Warmbier case reflects badly on N. Korea
In the tragic case of Otto Warmbier, a young American imprisoned in North Korea for the past 18 months, many of us nervously hoped for the best.
Unfortunately, we got news of the worst — or close to it — last week.
The 22-year-old University of Virginia student, who was detained for swiping a North Korean propaganda poster from a hotel wall 18 months ago, was finally released to his family in Cincinnati on Thursday. But he arrived home comatose and uncommunicative with a severe brain injury, his future very much in doubt.
North Korea’s notoriously cruel regime admitted Warmbier had been in a coma for the better part of a year and ascribed his critical condition to botulism and his taking of a sleeping pill. But American doctors who tended to the young man after his arrival in Ohio don’t buy it.
They diagnosed Warmbier’s condition as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, the result of a traumatic brain injury, probably caused by a lack of oxygen. If Warmbier is to recover — and that’s a very big if — it will require numerous surgeries to different parts of his brain.
All of this is deeply upsetting to former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who had been negotiating for Warmbier’s release. A former U.N. ambassador experienced in negotiating for political prisoners, Richardson said he had met with members of the North Korean delegation to the United Nations in New York 20 times since Warmbier was jailed.
In a telephone interview with me Friday, an audibly appalled Richardson said North Korean representatives never mentioned Warmbier’s grave condition.
“This is the most egregious and worst response North Korea has ever given on a humanitarian issue,” he said. “The fact that they failed to disclose his condition … it makes the idea of dialogue and diplomacy very difficult.
“Who is going to want to deal with these people diplomatically if they perform such horrific acts? In the past, with the father of Kim Jong Un, you could make a deal with him for prisoners.”
Richardson is a big advocate of negotiating with and talking to America’s enemies — a strategy he still espouses. But he conceded the Warmbier episode has left him disgusted.
“I’m one of the main advocates for dialogue, but I’m sour on the North Koreans,” he said. “I’m so upset at the way they behaved with Otto, because I got personally involved with this.”
Richardson praised President Donald Trump’s State Department for moving “aggressively” to secure the prisoner’s release when news of his condition reached Washington last week.
On Thursday, The Washington Post asked Otto’s father, Fred, about the Obama administration’s efforts on behalf of his son.
“I think the results speak for themselves,” he said.
Richardson can certainly sympathize with the grieving father, but he said Warmbier’s prolonged incarceration wasn’t for lack of effort by the Obama White House. He said his own Santa Fe-based Richardson Center for Global Engagement sent a three-member American delegation to Pyongyang last November with the Obama administration’s endorsement, offering humanitarian and flood assistance and privately raised cash to pay for the return of U.S. soldiers’ remains from the Korean War in exchange for the release of Warmbier.
“Susan Rice (Obama’s national security adviser) and the White House signed off on it — they supported it,” Richardson said.
But the North Koreans didn’t bite, so Warmbier remained suspended in a diplomatic hell.
“The North Koreans were waiting for the transition, and they weren’t going to make a deal with a departing administration,” Richardson said. “They were waiting for the Trump administration.”
Richardson said he is now urging the Trump White House to make sure the U.S. government pays for Warmbier’s care and ensures he has access to the nation’s best doctors. He also said the United Nations should demand a full investigation into the Warmbier debacle, but he predicted North Korea won’t cooperate.
Meanwhile, three more Americans still languish in the sinister regime’s prisons. And Richardson didn’t sound optimistic about them, either.
“I don’t think it’s (the Warmbier tragedy) going usher in a dialogue with North Korean in the short term,” he said. “I think there is too much anger because of Otto. And it won’t provoke a military response, because it’s not in our national security interest.
“This will lead to a continued stalemate with more sanctions,” Richardson said. “The North Koreans will continue with more missile tests and, basically, I think the result will more tension on the peninsula.”