From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2000:

Dog meat diplomacy wins Nobel

OSLO, Norway--An August 31 dog meat dinner for South Korean
diplomats hosted in the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang by North
Korean dictator Kim Jong-il helped win the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for South
Korean president Kim Dae Jung.
Kim Dae Jung, 74, won the $908,300 Nobel Peace Prize for taking
the initiative since 1997 in opening diplomatic relations with North Korea.
Kim Jong-il won a rare honorable mention from Nobel Committee chair Gunnar
Berge for responding positively.
On June 13, 2000, following three years of cautious overtures,
Kim Dae Jung flew to Pyongyang to negotiate directly with Kim Jong-il.
The two leaders traded pairs of hunting dogs, of breeds unique to
their respective sides of the boundary between the Koreas.
They apparently also discussed the decline of the Paektu Mountain
tiger, a variant of Siberian tiger native to the North Korean mountains.
In early October, Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo-sok, 47,
disclosed to South China Morning Post corres-pondent Roger Dean Du Mars
that he had already been working with North Korea for several months in
hopes of cloning Paektu Mountain tigers, but added that the project had
initially been kept secret.
Fear of poachers might have been one reason for the secrecy; fears
of outcry over the use of genetic technology and the release of South
Korean technology to North Korea might have been others.
Animal advocates dared hope for about six weeks after Kim Dae Jung
and Kim Jong-il first met that their claimed affection for dogs would help
expedite an end to Korean dog-eating.
Dogs are commonly eaten in many parts of the world, but the Korean
style of killing dogs as painfully and slowly as possible in order to
saturate their flesh with adrenalin appears to be unique, as is the custom
of boiling cats alive in order to drink their body fluids. Dogs are eaten
mostly by men in their prime earning years or older; tonics made from cats
are favored by elderly women.
Kim Dae Jung could empathize with caged, doomed, and tortured
dogs and cats from direct experience--if he chose to. Imprisoned by the
Communist invasion force during the Korean War, Kim Dae Jung was
reportedly slated for execution when freed by an Allied counterattack. He
entered politics in 1954, advocating democracy, but was jailed or placed
under house arrest at least 55 times. He also survived a series of
assassination attempts allegedly ordered by former South Korean dictator
Park Chung Hee, who declared martial law after Kim Dae Jung won 46% of the
vote in a surprisingly close 1971 national election.
On August 8, 1973, Kim Dae Jung again helplessly contemplated his
death, after agents of the Park regime drugged and kidnapped him in Tokyo.
Tying weights to Kim Dae Jung's legs, the would-be killers rushed him out
to sea in a speedboat to "disappear." But just as he was about to be tossed
overboard, a U.S. military helicopter caught up to the boat and lit the
deck with a spotlight. Kim Dae Jung was not released by his captors,
however, for another five days.
But Kim Dae Jung as South Korean president has done no more than
any of his precessors to enforce weak anti-dogmeat and anti-cruelty
proclamations and legislation issued in 1978, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1988,
and 1991.
Hopes raised by the dog-swapping of Kim Dae Jung and Kim Jong-il
were dashed, meanwhile, by the appearance of dog meat at the August 31
banquet, which formalized and commemorated the resumption of relations.
Although Kim Dae Jung himself was back in Seoul, the banquet was attended
by many of the most top people in his administration.
The meal signified that Kim Jong-il considers eating dog meat
integral to a shared Korean culture, South China Morning Post
correspondent Roger Dean Du Mars reported.
"Seoul officials said [North Korean] Unification minister Park
Jae-kyu complimented the dishes and showed a keen knowledge of dog-meat
varieties," Du Mars added, mentioning that Kim-Jong-il too is known for
eating dogs.

