But for BoZo Gore having sent these two little children to No Ko to spy they would not be in this position.


Way to go BoZo.

June 9, 2009
N. Korea Sentences 2 U.S. Journalists to 12 Years of Hard Labor
By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — With the Obama administration signaling a tougher response toward Pyongyang after weeks of growing tension, North Korea’s highest court on Monday sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor, dramatically raising the stakes in its confrontation with the United States.

“This is a high-stakes poker game,” said Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico who as a congressman helped negotiate the release of American citizens held in North Korea in the 1990s. He was speaking on NBC’s “Today” show and called the sentence “harsher than expected.”

North Korea’s Central Court convicted the two Americans, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, of “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry,” the North’s official news agency, KCNA, said in a report monitored in Seoul.

Ms. Ling, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, were detained by North Korean soldiers patrolling the border between China and North Korea on March 17.

President Obama was “deeply concerned” by reports of the journalists’ sentencing, the White House said in a statement Monday. The United States is “engaged through all possible channels to secure their release,” the statement said.

The ruling, which cannot be appealed, quashed hopes that the regime might release the journalists as a gesture to ease a standoff with Washington.

But Mr. Richardson, said there may be an opportunity to press for the release of the two journalists. “In previous instances where I was involved in negotiating, you could not get this started until the legal process had ended.” He noted that North Korea had not so far publicly linked the plight of the two women to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear and missile tests.

He said the United States could try to seek a kind of “political pardon, some sort of respite from political proceedings,” The Associated Press reported.

The North’s labor camps are notoriously brutal. International human rights groups and North Korean defectors say detainees are subjected to frequent beatings, hunger and inhumane workloads. Ms. Ling is said to suffer an ulcer, while Ms. Lee has a four-year-old daughter at home.

The sentencing of the journalists came two days after President Obama, meeting President Nicolas Sarkozy in France, signaled a tougher response to North Korea. He said North Korea’s behavior in recent weeks had been “extraordinarily provocative” and added: “”We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation.”

It was not clear, though, whether those words had influenced the sentencing, which was sterner than many expected.

“The North Koreans meted out a verdict somewhat harsher than I had expected,” said Lee Woo-young, a North Korea specialist at the University of North Korea Studies in Seoul. “But ultimately the verdict doesn’t mean much because this has to be resolved politically in the end.”

When they were detained, Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee were working for Current TV, a San Francisco-based media company co-founded by Al Gore, the former vice president. They were reporting on North Korean refugees who had fled their country. The North charged them with illegally entering North Korean territory.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had called the charges against them “baseless.”

On Sunday, Ms. Clinton indicated that Washington may restore North Korea to its list of state sponsors of terrorism, further isolating the country.

The families of the journalists made no immediate public statement about the court ruling, and Mr. Gore has not spoken publicly about the case. The families had appealed for clemency and said their public reticence was intended to give space for diplomacy.

Mr. Lee of the Sejong Institute said that North Korea would eventually free the two journalists, as Iran expelled Roxana Saberi, an American journalist who spent four months in an Iranian prison before her release on May 11 — but not before Washington sends a prominent special envoy like Mr. Gore to Pyongyang.

In 1996, Mr. Richardson, then a member of Congress, traveled to Pyongyang to negotiate the release of Evan Hunziker, who was held for three months on charges of spying. Mr. Hunziker, apparently drunk, swam across the river border between China and North Korea and was detained. He was also instrumental in negotiations to obtain the release of an American pilot shot down over the North.

Analysts said dispatching a special envoy to free the journalists could provide Washington and Pyongyang an opportunity to reopen dialogue.

But it remained unclear whether Pyongyang was ready for a compromise with the United States.

Some analysts say that its recent hostilities have been driven by domestic political purposes. Kim Jong-il, the nation’s leader, is ailing and reportedly preparing to hand power to his youngest son. Mr. Kim may thus be attempting to secure the support of hardline generals who consider a goodwill gesture toward Washington capitulation.

Defying not only its traditional foes — the United States, Japan and South Korea — but also its longtime ideological allies, China and Russia, North Korea launched a rocket on April 5 in what was widely believed to be a test of its long-range Taepodong-2 missile. On May 25, it conducted its second nuclear test in less than three years.