Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Well, perhaps
Speaker 1: you've noticed that North Korea it's been in the news
Speaker 1: of late with Supreme Leader Kim Jong un rumored to
Speaker 1: be in grave condition after heart surgery. Well, Jason, if
Speaker 1: you want to get word on Kim's health, or let's say,
Speaker 1: explore mining opportunities of the Hermit Kingdom, you really have
Speaker 1: to start with one individual. We're gonna call him Alejandro
Speaker 1: here in our introduction, and as you'll see later on
Speaker 1: in this story, this is an individual who keeps shortening
Speaker 1: his name. Well, he happens to live six thousand miles
Speaker 1: from Pyongyang. He lives in Spain, yet not exactly a local,
Speaker 1: and he's the only non Korean affiliated with the government.
Speaker 1: He began as a teenage fan boy of the socialist
Speaker 1: state and over time developed ties to the regime. He
Speaker 1: says he's the primary contact for anyone in the West
Speaker 1: who wants to cold call North Korea, and Josh Dean
Speaker 1: cold called him for the magazine and got one of
Speaker 1: the strangest stories you can imagine North Korea's man in Spain.
Speaker 1: If you want to explore mining opportunities or get word
Speaker 1: on Kim Jong UN's health. You start with Alejandro Kao Dibenos.
Speaker 1: He's only six thousand miles from Pyongyang. By Josh Dean,
Speaker 1: the message from Dubai in late twenty eighteen wasn't unusual.
Speaker 1: It's just part of the day for Alejandro Kao Dibanos
Speaker 1: to open his email and find some intrepid capitalist who
Speaker 1: wants to do a little business in North Korea. Recently,
Speaker 1: there was the one from a guy in Hawaii who
Speaker 1: wanted to open a McDonald's in Pyongyang. That's an easy No.
Speaker 1: Privately owned businesses are forbidden in the Democratic People's Republic
Speaker 1: of Korea. No McDonald's, no Kentucky Fried Chicken, no Burger King,
Speaker 1: Kaodbinos says. Every so often, it's the head of the
Speaker 1: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints in Spain
Speaker 1: asking if it's finally all right to send over a
Speaker 1: wave of white shirts carrying the Book of Mormon, even
Speaker 1: though he knows that's a non starter. Only those religions
Speaker 1: that existed in Korea before the d p r k's
Speaker 1: formation in nineteen forty eight are allowed to operate in
Speaker 1: the country. Sometimes a lead seems real enough that kaw
Speaker 1: Dibinos can pass it up the ladder from his desk
Speaker 1: in Tarragona on Spain's sunny east coast, to the North
Speaker 1: Korean embassy in Madrid, or even to his contacts in Pyongyang.
Speaker 1: At first glance, the Dubai email was one of those.
Speaker 1: An Elena Sanchez was writing from an investment firm called
Speaker 1: Baron Stone Capital. Her boss, Adrian Hong, hoped to meet
Speaker 1: at the embassy to discuss investment opportunities, ideally in mining.
Speaker 1: It might seem strange that a banker in Dubai would
Speaker 1: email a Spaniard to talk about investments in pyong Yang,
Speaker 1: but such as the idiosyncrasy of doing business with North Korea,
Speaker 1: I received this kind of request every day, Kao Dibonos
Speaker 1: tells me one afternoon in November. Requests of late have
Speaker 1: been more to address rumors that Supreme Leader Kim Jong
Speaker 1: un was in grave condition after heart surgery. We're walking
Speaker 1: around Tarragona during one of its infrequent rainy days. I'm
Speaker 1: the only reachable person, he says. He means that literally.
Speaker 1: Kao di Bonos began as a teenage fanboy of North
Speaker 1: Korea's socialist state and over time developed ties to the regime.
Speaker 1: In two thousand two, after he'd spent more than a
Speaker 1: decade as a volunteer, cheerleader and propagandist, the Nations Supreme
Speaker 1: Leader Kim Jong Ill made him a special Delegate to
Speaker 1: the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Official diplomacy
Speaker 1: is conducted through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and there
Speaker 1: are envoys at the United Nations, but business, science, culture, sports,
Speaker 1: basically anything outward facing goes through the committee. As the
Speaker 1: only non Korean affiliated with the government, Kau Dimanos says
Speaker 1: he's the primary contact for anyone in the West who
Speaker 1: wants to cold call North Korea. The woman in Dubai
Speaker 1: said her boss was looking for investments in frontier markets.
