The Wall Street Journal - U.S. Sent Mission to North Korea to Recover American Student
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June 13, 2017. Jay Solomon, Felicia Schwartz, Jonathan Cheng.
Trump administration learned last week that Otto Warmbier was in a coma, prompting frantic week to bring him home.
The White House secretly sent a diplomatic mission to North Korea this week to recover a U.S. citizen who the Trump administration had learned was in a life-threatening coma, senior U.S. officials said, an episode that is likely to inflame escalating tensions with Pyongyang.
The imprisoned American, University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, was sentenced early last year to 15 years of hard labor for allegedly defacing a political poster while on a private tour of North Korea.
The 22-year-old’s dire health condition, U.S. officials said, risked escalating a standoff between Washington and Pyongyang, fueled by North Korea’s advancing nuclear-weapons program and repeated ballistic missile tests.
Mr. Warmbier slipped into a coma more than a year ago, U.S. officials and members of his family said. North Korea told U.S. officials during a secret meeting last week that Mr. Warmbier first lost consciousness after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill, prompting a frantic week within the State Department to assemble a mission to retrieve him.
U.S. officials said the administration and Mr. Warmbier’s family are skeptical about Pyongyang’s description of events, particularly because North Korea withheld any information on Mr. Warmbier for so long, despite repeated requests by the Obama and Trump administrations.
“In no uncertain terms, North Korea must explain the causes of his coma,” said Bill Richardson, a former member of Congress and onetime New Mexico governor who visited North Korea last year to seek the release of Mr. Warmbier and three other Americans currently imprisoned in the communist country.
The Trump administration has been ratcheting up financial sanctions on North Korea in an effort to pressure leader Kim Jong Un to dismantle his nuclear program. China has been urging talks, while increasing its role in the rising U.S.-North Korean tensions.
Under ordinary circumstances, the release of a detained American could ease hostilities. But Mr. Warmbier’s health, and the circumstances behind his lapse into a coma, could undercut efforts to establish a diplomatic channel to defuse the nuclear crisis, current and former U.S. officials said.
Former U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman is visiting Pyongyang this week on what he has described as a peace mission. Senior Trump administration officials said they are worried Pyongyang could be trying to use the trip as a cover for returning Mr. Warmbier without taking responsibility for his medical condition.
The White House denied Tuesday that it coordinated with Mr. Rodman on his trip, or that it is seeking to use him as a channel to Mr. Kim. Mr. Rodman has made at least three previous trips to Pyongyang and has met North Korea’s dictator.
“We wouldn’t put anything past the North Koreans,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on Mr. Warmbier’s case. “The trip could complicate matters.”
Anthony Ruggiero, a former State and Treasury Department official, said, “North Korea’s reported treatment of Otto Warmbier is a dangerous escalation and shows that Kim Jong Un sees Americans as bargaining chips in its standoff with Washington.”
Senior U.S. officials said the Obama and Trump administrations repeatedly had sought information on Mr. Warmbier’s health, using Sweden’s Embassy in Pyongyang, but were rebuffed. President Donald Trump in February ordered redoubled efforts to gain the release of the four Americans, using all “appropriate measures,” officials said Tuesday, describing the sequence of events.
The State Department’s special representative for North Korea, Joseph Yun, met North Korean diplomats in Oslo last month, where they agreed Swedish diplomats could gain access to the four imprisoned Americans. But Pyongyang didn’t mention Mr. Warmbier’s deteriorating health, U.S. officials said.
It was only on June 6, when Mr. Yun talked to Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations in New York that the U.S. was told of the American’s condition.
Senior Trump administration officials described a flurry of activity in the past week in which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ordered Mr. Yun to prepare to fly to Pyongyang to retrieve Mr. Warmbier. North Korea didn’t give the green light for Mr. Yun’s trip until the weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter. Once there, the American diplomat confirmed the prisoner’s condition and then ordered his medical evacuation back to Ohio.
U.S. officials didn’t mention whether threats were made against Pyongyang to gain Mr. Warmbier’s release, but one person said that there was no quid pro quo and the North agreed to Mr. Warmbier’s release on humanitarian grounds, given his health condition.
Mr. Tillerson said in a statement: “The Department of State continues to have discussions with [North Korea] regarding three other U.S. citizens reported detained.” He added that the Trump administration wouldn’t comment further.
Kim Dong-chul, a Korean-American businessman, was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor in April last year on charges of spying and stealing trade secrets.
The other two detainees are affiliated with a university in Pyongyang set up by a Christian Korean-American businessman: Tony Kim, an accounting professor, was detained in April this year, while Kim Hak-song was arrested by North Korean officials in May.
Both Mr. Richardson and the president of the University of Virginia, Teresa Sullivan, said Mr. Warmbier was in a coma, citing his family. Before his detention, the student had been on track to graduate from the UVA this May.
“While the entire University of Virginia community is relieved to learn of Otto’s release from North Korea, we are deeply concerned and saddened to learn from his family that he is in a coma,” Ms. Sullivan said in a statement Tuesday.
Mr. Rodman, one of a handful of U.S. citizens known to have met Mr. Kim since his elevation to the North Korean leadership, told CNN at Beijing’s airport on Tuesday that he was hoping to do “something that’s pretty positive” with a sports-related “mission” in Pyongyang.
During Mr. Rodman’s last visit to North Korea more than three years ago, he sang “Happy Birthday” to Mr. Kim.
The company sponsoring Mr. Rodman’s trip to North Korea is PotCoin, a digital-payment network for marijuana transactions. While Mr. Rodman’s visit was in no way official, the company nonetheless trumpeted his ties to President Trump as well as the North Korean leader, declaring in a release that the trip’s purpose is to promote “peace and understanding.”
“I’m really looking forward to spending time with the wonderful people of North Korea and of course, visiting with the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un,” the news release quotes Mr. Rodman as saying.
Mr. Rodman appeared on Mr. Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” reality television show before Mr. Trump’s election as U.S. president.
Lecturing at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in March, Mr. Rodman said he would go back to North Korea “if it meant helping…our president.” He added that Mr. Kim had expressed a desire to come to the U.S. to watch the New York Knicks play.
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