A note from North Korea

A bizarre altercation on the train leads to a dispute between Finland and North Korea, and accusations of Finnish human rights violations

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By Tommi Nieminen
     
      Finland and North Korea found themselves in the middle of a diplomatic spat last week, after two North Korean diplomatic couriers caused a scene on a Moscow to Helsinki train.
      According to the Finns, the diplomats had refused to show their train-tickets to the Finnish conductor or their luggage to Customs officials who came on board the train. As a result, a scuffle took place in the train compartment, after which the two North Koreans were bodily escorted to Kouvola police station.
      "They roughly threw a female Customs inspector out of the compartment and into the corridor outside. She said that she had been bruised both physically and mentally", reported Tommi Kivilaakso, who heads the Eastern Customs District.
     
"The problems stemmed from the steep language barrier, because the North Koreans were almost completely without foreign language skills. They had shouted ‘diplomatic, diplomatic' loudly enough, but had not allowed the inspectors to examine their luggage even superficially."
     
The North Koreans have seen the events in Kouvola in a markedly different light.
      On Friday of last week, the North Korean Embassy in Stockholm passed a diplomatic note to the Finnish Embassy in the Swedish capital, complaining at the actions of the Finnish police, immigration officials, and Customs officers in Kouvola. The note was then delivered to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Helsinki.
      The North Korean note makes pretty chilling reading. It states that the Finnish Customs inspectors attempted by force to open the couriers' bags of diplomatic post and acted in a violent manner. For their part, the police who were called to the scene used tear gas and handcuffs on the couriers. In addition to all this, a police dog bit at least one of the men. North Korea accuses Finland of human rights violations and of transgressing against accepted international rules and agreements.
     
"The incident is still under investigation, so I will not make any comment whatsoever on the matter", said a somewhat discomforted Chief Inspector Kimmo Hyvärinen from the Kouvola Police Department.
      The Director of Safety at Finnish Railways (VR) Yrjö Poutiainen reported to the late-edition tabloid Ilta-Sanomat that the police had sprayed tear gas [possibly mace] into the diplomats' locked compartment to get them out. Whether a police dog bit one or both of the men is still unclear.
     
But what about the North Korean side? What do they think of the incident? Full speed ahead, we must call Stockholm and the representation there of that Eastern dictatorship which is currently threatening world peace with its nuclear weapons programme.
      The first two attempts do not lead anywhere, as the person on the other end speaks only very basic English indeed. At the third ring, onto the line comes the Embassy's First Secretary, "Mister Kim". The slightly confused voice of Mr. Kim betrays the fact that he is not overly familiar with talking to the Western news media.
      "Where have you heard about this matter [the note]?" asks the 1st Secretary.
      Well, I'm afraid I cannot divulge any details of that.
      "I can explain what happened in the train", says Mr. Kim. "The Finnish customs oficials demanded that our couriers open their diplomatic pouches, but the diplomats refused to comply, because they have the right to do this."
      But what about the fact that the Finnish newspapers have reported the North Koreans had behaved aggressively?
      "Really? Which papers said that?", queries the 1st Secretary.
      At least all the biggest dailies.
     
"It wasn't like that. The Finnish Customs officials were aggressive, and it is against the law to demand that diplomats open their diplomatic bags."
      And did the Finnish police act in aggressive manner, too?
      "So I believe."
      Will this incident have a bearing on Finnish-North Korean relations?
      "I cannot answer that question."
     
At this point the Secretary, who sounded somewhat fed up with the call, announces that he has nothing further to say on the matter.
      Oh, but just one more question: why were your diplomats travelling from Moscow to Stockholm by this laborious route, taking the train through Helsinki?
      First Secretary Kim becomes interested for the first time in the telephone interview.
      "They had heard of the excellent ships that ply the route between Helsinki and Stockholm. We do not have ships like those Viking Line and Silja Line ferries in North Korea, and they wanted to travel on them."
      Really?
      "Yes. But now I have no further comment to make. Call the Finnish Foreign Ministry, if you want further details", says the First Secretary.
      He does not even give me his full name. "First Secretary Mr. Kim will do perfectly well."
     
At the Protocol Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, we are told that the diplomat spoken to is Kim Yong Guk, First Secretary of the Embassy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in Stockholm.
      "We have been in touch with him by phone concerning the diplomatic note", says Tiina Myllyntausta, Deputy Chief of Protocol.
      Myllyntausta has notified Guk by phone that the ministry will be sending a reply to the North Korean note. "I said that I was not able at the present time to state when precisely we would be ready to send off our response", explains Myllyntausta.
     
The ministry has asked for clarification of what went down in Kouvola from the police, the Customs, the Border Guard, and VR. On the basis of their reports, the Foreign Ministry will answer the note from Stockholm.
      "I hope and believe that this will put an end to the matter."
     