Speaker 1: Kao Debanos can help with the request like this. We
Speaker 1: have many investment possibilities, he says, naming mindes, hotels, and
Speaker 1: I t or perhaps you don't have a specific play
Speaker 1: in this case, Caw Dibonos might arrange a meeting with
Speaker 1: the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Even an American like me
Speaker 1: can invest. If I'm willing to violate international sanctions, we
Speaker 1: are happy to make business with you, he says. When
Speaker 1: Kaw Dibanos dug into barren Stone, he couldn't find any
Speaker 1: information on it. Sanchez was pushy too, She responded to
Speaker 1: his chilly replies with what felt like a bribe, an
Speaker 1: offer to hire him as a consultant if he could
Speaker 1: facilitate introductions at the embassy. She then announced that Hong
Speaker 1: would soon be in Madrid and hoped to arrange a
Speaker 1: dinner with cow Debonos and North Korea's ambassador. kW Debonos
Speaker 1: says he notified the embassy of the inquiries and registered
Speaker 1: his skepticism. He didn't recommend a meeting. A few weeks later,
Speaker 1: on February twenty second, twenty nineteen, Hong showed up anyway.
Speaker 1: When an embassy worker came to the door, Hong and
Speaker 1: eight accomplices forced their way in for several hours. According
Speaker 1: to news reports, Hong and his team, who claimed to
Speaker 1: represent Free Josian, a North Korean dissident group, met a
Speaker 1: to the staff. They isolated the only accredited North Korean
Speaker 1: diplomat in the basement, where they put a hood over
Speaker 1: his head and attempted to bully him into defecting. This
Speaker 1: effort failed, and at around nine thirty p m. The
Speaker 1: gang took laptops and flash drives, and fled in stolen
Speaker 1: diplomatic cars. Media accounts speculated that the break in was
Speaker 1: an attempt to disrupt the then upcoming nuclear talks between
Speaker 1: President Trump and Kim Jong un in Vietnam. The group
Speaker 1: had supposedly targeted Madrid because North Korea's taught negotiator, Kim
Speaker 1: Yock Chol, was previously ambassador to Spain. North Korea had
Speaker 1: no official comment. Kao Dominos theorizes it was the c
Speaker 1: i A and tells me this was confirmed by friends
Speaker 1: in the Spanish intelligence Service. The CIA has denied involvement. Hong,
Speaker 1: sought by Spanish authorities on unspecified charges, is still at large.
Speaker 1: Kao Dominos assumes that interest in Hong will fade because
Speaker 1: no one cares about the treatment of North Korean diplomats.
Speaker 1: He's also sure that the Sloppyists was a plan B.
Speaker 1: The real plan, he says, was that dinner Sanchez had
Speaker 1: tried to set up It's easier and cleaner to kidnap
Speaker 1: a diplomat leaving a restaurant, which means he might have
Speaker 1: been snatched to Kao de Banos laughs and pats his belly.
Speaker 1: He's a little plump. There's something vaguely ted cruzish about him.
Speaker 1: I'm too big, he says. They have to feed me
Speaker 1: too much more important, He's a Spanish citizen and quasi famous.
Speaker 1: Taking him would be bad pr I'm too much of
Speaker 1: a public person. Alejandro ku Dibanos seems like a lot
Speaker 1: of name, but it's actually shortened. The whole banana. Alejandro
Speaker 1: cow Dibenos de Lessi Perez is on wieldy for daily
Speaker 1: use and off brand, signifying the aristocratic lineage of Spain's
Speaker 1: most famous socialist. He didn't grow up rich, but his
Speaker 1: family was once powerful. He says. An ancestor conquered land
Speaker 1: on the French border and claimed it for the Spanish king,
Speaker 1: who rewarded with the title of Baron de Les. Caw
Speaker 1: Dibanos as the eldest mill heir has claimed to this title,
Speaker 1: as well as Marques de Rosalmante, Conde de Argelejo and
Speaker 1: Marques de Dies ma Ila Hinojosa. Today, the titles carry
Speaker 1: no privileges. All the wealth is gone too. Because his
Speaker 1: paternal grandfather blew the fortune on poor investments in gambling,
Speaker 1: caw Dibanos could claim the honorifics but he'd have to
Speaker 1: ask the king's permission and pay a fee. His father
Speaker 1: was a chemist who married and raised his son in
Speaker 1: a happy, middle class home. After high school, caw Dibonos
Speaker 1: served three years as an MP in Spain's Air Force,
Speaker 1: but the whole time his heart was in North Korea.
