Editorials
Wednesday, August 19, 1998

North Korea’s attempt
to renew N-program

ALARMED by indications that North Korea was trying to make nuclear weapons, the Clinton administration four years ago negotiated an agreement under which the United States and its partners would build for Pyongyang two nuclear reactors for power generation that would not produce weapons-grade plutonium, plus supply fuel oil until the reactors were completed. In exchange, the Communist regime agreed to again permit inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which had been suspended, and to freeze nuclear projects.

The agreement was preceded by an impasse over international nuclear inspection, which was broken when former President Jimmy Carter met with President Kim Il-sung. Kim died soon after the meeting with Carter, but negotiations continued with Kim's son, Kim Jong-il, apparently assuming the leadership.

Now the agreement is threatened by North Korea's construction of a huge underground complex that U.S. intelligence agencies suspect is intended to revive the nuclear weapons program. Spy satellites have photographed a site where thousands of workers are burrowing into a mountainside. Based on this and other information, the administration has been warning key members of Congress and the South Korean government that it believes North Korea intends to build a new nuclear reactor and reprocessing center under the mountain to convert nuclear waste into weapons-grade plutonium.

North Korea has apparently not explicitly violated the agreement because there is as yet no evidence that it has begun pouring cement for a new reactor or reprocessing plant. But construction of those facilities is believed to be the regime's intention.

Earlier this year North Korea claimed that the United States was reneging on its part of the agreement because Congress failed to authorize tens of millions of dollars in fuel shipments. Pyongyang has also continued missile sales to Pakistan and recently dispatched a small submarine with nine commandos aboard off the coast of South Korea, which was captured.

These are certainly disturbing developments. Washington should tell the North Koreans in no uncertain terms that it will cancel all aid under the 1994 agreement if the nuclear project continues and institute the strictest sanctions on the regime.

Consumer protection

ACCUSATIONS of large-scale investment fraud should result in prompt action by the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, but that has not been the case. Whether motivated by budget limitations or a laissez faire policy, state officials are in danger of making Hawaii a haven for consumer fraud.

The department's Office of Consumer Protection received such a complaint early this month from Marc Douglas, a California man who says he had been tracking a company called Global Prosperity Group since he was defrauded by Global of more than $100,000. His warning came several days before Global conducted an Aug. 9 workshop on Maui. The session came near the end of an 18-city sweep by Global that triggered cease-and-desist orders by several states, including Michigan and Massachusetts.

Jo Ann Uchida, the state's consumer protector, said "work constraints and personnel constraints" led to her decision not to investigate the workshop. Patricia Moy, lead attorney for the department's Securities Enforcement Branch, says there was "not a whole heck of a lot" her office could do because it has no staff on Maui. Moy says her office would have had to ask police or other state investigators to assist in such a case.

The statements by Uchida and Moy are an open invitation to fraudulent operations to bilk consumers in Hawaii, especially on neighbor islands. Perpetrators of fraud evidently can be confident that state agencies responsible for protecting Hawaii's consumers will neither pursue their bogus activities nor refer complaints to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the chief investigative agency tracking major cases of consumer fraud.

Postal inspectors conducted the 1980s investigation that resulted in the conviction of art dealers who perpetrated the largest consumer fraud in Hawaii's history, after years of inaction by state agencies. If state consumer protectors wish to rely on postal inspectors to do their work in the future, the least they can do is alert the inspectors to complaints they receive.

Shunned by HGEA

THE Hawaii Government Employees Association, while endorsing a straight Democratic ticket, has withheld support from three members of the Democratic majority in the state House of Representatives. Russell Okata, the HGEA's longtime executive director, branded the three "anti-worker."

What does that mean? According to the shunned legislators -- Majority Leader Tom Okamura, Hawaiian Affairs Chairman Ed Case and Taxation Subcommittee Chairman Nathan Suzuki -- they merely want to examine the collective bargaining and civil service laws to make government more cost-effective.

Okamura says he opposes having overtime calculated into retirement pay, which he says no other state does. Why should Hawaii do it? Suzuki would like all public employee benefits negotiated under collective bargaining rather than have some initiated by legislation. What's wrong with that?

Case wants to replace the civil service's narrowly defined job classifications with fewer but broader classifications. This, he says, would allow "a much greater level of cross-utilization of employees."

We say more power to the three and hope they survive the election to continue their fight for reform. This is another example of the public employee unions placing the interests of their members above the public good, another example of the problems of the Democratic Party establishment.

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Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership

Rupert E. Phillips, CEO

John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher

David Shapiro, Managing Editor

Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor

Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors

A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor