The Amateur

Computerist

Spring 2026 Reporting about Korea, North and South Volume 41 No. 1

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

Participatory Nature of OhmyNews . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2

Ban Ki-moon Inaugurated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 4

Lunch with Ban Ki-Moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5

Ban Ki-Moon’s Role of UN Secretary General 1 . . Page 7

Ban Ki-Moon’s Role of UN Secretary General 2 . Page 10

U.S., North Korea Move to Open Ties . . . . . . . . Page 13

North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta Asia . Page 14

Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia . . . . Page 15

Netizens Are Critical to Citizen Journalism . . . . . Page 18

The Future of the Korean Peninsula . . . . . . . . . . Page 19

Citizen Journalism, Past and Future . . . . . . . . . . Page 21

The Problem Facing the UN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 27

Introduction

In the 1990s, Ronda Hauben and Michael

Hauben put together their book, Netizens: On the His-

tory and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. The book

was published in 1997. In 2003, Ronda Hauben (here-

after Hauben) saw a headline, “Netizens Elect a Presi-

dent”. That was Roh Moo Hyun, a political outsider

who was elected in Dec 2002 as the President of South

Korea with the overwhelming support of the netizens.

Hauben’s interest in netizens drove her to learn

more about what was happening in South Korea and

the netizens there. She learned that an online newspa-

per, OhmyNews (OMN), had championed the netizen

support for Roh Moo Hyun. By 2004, Hauben began to

send articles to OMN which were translated into

Korean. When OMN started OhmyNews International

(OMNI) in English, Hauben became a columnist. Her

articles were then published in their original English.

When in 2006, the South Korean politician and

diplomat Ban Ki Moon was chosen to be the next UN

Secretary General, Hauben asked OMN if she could be

its regular reporter at the UN, OMN agreed and as-

signed her as the UN reporter for its international

edition.

Hauben covered Ban Ki Moon’s first day

(1/2/2007) and reported on it in OMNI, “At Lunch

with Ban Ki Moon.” The next day, the UN Security

Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea met to

find ways to enforce the sanctions voted by the Secu-

rity Council after North Korea conducted its first

nuclear test in October 2006. From then on, Hauben

followed how the UN handled the two Koreas or other

Korea related issues which she documented in her art-

icles in OMNI. Her articles showed an unusual fairness

toward North Korea and respect for the netizens and

their movement for more democracy in South Korea.

In 2010, OMN ended its International (English)

edition. That ended Hauben’s coverage of the UN for

OMN. But she continued her coverage with the neti-

zens blog on the Tages Zeitung website. In a conversa-

tion, another reporter, Ann Charles, who covered the

UN for Lithuanian media and was a good friend of

Hauben, made an observation. She observed that

Hauben was a rare, almost unique reporter because she

covered both North Korea and South Korea fairly. This

reporter urged Hauben to put her articles about North

and South Korea together and have the collection pub-

lished. We have tried to begin such a collection in this

issue

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Page 1

[Editors Note: The following is a talk about OhmyNews given by

Ronda Hauben at the 57

Annual Conference of the International

Communication Association (ICA) in San Francisco on May 26,

2007.]

The Participatory Nature of

OhmyNews

by Ronda Hauben

Today I want to describe the creation and signifi-

cance of OhmyNews as a model for a new form of

journalism, for a journalism that is appropriate for the

Century, a journalism that has been made possible

by the Internet and the netizens.

I plan to present three different examples of Oh-

myNews related experiences and then draw together

their implications, toward understanding the participa-

tory experience provided by OhmyNews.

As a featured writer for OhmyNews International

I recently covered the 50

anniversary dinner in New

York City of the Korea Society. One of the speakers at

the dinner was Assistant Secretary of State Christopher

Hill. He explained the problem of $25 million in funds

of North Korean money being frozen as part of a U.S.

Treasury Department proceeding against a bank in

Macau, China, the Banco Delta Asia (BDA). This is a

problem holding up the implementation of the six-

party agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

Hill committed himself to work on this problem until

it was solved.

There were several Korean journalists covering

the event for their publications. They were particularly

interested in what Hill said, but Hill’s talk in itself

didn’t seem to represent a newsworthy event.

In the next few days, however, it appeared that an

important story was developing.

In the process of trying to unravel the unfolding

developments I found one news organization that did

a story about the legitimate activity the bank had

engaged in for North Korea. The news organization

was the McClatchy Newspapers. I also found links to

some documents refuting the Treasury Department’s

charges.

I now had the documents in the case. The U.S.

government’s findings gave no specific evidence of

wrong doing on the part of the bank. The bank’s state-

ments and refutation gave significant documentation

refuting charges of illegal activity on the part of the

bank. The refutation also made the case that there were

political motives for the allegations rather than actual

illegal activity on the part of the bank. The U.S. gov-

ernment had targeted a small Macau bank to scare the

many banks in China. “To kill the chicken to scare the

monkeys,” as the government document explained,

quoting an old Chinese proverb.

At last I had the news peg for the story. I wrote

an article, submitting it around 5 a.m. my time to

OhmyNews International (OMNI), using the software

OMNI provides for submitting articles. By noon the

next day, my story appeared on OMNI.

That was May

18.

Also on May 18, the Wall Street Journal carried

an Op Ed by the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.,

John Bolton. The article scolded the U.S. government

for agreeing to return the $25 million to North Korea.

I wanted to share this experience here today in

order to put the focus of the rest of my remarks about

the Korean OMN, the English OMNI and the theme of

citizen participation into an appropriate context.

OMN grew out of the experience of its founder,

Mr. Oh Yeonho, and the vision he had for transform-

ing the South Korean news landscape. For over 10

years, from 1988 until 1999, Oh was a journalist for an

alternative South Korean magazine, the Monthly Mal.

One experience Oh uses to help explain the impetus

for OhmyNews is when he did a significant story

which uncovered the facts about a massacre of South

Korean civilians by U.S. soldiers that had taken place

during the Korean War. Oh published his expose in

1994. The story had little impact. In 1999, however,

some Associated Press (AP) reporters did a similar

story. The AP story was picked up by much of the

South Korean mainstream news media and treated like

a breaking news event. The AP reporters won a Pulit-

zer Prize for the story.

Mr. Oh realized it is not enough to break a news

story. What is judged as news in South Korea (and

similarly in the U.S. I may add) is more dependent on

the nature of the news organization reporting the news

than on the newsworthiness of the story itself. Mr. Oh

set out to change this situation by starting OhmyNews.

His goal was to transform the news environment

in South Korea which at the time was 80 percent

conservative and 20 percent progressive into an envi-

ronment that was 50 percent conservative and 50

percent progressive. His objective was for the quality

of the news to determine its coverage, rather than the

finances of the organization publishing the story.

Mr. Oh describes how he recognized that the

Page 2

desire of netizens in South Korea for political change

in Korea was reflected in the campaign for the presi-

dency of a candidate who was not part of the political

mainstream. Oh was determined to give this story the

political coverage it merited. OhmyNews was the

means to achieve this goal. The conservative main-

stream press was hostile to Roh Moohyun. Never in

the past had someone won the presidency without the

support of the conservative mainstream press. Never-

theless Roh Moohyun won a surprising victory in

December 2002 due to the active election campaigning

for him by netizens and OhmyNews. Mr. Oh describes

how when the election was over, reporters from the

conservative mainstream press called him and other

OhmyNews reporters and congratulated them for

having made the victory possible.

In his book The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine

explains the problem of creating a government that

will be democratic. The essence of democracy, Paine

explains, is that the sovereignty of a nation lies in its

people, not in the government officials. Democracy

requires the participation of the people and also

observation and control over a government by its

citizens. The process of creating a constitution is to

create the compact of the people that will be the basis

for determining and overseeing the actions of govern-

ment officials. Paine describes this lesson as the gift of

the American revolution of 1776 and the French

revolution of 1789.

We are looking at the same problem over 200

years later. It has become clear that the existence of a

constitution is not adequate as a means for citizens to

exercise their control over government officials. A

peoples’ or citizens’ press is also needed as a means of

exercising some of the desired control of citizens over

their government.

A problem that has developed is that mainstream

media organizations as Mr. Oh found in South Korea,

often don’t fulfill this important function of the press.

Fortunately, there are many citizens today who feel the

need for control over the abuse of power by govern-

ment officials. These citizens are eager to participate

in carrying out the role of the press as a watchdog over

government officials.

In 2000 Mr. Oh was able to start the Korean

language OhmyNews with a small staff of four report-

ers. By welcoming citizen reporters to write for Ohmy-

News, he was able to augment the content of the

newspaper so it could be much broader than the

limited finances and meager resources would have

otherwise made possible. The staff has since grown as

have the number of citizen reporters participating in

OhmyNews.

There’s a lot more I would like to be able to say

about OhmyNews if I had more time. While Ohmy-

News (OMN) is published in Korean, an English

edition called OhmyNews International (OMNI) is

available so those who cannot read and write in Ko-

rean but who want to know more about OhmyNews

can participate and in this manner, learn more about

the concepts and practice of citizen journalism as

developed by OhmyNews.

Citizen journalism as pioneered by OMN is the

continuation of what Michael Hauben described as one

of the gifts of the Internet. He wrote that the Internet

“gives the power of the reporter to the netizen.”

Mr. Oh’s vision and practice in creating and

developing the Korean OMN is an attempt to give the

power of the news media to the citizen, making it

possible for news stories citizens uncover to get the

needed support and distribution so as to be able to

impact the policy agenda and decision making pro-

cesses of the government.

In this context, OMNI gives citizens and journal-

ists from countries around the world a taste of what it

could mean if they had an OMN in their countries. Its

intent is to be a catalyst for the creation and spread of

other OhmyNewslike sites in other countries besides

South Korea and then to support the collaboration

among these diverse OMN-like sites. (There is already

a version of OhmyNews in Japan.)

There is not yet an OMN in the U.S. So my story

about the connection of the U.S. government’s policy

toward China and the U.S. government actions against

the Macau bank is not yet likely to be able to impact

how the mainstream news in the U.S. frames the story

with North Korea and the sixparty talks. But the need

for a U.S. model of OMN becomes all the more urgent

when one participates in OMNI and thus has the

experience of exploring the potential of what it will

make possible.

To sum up, Mr. Oh, describing citizen journalism

at the OMNI forum in South Korea last July said:

Though we are an open platform accessible

to everyone, not everyone can write a news

story. Only those reporters who are pas-

sionately committed to social change and

reporting make our project possible. The

main reason that citizen journalism has not

grown and spread more rapidly is the diffi-

Page 3

cult task of finding and organizing these

passionate citizen reporters in waiting.

Notes:

1. The url for the Korean language OhmyNews is:

http://www.ohmynews.com

2. Ronda Hauben, “Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia

Is the policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?”,

OhmyNews International, May 18, 2007.

3. Michael and Ronda Hauben, Netizens: On the History and

Impact of Usenet and the Internet, IEEE Computer Society, 1997,

distributed by John Wiley and Sons,

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

4. Oh Yeonho, “Welcome to Korean and OhmyNews,” reprinted

in the Amateur Computerist, Vol. 15, No 1,

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn151.pdf, pp. 2-3.

[Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared in OhmyNews

International on December 15, 2006.]

Ban Ki-moon Inaugurated

by Ronda Hauben

In the ceremony inaugurating him as the new

Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon

from the Republic of Korea promised to uphold the

interests of the United Nations above any national

interests and “not to seek or accept instructions in

regard to the performance of my duties from any

government or other authority external to the Organiza-

tion.” The Secretary General designate will take office

on Jan. 1, 2007.

The inauguration ceremony to administer the

oath of office to Ban was held at a session of the UN

General Assembly on Thursday, Dec 14. Spokespeople

of the regional representatives presented short speech-

es to thank the outgoing Secretary General, Kofi

Annan, for his service to the United Nations and to

consider some of the highlights of the events of the

past 10 years during the course of Annan’s tenure as

Secretary General of the UN

In his remarks thanking Annan, Ambassador

Dumisani Kumalo of the Republic of South Africa,

speaking for the regional group of 77 and China,

expressed his sentiments that Annan will be missed.

Among the achievements of the outgoing Secretary

General, Kumalo noted,” You always spoke softly but

your voice was loudest when you fearlessly told the

truth to the powerful, reminding them never to forget

those who are called, ‘the least among us.’ Even when

circumstances forced you to stay quiet, your silence

was even louder.”

While only a few brief references to specific

events during Annan’s tenure in office were mentioned

during the speeches, the ceremony led me to recall two

important developments which were not included.

One was the World Summit on Information

Society (WSIS) held in Geneva in December 2003 and

in Tunis in November 2005.

The WSIS event was unusual for the United

Nations as it reflected the pressure of the people of the

world to benefit from the technical and communication

advance that the Internet makes possible. Heads of

state from a number of nations were present. and the

summit was asked for a commitment that people

around the world not merely be treated as victims or as

customers, but rather be empowered to speak for

themselves and have their voices enter the global

conversation.

The second event which stands out was the U.S.

invasion of Iraq. The U.S. and Great Britain had come

to the UN asking for a resolution supporting their

planned invasion. The UN did not support their attack

on the sovereign nation of Iraq, but neither did it

condemn the invasion. The power of the U.S. govern-

ment in the Security Council was a force that limited

the UN’s ability to condemn the aggression against

Iraq.

While none of the speeches about Kofi Annan’s

term in office spoke to these events, the General

Assembly ceremony presents the occasion to think

back over the past 10 years of developments at the UN

and to project ahead to what the future may bring.

In his speech in honor of Annan, Kumalo re-

minded his audience that the issue of Palestine was not

solved. “I also dare say that on 31 Dec. 2006 when you

leave office,” Kumalo said to Annan, “the light of

hope for the people of Palestine who live under occu-

pation will shine even less bright.”

Ban Ki-moon’s short speech after his inaugura-

tion was directed to what seemed administrative

matters with regard to the UN operation and toward

the general problem he referred to as dissension or lack

of trust within the UN.