Speaker 1: He has only honorary citizenship in the country, he says.
Speaker 1: To become a North Korean citizen, caw Dibanos would have
Speaker 1: to renounce Spain, which would mean giving up a free
Speaker 1: life on the Spanish coast and moving to the world's
Speaker 1: most closed off country. This isn't a deal breaker for him.
Speaker 1: It's what I wanted since I'm thirteen, he says, over
Speaker 1: a plate of vegetable paea. Caw Dibonos is vegetarian in
Speaker 1: Tarragona's Old Quarter. During one of three days worth of
Speaker 1: conversations in which he rhapsodizes about the famously brutal and
Speaker 1: authoritarian regime, that's when he read about North Korea's particular,
Speaker 1: in his view, pure form of socialism and fell in love.
Speaker 1: At sixteen, he flew to peyong Yang, having saved up
Speaker 1: for the flight by working at a gas station. I
Speaker 1: found a very clean society with very nice people, he recalls,
Speaker 1: and then I made up my mind I want to
Speaker 1: help Korea. His first step was to found the Korean
Speaker 1: Friendship Association or kf AKAU. Dibinos persuaded high school Palace
Speaker 1: to join, not out of a shared affinity for socialism,
Speaker 1: but because he offered coca cola and karaoke at meetings.
Speaker 1: His father didn't approve. He wanted to push me out
Speaker 1: of home because he worried something will happen to the
Speaker 1: family because of my work, Cau Dibanos says, I had
Speaker 1: a tough time. It was a tough time to be
Speaker 1: an aspiring socialist period. This was the early nineteen nine
Speaker 1: d's when Eastern Europe was falling. I was the only
Speaker 1: one going against direction, he says. In two thousand, Caw
Speaker 1: Dibanos created North Korea's first official website, Korea dpr dot com,
Speaker 1: despite knowing just rudimentary web design, he says. This was
Speaker 1: the country's only outwardly facing government side in English, he adds,
Speaker 1: until it started its own in twenty twelve, meaning that
Speaker 1: any Westerner who tried to contact North Korea online from
Speaker 1: two thousand to twenty twelve was riding to one Guy
Speaker 1: in Spain. Hundreds of thousands of people visited The Primitive
Speaker 1: Side in its first year, occasionally overwhelming the limited band
Speaker 1: with Ku Dibanos could afford on his monthly budget of
Speaker 1: twenty euros. His work also attracted media attention, especially after
Speaker 1: US journalists learned who was behind the Jankee North Korean
Speaker 1: website that had just appeared in the world one day.
Speaker 1: By the time Ko Dibanos returned to pyeong Yang in
Speaker 1: two thousand one with a group of twenty delegates from
Speaker 1: the k f A, he says his organization had thousands
Speaker 1: of members. It now has more than sixteen thousand across
Speaker 1: one hundred twenty countries. Still, he ached to be more
Speaker 1: than a friend. Kao Debinos wanted to be part of
Speaker 1: the project, he says, and offered to move to North
Speaker 1: Korea and join the army. Officials there told him the
Speaker 1: country had plenty of soldiers, what it didn't have was
Speaker 1: a European cultural envoy. He was disappointed, but saw the logic.
Speaker 1: I will do what the country needs me to do,
Speaker 1: which is international relations, he says. I will sacrifice myself
Speaker 1: in the capitalist jungle and fight my way on February sixteenth,
Speaker 1: two thousand two, Kim Jong Il gave Kaw Dibinos his
Speaker 1: official appointment, the only non Korean working for the government,
Speaker 1: he says, with pride, first and only in history. Kao
Speaker 1: Dibinos is sometimes portrayed as a glorified tour guide, the
Speaker 1: man you call to book a trip to Peyongyang. But
Speaker 1: my work is not tourism, he says. My work is
Speaker 1: to bring v I P s. He did not arrange
Speaker 1: visits by former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, or
Speaker 1: for that matter, by Dennis Rodman, the eccentric former basketball star.
