Monday, October 09, 2006
Jimmy 'Nobel' Carter and the Dear Leader
Lots has changed in this brave new millenium. Yet the Nobel Peace Prize remains the speech dream of Miss Worlds throughout the universe. Recipients like the great peacemaker Arafat, the great statesman Annan, and the great quotesman Carter may have redefined its image somewhat.
The occasion of today's hearty welcome of North Korea to the World Nuclear Club is most certainly a poignant moment to recall the contribution of the named former US President along that battler country's righteous road:
(CNN interview with Carter, June 22, 1994)
Interviewer: Are you absolutely convinced that the North Koreans are going to honour this agreement, that while talks are going on that it's not just a matter of buying time on the part of the North Koreans, that they will not secretly pursue the nuclear program they were pushing earlier?
Carter: I'm convinced. But I said this when I got back from North Korea, and people said that I was naive or gullible and so forth.
... I outlined the specific points that were the Clinton administration's position, ... And with very little equivocation, he agreed. I think it's all roses now.
(Quote from Cut and Paste)
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Cameron Stewart, The Australian:
Kim Jong-il "is very knowledgeable about what goes on in the international scene," said former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung.
But (KJi's) true passion ... is films.
In an interview in 2000 he said if he was not in politics, he would have "become a movie fanatic or a critic or a producer".
In 1978 Kim ... arranged for two South Korean movie-makers to be kidnapped from Hong Kong ... They ... eventually made movies for him and helped school him.
He ... was an avid James Bond fan until the 2002 Bond movie Die Another Day painted North Korea as the baddie, prompting him to denounce it as "racist (and) an insult to the Korean nation".
According to romantic North Korean legend, Kim was born in a small cottage near a sacred mountain.
But in fact he was almost certainly born in ... Khabarovsk while his father Kim Il-sung was being harboured by Stalin.
He has only left his North Korean homeland to travel to neighbouring China and - once - to communist East Berlin.
... His family's palaces ... were filled with every conceivable modern convenience and a small army of servants ...
In addition to yachts, Kim had extensive collections of Harley-Davidson bikes, imported limousines and a stable of thoroughbred horses.
... His country's diplomats send him delicacies ... such as blue shark's liver from Angola and ... wines from the world's foremost vineyards.
... He was reputed to be a hard drinker ... He has married at least three times - including to an actress and to a dancer - and has fathered four children ...
... KJi to visiting South Korean newspaper editors in 2000:"I have not sat in my office for my entire life in a depressed mood. I spend my time with people , singing and enjoying myself.
When I see government officials I get highly nervous. These people do not want to change themselves.
I usually spend my time with people in the countryside.
I go swimming and horseback riding once or twice a week. I ride horses at about 60 kilometres per hour. I have been riding horses since I was 11 years old, usually more than eight kilometres at a speed of 40, 60 kilometres per hour every day."
One defector, Hwang Jang Hop, claimed: "Every single mission of every single spy has to be approved by him ... The man is a terrorism genius."
Kim was personally linked with the bombing murder of several South Korean cabinet ministers in Rangoon in 1983.
In 1987, a North Korean agent, Kim Hyon Hui, who confessed to planting the bomb that blew up Korean Airlines Flight 858 killing all 115 people, said her orders came directly from Kim.
... (H)e has spent about one-third of his country's meagre resources on maintaining a massive military force of more than 1.1million men ...
At the same time ... the country's rural peasantry ... is starving because of repeated crop failure ...
Faced with an almost bankrupt state, Kim has turned to international crime ...
In 2003 the state-controlled North Korean container ship the Pong Su was caught off the Victorian coast trying to land its cargo of illicit heroin in Australia.