When asked about this focus later at his short 30-

minute press conference, Ban said there were two

aspects to his goal to restore trust in the UN system.

One had to do with UN efficiency, the second had to

do with distrust among member states and between

Page 4

member states and the UN. Since he did not elaborate

further, one can only speculate about what he was

referring to.

Other questions asked at the press conference

were helpful in adding specifics to the pressing world

issues that Ban will have to broach when he takes

office officially in January 2007.

These include the issue of North Korea’s nuclear

weapons and the complaint of North Korea that there

are economic and security issues by other countries

that led them to act as they did with regard to develop-

ing nuclear weapons. Ban expressed his support for the

return of the parties to the six-party talks, to begin

Dec. 18. He noted that he will place a high priority on

following the developments. Also he added that he

would think about what he needs to do to facilitate the

negotiation process.

Other questions referred to the problems in the

Middle East, the Security Council discussion about

Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s recent admission that

it possesses nuclear weapons, the problem in Darfur,

and other pressing issues. In a number of his re-

sponses, Ban said he would endeavor to consult those

involved in the conflict and others in the troubled

region in his efforts to help make progress on solving

problems.

Another question raised was how he felt about

the desire of a number of member states to see the

permanent membership of the Security Council ex-

panded to include two African and two more Asian

members.

Ban’s response was that this was by far the most

important issue at the UN and that it is necessary to

have expansion and reform of the Security Council. He

promised that he would try to facilitate consultations

to help this to occur.

The press conference was dominated by ques-

tions from reporters for large mainstream media

oganizations. Ban has by now had two press confer-

ences at the UN but the range of questions he has been

asked has been limited by the short period of time

provided for the press conference after Ban makes a

statement.

Originally, Ban promised to be available to hear

from the many people involved in disputes and prob-

lems and to take into account their viewpoints. While

it is still early in his assumption of the office of the

Secretary General, this pledge suggests that he will

also provide time to hear from the press, and from a

broader set of the media than primarily from main-

stream commercial outlets. How often the Secretary

General-designate will be available to hear from

reporters and to respond to their concerns and ques-

tions will provide a measure of how seriously he takes

his promises in practice.

The inauguration of Ban Ki-moon as the 8

Secretary General of the United Nations provides a

challenge to the people of the world to put the needed

pressure on the UN so that his tenure in office will

merit similar or even greater words of praise than that

of the Secretary General in whose footsteps he follows.

[Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared on OhmyNews

International on January 2, 2007. The author was a reporter for

OMNI from Oct 2006 until OMNI ended its English edition in

2010.]

At Lunch with Ban Ki-Moon

by Ronda Hauben

Today, Tuesday, Jan. 2, (2007), was the first

working day at the United Nations for the new Secre-

tary General Ban Ki-moon, since Jan. 1, was an

official UN holiday.

At lunch time I was in the UN cafeteria and

noticed that Ban and his information officer Choi

Soung-ah were coming into the seating area of the

cafeteria with their trays.

As they were near where I was sitting, I invited

Ban and Choi to join me. Ban sort of smiled and

looked around for where to sit. He and Choi sat at the

next table. Several UN staff people sat at the other end

of the table he had chosen. As there was an empty seat

near him I joined them.

A few people nearby greeted Ban saying “Ann-

yong Haseyo.” One person remarked that there should

be kimchi in the cafeteria. Ban agreed.

I introduced myself to Ban telling him that I

write for OhmyNews International, which is a South

Korean newspaper, and I gave him my card. He said

that he knew OhmyNews. He remembered that he had

been interviewed by OhmyNews a few years before.

As part of the brief conversation I wondered if he was

excited about the new position. I got the impression

that he realized that it was a difficult challenge.

I gave him a card I have for the book I am co-

author of, Netizens: On the History and Impact of

Usenet and the Internet. I mentioned that I have been

Page 5

impressed by how many South Korean netizens have

been active trying to use the Internet to understand

problems and to solve them.

I mentioned that there are many people who want

a better world and that if there were a way to tap the

potential of this resource, it would help to deal better

with the kinds of problems the UN faces in the world.

I explained how the Internet and netizens are a begin-

ning of a way to do this.

I left, but later when I was in one of the press

areas at the UN. I saw a video of Ban going around to

different offices in the New York headquarters build-

ing, and speaking with the people who work in these

different offices. They in turn would explain what

happened in their areas. He went into an area where

there were some shops with various tools to do repairs.

In another area that he visited, there was a printing

facility. They were printing a 2007 calendar with the

photos of all the UN Secretary Generals including the

photo of Ban Ki-moon.

It was good to see that Ban was acquainting

himself with the people and activities at the UN.

Earlier in the day, he had arrived at the UN at

9:30 a.m. Shortly afterwards he held a brief press

conference. He made a short statement, and then took

a few questions. Several of the questions reporters

asked focused on Ban’s view of the recent execution of

Saddam Hussein. The new Secretary General said that

each nation decides if they will have capital punish-

ment. Several reporters pointed out that the position of

the UN had been opposed to capital punishment.

At noon there was a press briefing with Michele

Montas, who is Ban’s newly appointed spokeswoman.

She had been a well known Haitian journalist, who

with her husband Jean Dominique, ran the pioneering

Creole radio station Radio Haiti. Jean was assassinated

in April 2000 and Montas fled to New York in Febru-

ary 2003 after she received several death threats. She

has worked at the UN for several years since then.

At the press briefing with Montas, several

reporters again brought up Ban’s earlier statements

regarding the execution of Saddam Hussein. One

person pointed to a statement from the UN that

Saddam’s trial was not credible. Other reporters

referred to a statement from the UN’s representative in

Iraq raising questions about the appropriateness of

executing Saddam. Another journalist pointed out that

given the situation in Iraq, some people were saying

that executing Saddam was a war crime. Montas

promised to look into these issues and in a few days

clarify the Secretary General’s position.

Other questions raised included the position of

the new Secretary General on the continued military

activity by Ethiopia in Somalia, whether the Secretary

General would encourage discussion by the Security

Council members with those it was bringing sanctions

against before the sanctions were imposed, what the

Secretary General’s plans were with regard to North

Korea, and how he would proceed with regard to the

situation in Darfur. Several questions concerned the

new staff appointments the Secretary General was

planning. (A video of the press briefing is online here

[no longer available].)

Ban Ki-moon’s first working day at the UN was

an example of the challenge he faces. There are many

places in the world where there is a need to have an

intervention by the moral authority vested in the UN

Secretary General in order to help challenge the forces

of injustice. Also, there will be pressure on the new

Secretary General by those in power to allow them to

exercise their power without any restraint. Will the

new Secretary General be able to speak out in favor of

justice? How can those who want to see a better world

provide a counterweight to the pressure that will be

exerted by those who want to exercise unbridled

power?

There are institutions and procedures that have

developed in the course of the UN’s operations that

make it possible for the powerful to act without any

consideration for the views and needs of those with

less or no power. Such institutions or practices can

discredit the UN as an institution if they are allowed to

dominate the activity of the organization. There is

clearly a struggle within the UN over whether the

power of governments like that of the U.S. will be

allowed to dominate the organization. The new Secre-

tary General has said that he wants the U.S. to be

active in UN activity. Can there be constructive

activity on he part of the U.S. that takes into account

the needs of the people of the U.S. and of people

around the world, rather than activity geared to the

interests of the multinational corporations and other

powerful sectors of U.S. society?

Ban Ki-moon faces a significant challenge in the

problems referred to during his first working day at the

UN. The role to be played by the press is very impor-

tant in the challenge he is facing. Will the press be a

public relations echo chamber for what is being done

at the UN? Will the reporters from news organizations

representing powerful interests be given access to exert

Page 6

pressure in the interest of those they represent? Or will

the new Secretary General find a way to activate the

people and the press from all corners of the globe to be

part of the discussion and consideration of the prob-

lems that are pressing at the UN? Can there be broad

ranging public dialog to help to clarify where the

public interest lies and how it can prevail?

This is the difficult challenge facing the new

Secretary General of the UN. This is a problem that a

broad ranging use of the Internet and a welcoming of

participation by netizens can help to solve.

[Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared in OhmyNews

International on June 30, 2007 which marked the first six months

that Ban Ki-moon held the position as Secretary General of the

United Nations. The following is the first of a two-part article that

was an effort to look at the role of this Secretary General and

some of the challenges he faces.]

Ban Ki-Moon’s Role of UN

Secretary General [Part 1]

by Ronda Hauben

Introduction

Ban Ki-moon’s nomination by the Security

Council to be the 8

Secretary General of the United

Nations was sent to the General Assembly on Oct. 13,

2006. Ban succeeded in winning the nomination after

a difficult and contested campaign.

But his trial by

fire was only just beginning. Ban had succeeded in

winning the votes of China and of the U.S. His

achievement winning the votes of these two nations,

who are permanent members of the Security Council,

was seen by a number of commentators as the critical

step needed to win the nomination for Secretary

General.

Would this very achievement, especially the

achievement of winning the vote of the U.S. govern-

ment in the Security Council, become a handicap that

would negatively affect Ban’s ability to succeed in the

position as the 8

Secretary General of the United

Nations?

Goals Expressed in Hankyoreh Interview

An interview with Ban Ki-moon on Oct. 30,

2006, shortly after Ban won appointment by the Gen-

eral Assembly as the new Secretary General, and in the

interval before he would assume the office in January

2007, offers a rare glimpse of how the soon-to-be-

appointed Secretary General viewed his hopes and

goals for his new position.

The interview was conducted in the offices of the

Korean newspaper Hankyoreh, by Moon Chung-in, a

Professor at Yonsei University and an Envoy for

International Stability.

The interview was done in

Korean, and translated and published in the English

edition of Hankyoreh. The goals Ban outlined in this

interview provide a yardstick to measure how success-

fully he is in fulfilling the obligations of his new

position.

In the interview, Ban describes a recent visit to

the White House shortly after he won the appointment

as Secretary General. President Bush greeted him as

“Mr Landslide” congratulating him on his victory. The

plan had been for Ban to see Steve Hadley, the U.S.

National Security Advisor and if time permitted, to

briefly meet Bush. Instead he spoke with Bush for

more than 20 minutes.

Ban recounts how he and Bush spoke about UN

reform and the North Korean nuclear program.

“Bush,” Ban says, “requested that I drive forth with

UN reforms, assuring me that the U.S. would actively

lend its support.” In the interview, Bush promised to

work with the South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun

to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear prob-

lem.

Ban also visited China. He describes his meeting

with the Chinese President Hu Jintao on this visit. Hu

told Ban that “the role of a newly appointed Secretary

General is very important and that China would be of

active assistance.” Ban revealed that during his cam-

paign for the nomination, China “could not make

public its support,” but that it had “actively helped out

behind the scenes.” Though it is not yet apparent how

China’s support for Ban’s nomination affects Ban’s

actions as Secretary General, U.S. support for Ban’s

nomination appears to have a significant effect on his

activity as Secretary General.

During the Hankyoreh interview Ban expressed

a belief he has reiterated many times since, that the

U.S. is “the UN’s most important member.” Ban

proposed that the UN needed the “proactive participa-

tion” of the U.S. in order to function properly, just as

he believed the U.S. needed the UN for its interests.

Also during the interview, Ban expressed his

commitment as Secretary General to work to help

resolve the problems with North Korea. “I will appoint

a politician or diplomat,” he asserted, “with the confi-

Page 7

dence of the international community, someone who

has the trust of both North and South Korea to actively

push the issue forward. This envoy,” he explained,

“must be one to impel the six-party talks to action

when they stagnate, and must be prepared to play a

direct role when necessary. I am ever ready to inter-

vene directly when intervention is called for.” Ban also

proposed that the UN had to find a means to help with

transforming the cease-fire that was signed by the U.S.

and North Korea at the end of the Korean War into a

more permanent peace agreement.

Ban promised to present a blueprint for what he

hoped to accomplish in his first 100 days, in his first

year, and in his five year term. His priority, he ex-

plained, would be in the appointments he would make

for UN personnel and that these would “raise morale

and cultivate professionalism.”

Ban’s goal at the end of his five year term or ten

years if he were to win reappointment for a second

term, would be “to create a UN reborn as an organiza-

tion that enjoys much greater international confidence.

I will make the UN into a body fit for the challenges

and theme of the 21st century,” he promised. To obtain

this objective, he proposed to support “development”,

especially, “development in Africa and the Millennium

Development Plan.” His aim would be to “make

certain that the UN has a role at the center of multilat-

eral diplomacy.”

In the interview, Ban also describes how Roh

Moo-hyun and the South Korean press helped his

candidacy to succeed by “campaigning for me at every

opportunity while meeting with foreign heads of state.”

The South Korean media “also helped a great deal,”

Ban notes. Ban was aware, too, that it was a particular

source of pride for Korea that the 8th Secretary Gen-

eral would be from Korea.

Comments on Ban’s 100-day

Anniversary

By Ban’s 100 day anniversary, April 10, media

commentary on his accomplishments documented the

frustration he had experienced. Comments from

several diplomats were testimony to the mistakes made

as he and his advisors rushed to put their reform

agenda into effect.

The Chinese Ambassador to the UN, Wong

Guangya commented on how Ban tried to impose

changes in the structure of the UN Secretariat, only to

meet opposition from a number of countries, observes,

“His intentions are good. He is trying to make the

Secretariat work more effectively. But personally I feel

he’s a new comer and he does not understand the

culture and the environment in this house. You have to

identify who are the stakeholders and how to test the

temperature before jumping in. He hasn’t done that

and he has felt the heat.”

Similarly, South African Ambassador Dumisani

Kumalo is quoted as being frustrated by Ban’s “‘de-

cide first, consult afterward’ behavior.”

Even the American Ambassador, Alejandro D.

Wolff, who originally replaced John Bolton, said that

there were those “convinced that Ban was ‘essentially

responding to American demands.’”

This impression,

Wolff explained, helped to generate distrust in the

reforms Ban is trying to implement.