Speaker 1: Those came through the U N Mission, and Kau Dibanos
Speaker 1: is fine with that. Rodman was a huge headache, he says.
Speaker 1: But he did organize North Korea's first cryptocurrency conference. For
Speaker 1: a country banished from the global banking system, crypto has
Speaker 1: obvious appeal. The gathering was held in April nineteen at
Speaker 1: the glittering peong Yang PSI Tech Complex, which looks from
Speaker 1: above like an atom and was open to anyone who
Speaker 1: wanted to apply for an invitation, except for journalists and
Speaker 1: residents of South Korea, Japan, and Israel. Eight foreigners attended,
Speaker 1: including Italian information security specialist Fabio Pietro Santi. He says
Speaker 1: the two day event was strange. The English talks were
Speaker 1: translated into Korean with a delay, forcing speakers to pause
Speaker 1: after every line, and participants were not allowed to interact
Speaker 1: with a single North Korean. Prominent American crypt specialists, Virgil
Speaker 1: Griffith was another guest. Griffith flew home to Singapore with
Speaker 1: official state souvenirs, patriotic posters and knickknacks, and went straight
Speaker 1: to the U. S. Embassy to say I have been
Speaker 1: to North Korea and I give you some gifts. Caldbanos
Speaker 1: tells me, breaking into a grin, the decision was unwise,
Speaker 1: in his opinion. On November, three weeks after my visit
Speaker 1: to Spain, Griffith was arrested in Los Angeles and charged
Speaker 1: with violating U S sanctions for advising North Korea on
Speaker 1: bitcoin mining. He faces twenty years in prison and has
Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty. Pietro Santi had a more fruitful trip.
Speaker 1: He'd been looking for cheap technical talent to build an
Speaker 1: open source medical software tool legal under UN sanctions, and
Speaker 1: Caudbanos helped him set up meetings Shortly thereafter, Pietro Santi
Speaker 1: paid seven thousand, one HU euros about seventy seven hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for four months of design work by four programmers.
Speaker 1: I can't say that they are super high quality, but
Speaker 1: they were much better than many Indians I've worked with.
Speaker 1: He says. What impressed him most is that the programmers
Speaker 1: are able to work despite being cut off from the Internet,
Speaker 1: as nearly all North Korean citizens are. When they need
Speaker 1: technical information, the programmers told Pietro Santi they find it offline.
Speaker 1: He's now contemplating establishing a permanent research and design center there.
Speaker 1: Thirty thousand euros he figures would pay for five or
Speaker 1: six full time developers for a year. Kau Dibanos says
Speaker 1: that other influential people, including Americans, have visited Pyongyang at
Speaker 1: his invitation, but they rarely talk about it. This frustrates him.
Speaker 1: He wishes they would scream from the rooftops of the
Speaker 1: fantastic visits that obliterate their pre existing biases about Asia's utopia.
Speaker 1: A former defense minister from a European nation that Kau
Speaker 1: Dibanos won't name recently contacted him to inquire about a trip.
Speaker 1: He says This was an opportunity for promotion, to break
Speaker 1: the propaganda that you cannot travel to North Korea or
Speaker 1: you know that we will kill you, he says. But
Speaker 1: they don't want that because they know the problem it
Speaker 1: will create. Kaw Dibenos gets it. When he built the
Speaker 1: North Korean website, he had a good job doing I
Speaker 1: t but after word about his side hustle got out,
Speaker 1: he was reprimanded. He told his bosses it was just
Speaker 1: a hobby. Whenever I go home, instead of playing football
Speaker 1: or playing on the computer, I'm working for Korea from
Speaker 1: seven or eight p m. Until two or three a m.
Speaker 1: He told them. It is my passion. The company wasn't
Speaker 1: having it. It urged Cawdbanos to quit, and he did
Speaker 1: in exchange for severance. He hasn't worked since two thousand five.
Speaker 1: I have to fight to survive. But that's the rule
Speaker 1: of the capitalist jungle. He says. His position carries no salary.
Speaker 1: North Korea doesn't compensate him directly in any way. He says.
