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We feel constrained to cover the sad spectacle of the three Americans currently detained in North Korea: sad because of the way Kenneth Bae, Jeffrey Fowle and Matthew Miller have been made pawns in a larger political game, and sad because of the naivete of the three about the nature of the North Korean regime. This is the second time in a month North Korea has dangled information on the detainees. Three messages come through from the scripted CNN interviews (in somewhat different form here and here and here): the Americans are being treated well (“we are reasonable”); things are about to get worse (Bae’s health is deteriorating; Fowle and Miller are headed to trial, Fowle is “getting desperate”); and we better send a high-level envoy quickly.
There is now somewhat more information on the charges against Bae, the one of the three who has been tried, convicted and is serving a 15-year sentence at hard labor. North Korea accused him of a Christian plot to overthrow the regime, but we still don’t know what was involved. Bae admits that he is guilty, but also that he did not anticipate the seriousness of the risk. The one oddly good piece of news concerns the conditions of his confinement. Because of his health, he has been moving back and forth between a hospital and the labor camp where he is doing agricultural work. But he is apparently the only inmate in the camp, which he estimates has a staff of 30. Such arrangements would not appear designed for the long haul.
Fowle provides a hint that his action of leaving the Bible was intentional (he apologizes for “trying” to leave a Bible), in contrast to his original statement; James Pearson at Reuters has been on this component of the story most aggressively. Miller also admits that he intended to violate North Korean law, but demurs on his motives or even what he did that landed him in so much trouble. However, he also admits that he doesn't know what the charges actually are, not surprising given the opacity of the North Korean criminal justice system.
The United States government, through State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, has continued to argue for the release of the detainees—and particularly Bae—on humanitarian grounds; it has steadfastly and rightly refused to link their release with the nuclear question. The Korea Herald has reported that a delegation of American officials were in North Korea earlier in the month, and rumor also has it that a senior American official has been on a much more extended trip to the country. Clearly, the detainees would be on any agenda as would a possible revival of the Six Party Talks, or a bilateral prelude to them. Last week, we commented on one proposal by Robert Einhorn in the National Interest about how talks might get started. But they appeared to hinge on a small trick of timing: to move the North Korean freeze obligations from a precondition into the talks themselves. However, we still have not seen any evidence that the North Koreans are interested in the endgame of actual denuclearization
These developments come as the US Korea team is being reconfigured, with Sydney Seiler, the point person on Korea at the NSC, taking over the position of chief U.S. nuclear negotiator, a job that has been vacant for a year for obvious reasons. Seiler has 30 years of experience on Korea, including a Yonsei degree. U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim will reportedly replace Glyn Davies as special representative for North Korea policy—a separate position—while Davies is likely to take on an ambassadorial position.
Previous Posts on the Detainees
- Detainees and Envoys (April 2013; on the possible North Korean motive of securing visits by high level envoys)
- Detained Americans: Not-So-Innocents Abroad (September 2013; brief outlines of all of the American detainees)
- Merrill Newman “Confesses” (November 2013)
- Miller Matthew Todd (April 2014; how Miller’s name was initially reported by KCNA)
- State Department Travel Advisory Update (June 2014)
- Slave to the Blog: Abductions and Detainees Edition (June 2014; Fowle detention)
- Detainee Update and Canadians in Dandong (early August 2014 stories on the three Americans and the sweep against Christians along the Chinese side of the border, including expatriate Americans and Canadians)