Role of Secretary General

The role of Secretary General has a number of

constraints. It also is a role that carries certain obliga-

tions. During his inauguration, Ban took an oath that

he would uphold the interests of the United Nations

above any national interests and “not to seek or accept

instructions in regard to the performance of my duties

from any government or other authority external to the

Organization.”

In a “Report to the Preparatory Commission of

the UN 23 Dec 1945”, a set of duties and responsibili-

ties are elaborated as a means of stating what is ex-

plicit and implicit in the Secretary General’s role as

provided for by the UN charter.

While the Report specifies administrative and

executive functions for the Secretary General, it also

states that “He is the channel of all communication

with the United Nations in any of its organs. He must

endeavor, within the scope of his functions, to inte-

grate the activity of the whole complex of United

Nations organs and see that the machine runs smoothly

and effectively.”

Along with the obligation for internal smooth

functioning of the UN, the report proposes an external

function. It says, “the Secretary General, more than

anyone else, will stand for the United Nations as a

whole. In the eyes of the world, no less than the eyes

of his own staff, he must embody the principles and

ideals of the charter to which the organization seeks to

give effect.”

Page 8

Elements for Creating a Vision

Shashi Tharoor, one of the other candidates for

the nomination by the Security Council for the position

of Secretary General maintained that emanating from

the job description for the Secretary General that each

Secretary General wrote for himself, “must shine the

vision of the incumbent of the office,” a vision which

transcends the more practical aspects of the job.

Describing the nature of the job, Tharoor pro-

posed that what was needed was a person with the

ability and talent to respond to a wide range of issues

“and to know where to go for expert judgment when he

or she feels unqualified or uninformed on specific

issues. Somebody who recognizes he does not have all

the answers but trusts himself to ask the right ques-

tions.”

Tharoor, who had worked at the UN for almost

28 years, said that for him the UN was more than a job.

“It has always been a cause ... . For me the UN is far

more than an institution... . It represents the vision and

foresight of the leaders of the world who wanted to

make the second half of the twentieth century better

than the first.”

He described how the UN was formed

in response to a world that had experienced two world

wars, a number of civil wars, several instances of mass

population displacements, genocide, the holocaust, and

Hiroshima. “The UN was part of an attempt to genu-

inely make a better world and I believe for all its

limitations and failures, it did succeed in doing so,” he

noted.

When Ban outlined the beginning elements for

the new role he was to assume in the Hankyoreh

interview, he planned for the UN to play a constructive

role in helping to facilitate the six-party talks between

North Korea, South Korea, China, the U.S., Japan, and

Russia. He had expressed his determination to appoint

an envoy to help overcome obstacles that might

impede the six-party process. This provided an exam-

ple of a goal he was bringing to his new role at the UN.

How he would be able to carry out this goal would be

a concrete sign of whether he could be guided by a

vision for his role as Secretary General.

[To be continued in the next article]

Notes:

1. See for example: Ayca Arlyoruk, “Korean Minister Likely

Candidate to Replace Kofi Annan, but Will the General Assembly

Approve?”, UNA-USA.

Ban was chosen as Secretary General in a process that is

basically secret with voting by the members of the Security

Council that is not public. The five Permanent members hold the

ability to veto a candidate at a certain stage in the process.

Questions have been raised about what criteria are used and what

is traded with whom is left as an open question.

Also there were allegations that the South Korean govern-

ment used grants and various financial rewards to gain support for

its candidate from several of the nonpermanent nations that were

on the Security Council at the time of the voting for the next

Secretary General. See for example:

Richard Beeston, Richard Lloyd Parry, and James Bone,

“Millions of dollars and a piano may put Korean in UN’s top job,”

Times Online, September 29, 2006.

Tran Van Loi, “ROK Buying UN Post: Times Millions of

dollars have been spent in lobbying for Ban ki-moon, says British

newspaper”, OhmyNews International. October 1, 2006.

2. See, for example, Restoring the Vitality of the United Nations.

Luncheon Speech by H.E. Ban Ki-moon at the Council on Foreign

Relations. May 31, 2006 New York, video at:

https://youtu.be/9J5gy91HE0I?t=285

3. [Interview] Next UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. in

conversation with Moon Chung-in, translated by Daniel Rakove,

The Hankyoreh. November 3, 2006.

4. Maggie Farley, “New Secretary General Is Still Finding His

Footing at the UN”, LA Times, April 9, 2007.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ronda Hauben, “Ban Ki-moon Inaugurated, Pledges to uphold

the interests of the United Nations above all else”, OhmyNews

International, December 15, 2006.

8. “Report to the Preparatory Commission of the UN 23 Dec

1945”, in Secretary or General: The UN Secretary-General in

World Politics?, edited by Simon Chesterman, Cambridge

University Press, Cambridge, 2007, p. 243-244.

9. Ibid. p. 245.

10. Shashi Tharoor, in Secretary or General: The UN Secretary-

General in World Politics?, edited by Simon Chesterman, Cam-

bridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, p. 46.

11. Lydia Swart, “Shashi Tharoor Sees his 28 Years at the United

Nations as an Asset”, Center for UN Reform Education, interview

done 12 July 2006.

12. Ibid,

13. Ibid.

Page 9

[Editor’s Note: June 30, 2007 marked the first six months that Ban

Ki-moon held the position as Secretary-General of the United

Nations. The following is part 2 of an article looking at the role of

Secretary General and some of the challenges he faces. Part 2

appeared on OhmyNews International on July 4, 2007. Part 1 of

this article also appears in this issue.]

Ban Ki-Moon’s Role of UN

Secretary General [Part 2]

by Ronda Hauben

How has the role of the press affected the actions

of the new Secretary General? There is an important

example that has developed which helps to demon-

strate the impact that the press has had on Ban Ki-

moon.

In the interview with Hankyoreh before he took

office,

Ban described how he would act to support a

solution to the problem of relations between North

Korea and the Northeast Asia region, and the disarma-

ment of the Korean peninsula.

On January 19, 2007, just a few weeks after Ban

became Secretary General, there were news reports of

a breakthrough in negotiations between the Christo-

pher Hill for the U.S. and Kim Kye-gwan for North

Korea.

The International Herald Tribune reported:

“The movement toward a possible breakthrough

came during the talks in Berlin between Hill and Kim,

Chosun Ilbo reported, citing unidentified officials in

Seoul and Beijing.”

Timed, it appeared, to coincide with the break-

through, however, was the publication in the Wall

Street Journal (WSJ) of an article “United Nations

Dictator’s Program” by Melanie Kirkpatrick. A similar

article was published by Fox News. These articles

alleged that North Korea was manipulating funds from

the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in

North Korea. These press accounts reported that

UNDP funds were being used by Kim Jong-il, for

whatever he wanted, including “his weapons pro-

gram.”

No proof was provided for this accusation.

The articles included other unsupported allegations.

While most of the press reports in the U.S. just

repeated or exaggerated the original allegations, a few

Korean publications provided a different perspective.

The Korean newspaper Voice of the People pointed out

that the allegations of UNDP mismanagement ap-

peared just as the North Korean and U.S. representa-

tives had had productive negotiations in Berlin.

The

Voice of the People asked why the U.S. Mission to the

UN was raising these issues “at this time.”

“Despite the totally unfounded allegation by the

hawks,” the editors write, “it has a political effect for

freezing (the) bilateral relationship between Wash-

ington and Pyongyang.”

Ban Ki-moon’s response to the WSJ and Fox

news articles was to call immediately for an audit of

all UN programs. The audit was to start with an audit

of all programs in North Korea. A few days later the

call for an audit of all UN programs was dropped. The

audit was to be of North Korea’s UNDP program.

Some Background

A difficult period for Ban’s predecessor, Secre-

tary General Kofi Annan was caused by the “Oil for

Food Scandal.” Annan had refused to support a U.S.

backed Security Council resolution authorizing an

invasion of Iraq. Annan held that such an invasion

would be a violation of the UN’s charter. Reports say

that in response, right wing neoconservatives in the

U.S. government brought forward accusations that

there had been corruption in the UN’s administration

of the “Oil for Food” program.

This program had been

created by the Security Council supposedly to alleviate

some of the harmful effects on civilians of the Security

Council sanctions against Iraq.

While the “Oil for Food Scandal” investigation

recommended systemic reforms, there was little evi-

dence of corrupt activity by members of the UN

Secretariat. The investigation created, however, a dif-

ficult environment for Annan and other UN officials.

When the WSJ articles appeared in January 2007

alleging corruption in the UNDP program, they

brought up memories of the difficult situation created

for the UN during the “Oil for Food Scandal.”

South Korean Press Responses to Allega-

tions

Several articles appeared in the South Korean

press which analyzed rather than just repeating the

allegations of mismanagement in the UNDP program

in North Korea. One article in JoongAng Ilbo on Jan-

uary 22, for example, described what happened after

the news reports appeared on January 19. Ban met with

the Associate Administrator of the UNDP, Ad Melkert,

and “vowed a thorough investigation.”

The JoongAng

Ilbo article, in addition, however, noted that this

accusation came at a “sensitive time in negotiations”

between the U.S. and North Korea.

Page 10

The article also noted that this action by the

UNDP “might be considered another financial sanction

by Washington against North Korea just as the six-

party anti-nuclear talks were expected to resume.” The

reporters reminded readers that the “financial sanctions

brought by the U.S. treasury office on Banco Delta

Asia which led to freezing $24 million of North

Korean funds” had become a “major sticking point”

causing a deadlock in the six-party talks.

Similarly, the article in Voice of the People on

January 30, 2007, asked, “Now we have to see who’s

intriguing against whom because somebody is suffer-

ing from pain for it. We should not listen to the shame-

less and unscrupulous who are trying to curtail human-

itarian aid for those who are in need of food.”

An article in OhmyNews International (OMNI)

and a report by the Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea

(Peacekorea) explain that UNDP administrators had

denied that there were violations of UNDP policy in

the North Korean program.

Both articles referred to

the fact that the Resident Coordinator of the UNDP

Program in North Korea had the authority to decide the

financial practices to follow. Another report by Peace-

korea noted many people think that Ban is “kind of pro

American.”

Peacekorea advocated support for restarting the

six-party talks and not letting the U.S. accusations

against North Korea divert from support for the uni-

fication of the Korean peninsula. Such a policy is

presented as a long term vision. Also the report ex-

plains that development aid to North Korea is prefera-

ble to humanitarian aid, as development aid sets a

basis for self sufficiency, while humanitarian aid is

expended after it is given.

The six-party talks did resume and came to an

agreement on February 13, 2007. Peacekorea offered

a critique of the conservative South Korean newspa-

pers which “made comments devaluing the agree-

ment.”

The report explained, “Korea’s major newspa-

pers spread a hostile perspective of North Korea on the

Korean peninsula. This is not helpful toward gaining

denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” The report

proposes that “Under Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship, North

Korea, a weak nation, has developed nuclear weapons

as a deterrent against the threat of an American attack,

as exemplified by the Iraq war, and as a diplomatic

tool for bilateral contact with the U.S.”

Alternative Approach to Ban’s Policy on

Korea

Such accounts in the South Korean press dem-

onstrate an alternative approach to the policy that the

Secretary General is implementing regarding the North

Korean situation. For now Ban is not carrying out the

policy he had proposed in the Hankyoreh interview

with regard to the Korean peninsula. To the contrary,

in response to pressure from the U.S. press and the

U.S. government, he has adopted a policy which has

allowed the politicization of the UNDP program that

was in North Korea. This has resulted in an audit of

previous UNDP programs in North Korea and the

ending of the current UNDP program in North Korea.

Similarly, for more than four months, from

February through the end of June, the six-party talks

hit a deadlock over the decision by the U.S. govern-

ment to find a small bank in Macau in violation of

provisions in the U.S. Patriot Act. The bank com-

plained that it never saw the evidence against it nor did

it have a chance to refute the evidence.

Yet by using

Section 311 of the Patriot Act against this bank, the

U.S. Treasury Department was able to freeze $25

million of North Korean funds and impede North

Korea’s access to the international banking system.

Much of the U.S. press has been promoting a

hostile policy toward North Korea.

Some of the

South Korean press echo what appears in the U.S.

press, or reprint articles from the conservative interests

who are trying to impede further negotiations. Other

South Korean publications, however, provide a critique

of the hostile attitude of the U.S. press toward North

Korea. For example, an article by Tim Savage in

OMNI documents the internal struggle within the U.S.

government between the interests which are hostile to

negotiations with North Korea in contrast to the efforts

at negotiations by Christopher Hill.

Though he has occupied the office of Secretary

General for over six months, Ban has yet to implement

the program he proposed before taking office, the

program of active UN support for a negotiated agree-

ment in the six party talks. Ban’s original plan was to

appoint a diplomat or politician who would be avail-

able to intervene when needed to keep the negotiation

process on track. Instead the UN’s Secretariat has

become embroiled in the controversy generated by

unsubstantiated charges from the U.S. mission to the

UN about the UNDP funding of North Korea’s UNDP

program.

Page 11

‘We Can’t Prove a Negative’

The U.S. press continues to echo the U.S. govern-

ment’s unsubstantiated charges against North Korea

and the UNDP, in a way reminiscent of how the same

press supported the unsubstantiated and inaccurate

U.S. government claims that Iraq possessed “Weapons

of Mass Destruction”. The unsubstantiated allegations

being spread by the U.S. press about the UNDP, have

the effect of politicizing the UNDP program rather

than providing the public with the accurate information

that is needed to understand the problems and chal-

lenges faced by such a program.

David Morrison, the press spokesman for the

UNDP, explained that “the point I’m trying to make is

we can’t prove a negative,”

at a press conference held

to answer the June 2007 set of unsubstantiated allega-

tions made by the U.S. mission against the UNDP

program in North Korea. This set of allegations ap-

peared in the U.S. press just before the beginning of

the June UNDP Executive Board meeting in a way

reminiscent of how the previous set of allegations first

appeared in the U.S. press just before the January

UNDP Executive Board meeting.