Speaker 1: He makes money by commission. When a company signs a
Speaker 1: deal to invest with North Korea, cow Dibinos takes what
Speaker 1: he calls a tiny fraction from the foreigner's side. This
Speaker 1: pays his bills usually, though he's been unable to arrange
Speaker 1: meetings during the coronavirus pandemic. I'm doing this for ideology
Speaker 1: and not for other interests, he says. If the kf
Speaker 1: A were a business, he charged members ten euros a
Speaker 1: month and be rich. Instead, He's often broke. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: can be two months and I don't have a single cent,
Speaker 1: he says. In those cases, month three gets hairy and
Speaker 1: he more actively pursues deals, but every deal is fraught.
Speaker 1: One side often backs out because of the complexities of
Speaker 1: trying to make business in a country under international sanctions.
Speaker 1: It helps that he lives frugally in a six hundred
Speaker 1: fifty square foot house with a six hundred euro monthly
Speaker 1: mortgage on a few acres of wooded hillside. There is
Speaker 1: a phrase that I like to use, he says. The
Speaker 1: rich person is not the one who has more money,
Speaker 1: but the one that needs less. I don't need fancy cars,
Speaker 1: and I don't spend money going to a disco. He
Speaker 1: sees a movie once every couple of months. He doesn't
Speaker 1: drink or smoke coodbinos must be entrepreneurial to navigate this
Speaker 1: peculiar path he broke his relationships between capitalists and a
Speaker 1: regime that dislikes them but not their money. As such,
Speaker 1: he runs into bureaucratic roadblocks. Persistence is a prerequisite, immunity
Speaker 1: to frustration a necessity. The easiest deals to consummate, he says,
Speaker 1: often involved North Korea's natural resources. That's why the Adrian
Speaker 1: Hong request to talk about mining seemed reasonable at first. Also,
Speaker 1: there are investments to be made in textiles, pharmaceutical research,
Speaker 1: and heavy industry. Lately, Kudmino says he's fostered agreements with
Speaker 1: European companies to use cheap, skilled labor on technology projects.
Speaker 1: We develop a lot of apps for Android and iOS
Speaker 1: and very cheap, he says, And we are very strong
Speaker 1: in animation. We export a lot for all kinds of
Speaker 1: modern cartoons. He cites an example, but obliquely. Let's say
Speaker 1: you're making a cartoon and you are outsourcing the work.
Speaker 1: So you go to Romania because you know it's very cheap.
Speaker 1: But the Romanian company knows of an even cheaper option.
Speaker 1: It's representative flies to Pyongyang and makes a deal for
Speaker 1: the same work at half the cost, and then gets
Speaker 1: fifty of the fee without employing anyone. This has happened,
Speaker 1: He says. He will not name movies nor popular video games.
Speaker 1: North Korean labor is also behind websites and crypto. He says.
Speaker 1: The shadow hands of globally sanctioned socialist labor are all
Speaker 1: around us. Kao Dibanos is famous in North Korea. He
Speaker 1: has a Korean name Joe Saniel, meaning Korea is one country,
Speaker 1: and a nickname Chang gun im Chanza, which means dear
Speaker 1: soldier of the General, the general being Kim jong Il.
Speaker 1: North Koreans politely approach him in restaurants and bring their
Speaker 1: glasses of wine to cheer with me. He says. He
Speaker 1: speaks only a little Korean, saying he doesn't have time
Speaker 1: to learn, and conducts business with the Cultural Committee in English. Spaniards, however,
Speaker 1: will stop me to talk and to take selfies. They're
Speaker 1: kind of invasive in the private area because they see
Speaker 1: you in a TV and they think they know you.
Speaker 1: I witnessed two women approach him at a cafe. They
Speaker 1: say something in I think Korean, Yes, he confirms. After
Speaker 1: the women leave, they thanked me for my work. Sometimes
Speaker 1: fans show up at pyeong Yang cafe, a small space
Speaker 1: on the ground floor of an apartment building near Tarragona's Port.
Speaker 1: Kodbanos opened at the cafe, which served Korean foods, coffee
Speaker 1: and beer, and North Korean souvenirs as a marketing opportunity
Speaker 1: in and for a year it was a minor tourist attraction.
