., has a better approach.

"The United Nations Security Council has already adopted two sanctions resolutions but they are not working.? The Chinese government has been arguing that it is much wiser to deal with the enriched uranium program in the six party talks process rather then going through another sanctions regime," said Moon.

Clinton’s trip to Seoul comes days after North Korea announced it will try a detained U.S. citizen on unknown charges. ?

Some observers say North Korea could use this as a bargaining chip to win concessions from Washington.

But Moon notes during previous incidents where Americans were arrested in the North, Pyongyang did not gain anything from releasing them.

Last August, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang to win the release of an imprisoned American human rights activist.? Mr. Carter is expected to return to North Korea later this month with a group of other former world leaders for talks on regional tensions.? It is not clear if he will also try to gain the release of the detained American.

16-04-2011 Khyber Weekly- the best News Paper of Afghanistan (Afghanistan)

Peace is the only way to live togather. USA and N-Korea can decide a good way to find solve this problem. we hope they can.

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