Just as the impossibility of proving a negative

created a media environment in which the U.S. govern-

ment could falsely claim they had a justification for a

war against Iraq, so a hostile environment is being

created to impede the six-party talks by the unsubstan-

tiated allegations against North Korea and the UNDP.

Ban’s original plan for the region provided a

means to counter those interests which might impede

a negotiated solution to the North Korean conflict.

Much of the U.S. press has maintained a hostile

attitude toward North Korea, even though there are

signs that within the U.S. government there are forces

interested in pursuing a negotiated settlement. The

South Korean media landscape, however, presents a

broader spectrum of opinion on what should be done

with regard to North Korea, a spectrum of views which

includes support for the policy that Ban originally

proposed to implement for the region when he became

Secretary General.

Conclusion

There are many people in Korea and elsewhere,

who are watching Ban Ki-moon and are hopeful that

he will do a good job as Secretary General. As the

experience of former Secretary Generals demonstrates,

however, there is a need for a vision to guide him if he

is to be able to fulfill on these expectations.

Notes:

1. [Interview] Next UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. in

conversation with Moon Chung-in, translated by Daniel Rakove,

The Hankyoreh. November 3, 2006.

2. “US-DPRK talks end, no comments on resuming 6-party talks”,

CCTV.com Jan 19, 2007,

3. “U.S. envoy confident in North Korea nuclear talks”, Interna-

tional Herald Tribune, January 22, 2007.

4. Melanie Kirkpatrick, “United Nations Dictator’s Program”,

WSJ, January 19, 2007.

5. “The U.S. Stands in the Way of Pyongyang”, Voice of the Peo-

ple, January 30, 2007.

6. Ibid.

7. Ronda Hauben, “Hardliners Attack UNDP Aid to North

Korea:Allegations of corruption seen as attempt to undermine

engagement”, OMNI, February 7, 2007.

8. Thalif Deen, “Will the New UN Chief Stand Up to Big Pow-

ers”, Inter Press News Agency, December 12, 2006.

9. Nam Jeong-ho and Lee Sang-eon, “Report Says Kim Jong-il

Cashed in on UN Office”, JoongAng Ilbo, January 22, 2007.

10. Ibid, Voice of the People.

11. Ronda Hauben, “Hardliners Attack UNDP Aid to North Korea

Allegations of corruption seen as attempt to undermine engage-

ment”, OMNI, February7, 2007. See also: Soohyun Lee, “UNDP’s

Aid Toward North Korea”, peacekorea, January 23, 2007.

12. Soohyun Lee, UNDP’s aid toward North Korea, peacekorea,

February 13, 2007.

13. Ibid.

14. Ji-Hyun Lee, “The Ghost of Anti-communism Reflected in

South Korean Media”, peacekorea , May 7, 2007.

15. Ibid.

16. Ronda Hauben, “North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta

Asia: Another abuse under the U.S. Patriot Act (2001)”, OMNI,

March 21, 2007.

17. The McClatchy Newspapers have been an exception. See for

example articles like “Bank owner disputes money-laundering

allegations” Kevin G. Hall about the BDA affair.

18. Tim Savage, “Six-Party Talks Resume: Expectations high for

progress in Beijing,” OMNI, February 8, 2007.

19. David Morrison, Press Conference, June 11, 2007, See

Minutes: 38:46.

20. Ronda Hauben, “Weapons of Mass Destruction Syndrome and

the Press [Analysis] How does one prove a negative?”, OMNI,

June 24, 2007.

Page 12

[Editor’s note: The following article first appeared in OhmyNews

International on March 7, 2007]

U.S., North Korea Move to

Open Ties

by Ronda Hauben

“This process, not unlike a video game, gets

more and more difficult as you get to different levels,”

said Christopher Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of

State, speaking at a press conference held at the

Foreign Press Center in New York City shortly after he

had finished two days of meetings with North Korea’s

lead negotiator for the Six-Party Talks, Kim Kye-

gwan. Hill is the chief negotiator for the U.S. The Six-

Party Talks include the U.S., North Korea, South

Korea, China, Russia and Japan

Hill characterized the activities of the past two

days as “good discussions” which were “very compre-

hensive.” Both sides were optimistic that they would

get through the first 60-day period’s tasks that were

outlined in the Feb. 13 agreement signed in Beijing.

A reason for the optimism, Hill explained, was

that his talks with Kim not only discussed the issues

that had to be resolved at this 30-day stage, but they

also explored what they would need to do to go for-

ward after the 60-day period, which will end in mid-

April.

Hill explained that five working groups have

been set up. His working group with Kim on normaliz-

ing U.S.-North Korean relations finished their tasks

within the 30-day time schedule that they had set for

the five groups to begin their process. Another group,

the bilateral group between North Korea and Japan

will meet in Hanoi and the three other groups will be

meeting in Beijing.

Hill was interested in the efforts to get an agree-

ment between the U.S. and North Korea in the 1990s

and had learned some of the background from his

discussions with Kim.

A focus of their talks, Hill explained, was on the

upcoming meetings that would take place with the six

parties in Beijing and how to make those productive.

“The ministers from each of the six parties to the talks

will be meeting in Beijing then and assessing where

we will go the next 60 days,” Hill said.

Hill was asked how this negotiation was different

from previous ones with North Korea. He described

how the tight deadlines were one aspect. Another was

that the agreement involved the six parties and the

bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea and

the other parties were within this framework.

Also Hill credited the close work between the

U.S. and China for some of the progress. Not only did

the U.S. and China have the common goal of

denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, he explained, but

also the two countries shared a similar strategy and

even tactics. Negotiators from both countries worked

closely together, even on the text for the agreement.

When he was asked, “What support will you

have that will keep this on track?” Hill replied that he

had tremendous support from Secretary of State

Condoleeza Rice. She kept on top of all the details and

he would be briefing her shortly on the recent discus-

sions. “I feel I’ve got a lot of support,” he said, “and as

long as I can show some results I’ll get more support.

Diplomatic negotiation is sort of like managing a

baseball game. As long as you win, everyone’s

happy.”

Hill emphasized that there would be the need to

keep the process moving and showing some progress.

When asked if he had been invited to visit North

Korea, Hill said that his counterpart had raised the idea

in a general sense but nothing specific had been

discussed as they focused on Beijing and the upcoming

round of Six-Party Talks.

With regard to how to manage the denuc-

learization of the Korean peninsula, Hill said they

discussed how to get experts in on the matter. There

would need to be some technical discussions. It was a

good step, Hill said, that Director General Mohamed

El-Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency

(IAEA) had been invited to North Korea and was

planning a trip soon.

Hill indicated that the problem with Banco Delta

Asia would be solved soon. The U.S. has committed

itself to find a solution within the first 30-day period.

Hill stressed that the historical background of the

particular situation with North Korea was important to

keep in mind and not to draw too many analogies with

other situations.

He compared the negotiations to someone always

pushing a rock uphill, and the rock always seems to

come down to the base of the hill. The discussion he

just had with Ambassador Kim, Hill said, reflected the

sense that “we can get through this.” He had been

encouraged by his counterpart to look ahead.

Because the negotiators are getting to know each

other from so many different meetings, when issues

Page 13

come up, they don’t need to reiterate points. That way

they are able to cover more ground.

The atmosphere in the room during the press

conference captured some of the excitement that the

negotiations between Hill and Kim were another step

toward the fulfillment of the September 2005 Six-Party

agreement. This represents significant activity toward

the peaceful resolution of the hostility between the

U.S. and North Korea that has lingered for the past 50

years, since the days of the Korean war.

[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in OhmyNews

International on March 21, 2007]

North Korea’s $25 Million and

Banco Delta Asia

by Ronda Hauben

A little known provision in the U.S. Patriot Act

(2001) has been used by the Bush administration

against North Korea to freeze $25 million dollars of its

funds and to deny it access to the international banking

system and to hard currency. Actions under this

provision of the Patriot Act effectively stymied prog-

ress in disarmament talks between the U.S., North

Korea, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan for over

18 months. North Korea says that only when the seized

$25 million and access to the international banking

system are restored is it willing to continue negotia-

tions under the Six-Party agreement concerning

security and denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

The little known provision of the Patriot Act is

Section 311. It is also known as the “International

Money Laundering Abatement and Financial Anti-

Terrorism Act of 2001.”

The original purpose was allegedly related to the

prevention, detection and prosecution of money

laundering connected to the financing of terrorism. The

law has rarely been used for its original purpose.

Instead it has been used by the Bush administration as

a means of unchecked political power against financial

institutions like the Banco Delta Asia. This case has an

impact on those nations or institutions who used the

bank, like North Korea.

Two other sections of the Patriot Act currently

under scrutiny, the use of the Patriot Act to illegally

obtain personal information on U.S. citizens, and the

use of a provision in the Patriot Act to replace U.S.

Attorneys, have been identified as being used by the

Bush administration for expanding and abusing

executive power. Section 311 provides another means

for sidestepping international and national legal

practices and substituting an ad hoc set of processes

that leave the victims with no means of due process or

defense.

Section 311 has been called by its supporters “a

diplomatic sledgehammer that gets results” and by its

critics a provision that denies the accused “due process

and presumes guilt.”

Critics say that this provision of the Patriot Act

applies U.S. law to the financial institutions of other

countries. In a proceeding under Section 311 of the

Patriot Act (2001) the U.S. Treasury Department acts

as accuser and judge, in international jurisdictions.

Also, often the evidence used by the Treasury Depart-

ment is classified and thus not available for examina-

tion by the accused so that it can’t be refuted.

This provision gives the U.S. Treasury the ability

to use an Executive Branch administrative procedure

rather than a legal proceeding as a way to accuse a

financial institution that is part of another nation’s

regulatory system of wrong doing, and then to find it

guilty. Under this provision of the Patriot Act, the

accused is denied knowledge of the evidence against it

and is denied the right to speak in its own defense.

Section 311 of the Patriot Act (2001) was used against

the BDA, a small bank in Macau, to freeze substantial

financial assets of North Korea and also to deny North

Korea access to the international banking system.

The

case against the BDA was instituted in September

2005 just after the U.S. had signed the Six-Party agree-

ment.

The accused under Section 311 is presumed to be

guilty and the burden falls on it to prove its innocence

without being able to know the evidence or charges.

Invoking Section 311 against the BDA effec-

tively sabotaged the implementation of the Six-Party

agreement of September 2005 for 18 months as BDA

did not have a process to challenge the Treasury

Department action, nor did those whose accounts at the

bank had been frozen, like North Korea. It was only

after North Korea conducted a missile test in July 2006

and the test of a nuclear device in October 2006, that

the Bush administration was willing to agree to negoti-

ations over the Treasury action.

Negotiations in Berlin between the U.S. govern-

ment and North Korea in January 2007 and then in

Beijing in February 2007 with the U.S., South Korea,

Page 14

China, Russia and Japan, resulted in the Six-Party

agreement announced on Feb. 13, 2007.

The difference that most analysts point to in

comparing the Feb. 13 2007 Six-Party agreement with

the Six-Party agreement of September 2005 is that the

more recent agreement includes a series of processes

and a time table. The critical difference that has been

overlooked, however, is that a requirement of the Feb.

13 agreement was that the U.S. restore the funds that

were frozen by the actions of the U.S. Treasury De-

partment. Also North Korea’s access to the interna-

tional financial system was to be restored.

These requirements caused “intense friction” in

Washington between officials in the State Department

and “officials in the Treasury Department and in the

Office of Vice President Dick Cheney who were said

to favor maintaining maximum pressure” on North

Korea.

There were reports of urgent telephone calls

between officials in the State Department and the

Treasury. Assistant Secretary of State John Negro-

ponte finally got a decision from the Treasury Depart-

ment by Friday, March 16. The Treasury Department

had ruled against the BDA. U.S. banks would not be

allowed to do business with it. The U.S. government

announcement said that it would be up to the Macau

authorities to decide if they would unfreeze and restore

some or all of North Korea’s funds.

By the weekend of March 17, a behind the scenes

drama continued to unfold. China announced that it

regretted the U.S. action. The owner of the Macao

bank said he would go to court to attempt to challenge

the decision. Getting off the plane in Beijing on

Saturday to attend the next stage of Six-Party Talks,

Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea’s lead negotiator for the

Six-Party Talks, told reporters that all of the $25 mil-

lion had to be returned if North Korea was to go to the

next step of the Six-Party Talks.

Hill announced that he would explain the settle-

ment to the Chinese and North Korean negotiators.

China announced that a settlement had been reached

but that the details of it couldn’t yet be revealed.

Subsequently, there was an announcement that all of

the $25 million in funds would be returned to North

Korea and deposited in China in an account held by the

North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank at the Bank of

China in Beijing. U.S. Treasury Secretary Daniel

Glaser, in a press conference held with Hill, confirmed

the U.S. government decision. It was unknown he said,

when the funds would actually be put in the North

Korean bank account.

Subsequently, diplomats who were in Beijing to

continue the Six-Party Talks told reporters that North

Korean diplomats said the funds had to be in the bank

account for them to continue with negotiations.

Though there have been many newspaper articles

reporting the standoff in the Six-Party Talks caused by

the dispute over the use of Section 311 against North

Korea, few of the articles provide an understanding of

the underlying issues involved. A commentator on

BBC, for example, demonstrating a serious lack of

understanding of the use of Section 311 and the abuse

of power it represents said this is an example of the

high price that North Korea will extract for its cooper-

ation in the talks.

It is not without cause then, that in describing the

process of the Six-Party Talks Hill compared the

process to a video game. He warned: “This process,

not unlike a video game gets more and more difficult

as you get to different levels.”

Notes:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/Section301.html.

2. “Treasury Casts a Wide Net Under Patriot Act.”

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2007/mar/18/treasury-

casts-wide-net-under-patriot-act-20070318/.

3. “The U.S. government has never publicly detailed evidence

behind its charges. Nor has it sought to initiate legal action, re-

lying instead on Section 311 of the Patriot Act, which critics say

extends U.S. laws to cover other countries.” “Bush Administration

Plan May Unfreeze North Korean Funds.”