Speaker 1: A kf A member owns the place, so there's no rent. Still,
Speaker 1: what little business it did wasn't enough to cover the
Speaker 1: monthly two thousand euros in tax and staff wages. Today
Speaker 1: it's just a place to hold KFE meetings and bring
Speaker 1: visitors like me. He plops on a couch and talks
Speaker 1: about how people have the wrong ideas about North Korea
Speaker 1: and the US. The former isn't bleak and miserable, the
Speaker 1: latter isn't eden caw Dibanos is a loyal mouthpiece. He
Speaker 1: rejects all questions about extra judicial old killings or humanitarian
Speaker 1: atrocities as propaganda. The media is often reporting that we
Speaker 1: execute people, which is not true, he claims. He says
Speaker 1: he's been to Palo Alto and was worried for his
Speaker 1: safety after dark. He also stayed in New York City
Speaker 1: the Bronx once, and then there was Orlando. That was
Speaker 1: when caw Dibnos went to Florida to film a scene
Speaker 1: for a documentary The Propaganda Game, in which he plays
Speaker 1: a major role. The Spanish director Alvaro Longoria wanted to
Speaker 1: get kaw Dimnos talking in the US about what he
Speaker 1: calls the famous film of the stupid Franco Man. He
Speaker 1: means James the actor, not Francisco the fascist, and the
Speaker 1: film and question is the interview which Franco made with
Speaker 1: Seth Rogan. The interview makes fun of North Korea and
Speaker 1: shows Kim Jong un perishing in a helicopter crash. This
Speaker 1: indignity allegedly infuriated Kim so much that he ordered the
Speaker 1: hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment and the release of documents.
Speaker 1: Law Gloria liked the idea of having caw Dibonos mocked
Speaker 1: these allegations on garishly American soil next to the giant
Speaker 1: metal globe at Universal Studios, Florida. Why there and not outside,
Speaker 1: say Sony headquarters is unclear. Longoria didn't return requests for comment.
Speaker 1: They shot at guerrilla style, just two men and a
Speaker 1: small camera among the tourists. I was explaining that it
Speaker 1: is known that the DPRK doesn't care about that stupid movie.
Speaker 1: Caw Dibonos recalls he was explaining it loudly enough that
Speaker 1: nervous tourists called security and the two Spaniards were ejected
Speaker 1: from the park. At least I managed to see alligators,
Speaker 1: he says, that's the good part of it. Public rants
Speaker 1: have harmed cow Dibonos before a few years back, he
Speaker 1: was standing along the Korean demilitarized Zone with a Spanish
Speaker 1: journalist who asked him on camera how he felt about
Speaker 1: the presence of US soldiers. Caw Dibinos replied that he
Speaker 1: felt very angry about the US occupation and that if necessary,
Speaker 1: I will take the arms and push them out. The
Speaker 1: footage set off a backlash in Spain that led to
Speaker 1: a raid on his home, the confiscation of two handguns
Speaker 1: that fired only rubber bullets, and the loss of his passport.
Speaker 1: He pleaded guilty to not having the required license for
Speaker 1: the guns. The case is under appeal and he's still
Speaker 1: unable to travel. Consensus in the U s has been
Speaker 1: that North Korea was behind this onny hack, but that's
Speaker 1: not been proven. Kaw Dibinos is here to tell us
Speaker 1: all that the assertion is ridiculous. The country does have
Speaker 1: excellent hackers, targeting a movie studio would be a waste
Speaker 1: of their abilities. It's been three years since kaw Dibinos
Speaker 1: has visited pyong Yang. He says he misses the place.
Speaker 1: He still wishes he could live there, where the only
Speaker 1: thing his life might lack is variety. He'd miss horror movies.
Speaker 1: We don't have good horror movies in North Korea because
Speaker 1: you need special effects and a full industry behind that,
Speaker 1: he says. But will I sacrifice a horror movie once
Speaker 1: every two months for living in a place where I
Speaker 1: can leave my wallet and nobody's going to steal for me,
Speaker 1: where I will have a free mortgage, Because now I'm
Speaker 1: living on the edge. If I don't have money at
Speaker 1: the end of this month, the bank kicks me out,
Speaker 1: I'm homeless. So what do you want to see a
Speaker 1: horror movie or have a house guaranteed for life? Caw
Speaker 1: Dibanos is an idealist. Hypocrisy irritates him. That's why I
Speaker 1: work for North Korea, he says. I know the president,
Speaker 1: vice president and most of our ministers and leaders. I
Speaker 1: know how they live, I know how they behave. They
Speaker 1: are the ones who set the standard of honesty and
Speaker 1: being humble. If I found that any of them will
Speaker 1: accept a bribe or saying one thing and doing the other,
Speaker 1: I will never work for our government. I told our president.
