Japan holds n. Korea ships -- step to naval blockade?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Is the US government preparing a naval blockade of North Korea (with
or without bombing)?  This seems very possible.  Of course, to be
effective, such a blockade would require full cooperation from other
states not only at sea but on land -- notably south Korea, China, and
Russia. Achieving this may turn out to be an insuperable problem, but
cannot be ruled out.

The drive toward military action has been reaffirmed by John Bolton,
head of the U.S. Disarmament-of-Everybody-but-the-United-States
Agency.  Bolton stated:

"We aim ultimately not just to prevent the spread of WMD, but also to
eliminate or 'roll back' such weapons from rogue states and terrorist
groups that already possess them or are close to doing so," he told
the
House Committee on International Relations June 4.

While stating that the administration of President George Bush
favored peaceful and diplomatic solutions to the proliferation threat,
it ruled out no options, including "pre-emptive military force where
required".

Bolton also stated that Iraqi specialists in "weapons of mass
destruction" would be offered the opportunity to emigrate to the
United States -- and presumably pursue their trade for the cause of
GOOD instead of EVIL.  The alternative choice probably being a bullet
in their "intellectual capacity."
Fred Feldman



New York Times, June 11
Japan Detains 2 North Korean Ships, Part of Pressure Strategy
(excerpt)
By JAMES BROOKE


TOKYO, June 10 ? Japan detained two North Korean cargo ships in
Japanese ports today, moves that North Korea denounced as sanctions
and that Japan defended as safety inspections.

"We are ready to thoroughly inspect all North Korean vessels at ports
across the country," Chikage Ogi, Japan's transport minister, said at
a news conference, hours before her inspectors scoured the North
Korean ships for violations.

The detentions were ordered a day after Bush administration officials
said they were encouraging allies to put pressure on North Korean
shipping by enforcing safety rules and searching for illegal drugs, a
major North Korean export. The policy is part of a broader effort to
force North Korea into negotiating an end to its nuclear bomb program.

Inspectors worked all day in Maizuru, a western Japan port that last
year received about one-quarter of the 1,344 calls to all Japanese
ports by 147 North Korean ships. After the inspections, Maizuru
transport ministry officials ordered the detention of the Namsan 3, a
298-ton freighter, until its North Korean crew of 16 could fix three
major safety violations: lack of charts of surrounding seas, a hole in
its bulkhead, and a doorsill to the cabin that was too low to prevent
water from flooding in.

Farther north, at Otaru port in Hokkaido, northern Japan, local
transport officials ordered the detention for safety violations of the
178-ton Daehungrason 2, which was carrying a cargo of crabs.

During the last decade, several North Korean freighters have become
stranded along Japan's coast. Invariably, the state company owners
have walked away from the shipwrecks, refusing to pay fines or to
remove the hulks.

The detentions today came after North Korean authorities suspended the
country's lone ferry link with Japan to protest the new safety
inspection policy. North Korea's state-run press denounced the
inspections.

"If this is part of `sanctions' against the D.P.R.K., we cannot but
regard it as a very serious development," the official Korean Central
News Agency said, using the initials of North Korea's formal name, the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It called the policy "part of the Bush administration's foolish and
shameful moves to ostracize the D.P.R.K. politically and morally on
the international arena and isolate and stifle it by terming it a
`rogue state.' "