PYONGYANG, North Korea — A U.S. tour operator faces indictment in North Korea on charges that he tried to overthrow the government there, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said yesterday.
The announcement about the tour operator, Kenneth Bae, an American born in South Korea, could complicate Washington’s difficult diplomatic balancing act as it tries to hold a tough line with North Korea over its nuclear program while avoiding confrontations that could lead to an armed conflict.
Bae, from Washington state, traveled with a group of businessmen in November from Yanji, China, to the North Korean special economic zone of Rason, where he was arrested.The news report yesterday said that the North has finished its investigation and that Bae has admitted his guilt to charges that could draw the death penalty.
South Korean human-rights advocates have described Bae as a devout Christian who not only ran tours to North Korea, but also was interested in helping orphans in the communist country. They said security officials in the North might have been offended by pictures of orphans that Bae had taken and stored in his computer.
North Korea, a police state, often has used the plight of detained Americans as a bargaining chip in its dealings with Washington. Some were freed only after former American presidents traveled to the North.Bae is the sixth American detained by North Korea since 2009, but he faces the gravest charges.
The North has been locked in a standoff with the United States and South Korea since it detonated a nuclear bomb in February. Some analysts say that the nation’s leader, Kim Jong Un, might be chafing at his inability to shift the two countries from the tough stance they have taken of refusing to offer the North aid to relieve tensions.
In January, Bill Richardson, a former American ambassador to the United Nations, tried to see Bae during a private trip to the North, but he said he was rebuffed by the government.
The Korean Central News Agency said that Bae had “admitted his criminal plot to overthrow our republic out of hostility.” It added that his crime had been “clearly substantiated by evidence."
The Korean Central News Agency did not say when Bae’s trial will begin.