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/article24461644.html

4.Warren P Strobel, “Administration Reconsiders Some North

Korea Restrictions.”

5. Ronda Hauben, “U.S., North Korea Move to Open Ties,”

OhmyNews, March 7, 2007,

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn16-1.pdf, pp. 13-15.

[Editor’s note: The following article first appeared in OhmyNews

International on May 19, 2007]

Behind the Blacklisting of

Banco Delta Asia

by Ronda Hauben

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher

Hill, speaking at the Korea Society’s 50

Anniversary

dinner in New York City on May 15, said that he was

determined not to “allow $26 million or $25 million

get between us and a deal that will finally do some-

Page 15

thing about nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.”

He promised that Kathleen Stephens at the Korea desk

at the State Department was working on the problem

and that “we are going to keep after this problem till

we solve it.” His statement didn’t give further details

about how this problem was to be solved, a problem

that had interrupted the progress that seemed at last

possible in the Feb. 13 Six-Party agreement.

Just two days later, on May 17, the U.S.

Wachovia Bank announced that it is exploring a re-

quest from the State Department to transfer the funds

from the BDA (Banco Delta Asia) to North Korea.

Wachovia Bank reported that it would require the

necessary approvals from bank regulators to do the

transfer.

Until this latest announcement, banks have been

unwilling to do the transfer because of the legal action

that the U.S. government took against the BDA, by

ruling that it was involved in criminal activity under

Section 311 of the U.S. Patriot Act. Banks which deal

with a bank that has been found guilty of such illegal

acts risk losing their access to the international finan-

cial system. North Korea has said that the denuc-

learization and other aspects of the Six-Party agree-

ment that it has been part of can only go forward when

the BDA situation is resolved. “To make the money

transfer possible freely just like before has been our

demand… from the beginning,” a spokesperson from

North Korea said.

In his daily press briefing on May 17, Scott

McCormack at the U.S. State Department said, “We all

want to see the BDA issue resolved, obviously re-

solved within the laws and regulations of the United

States as well as the international financial system, and

we’d like to move on and get back to the business of

the Six-Party Talks, which is really focused on the

issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.”

Whether this latest development with Wachovia

Bank will provide the needed breakthrough, it is too

soon to tell. But there are other developments which

may provide the needed pressures on the U.S. govern-

ment to decriminalize the $25 million it has frozen of

North Korean funds and restore North Korea’s access

to the international banking system. Their access was

severely impeded by the action that the U.S. Treasury

Department took against the BDA.

The developments I am referring to are the re-

lease in the public domain of several documents

related to the U. S. Treasury Department’s actions

against BDA. One of the documents is a sworn state-

ment by the owner of the BDA, Mr. Stanley Au, in

support of his petition to revoke the rule imposing the

special measures taken by the U.S. Treasury Depart-

ment against his bank. Another document is the

petition in support of his case. Also the Treasury

Department finding against the bank has been put

online. These documents have been made available on

the blog “China Matters.”

In his statement, Au explains the history of his

bank’s relations with North Korea and how there was

only one experience, which occurred in June 1994,

when there was a problem with counterfeit U.S.

dollars. At the time, the bank reported this incident to

the U.S. government. Agents from the U.S. govern-

ment came to the bank and questioned Au. He an-

swered their questions and asked if the agents recom-

mended that the bank “desist from doing business with

North Korean entities.” The agents said “they would

like us to continue to deal with them as it was better

that we conducted this business than another financial

entity that may not be so cooperative with the United

States government.”

Au explains that there was no further experience

with counterfeit money showing up in the transactions

of the bank. All “large value deposits of U.S. dollar

bills from North Korean sources” were sent to the

Hong Kong branch of the Republic National Bank of

New York (which became HSBC) to be certified that

they were authentic via advanced technology pos-

sessed by that bank. Smaller quantities of bills were

examined in accord with common banking practices by

the bank itself.

Au also explains that he had not been approached

by U.S. government agents alerting him to any prob-

lem or illegal activity. The first he learned that his

bank was being charged as a bank engaged in “illicit

activities” came when he saw a report in the Asian

Wall Street Journal in September 2005 that his bank

was a candidate for a U.S. money laundering blacklist.

He tells how “this news came as a bolt out of the blue

– the Bank had never been informed by the United

States that its practices were a cause of any money

laundering concern, and the counterfeiting event that

the media reported as the basis for the designation had

occurred more than ten years earlier and had been

promptly reported to the authorities by Banco Delta

Asia.”

Stanley Au’s statement is in sharp contrast with

the account in the U.S. government’s Federal Register

of the finding against the bank by the U.S. Treasury

Page 16

Department.

The Federal Register finding states that the bank

had provided financial services for more than 20 years

to multiple North Korean-related individuals and

entities that were engaged in illicit activities. It pro-

vides no specific details of what such illicit activities

were. It claims that the entities paid a fee to Banco

Delta Asia for their access to the bank. The finding

claims that the bank facilitated wire transfers and

helped a front company.

In his statement, Stanley Au maintained that the

BDA did not charge a fee for its services nor did it

conduct illicit services for North Korea or any other

customer. The bank was only one of the banks in

Macau that did business with North Korea. The busi-

ness his bank had with North Korea began in the mid

1970s and was to assist North Korea with its foreign

trade transactions. Also Au described North Korea as

a gold producing country and that in the late 1990s the

bank had acted as a “gold bullion trader on behalf of

the North Koreans”. Also the BDA bought or sold

foreign currency notes for North Korea, including U.S.

dollars, because North Korea had a limited banking

system and so it couldn’t do such transactions itself

(see Statement, pp. 3-4).

The petition submitted to the U.S. Dept of the

Treasury to challenge the finding against BDA pro-

poses that BDA was targeted not because of any

“voluminous” evidence of money laundering but

“because it was an easy target in the sense that it was

not so large that its failure would bring down the

financial system.”

In the substantial and prolific analysis of the

BDA problem that has been developed on the blog

“China Matters”, there is the assessment that North

Korea has legitimate financial activity and that the

BDA was legitimately serving as one of the banks for

that activity. Even with the UN’s sanctions, it was not

appropriate to target for blacklisting the legitimate

financial activities of North Korea. The sanctions that

the UN-imposed against North Korea were to be aimed

at its activity that was related to nuclear weapon

development, not to normal financial transactions.

The author of China Matters blog writes

“The alternative view…is that legitimate North

Korean financial activity does exist, BDA had a

right to solicit North Korean accounts and handle

North Korean transactions, and Stanley Au

should be allowed to run his bank as long as he

conforms to the laws of his jurisdiction – and

(the bank) not be used as a political football in

Washington’s dealings with Pyongyang.”

To put it more succinctly, the blog China Matters

quotes David Ascher, who had been the coordinator

for the Bush Administration working group on North

Korea and a senior adviser in East Asian affairs in the

State Department, in testimony to the U.S. House

Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonpro-

liferation, and Trade on April 18, 2007, explaining

why Banco Delta was chosen to be blacklisted from

the international banking system:

“Banco Delta was a symbolic target. We were

trying to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.

And the monkeys were big Chinese banks doing

business in North Korea… and we’re not talking

about tens of millions, we’re talking hundreds of

millions.”

The purpose of the action against the BDA

appears not only to have been to target North Korea

and its access to the international banking system, but

also to send a message to China.

Therefore it would appear that the action against

BDA is a carefully crafted political action and that it

will be necessary that there be public understanding,

discussion and debate about what is behind this action

in order to find a way to have the policy that gave rise

to the BDA action changed.

Instead of the U.S. mainstream press carrying out

the needed investigation about why BDA has been

targeted and what is behind this action, there have been

continual condemnations of North Korea. Fortunately

there are journalists like those who work with the

McClatchy News Service who have made an effort to

probe what is happening behind-the-scenes in the BDA

affair and blogs like China Matters which have taken

the time and care to begin uncovering what the BDA

affair is really all about. This is but one of the stories

of what is really going on behind the scenes within the

U.S. government that has been hidden from the public.

This is one of the stories yet to be unraveled by blog-

gers, and citizen journalists.

Notes:

1. Ronda Hauben, “North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta

Asia,” OhmyNews, March 7, 2007,

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn16-1.pdf, pp. 15-16.

2. “North Korea says work to transfer bank funds under way,”

AFP, May 15, 2007.

https://www.spacewar.com/reports/North_Korea_Says_Work_

To_Transfer_Bank_Funds_Under_Way_999.html.

Page 17

3. Scott McCormack, Daily Press Briefing, Washington DC, May

17, 2007.

4. China Matters Blogspot, “Bank owner disputes money-laun-

dering allegations.”

http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/05/stanley-au-makes-his-

case-for-banco.html.

5. Statement of Mr. Stanley Au in Support of Petition to Revoke

Rule Imposing Special Measures Against Banco Delta Asia, p. 7.

See also Kevin G. Hall, “Bank owner disputes money-laundering

allegations,” McClatchy Newspapers, May 16, 2007.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article

24463246.html.

6. Department of the Treasury, 31 CFR Part 103/ RIN 1506-

AA83, Federal Register, Vol 72, No. 52, Monday, March 19,

2007, Rules and Regulations.

7. Petition of Mr. Stanley Au and Delta Asia Group (Holdings)

Ltd. to Rescind Final Rule, p. 12.

8. “Stanley Au Makes His Case for Banco Delta Asia,” Tuesday,

May 15, 2007.

http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/05/stanley-au-makes-his-

case-for-banco.html.

9. “David Asher’s Dead End,” Saturday, April 28, 2007.

http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/04/david-ashers-dead-en

d.html.

See also “China’s Proliferation to North Korea and Iran, and its

role in addressing the nuclear and missile situations in both

nations,” Hearing, Sept 14, 2006, Nov. 2006, p. 115-116.

https://www.uscc.gov/hearings/hearing-chinas-proliferation-nor

th-korea-and-iran-and-its-role-addressing-nuclear-and.

10. Ronda Hauben, “Bill Moyers and the Emergence of U.S.

Citizen Journalism: Power of government creates need for inves-

tigative news.”

https://nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0705/msg00006.html.

The above article can be seen at:

https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-policy-forum/behind-the-bl

acklisting-of-banco-delta-asia/

[Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared on OhmyNews

on July 12, 2006.]

Netizens Are Critical to

Citizen Journalism

by Ronda Hauben

It is with a smile that I prepare today to go to

Korea and the 2006 OhmyNews International Citizen

Reporters’ Forum.

When leaving the forum last year I remember

having a conversation with one of the citizen reporters.

She said she had been thinking and felt that perhaps

one of the most important aspects of citizen journalism

was that there are netizens, people online who have

find that the Internet is helpful in their efforts and

desire to make the world a better place.

She felt that it was from the netizens that the

significant aspects of citizen journalism will develop.

She told me she wanted to be sure to share this with

me before she left the forum.

I first came to learn about OhmyNews in 2003

when I saw an article in the Financial Times that said

the “netizens” in South Korea had made it possible to

elect the President of the country. This made me

curious and I wanted to learn what I could about what

had happened.

From Korean friends online and off I came to

know about OhmyNews. A Korean friend showed me

the Korean edition, which was all there was in 2003,

and she translated some of the many comments there

were on different articles.

She encouraged me to write to founder Oh Yeon-

ho with my questions about OhmyNews.

I probably did try to write an email and sent it,

but don’t remember exactly and didn’t at the time get

an answer. Instead Mr. Oh, it seems, was preparing to

do an English edition so that the many people who

were interested in OhmyNews but who couldn’t read

Korean would still get an idea of the idea of citizen

journalism.

A little while later, a netizen I met online said

she would submit an article I had written about the

Howard Dean campaign in the U.S. to OhmyNews. In

it I compared Dean’s election campaign to the cam-

paign for the presidency of South Korea. She trans-

lated it into Korean, and it appeared in both English

and Korean in an issue of the Korean OhmyNews in

March of 2004.

This all raises an important question for me that

I hope will be considered at the 2006 forum: How is

the spread of OhmyNews and OhmyNews Interna-

tional connected to the fight for democracy? The fact

that the birth of the Korean edition of OMN was

connected to the continuing fight for democracy in

South Korea seems an important aspect of any effort to

spread the lessons from the Korean OhmyNews to

other publications and to other countries.

The netizens of South Korea who contributed

their articles as citizen reporters when OMN began and

who continued to contribute the articles as it grew, are

a factor that is to be considered and understood. Also,

it seems there was a staff for the newspaper which not

only encouraged the submissions, but who also helped

to cover the developments in the fight for more democ-

Page 18

racy in Korea for the young newspaper.

I have found that learning about and understand-

ing the developments in the Korean fight for more

democracy is an encouragement to continue working

with OhmyNews. I often wish that OhmyNews would

have more of the articles from the Korean version of

the newspaper translated into English to be part of the

English edition. That way there would be more knowl-

edge of what is happening in Korea among those who

read and write for the International edition of the

newspaper.

Next year is the 20

anniversary of the victory of

the 1987 revolution in South Korea. Perhaps in honor

of this event OhmyNews can find a way to share more

of the events of the Korean democratization efforts

with those who can only read the English edition.

I often wonder if there is any way there could be

an American version of OhmyNews which would be a

champion in the fight against the conservative press

and politics that dominate U.S. society. It seems so

difficult to consider this possibility here in the U.S. as

the conservative forces are so strong and pervasive.

It seems that they would find a way to impose the

need to make money on whatever was created, rather

than recognizing the need to have a social purpose as

the critical thrust. This is why I feel it is so important

to have some knowledge of how OhmyNews grew out

of the progressive movement in South Korea. It is

important to remember that an early goal of Mr. Oh

was to create a media culture in which “the quality of

news determined whether it won or lost,” not the

power and prestige of the media organization that

printed the article.

Last year’s forum was a very memorable experi-

ence. There are many special events I recall, but the

most special was after I gave the brief talk I had been

invited to give. Several citizen reporters for the Korean

edition of OhmyNews came to embrace me and thank

me for the talk. The talk I gave was about the online

research of Michael Hauben in 1992-1993 which

discovered that the Net was encouraging people to be

able to participate as citizens in a way previously im-

possible.

