The 'Dear Leader's' bags of cash

Washington Times:

Kim Kwang-jin clearly remembers watching North Korean insurance managers pack a lavish birthday present for their "Dear Leader" — $20 million in U.S. hard currency.

He throws up his hands in exasperation as he recalls the incident, which took place while he was in Singapore in February 2003. In the six years that he worked at Korea National Insurance Corp. (KNIC), Mr. Kim said, bags stuffed with cash were sent to Pyongyang from Singapore, Switzerland, France and Austria for Kim Jong-il's birthday celebrations. Feb. 16, the North Korean leader's birthday, is a national holiday in his country.

Once a privileged member of Kim Jong-il's overseas banking operations, a disillusioned Mr. Kim and his family defected to South Korea in September 2003. They currently live in the U.S.

As South Korea, the U.S. and the international community weigh options on how to punish North Korea for sinking a South Korean navy warship, Mr. Kim said the best way would be to cut off the supply of hard cash to Kim Jong-il's "private economy."

Mr. Kim discussed the North Korean regime's secret financial dealings in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Times last week.

He said KNIC employees were forbidden from discussing cash contributions to Kim Jong-il's coffers and records were regularly destroyed. KNIC is just one of the many secretive organizations that annually send cash to the North Korean leader.

"Sanctions to cut off the hard currency revenue for Kim Jong-il and the North Korean elite is very important to put more pressure on the North Korean regime and it might directly affect the regime itself and not the general populace," Mr. Kim said.

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The NY Times reports that South Korea is making like more difficult for the Norks.

Tensions escalated sharply Monday on the Korean Peninsula as the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, said that his nation would sever nearly all trade with North Korea, deny North Korean merchant ships use of South Korean sea lanes and ask the United Nations Security Council to punish the North for what he called the deliberate sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.

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The steps outlined by Mr. Lee in a nationally televised speech — coupled with new moves by South Korea’s military to resume “psychological warfare” propaganda broadcasts at the border after a six-year suspension — amounted to the most serious action the South could take short of an armed retaliation for the sinking of the ship, the South’s worst military loss since the Korean War ended in a truce in 1953.

“We have always tolerated North Korea’s brutality, time and again,” Mr. Lee said. “But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts. Trade and exchanges between South and North Korea will be suspended.”

North Korea’s military immediately warned that if South Korea put up propaganda loudspeakers and slogans at the border, it would destroy them with artillery shells, the North’s official K.C.N.A. news agency reported.

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Destroying loud speakers suggest the Norks fear the truth getting out about their regime, enough so, to start a shooting war. The US is also looking to the Chinese to see if more effective measures can be taken against the hermit kingdom. One thing the US could do is using the banking system to lock up more of the Dear Leader's cash.