The scuffle in Kouvola does leave quite a few questions hanging in the air. What sort of diplomatic post couriers were these two men? Where was the mail headed? And what got into them in the first place?
      Myllyntausta shakes her head and says that she has no idea why the North Koreans were so unwilling to present their documents. The general practice is that they are shown immediately.
      "According to the police, they would not even show their diplomatic passports. We later discovered that these documents even had valid Schengen area visas in them."
      Is it possible that the North Korean pair might have enjoyed something besides their diplomatic immunity while they were on the train?
      "I don't know anything about that. We are waiting for a complete report from the police."
     
Let's back up and start from the beginning with the police and Finnish Railways.
      "From what I have understood, they were carrying diplomatic mail from Moscow to Stockholm via Helsinki", says Kimmo Hyvärinen from the Kouvola Police Department.
      Under normal circumstances, diplomats in this situation all over the world know to present their diplomatic passport, visas, and tickets when requested. So were the North Koreans wide-eyed and legless, or what?
      "I don't have an answer for that one", says Chief Inspector Hyvärinen.
      The confusion is much the same at VR, too. "No, they wouldn't show their ticket when the conductor came around, and then when the people from the Customs came along, there was some kind of scuffle", reports Yrjö Poutiainen from VR.
      "I don't recall ever having encountered a situation like this before."
     
When the diplomats turned violent, the police were called to the compartment, and the two men were taken to the police station in Kouvola. From there, a phone-call was put through to the Protocol Department at the Foreign ministry in Helsinki, and this confirmed that the two North Koreans did indeed enjoy diplomatic immunity. Hence the Kouvola police had no alternative but to let them go. They were taken back to the station and helped onto the next train for Helsinki.
      In Helsinki they got onto the ferry to Stockholm - as they had apparently wished.
     
This is not the first occasion when there has been some friction between Finland and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea over an incident involving diplomats.
      In 1976 four North Korean envoys were exposed as having carried on an illegal trade in alcohol and cigarettes in Helsinki. The business activities brought extra revenue to the embassy, and the money was used - or so it is claimed - in part to pay for the translation of works by the then leader Kim Il-Sung.
      Similar trafficking allegations were made at the time against North Korean diplomats stationed in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm.
      In 1983, the then North Korean Ambassador in Helsinki Ju Jae Han attempted to bribe the Centre Party stalwart and former Prime Minister and Speaker of Parliament Johannes Virolainen (1914-2000), who was at the time President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
      Ju Jae Han had apparently travelled to Virolainen's home and handed over an envelope containing USD 5,000. North Korea wanted to ensure that the 1983 IPU Assembly would not be held in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Virolainen delivered the cash to the Foreign Ministry and the diplomat was sent back home. And the IPU Assembly met in Seoul.
      The nearly bankrupt People's Democratic Republic closed its Helsinki representation in 1999, and the country's dealings with Finland are currently handled in Stockholm. The last Ambassador to be stationed in Helsinki was Kim Pyong-Il, the half-brother of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il, and the son of former leader Kim Il-Sung.
     
In the matter of the "Kouvola Note Crisis"*, the North Koreans are on a mixture of strong and thin ice. Owing to their diplomatic immunity, the two men are in practice released from the jurisdiction of Finnish criminal and civil law and administrative oversight. They may not be arrested and questioned, and diplomatic post may not be held up or impounded or even put through an X-ray machine. A diplomat's personal belongings are freed from inspection by customs authorities, unless there are serious grounds for suspecting that the luggage may contain illegal items.
      Where they are on much shakier ground is that the two linguistically-challenged couriers did not demonstrate to the Finnish authorities that they were in fact diplomats.
      And when the entire incident in Kouvola is stripped of its fancy diplomatic wordcraft and argumentum per eloquantiam overtones, what we are left with - according to the current information - is two North Korean diplomats who don't speak any foreign languages bodily dragging one Finnish woman, a Customs officer, out of a train compartment.
     
In Helsinki, the North Korean pair hopped enthusiastically onto one of the ferries to Sweden, where they could indulge in the buffet dinner, the tax-free stores, and the cabaret show in the dancing restaurant.
     
Now that North Korea has demanded a clarification of what went on, Finland has a chance to give it to them. In full detail.
      "We are not going to go grovelling on this one. If there is anything in their [the diplomats'] actions that indicates violent resistance to a public official [as proscribed in Chapter 16 of the Penal Code under "Offences against the Public Authorities"], then it will be duly mentioned in our response to the note", says Tiina Myllyntausta.
      The report on the goings-on in the train and in Kouvola will be sent to the North Koreans in March. Thereafter we will also presumably hear what the nuclear-armed dictatorship has to say by way of reply.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 25.2.2007
     
* Translator's note: The original writer made a slightly tongue-in-cheek reference to the much more serious "Note Crisis" of October 1961, in which the two parties were Finland and the Soviet Union (the sender of the diplomatic note), and the stakes were rather higher. The subject is discussed in the external link below.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  North Korea files official complaint over Kouvola train incident (26.2.2007)
  North Korean diplomatic couriers removed from train after scuffle (19.2.2007)

Links:
  Library of Congress: Finland - Domestic Developments and Foreign Politics 1948-1966 (Note Crisis, 1961)

TOMMI NIEMINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
tommi.nieminen@hs.fi