This research – observing what was developing

on the Net – resulted in the concept of “netizen.” The

continuing spread of the Net and the netizens are

symbolized by “netizens” I met during last year’s

OMNI forum. They, in turn, are a tribute to and an

encouragement for the spread of OMNI’s great experi-

ment.

[Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared in OhmyNews

International on October 24, 2006.]

The Future of the Korean

Peninsula

by Ronda Hauben

A seminar about the problems of the Korean

Peninsula with the Korean Ambassador to the UN,

Choi Young-jin, was held at Columbia University in

New York, on Thursday, Oct. 19.

Ambassador Choi

opened the seminar by presenting what he proposed as

a framework in which to understand the current prob-

lems facing the peninsula, the primary one of which is

how to understand North Korea.

The world, Choi proposed, is divided into

countries that are interdependent or isolated. The U.S.

is the most interdependent country in the world. He

gave North Korea as an example of an isolated coun-

try. What is happening in the Korean peninsula, he

said, is a microcosm of the problems the world is

facing in the 21

century.

There is a North–South divide, and the Korean

peninsula is characteristic of this divide, only the

characteristics that are represented by countries of the

North and South are reversed. The divide is one of

“haves” and “have nots.” North Korea is an example of

the countries of the South, which are countries in

economic difficulty. At the heart of the question of

North Korea, Choi proposed, is the dilemma of

“political survival and economic revival.”

North Korea’s factories are only running at 20-

30 percent of capacity. Electricity production is a

problem. North Korea, he explained, cannot survive

such economic difficulties. How then is it possible to

revive its economy? The only way, Choi explained,

was to accept trade. Like Vietnam, North Korea needs

to open up its society and accept trade with other

countries. According to Choi, the threat for North

Korea is an internal threat, the threat of self-imposed

isolation.

Choi proposed, however, that North Korea, on

its own could not choose to change this situation. That

unless a peaceful means could be found to help change

the situation, the problem faced by North Korea

becomes the problem of the international community.

“How do you manage this complex problem?”

Page 19

he asked. He proposed two different approaches, one

that the U.S. was pursuing and one that China was

taking. The U.S., he explained, is geographically

distant from North Korea and so it would not be

affected if there was a clash with North Korea. Thus

the U.S. position was to promote “containment with

engagement.” The U.S. position is that North Korea

cannot be accepted as a nuclear state. It advocated

sanctions including the interdiction of North Korean

cargo suspected of being related to its nuclear pro-

gram.

What if, however, it was Mexico not North

Korea that had become a nuclear state and threatened

to sell nuclear technology to other countries? If the

country the U.S. was dealing with was geographically

closer to the U.S., what would be the U.S. policy then?

Would the U.S. accept interdiction of suspected cargo

if it could lead to a military clash?

Choi described the second approach, the

approach that China was taking. Since China is so

close, if a clash happened, the first victim would be

China not the U.S. Similarly, South Korea is geograph-

ically close to North Korea. China and South Korea

have a lot to lose if something happens. That is why

China insisted that the sanctions not be military, but

only under Article 41 of Chapter 7 of the United

Nations Charter. Also China favored that the interdic-

tion of suspected cargo would not be “mandatory” but

“as necessary.”

The situation, however, Choi explained, is

murky. He asked if North Korea knows what it wants.

Also for China and South Korea the desire is that

North Korea not be a nuclear state. They want co-

existence and that the Korean peninsula be a nuclear

free peninsula. He also raised the question of whether

the other countries who had been involved in the six-

party talks had a strategy. No country appeared to have

a clear strategy. The situation appeared dangerous

because an explosion would affect the whole region.

The program was opened for questions from

the people attending the seminar. The first question

was about an article in the Oct. 16 issue of the German

publication Der Spiegel. The writer quoted an anony-

mous source that said that North Korea had asked

China to guarantee that if it were attacked, it would

retaliate on behalf of North Korea. North Korea would

have stopped developing its nuclear weapons if the

Chinese had agreed to this request. The question was

whether Choi knew anything about this report.

Choi’s response was that he didn’t know

anything about this report but that he didn’t think that

North Korea saw its major problem as security. His

view was that North Korea wanted economic assis-

tance, economic cash.

Professor Samuel Kim, who had introduced the

speaker, disagreed that North Korea was not concerned

with its national security. Kim referred to an account

by Ambassador Charles “Jack” Pritchard. Pritchard

said that he was struck by something that Kim Jong Il

said to Madeleine Albright about the importance of

security to North Korea. When comparing the experi-

ence of China and North Korea regarding economic

development, Kim Jong Il explained that China had

been able to focus its resources on economic develop-

ment because it didn’t face any security threat. North

Korea, however, saw the U.S. as threatening its secu-

rity and so could not focus its efforts on economic

development. North Korea felt it was under a U.S.

nuclear threat, and had been for the past 50 years,

going back to the period of the Korean War.

Responding to a comment that North Korea had

not supported coming to an agreement in the 2005 six-

party talks, Professor Kim explained that it was the

U.S. not North Korea that was the problem. No sooner

was the ink dry, the U.S. imposed financial sanctions

on North Korea. These sanctions created a financial

stranglehold. Even during the talks, it was the U.S. that

was the holdout. It took the U.S. a few days to sign the

agreement reached during the six-party talks, and it

only did so when it was threatened that the fact it was

the U.S. which was delaying the signing of the agree-

ment would be made public.

Answering a question about the fact that a

significant percentage of the South Korean population

sees the U.S. as responsible for the North Korean

nuclear test, Choi explained that people in South Korea

are divided over how to deal with the situation. The

official position of the URI party in South Korea, is

that the U.S. is to blame. Many people in South Korea

think of North Korea as a brother. Others see the U.S.

as an ally and North Korea as an enemy. The frame-

work he gave at the beginning of the seminar, how-

ever, is intended to establish that there is a genuine

problem and that the U.S. is forced to work within the

context of this genuine problem.

Choi was asked whether it would help that the

new secretary-general of the United Nations was from

South Korea. He answered that he believed it would

definitely help as South Korea has an understanding of

the need to work with North Korea.

Page 20

In response to the question whether any country

had previously changed from pursuing nuclear ambi-

tions because of sanctions, some examples were given

of countries like Brazil and Argentina which

responded to packages that included security guaran-

tees and economic incentives. Another comment made

by a participant in the seminar was that it was impor-

tant that South Korea continue its economic relations

with North Korea. It was important for North Korea to

be able to make a legitimate living exporting legiti-

mate products and not be forced by sanctions or a

boycott to turn to military exports.

One of the problems raised during the question

period was that North Korea is looking toward the U.S.

not South Korea for a way to solve the problems.

Criticism of the U.S. was mounting for not being

willing to talk with North Korea. The North Korean

focus on the U.S. could be seen perhaps as a fatal at-

traction.

Responding to the characterization of North

Korea as having trouble making strategic decisions,

Professor Kim expressed his disagreement. He pointed

to the decision by North Korea in 1994 to enter into

the Agreed Framework with the U.S., and then the

decision to launch the missile test, and the test of a

nuclear weapon. These were offered as examples that

North Korea was quite capable of making what it

deemed strategic decisions.

The seminar provided the participants with an

opportunity to exchange views and concerns over what

is happening in Northeast Asia. The issues were con-

sidered with a seriousness and concern that was

encouraging. The discussion in the seminar resulted in

recognition of North Korea's concern over the threat it

perceives from the U.S., both militarily and economi-

cally. The actions of the U.S. toward North Korea

coupled with the fact that North Korea therefore feels

the need to have a way to respond to the hostile acts,

results in a tense situation. The nations that share

geographic proximity with North Korea find them-

selves faced with an increasingly unstable situation.

The actions of the U.S. and the pressures from the U.S.

on the countries that are in geographic proximity to

North Korea, have as their result intensified instability

rather than the amelioration of the instability.

The seminar demonstrated the importance of

serious discussion among those who are concerned for

the safety and stability of the Korean Peninsula.

Ambassador Choi Young-jin, Professor Samuel Kim,

and those who attended the seminar, all contributed to

creating an environment where fruitful discussion was

welcomed. This is an encouraging sign that with the

efforts of concerned people, perhaps the issues in-

volved can be clarified, and the needed action can be

taken to support a just resolution of the problems that

have contributed to the current crisis.

[Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared in Telepolis on

August 13, 2006. The title on Telepolis is “The OMNI Citizen

Reporter's Forum”.]

Citizen Journalism, Past and

Future

by Ronda Hauben

I recently returned from visiting Korea and

attending the OhmyNews International Citizen Report-

ers’ Forum 2006. It was the second such forum. (Read

more here.) OhmyNews invited 60 citizen reporters or

others who were involved with citizen journalism. The

forum itself was held July 12-15.

The forum featured a range of speakers. Some

like Timothy Lord of Slashdot.com and Craig New-

mark of Craigslist.com are active in various online

activities in the U.S., even if they are not directly con-

nected with citizen journalism. Also, there were

sessions of talks by citizen reporters from different

countries around the world. All the formal sessions of

the forum are online at the OhmyNews Website.

The context in which OhmyNews was created

is important to keep in mind when thinking about the

forum and the trend of citizen journalism that Ohmy-

News has pioneered. South Korea leads the world in

the spread of broadband Internet access to its popula-

tion. Over 80 percent of households have broadband

connections at home. Online discussion and activity

play a prominent role among Korean netizens and are

a catalyst for offline actions. (Read more here.)

The South Korean struggle for democracy con-

tinues after its relatively recent victory in the June

1987 democratic revolution over the military junta.

The creation of the Korean edition of OhmyNews in

2000 was seen as a part of the struggle for more

democracy and against the conservative forces that

continue to be active in Korean politics and society.

When I arrived in Korea on Wednesday, July

12, there was a major demonstration in downtown

Seoul protesting the Korean-U.S. negotiations over a

Page 21

bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The demon-

stration is said to have included 50,000 protesters

despite the heavy rains and despite the fact that there

were approximately 20,000 Korean police surrounding

the demonstration site.

A week later the FTA talks in Seoul broke

down temporarily to the relief of many in Korea.

Opposition to the FTA is strong due to concerns about

the harmful impact many believe a free trade agree-

ment with the U.S. will have on the Korean economy.

(Read more here.) The large anti-FTA demonstration

was a sign of the continuing struggle for democracy in

Korea.

When the OhmyNews International forum

opened on Wednesday evening, we were told that

citizen reporters from 20 countries were attending the

forum. And that the number of countries in which

OhmyNews has citizen reporters increased from 50 the

previous year to 91. There are currently 1,200 citizen

reporters for the international edition, and the most

recent who registered at the time were from Lebanon

and Cuba.

An investment in OhmyNews International by

the Japanese company Softbank, announced a few

months earlier, was intended in part to make it possible

to spread the OhmyNews model to other countries.

OhmyNews is planning to launch an OhmyNews Japan

on Aug. 28 as its first effort to develop a version of

OhmyNews in another country.

I later learned from the editor-in-chief of the

international edition, Hong Eun-taek, that there is a

thought about increasing articles from little reported

areas of the world and offering OhmyNews as a news-

wire to interested media. An announcement at the

Wednesday evening session of the forum explained

that the International Herald Tribune newspaper (IHT)

will include feeds of three sections of OhmyNews in

its online edition, the “sports” section, “entertainment”

section, and the “technology” section. Also, 10 head-

lines from IHT appear on the front pages of Ohmy-

News.

On Thursday, the first full day of the forum, I

was fortunate to have lunch with Professor Yoon

Young-chul, a journalism professor from Yonsei

University. He introduced me to one of his former stu-

dents. She is a researcher doing her Ph.D. thesis on the

role of the Korean edition of OhmyNews in initiating

the candlelight demonstrations in 2002.

The role that OhmyNews has played in the

democratic struggles in Korea and similarly the role

that the democratic struggles have played in the

evolution of OhmyNews is an important factor in the

origin and development of the online newspaper. This

was the subject we discussed during the lunch breaks.

OhmyNews developed in Korea as an online

media able to challenge the entrenched conservative

press. What are the elements of OhmyNews that made

it possible to succeed in this endeavor? One aspect I

learned from the researcher, was the role played by Oh

Yeon-ho, the founder of OhmyNews. When he an-

nounced he would start OhmyNews, she explained, he

was already well known and respected by progressive

people who were therefore willing to be part of the

effort. (Read more here.) Hence he was a person who

was able to get the needed netizen support for Ohmy-

News from its earliest days.

Oh Yeon-ho's opening remarks at the forum

helped to highlight the democratic tradition of the

Website. He explained that the key to spreading the

OhmyNews model was to find citizen reporters who

were “passionately committed to social change and

reporting.” It is these citizen reporters, he said, who

“make our project possible.”

This issue was again raised during Session 7

held on Friday, July 14. In this session, there were

presentations about two citizen reporter sites which

had been inspired by OhmyNews.

The Danish site Flix.dk was started in 2003

after its founder, Erik Larsen, a journalist and writer,

read an article about OhmyNews in Wired magazine.

This was before the English edition of OhmyNews.

Larsen went to a Korean translator to learn as much as

he could about the site. In November 2003 he started

Flix.dk with two colleagues. Flix.dk functions on a

nonprofit basis though Larsen constantly faces the

need to raise adequate funds to keep going. But Larsen

is also wary of being tied to a business model. He feels

it is important to be able to learn and build on the

actual developments as they unfold on Flix.dk.

Also during Session 7, Michael Weiss pre-

sented his Israeli Website Scoop.co.il. Weiss started

Scoop.co.il after he returned to Israel from the Ohmy-

News forum last year. He was able to get funding from

a venture capitalist for his startup.

Both Larsen and Weiss said they planned to

open an English section of their online sites. As soon

as Larsen returned to Denmark after the OMNI forum,

a small English section was set up.

