Charges vs. North Korea prove false

While the U.S. continues to accuse North Korea of not fulfilling its agreements from October’s round of six-party talks aimed at resolving the nuclear issue, the Bush administration has said nothing about recent reports showing allegations of North Korean involvement in counterfeiting dollars were false.

Two years ago, the Bush administration accused North Korea of creating “supernotes,” high-quality $100 bills.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, immediately ridiculed the charges, noting that its accusers had produced no proof.

Referring to the allegations as a “clumsy farce,” the DPRK’s official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) on August. 26, 2007, called the allegations “preposterous.”

Referring to then-current breakthroughs in the six-party talks, which also included Japan, Russia, China and South Korea, KCNA continued that the U.S. administration “raised this (counterfeiting) issue against the background of the embarrassing situation where it was compelled to roll back its hostile policy toward the DPRK.”

The best evidence the Bush administration was able to put forward was testimony by two North Korean defectors. However, a recent report by McClatchy, the second-largest newspaper chain in the U.S., has shown their testimony to be useless.

One of the defectors, Kim Dong Shik, who claimed to have seen the supernotes being made, has gone into hiding. An old roommate, Moon Kook-han and numerous others have come forward saying that Kim is an opportunistic liar. According to his account, Moon, who works for an anti-North Korean organization, asked Kim who was on the front of a $100 bill; Kim did not know.

Kim Duk Hong, the other defector, told McClatchy that he had no idea where the DPRK obtained information to make the supernotes, nor did he ever see any being made, though he claims to have been a high-level DPRK official.

All along, the international community looked at the Bush administration’s claims with a high degree of skepticism, and repeatedly asked for evidence. Many believe the notes were made in Russia or by Chinese gangs.

As untrue as the counterfeiting claims turned out to be, they carried grave consequences: They were the justification given by the U.S. to freeze $25 million in a Macao Bank, Banco Delta Asia, in 2007. While $25 million is a relatively small amount, the act brought trouble for the DPRK, as other banks were less likely to trade, fearing that they too would be shut down. A later investigation found that there was not a single dollar of counterfeit currency in any Korean account at BDA.

The BDA issue held off progress in the six-party talks for months, as North Korea would not shut down its nuclear facilities until its assets at BDA were unfrozen.

After North Korea had its assets back, an October round of talks led to several agreements: North Korea would begin to dismantle its nuclear programs and list all of its facilities by December 31, 2007. The U.S. agreed to take the North off its list of terrorist states, and, along with some of the other nations, would begin shipping fuel to make up for energy no longer provided by the nuclear facilities.

A DPRK foreign ministry official said that his state had provided the list of nuclear facilities in November. However, Washington accused the DPRK of having a secret uranium-enrichment program. If this were true, then the DPRK had not provided the full list, and “missed the deadline,” as the mainstream news media reports.

But the DPRK provided access for U.S. inspectors to areas of concern, “clarifying with sincerity” that there was indeed no uranium enrichment program.

The official also noted that, of all the agreements made, the only ones fulfilled so far were North Korea’s, including its agreement to begin dismantling its nuclear facilities under international scrutiny.

“One may say that the DPRK is going ahead of others in fulfilling its commitment,” the spokesperson said.