Agenda vs. menu
While South Korean media celebrated the Nobel Prize for Kim Dae
Jung, sisters Sunnan Kum and Kyenan Kum sought a way to put dog and cat
meat on the agenda instead of the menu.
Sunnan Kum, 55, founded the Korea Animal Protection Society in
1981 and opened the first animal shelter in Korea five years later.
Several years after that, Sunnan Kum introduced neuter/return
feral cat population control, in lieu of poisoning. One noteworthy
recent display of the technique came at Inchon City during the week of May
22-June 3, 2000. The KAPS veterinarian, a Dr. Im, neutered 45 cats in
all, of whom 35 were returned to their habitat while the 10 youngest were
put up for adoption at the KAPS shelter.
Kyenan Kum, the younger sister, emigrated to the U.S. several
years ago and formed International Aid for Korean Animals to raise funds to
assist Sunnan.

Humanitarians

Endowed by the fortune of mining engineer Alfred Nobel, the
inventor of dynamite, the Nobel Peace Prize is often described as the
world's highest humanitarian honor. Several winners have had distinguished
records on behalf of animals as well as people, at least in the context
of their times. Among them were Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Albert
Schweizer (1952).
However, the prize has never actually been awarded for work on
behalf of nonhumans--and the indifference of the judges toward animal
suffering as a humanitarian issue may never have been more evident than in
the selection of Kim Dae Jung just as Korean dog meat eating practices are
heating up as an international animal protection issue.
There are four Nobel Prizes in all. The prizes for great
achievement in science, medicine, and literature are awarded by Swedish
institutions and presented by the king of Sweden in Copenhagen.
The Peace Prize, however, is awarded by a committee elected by
the Norwegian Parliament, and is presented by the king of Norway in Oslo.
All four Nobel Prizes are presented each year on December 10.
The influence of the Norwegian whaling and sealing industries has
historically made Oslo a hard place to hold protests on animal issues. But
there will be a protest outside the Peace Prize presentation ceremony,
Kyenan Kum promised ANIMAL PEOPLE.
Coordinating and leading the demonstration, Kum said, would be
Maggie Hansen of Bergen. Hansen has a yellow dog closely resembling the
dogs who are bred for meat in Korea and China, and has been a supporter of
International Aid for Korean Animals for some time, according to Kyenan
Kum, who added that she would personally fly to Oslo to join Hansen.
Simultaneous protests were to be held outside Korean offices in New York
City and other cities around the world.

Kissinger

The International Fund for Animal Welfare and World Society for the
Protection of Animals may still favor quiet diplomacy toward securing the
unconsumated "victories" that each claimed several times to have won, but
the growing Korean humane community is increasingly inclined to take
opposition to dog-and-cat-eating to the streets, finding allies through
both Internet activism and energetic direct outreach.
Thus, Kim Dae Jung has already been put on notice several times
that the inaction of his government against sellers and eaters of dogs and
cats will not be ignored.
"Kim Dae Jung was in New York City in early September," Kyenan Kum
explained. "On the evening of September 8 we demonstrated in front of the
hotel that hosted the Korea Society's annual dinner," honoring Kim Dae
Jung, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and 1973 Nobel Peace Prize
winner Henry Kissinger.
Companion Animal Network founder Garo Alexanian not only organized
the New York City demonstration on short notice, but also delivered
directly to Kissinger a packet of literature plus a video of Korean dog
market torture and slaughter.
At least two other Korea Society dinner attendees requested and
were given copies of the protest materials to take into the hotel with
them.
One board member of the Korea Society threatened to sue the
demonstrators, Kyenan Kum said.
But Kissinger responded on October 5, on his personal letterhead,
"Please know that I am very sympathetic to your cause and intend to raise
this important matter with the appropriate Korean officials as soon as I
can."
Kyenan Kum thanked Kissinger immediately and rushed a specially
prepared political history of the dog-eating issue to him.
Unfortunately, Kissinger on October 25 suffered a heart attack.
Now age 77, Kissinger was hospitalized for six days, and there has been
no indication as yet that he has been able to follow through on his
promise.
Kyenan Kum, meanwhile, was back in Korea, helping the
British-based Inter-national Television Network to produce an undercover
expose of the Seoul dog markets.
[Contact Kyenan Kum for further information, c/o IAKA, P.O. Box
20600, Oakland, CA 94620; 510-271-6795; fax 510-451-0643;
<iaka@pacbell.net>; <www.koreananimals.org>.]