Probably the most critical issue facing the

Korean OhmyNews, according to people I spoke with,

Page 22

was how the frustration among progressive people in

Korea would affect OhmyNews’ future. Low voter

turnout in the recent local elections resulted in the

victory of the candidates from the Grand National

Party (GNP), a conservative coalition.

Many young people and other progressive

forces were part of the democratic coalition that back-

ed the relatively unknown politician Roh Moo-hyun

for the presidency in 2002. OhmyNews played an

important role in the successful election campaign.

After Roh won the election, however, many of those

who were part of his online election campaign were

disappointed by the neoliberal policies of his adminis-

tration.

For some in the progressive community in

Korea, this disappointment may be translated into

disillusionment with politics. Others, however, are

actively considering what lessons can be learned from

recent events.

The situation in Korea is dynamic. The wide-

spread broadband internet access and cell phone use

means that there is a vibrant online community.

Previously many of the democratic forces utilized the

Internet in their struggles challenging the offline

institutions and their influence. More recently, how-

ever, conservative forces are more and more using the

Internet. Thus some feel that the online environment is

becoming ever more contentious.

Whether online media like OhmyNews can

support and champion progressive news and opinion in

the changing online environment is a question raised

during some of the conversations I had while in Korea.

Another serious problem reflected at the forum

was how to fund online media like OhmyNews or Flix

and how the form of funding impacts the content and

form. One of the strengths of OhmyNews International

is that it pays a fee to citizen reporters. The fee is the

equivalent of $20 an article if the article appears on the

front page. How to fund this and other expenses as

OhmyNews International scales to encompass a

worldwide audience is a problem that was raised.

One of the speakers at the forum, Dan Gillmor,

recently announced the end of Bayosphere, his experi-

ment in citizen journalism. Bayosphere was initially

funded by a venture capital investment. Gillmor wrote

that one of the reasons for its failure was the focus on

the business model before the development of a viable

online site.

Though there were no formal references to

what caused the failure of Bayosphere during Gillmor's

presentation at the 2006 forum, some felt this subject

would have been a helpful area of discussion.

The Korean edition of OhmyNews is funded in

part by reader contributions, in part by advertising, and

in part by the sale of content. Recently Softbank

purchased a 12 percent share in OhmyNews in return

for an $11 million investment. This investment gives

Softbank a role in the development of OhmyNews.

How this will impact the continuing development of

the site is an issue for continuing attention.

After the forum, I had dinner with some of the

staff of OhmyNews, Alex Krabbe, an OhmyNews

International citizen reporter from Germany, and

Larsen from Flix.dk. We spoke about what kind of

alternative news media is needed to respond to the

crisis that the mainstream press is facing in countries

like the U.S. and Denmark. What are the issues that

need to be covered? Would it be possible for citizen

reporters working together to cover important stories,

especially stories where the voice of the powerless and

the victims are ignored by the mainstream media?

While at the forum I spoke briefly with Oh

Yeon-ho. I asked what he had been doing to recruit

citizen reporters in Japan, as I wondered if there were

lessons to learn to make it possible to start a version of

OhmyNews for the U.S. Oh described giving talks to

students in Japan and getting a favorable response.

Also, he asked me for my definition of “netizen.” I

described how the concept grew out of the pioneering

online research by Michael Hauben in 1992-1993,

namely that it was a way of describing those online

users who had adopted a social purpose and practice to

spread the Internet as a participatory environment to

all who wanted access. (Read more here.)

In response to my question about how to start

an OhmyNews in the U.S., Oh suggested writing a

proposal. This poses an interesting challenge for those

interested in creating a U.S. version of OhmyNews, the

challenge to develop a proposal for what would be

desirable as a form of OhmyNews for the U.S.

A recent article in the journal, Media, Culture

and Society about OhmyNews helps to identify the

salient problem facing OhmyNews International

editors and contributors.

The article raises the ques-

tion of how to view alternative media that are a hybrid

of progressive and commercial practices. The authors

caution against jumping to conclusions about whether

a publication can maintain a progressive nature even if

it is funded by a commercial mechanism like advertis-

ing.

Page 23

Likewise they caution against automatically

considering a publication progressive if it welcomes a

broad range of content. Instead they note the tension

experienced by alternative publications between the

need to find a means of funding and the need to

nourish progressive content and purpose.

An example of this problem was reflected in

the talks given by different citizen reporters at the

OhmyNews International forum. Ramzy Baroud, a

Palestinian and Lily Yulianti from Indonesia, for

example, gave talks describing the importance of

accurate presentations in the media of the conditions of

the Palestinians and of Muslims.

Baroud explained that he grew up in a Palestin-

ian refugee camp. He told the story of his father who

would listen to BBC radio whenever he could. It was

very important to his father to hear what was being

reported about the Palestinian struggle, though often

the reports were inaccurate. Baroud explained how he

had come to feel that having accurate reports of what

was happening, of the situation, were critical to mak-

ing it possible for there to be any improvement in the

plight of those who try to oppose unbridled power.

Baroud also discussed the need for online

media to provide a public sphere to oppose globaliza-

tion and the crimes of globalization. These presenta-

tions provided a contrast to an earlier presentation by

Gregory Daigle from the U.S. about how he was able

to get over 50,000 hits on one of his OhmyNews

articles when it was picked up by Digg.com and how

citizen reporters should aim to gear their articles so

they will get lots of hits.

The need for advertising dollars for alternative

media like OhmyNews means that there is a tendency

to focus on how to get more advertising. Yet there are

already many publications focusing on getting lots of

hits and lots of advertising dollars. If an alternative

publication loses sight of the need to nourish its

progressive content and purpose, however, it loses its

reason for being.

I recently returned from visiting Korea and

attending the OhmyNews International Citizen Report-

ers' Forum 2006. It was the second such forum. (Read

more here.) OhmyNews invited 60 citizen reporters or

others who were involved with citizen journalism. The

forum itself was held July 12-15.

The forum featured a range of speakers. Some

like Timothy Lord of Slashdot.com and Craig New-

mark of Craigslist.com are active in various online

activities in the U.S., even if they are not directly

connected with citizen journalism. Also, there were

sessions of talks by citizen reporters from different

countries around the world. All the formal sessions of

the forum are online at the OhmyNews Website.

The context in which OhmyNews was created

is important to keep in mind when thinking about the

forum and the trend of citizen journalism that Ohmy-

News has pioneered. South Korea leads the world in

the spread of broadband Internet access to its popula-

tion. Over 80 percent of households have broadband

connections at home. Online discussion and activity

play a prominent role among Korean netizens and are

a catalyst for offline actions. (Read more here.)

The South Korean struggle for democracy

continues after its relatively recent victory in the June

1987 democratic revolution over the military junta.

The creation of the Korean edition of OhmyNews in

2000 was seen as a part of the struggle for more

democracy and against the conservative forces that

continue to be active in Korean politics and society.

When I arrived in Korea on Wednesday, July

12, there was a major demonstration in downtown

Seoul protesting the Korean-U.S. negotiations over a

bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The demon-

stration is said to have included 50,000 protesters

despite the heavy rains and despite the fact that there

were approximately 20,000 Korean police surrounding

the demonstration site.

A week later the FTA talks in Seoul broke

down temporarily to the relief of many in Korea.

Opposition to the FTA is strong due to concerns about

the harmful impact many believe a free trade agree-

ment with the U.S. will have on the Korean economy.

(Read more here.) The large anti-FTA demonstration

was a sign of the continuing struggle for democracy in

Korea.

When the OhmyNews International forum

opened on Wednesday evening, we were told that

citizen reporters from 20 countries were attending the

forum. And that the number of countries in which

OhmyNews has citizen reporters increased from 50 the

previous year to 91. There are currently 1,200 citizen

reporters for the international edition, and the most

recent who registered at the time were from Lebanon

and Cuba.

An investment in OhmyNews International by

the Japanese company Softbank, announced a few

months earlier, was intended in part to make it possible

to spread the OhmyNews model to other countries.

OhmyNews is planning to launch an OhmyNews Japan

Page 24

on Aug. 28 as its first effort to develop a version of

OhmyNews in another country.

I later learned from the editor-in-chief of the

international edition, Hong Eun-taek, that there is a

thought about increasing articles from little reported

areas of the world and offering OhmyNews as a news-

wire to interested media. An announcement at the

Wednesday evening session of the forum explained

that the International Herald Tribune newspaper (IHT)

will include feeds of three sections of OhmyNews in

its online edition, the “sports” section, “entertainment”

section, and the “technology” section. Also, 10 head-

lines from IHT appear on the front pages of Ohmy-

News.

On Thursday, the first full day of the forum, I

was fortunate to have lunch with Professor Yoon

Young-chul, a journalism professor from Yonsei

University. He introduced me to one of his former stu-

dents. She is a researcher doing her Ph.D. thesis on the

role of the Korean edition of OhmyNews in initiating

the candlelight demonstrations in 2002.

The role that OhmyNews has played in the

democratic struggles in Korea and similarly the role

that the democratic struggles have played in the

evolution of OhmyNews is an important factor in the

origin and development of the online newspaper. This

was the subject we discussed during the lunch breaks.

OhmyNews developed in Korea as an online

media able to challenge the entrenched conservative

press. What are the elements of OhmyNews that made

it possible to succeed in this endeavor? One aspect I

learned from the researcher, was the role played by Oh

Yeon-ho, the founder of OhmyNews. When he an-

nounced he would start OhmyNews, she explained, he

was already well known and respected by progressive

people who were therefore willing to be part of the

effort. (Read more here.) Hence he was a person who

was able to get the needed netizen support for Ohmy-

News from its earliest days.

Oh Yeon-ho's opening remarks at the forum

helped to highlight the democratic tradition of the

Website. He explained that the key to spreading the

OhmyNews model was to find citizen reporters who

were “passionately committed to social change and

reporting.” It is these citizen reporters, he said, who

“make our project possible.”

This issue was again raised during Session 7

held on Friday, July 14. In this session, there were

presentations about two citizen reporter sites which

had been inspired by OhmyNews.

The Danish site Flix.dk was started in 2003

after its founder, Erik Larsen, a journalist and writer,

read an article about OhmyNews in Wired magazine.

This was before the English edition of OhmyNews.

Larsen went to a Korean translator to learn as much as

he could about the site. In November 2003 he started

Flix.dk with two colleagues. Flix.dk functions on a

nonprofit basis though Larsen constantly faces the

need to raise adequate funds to keep going. But Larsen

is also wary of being tied to a business model. He feels

it is important to be able to learn and build on the

actual developments as they unfold on Flix.dk.

Also during Session 7, Michael Weiss pre-

sented his Israeli website Scoop.co.il. Weiss started

Scoop.co.il after he returned to Israel from the Ohmy-

News forum last year. He was able to get funding from

a venture capitalist for his startup.

Both Larsen and Weiss said they planned to

open an English section of their online sites. As soon

as Larsen returned to Denmark after the OMNI forum,

a small English section was set up.

Probably the most critical issue facing the

Korean OhmyNews, according to people I spoke with,

was how the frustration among progressive people in

Korea would affect OhmyNews’ future. Low voter

turnout in the recent local elections resulted in the

victory of the candidates from the Grand National

Party (GNP), a conservative coalition.

Many young people and other progressive

forces were part of the democratic coalition that back-

ed the relatively unknown politician Roh Moo-hyun

for the presidency in 2002. OhmyNews played an

important role in the successful election campaign.

After Roh won the election, however, many of those

who were part of his online election campaign were

disappointed by the neoliberal policies of his adminis-

tration.

For some in the progressive community in

Korea, this disappointment may be translated into

disillusionment with politics. Others, however, are

actively considering what lessons can be learned from

recent events.

The situation in Korea is dynamic. The wide-

spread broadband internet access and cell phone use

means that there is a vibrant online community.

Previously many of the democratic forces utilized the

Internet in their struggles challenging the offline

institutions and their influence. More recently, how-

ever, conservative forces are more and more using the

Internet. Thus some feel that the online environment is

Page 25

becoming ever more contentious.

Whether online media like OhmyNews can

support and champion progressive news and opinion in

the changing online environment is a question raised

during some of the conversations I had while in Korea.

Another serious problem reflected at the forum

was how to fund online media like OhmyNews or Flix

and how the form of funding impacts the content and

form. One of the strengths of OhmyNews International

is that it pays a fee to citizen reporters. The fee is the

equivalent of $20 an article if the article appears on the

front page. How to fund this and other expenses as

OhmyNews International scales to encompass a

worldwide audience is a problem that was raised.

One of the speakers at the forum, Dan Gillmor,

recently announced the end of Bayosphere, his experi-

ment in citizen journalism. Bayosphere was initially

funded by a venture capital investment. Gillmor wrote

that one of the reasons for its failure was the focus on

the business model before the development of a viable

online site.

Though there were no formal references to

what caused the failure of Bayosphere during

Gillmor’s presentation at the 2006 forum, some felt

this subject would have been a helpful area of discus-

sion.

The Korean edition of OhmyNews is funded in

part by reader contributions, in part by advertising, and

in part by the sale of content. Recently Softbank

purchased a 12 percent share in OhmyNews in return

for an $11 million investment. This investment gives

Softbank a role in the development of OhmyNews.

How this will impact the continuing development of

the site is an issue for continuing attention.

After the forum, I had dinner with some of the

staff of OhmyNews, Alex Krabbe, an OhmyNews

International citizen reporter from Germany, and

Larsen from Flix.dk. We spoke about what kind of

alternative news media is needed to respond to the

crisis that the mainstream press is facing in countries

like the U.S. and Denmark. What are the issues that

need to be covered? Would it be possible for citizen

reporters working together to cover important stories,

especially stories where the voice of the powerless and

the victims are ignored by the mainstream media?

While at the forum I spoke briefly with Oh

Yeon-ho. I asked what he had been doing to recruit

citizen reporters in Japan, as I wondered if there were

lessons to learn to make it possible to start a version of

OhmyNews for the U.S. Oh described giving talks to

students in Japan and getting a favorable response.

