For North Korea, Another Bargaining Chip?

BEIJING â€" Has North Korea got another American “hostage”? And will a former president have to pack his bags and head to Pyongyang to plead for the hostage’s release?

That’s the obvious question as reports come in Thursday morning that Kenneth Bae, an American citizen born in South Korea, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea for “hostile acts.”

Obvious, because that’s what has happened twice in recent years, as my colleague in Seoul, Choe Sang-hun, recently reported: an American is arrested, charged with “hostile acts,” then released after a former president travels to North Korea to request the person’s release.

“North Korea, a police state, has often used the plight of detained Americans as a bargaining chip in its dealings with Washington,” Sang-hun wrote last week.

In 2009, North Korean authorities arrested two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee. The two women were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor but were released five months later after former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang and met with Kim Jong-il, the leader at the time.

In 2010, another American, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, was arrested and sentenced to eight years of hard labor. He was freed when former President Jimmy Carter visited Pyongyang, Sang-hun wrote.

Mr. Bae, also known as Pae Jun-Ho, was arrested in November as he entered the northeastern port city of Rason, Agence-France Presse reported from Seoul. “The Supreme Court sentenced him to 15 years of compulsory labor for this crime,” it cited KCNA, the North Korean news agency, as saying. Mr. Bae was tried on April 30, two days ago, according to the BBC.

According to The Hankyoreh, a South Korean newspaper, North Korea has used Americans in the past in an attempt to make them “messengers for talks.”

“However, it is difficult to be certain that the conventional pattern, in which high-ranking officials visit the North, the North releases detainees, and talks are held, will be repeated in this case as well. At the moment, North Korea is not even responding to the U.S. conditional proposal for talks,” it said, in an article written before Mr. Bae’s sentencing and referring to other talks. The comment highlights the fact that Mr. Bae’s sentencing comes amid a very tense time in North Korea’s relations with the outside world, following a third nuclear test by the state in February and military threats.

South Korean human rights advocates have described Mr. Bae as a devout Christian who not only ran tours to North Korea, but was also interested in helping orphans in the Communist country. They said security officials in the North may have been offended by pictures of orphans that Mr. Bae had taken and stored in his computer, Sang-hun wrote.