NORTH KOREA has stepped up its threats to deploy nuclear weapons to defend itself as the families of two US journalists sentenced to 12 years’ hard labour called on Pyongyang to show compassion.
“We ask the government of North Korea to show compassion and grant Laura and Euna clemency and allow them to return home to their families,” the relatives of Laura Ling and Euna Lee of the US media outlet Current TV said in a statement.
There have also been rallies in US cities in support of the two reporters.
Kim Jong-il’s government in Pyongyang is clearly keen to use the two journalists as bargaining chips to gain the upper hand with Washington and an impassioned plea by the reporters’ relatives is unlikely to cut much ice with the regime.
The UN Security Council is working on a draft resolution to punish Pyongyang for a nuclear test in May which put the secretive regime closer to having a working atomic bomb.
Much of the military grandstanding is probably about paving the way for ahandover of power by Mr Kim, who is believed to have suffered a stroke last year, to his Swiss-educated son Jong-un.
The two women, both in their 30s, were arrested in March near the China-North Korea border working on a story for the company which was co-founded by former US vice-president Al Gore and the businessman Joel Hyatt.
N Korea’s top court convicted them of “grave crimes,” saying they illegally entered the country but details of their arrest, including where they were taken into custody, are still sketchy.
There is speculation that North Korean border guards may have crossed the Tumen river into China to arrest them, which would pose a significant sovereignty issue for China although Beijing has not commented on this.
Other reports say the two ignored repeated warnings after they wandered across the Tumen river, which is frozen and covered in ice at the time, into N Korea.
A Chinese-Korean guide and cameraman, Mitch Koss, managed to escape. Mr Koss left China shortly after the incident and hasn’t spoken publicly since.
“Reform through labour” is a grim prospect, and the horrors and deprivations of North Korea’s labour camps are described in grisly detail in defector Kang Chol-Hwan’s Aquariums of Pyongyang.
However, North Korea is reportedly preparing for tests of a long-range missile that could reach US territory and mid-range missiles capable of striking anywhere in South Korea and in most of Japan.North Korean media reported that its nuclear programme was aimed at keeping peace in the region, but that “it will be a means of merciless offensive of just retaliatory attack to those who damage our pride and sovereignty”.