Also, he asked me for my definition of “netizen.” I

described how the concept grew out of the pioneering

online research by Michael Hauben in 1992-1993,

namely that it was a way of describing those online

users who had adopted a social purpose and practice to

spread the Internet as a participatory environment to

all who wanted access. (Read more here.)

In response to my question about how to start

an OhmyNews in the U.S., Oh suggested writing a

proposal. This poses an interesting challenge for those

interested in creating a U.S. version of OhmyNews, the

challenge to develop a proposal for what would be

desirable as a form of OhmyNews for the U.S.

A recent article in the journal, Media, Culture

and Society about OhmyNews helps to identify the

salient problem facing OhmyNews International edi-

tors and contributors.

The article raises the question of

how to view alternative media that are a hybrid of

progressive and commercial practices. The authors

caution against jumping to conclusions about whether

a publication can maintain a progressive nature even if

it is funded by a commercial mechanism like advertis-

ing.

Likewise they caution against automatically

considering a publication progressive if it welcomes a

broad range of content. Instead they note the tension

experienced by alternative publications between the

need to find a means of funding and the need to

nourish progressive content and purpose.

An example of this problem was reflected in

the talks given by different citizen reporters at the

OhmyNews International forum. Ramzy Baroud, a

Palestinian and Lily Yulianti from Indonesia, for

example, gave talks describing the importance of

accurate presentations in the media of the conditions of

the Palestinians and of Muslims.

Baroud explained that he grew up in a Palestin-

ian refugee camp. He told the story of his father who

would listen to BBC radio whenever he could. It was

very important to his father to hear what was being

reported about the Palestinian struggle, though often

the reports were inaccurate. Baroud explained how he

had come to feel that having accurate reports of what

was happening, of the situation, were critical to mak-

ing it possible for there to be any improvement in the

plight of those who try to oppose unbridled power.

Baroud also discussed the need for online

media to provide a public sphere to oppose globaliza-

tion and the crimes of globalization. These presenta-

Page 26

tions provided a contrast to an earlier presentation by

Gregory Daigle from the U.S. about how he was able

to get over 50,000 hits on one of his OhmyNews

articles when it was picked up by Digg.com and how

citizen reporters should aim to gear their articles so

they will get lots of hits.

The need for advertising dollars for alternative

media like OhmyNews means that there is a tendency

to focus on how to get more advertising. Yet there are

already many publications focusing on getting lots of

hits and lots of advertising dollars. If an alternative

publication loses sight of the need to nourish its

progressive content and purpose, however, it loses its

reason for being.

This article was written for Telepolis.

NOTES

1. The demonstrations were against the decision of the U.S.

military court marshall that acquitted two U.S. soldiers whose ar-

moured vehicle had killed two Korean middle school girls. Also

the demonstrations were against the agreement that the U.S. has

with Korea that means that crimes committed in the course of

military duty fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. justice system,

not the Korean.

2. Several months ago there was an online struggle over the

scientific work of a famous Korean stem cell research scientist

Hwang Woo Suk. When questions were raised about his research

in a televised investigative report, an online fan club to support

him was formed. The advertisers of the TV program were

pressured by Hwang's supporters to withdraw their advertising

from the program. A wind in support of him was stirred up online.

But also online were those who discussed his research

and demonstrated how it was fraudulent. And there were those

online who spread the understanding of the fraud. Thus despite a

harsh attack on those challenging the scientific work, the fraud-

ulent nature of the work was uncovered.

3. Eun-Gyoo Kim and James W. Hamilton, “Capitulation to

Capitalism: OhmyNews as alternative media?”, Media, Culture

and Society, Vol 28, No. 4, p. 541-560.

[Editor’s Note: The following article first appeared in OhmyNews

International on October 17, 2006.]

The Problem Facing the UN

by Ronda Hauben

The official selection on Oct. 13, 2006 of Ban

Ki-moon of South Korea as the new secretary general

of the United Nations could not come at a more pro-

pitious time. Why, one may ask? Hailing from the

Republic of Korea (South Korea), Ban will have

before him the daunting task of bringing the best

possible contributions from the international commu-

nity to bear on many of the difficult problems that

erupt in the world. Along with his appointment to the

post at the UN this past week, and the congratulations

from diplomats from many regions of the world at a

ceremony held at the General Assembly, was the event

that took place the following day: the imposition of

Article 41, Chapter 7 sanctions on North Korea by the

Security Council as punishment for the test of a nuc-

lear device several days earlier.

Though Ban does not take office for his new

position until Jan. 1, 2007, a crisis has already devel-

oped that will require the best efforts and resources he

can muster. In congratulating him on his selection,

several of the diplomats noted the great achievements

of South Korea in having transformed itself from “the

status of least developed country, to an industrialized

highly developed nation” and “as the 11

largest

economy in the world” (in the words of Gambian

Ambassador to the UN Crispin Grey-Johnson). Speak-

ing about Ban, Grey-Johnson, who is chairman of the

African regional group at the UN, “the developments

in his own region of the world call for wisdom and

cautious diplomacy” in order to be able to “mediate

this very complex security situation that is now unfold-

ing in the Korean Peninsula.”

In his acceptance speech to the General Assem-

bly upon his appointment as the eighth secretary

general of the UN, Ban acknowledged that he was

following “in a line of remarkable leaders.” That “each

of the men in his own way, came on board at the UN

at a critical juncture in the organization’s history.”

That “each wondered what the coming years would

require as they took over the leadership role of the

preeminent international organization.”

The secretary general elect expressed his

respect for the role played by the current secretary

general, Kofi Annan, and promised to build on his

legacy. Explaining the need to hear the views and

concerns of all the member nations of the UN, Ban

pledged to consult widely in his preparations for as-

suming his new position. “I will listen attentively to

your concerns, expectations and admonitions,” he

promised the 192 member states.

Congratulating Ban, South African Ambassa-

dor to the UN Dumisani Kumalo proposed that in

order for the secretary general elect to be able to act in

Page 27

the interest of the entire membership, he will need to

“listen to the views of each and every member state.”

How the future secretary general can help to

solve the problems that come before the UN is not only

a critical question for the international community, but

also a critical task in the face of the increased tension

being experienced on the Korean Peninsula.

While several of the speeches at the General

Assembly ceremony spoke to the need for wide rang-

ing consultations and discussions in order to diffuse

tensions and determine how to solve difficult prob-

lems, recent actions at the Security Council the day

after the appointment of Ban demonstrate that a very

different process is practiced by that body.

Only after an agreement was achieved among

the five permanent members of the Security Council

and supported by the 10 temporary members, and

voted on, did the Council agree to hear the party to the

problem that was before them. And only after hearing

the views of all the permanent members of the Security

Council – the U.S., France, Britain, China and Russia

– and some of the temporary members about why they

voted for the sanctions on North Korea did the council

allow the representative from the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea (North Korea), Pak Gil Yon, to

have a few minutes to speak. His talk was followed by

a brief statement from the South Korean ambassador to

the UN, who spoke in support of the sanctions.

In the brief opportunity he had to speak, Pak

indicated that his country felt it was the victim of

hostile acts by the U.S. and that it had a sovereign right

to defend itself from such hostile acts. Also, he indi-

cated that the process of the Security Council in man-

dating sanctions on his country was more like the

activity of gangsters than an activity representing a

legitimate means of investigating a dispute and deter-

mining how to diffuse a tense situation.

Thus, the speeches supporting discussion and

investigation in the General Assembly on Friday, Oct.

13, and the closed decision-making process that cul-

minated the following day in the issuing of sanctions

against North Korea, are in stark contrast to each other.

The statements by several of the five permanent

members of the Security Council, the members who

have the power to veto Security Council decisions,

emphasized that their resolution imposing sanctions

against North Korea reflected the condemnation of the

“international community” and that all the nations of

the UN now had a legal obligation to carry out the

provisions of the sanctions.

While the Security Council does indeed have

the power to impose such sanctions on a country in the

name of the UN, the process by which the sanctions

were decided, is a sorry demonstration of power

politics that involves very few of the 192 member

countries that make up the UN

The chairman of the Latin American and

Caribbean regional group, in his comments to the fu-

ture secretary general, explained that there are impor-

tant challenges for the UN in the role it plays in “to-

day’s world.”

“International public opinion demands that the

Security Council and other bodies of the organization

should perform a much better job. There is a trend at

this time for great and infinite opportunities as well as

unprecedented risks,” explained Ecuadorian Ambassa-

dor to the UN Diego Cordovez.

“The United Nations, it is said, should be a

base, a forum, a mode that would enable the interna-

tional community to take advantage of those tran-

scendental opportunities and foresee and neutralize

potential risks,” Cordovez added. “For those reasons,

it is important to insist on the need to reform thor-

oughly and deeply the organization and undoubtedly,

that would be the main task and responsibility of our

new secretary general.” (He was referring to the failure

of the member countries to reform the Security Coun-

cil.)

“It is inconceivable,” he said, “that we are dis-

cussing the reform of the Security Council for decades,

preparing infinite numbers of formulas, doing report

after report on that item, and yet it remains – immuta-

ble and impossible to the critics for its lack of repre-

sentation and its parsimonious conduct to confront

[the] world’s crises.”

The act of bringing sanctions against a member

state by the Security Council, with no investigation

into the grievances that motivated North Korea’s act-

ions, stands as an egregious example of the failure of

the obligation of the UN to hear from each member

state and to provide a place where problems can be

heard and discussed to find a solution.

North Korea says its problems are with the U.S.

and that it has developed nuclear devices because of its

need to defend itself from the U.S. That is a serious

statement requiring investigation to see who has

caused the problem and who merits the imposition of

sanctions.

Another aspect of the current process that

ended in sanctions is that the five permanent members

Page 28

of the Security Council are powerful countries that

possess nuclear weapons. These very countries have

failed to meet their obligations under the Nuclear Non-

proliferation Treaty to carry out disarmament.

Some scholars and diplomats explain that they

are not surprised that North Korea believes it needs to

develop a nuclear capacity in order to protect itself

from danger. Given the actions of the U.S. government

in branding North Korea as part of the “axis of evil”

and attacking another, Iraq, which it had similarly

branded, is but one of the reasons some scholars be-

lieve the U.S. government provided North Korea with

a legitimate justification to develop nuclear weapons.

In its brief talk at the Security Council meeting, North

Korea expressed one of its disappointments:

It was gangster-like for the Security

Council to adopt such a coercive reso-

lution against the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea while neglecting the

nuclear threat posed by the United

States against his country…. The coun-

cil was incapable of offering a single

word of concern when the United States

threatened to launch nuclear pre-emp-

tive attacks, reinforced its armed forces

and conducted large-scale military ex-

ercises near the Korean Peninsula.

It must be remembered that the five permanent

members of the Security Council possess thousands of

nuclear weapons.

Although commentators and scholars who feel

there is justification for North Korea’s actions want to

discourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons, they

explain that punishing North Korea, while ignoring

those countries who are in the club of nations possess-

ing nuclear weapons, can only breed cynicism and

hostility to nonproliferation and enforcement efforts.

That North Korea can claim that it felt com-

pelled to develop a nuclear device, is a signal that the

current regime of power politics is not working in a

way that provides alternatives for a small nation that

feels threatened by the nations that are nuclear powers.

North Korea’s situation is a demonstration that there is

need for serious discussion by the 192 member states

of the UN to understand the problems that North Korea

claims compel it to develop nuclear weapons as a

means of securing its borders and protecting its sover-

eignty.

There is indeed an international community,

and there is indeed a serious challenge facing it. The

five big nuclear powers who wield veto power on the

Security Council can bring to bear punishment upon a

small nation that endeavors to develop nuclear capabil-

ity. This, however, will only compound the problem as

it will only increase the hostility and resentment that

the small nation feels from such unequal treatment at

the hands of those who themselves possess nuclear

weapons and who use the power this capability be-

stows on them in such a self-serving manner.

The two Koreas have brought to the world

stage the need for a truly international organization,

one that will consider all its members’ concerns and

needs, and find ways to support serious consideration

of the problems such nations have but are unable to

solve themselves.

The urgent problem facing the UN at this

juncture in its history is not whether North Korea has

developed and tested a nuclear device. It is the break-

down reflected by the lack of participation and investi-

gation by the international community into how a

crisis will be handled once it develops, and whether the

concerns and problems of those who are involved in

the crisis will be considered as part of the process of

seeking a solution. It is how the UN functions when

tensions reach a point where serious attention is

needed to help to understand and solve a problem.

Unfortunately for the world, and for North

Korea, there was no such process in the decision to

impose sanctions on North Korea. The decision to

impose sanctions on North Korea was not made by the

international community. It was the decision of a small

set of nuclear countries. Who was responsible for the

crisis was not explored before determining blame, and

thus the proclaimed solution is likely only to worsen

the problem rather than solve it. Yet the actual prob-

lem exists and the fact that people of the world recog-

nize it is highlighted by a recent poll taken in South

Korea, which showed that 43 percent of the population

blames the U.S. government for North Korea’s test of

a nuclear device, while only 37.2 percent blame the

North Koreans.

The actions in the Security Council to punish

North Korea occurred without the needed exploration

of what had motivated North Korea to turn to nuclear

weapons as a means of self-defense. Can the UN be

changed in the needed ways so that it will be able to

handle such problems? This is the urgent issue facing

the UN as the future secretary general takes over the

post in January. This is one of the challenges facing

Ban Ki-moon, member nations and people who are

Page 29

part of the UN organization as it embarks on a new

chapter in the history of this needed global organiza-

tion.

Notes:

1. See “Pyongyang’s Nuke Test Sparks Fission Over Response.”

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/140740/ (No Longer Avai-

lable)

2. See “What About North Korea’s sovereignty?”

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=518268 (No Longer

Available)

3. See “U.S. Most Responsible for Nuclear Test: Poll.”

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200610/kt20061015172

30011990.htm (No Longer Available)

*The above article was put online at:

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=

323351&rel_no=1 [no longer available]. Reprinted at

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn16-1.pdf pages 2-5.

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

The Amateur Computerist invites submissions.

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The opinions expressed in articles are those of their

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