Speaker 1: I will always serve the dpr K as long as
Speaker 1: we keep our ideology and our standard. The day that
Speaker 1: DPRK will change like China or when they accept bribes,
Speaker 1: I will say bye bye. North Korea's mission at the
Speaker 1: u N and the country's embassy in Beijing didn't respond
Speaker 1: to request for comment on caw Dbanos's relationship to the government.
Speaker 1: South Korea's Unification minister, which is responsible for inter Korean affairs,
Speaker 1: declined to comment. China in particular offends him as a
Speaker 1: communist nation that now has a quasi free market riddled
Speaker 1: with corruption. China is a cautionary tale of what could
Speaker 1: happen if North Korea opened its borders. If you ask
Speaker 1: kaw Dimonos, China is a far worse place than the US.
Speaker 1: At least America is honest about what it is. He's
Speaker 1: not finished. This is important. I will write a letter,
Speaker 1: he says, and renounce my position immediately, in the very
Speaker 1: moment that we allow private housing, or private land, or
Speaker 1: privatized education or healthcare. Recent months have only reinforced kaw
Speaker 1: Dibanos's devotion. I tried calling him for comment about the
Speaker 1: pandemic and Kim Jong UN's health. He was slow to reply,
Speaker 1: then apologized when he did, saying that he was completely
Speaker 1: busy with so many interviews. He offered to reply to
Speaker 1: questions by email. While much of the Western world, including Spain,
Speaker 1: has been ravaged by COVID nineteen North Korea, he wrote
Speaker 1: is coronavirus free? On January fifteenth. He says he was
Speaker 1: asked by Pyongyang to help secure medical equipment for the
Speaker 1: prevention of the virus. On January, North Korea closed its
Speaker 1: borders and imposed a thirty day quarantine on anyone entering
Speaker 1: the country. Kao Dibinos says the government mass produced masks
Speaker 1: and disinfectants, mobilized the army to develop disinfection duties, and
Speaker 1: tightly controlled the borders. Reached out to friendly nations and
Speaker 1: non governmental organizations for test kits and personal protective equipment,
Speaker 1: and put twenty people into quarantine. There has not been
Speaker 1: a single death or a case of a patient with
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. He says, although that assertion was confirmed by
Speaker 1: the World Health Organizations representative in Pyongyang, it seems impossible
Speaker 1: that this is true. North Korea borders China, its largest
Speaker 1: trading partner. Contrast that to what he's seen at home
Speaker 1: in a society that prioritizes freedom of movement and the
Speaker 1: health of its businesses and isn't easily locked down. An
Speaker 1: absolute disaster, he says, as of late April, Spain was
Speaker 1: still averaging more than three hundred deaths a day, lacked
Speaker 1: adequate ppe, and was experiencing a shortage of some basic foods.
Speaker 1: Kodbinose says when he visited a public hospital in mid February,
Speaker 1: he was the only one wearing an advanced protective mask.
Speaker 1: The fact that the politicians, doctors, and generals of the
Speaker 1: army and police in charge of overseeing the measures got
Speaker 1: the virus demonstrates how incapable they are to keep the
Speaker 1: population safe, he says. Regarding Kim's health, he wrote, there
Speaker 1: is no official comment. However, I can say that those
Speaker 1: rumors are false. He pointed out that the source of
Speaker 1: the claim, which cited an anonymous person, was Daily in
Speaker 1: k which I'd heard him complain about before. As evidence
Speaker 1: that it wasn't true, he pointed me to a photo
Speaker 1: he'd chaired with his sixty thousand Twitter followers. It was
Speaker 1: of Kim smiling and looking as healthy as Kim ever looks,
Speaker 1: next to fighter planes, allegedly taken the day before this
Speaker 1: health crisis. It is also interesting to see our Marshal
Speaker 1: Kim Jong un watching the air Worse drill in perfect health,
Speaker 1: just the day before he was supposed to have the
Speaker 1: heart operation. Kao Dibanos wrote during my visit, I had
Speaker 1: forgotten to ask if he and Kim had met. I
Speaker 1: had the chance to shake his hand and be close
Speaker 1: to him in different state events, he said, adding that
Speaker 1: a few letters had been exchanged through intermediaries. But unfortunately
Speaker 1: I do not have a close friendship like President Trump
Speaker 1: says he has with lieging Sharon Cho and Kanga Kong