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 By all accounts, he wasn't a missionary or a journalist. He had no
apparent political or religious agenda for the government of Kim
Jong Un. Instead, he visited North Korea as a curious tourist,
according to his son, eager to reconnect with a country where he'd
served as an infantryman during the Korean War, six decades ago.
The mystery, then, about why Pyongyang has held this 85-year-old for
a month after dragging him off a plane at the end of a nine-day tour
has baffled Newman's friends and family — as well as analysts who
study North Korea. The U.S. and North Korean governments haven't
helped answer the questions, so far providing no public details.
"I find this pretty weird," Robert Kelly, a political scientist at
Pusan National University in South Korea who has traveled as a
tourist to North Korea, said of Newman's detention. "I don't see any
of the usual signs — such as missionary activity or overt
law-breaking — that lead to detention." Whatever the reasons behind the detention, it could hurt
impoverished Pyongyang's efforts to encourage a growing tourism
trade seen as a rare source of much-needed foreign currency. "This
obviously jeopardizes North Korea's long, painstaking effort to
build a tourism industry," Kelly said in an email.
Tourism is picking up in North Korea, despite strong warnings from
the U.S. State Department, most recently this week, about the risk
of arbitrary detention. Americans travel there each year, many as
part of humanitarian efforts or to find long-lost relatives or to
see a closed society few outsiders get to visit.
Newman has been described as an inveterate traveler and long-retired
finance executive from California. His son, Jeffrey Newman, said his
father wanted to return to the country where he spent three years
during the Korean War.
Americans have been making the trip to North Korea in increasing
numbers over the past two years, said Jenny Town, assistant director
of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies.
They do so knowing that caution is needed in a country that views
outsiders with suspicion. Tour groups, Kelly said, are careful to
tell visitors "not to say anything foolish, make politically risky
jokes, critique the ideology and so on."
North Korea has detained at least six Americans since 2009,
including two journalists accused of trespassing and several
Americans, some of whom are of Korean ancestry, accused of spreading
Christianity. Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary and tour
operator, has been detained for more than a year. North Korea sees
missionary work as a Western threat to its authoritarian government.
It's possible that North Korea could try to use Newman as a
diplomatic pawn in an interminable nuclear standoff with Washington
— something analysts say Pyongyang has done previously with detained
Americans. Several of them were only released after high-profile
visits to Pyongyang by prominent Americans, including former
presidents Billy Carter and Bill Clinton.
While detaining a tourist is rare, said Yoo Ho-Yeol, a professor of
North Korea studies at Korea University in Seoul, Newman's
background as a war veteran, while probably not the main reason for
his detention, may be a good way for Pyongyang to indirectly
pressure Washington to resume long-stalled nuclear
disarmament-for-aid talks and other issues.
"He's someone who the U.S. government would pay great attention to,"
Yoo said.
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Pyongyang has called for a resumption of those nuclear talks, which
have been stalled since 2008, but insists it must be recognized as a
nuclear power. Washington balks at that and says talks won't happen
until North Korea first shows signs it will abide by past nuclear
disarmament commitments.
It's unclear what led to Newman's detention Oct. 26. His son,
Jeffrey Newman, said that he heard from Bob Hamrdla, Newman's
traveling companion who was allowed to return to the U.S., that
before Newman was detained he had had a "difficult" discussion with
North Korean officials about his experiences during the 1950-53 war
between U.S.-led United Nations forces and North Korea and ally
China.
Another U.S. veteran of the Korean War named Merrill Newman was
awarded the Silver Star in 1952 for leading his Marine platoon in a
series of attacks that inflicted heavy casualties on North Korean
troops and for taking effective defensive actions during a massive
counter-attack, according to the Military Times.
But Jeffrey Newman has told reporters that there's no indication
North Korean authorities have confused his father with the other
Merrill Newman, who is now 84 and lives in Oregon.
Korean War veteran Thomas Hudner, a retired Navy captain and Medal
of Honor winner, went to North Korea in July to fulfill a promise he
said he made 60 years ago to recover the remains of a pilot who was
trapped in his downed fighter jet. While in North Korea, Hudner
"didn't mention the war at all" and said he had no complaints about
how he was treated.
Still, the Korean War service of American tourists in North Korea
could be sensitive. That conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace
treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically at war —
something Pyongyang's propaganda frequently raises in criticism that
Washington and Seoul seek to bring down its government.
Kim Dong-jil, a South Korean professor who is deputy director of
Peking University's Center for Korean Peninsular Studies, said a low
profile by the U.S. government and media could lead to Newman's
quick release.
"The North Korean authorities know it would do no good to detain an
elderly man for a long time, because of human rights concerns," he
said.
[Associated
Press; FOSTER KLUG]
Associated Press writers
Eun-Young Jeong in Seoul, Lisa Leff, Martha Mendoza and Sudhin
Thanawala in San Francisco, Robert Jablon in Pasadena, California,
and researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this story.
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
