Talk:Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Pérez

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Contents

[edit] Controversy and criticism

This section seems quite biased. I can't comment on the truth of it since I don't know anything about the subject, but I've been keeping an eye on the article as it's been vandalised quite a lot recently. --Ciaran H 18:04, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Footnote response: Yes, this section looks biased. And what's really the point with the sentence <<Cao's response also included Moynihan's personal address and phone number, apparently in an attempt to intimidate him>> ? That's a far too vague accusation (at least in its present form) to be in a wikipedia article, and in most civilised societies finding and quoting a person's address and phone number is neither hard not threatening nor intimidating. There are things called telephone directories. So I suggest removing this sentence (or rewrite, or expand, if there's a real and verifiable intimidation attempt). -- A. Nonymous, April 2006.

[edit] Smile, Alejandro.

Doesn't Alejandro ever seem to smile? --Shultz 06:23, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Footnote response: In the name of fairness and the statistical accuracy required of International Smileology Monitors: I've seen broad, exuberant smiles on his face on various photos from DPRK excursions, with young children and so on; check links and galleries on the KFA website. -- A. Nonymous, April 2006.

[edit] Alejandro after Reunification

If the Korean peninsula reunified under ROK's government, what would happen to Alejandro and/or what would he do? --Shultz 06:23, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

You know what? He'd probably move on and find some other veichle for his psychopathic tendencies, mother complex and urge to dominate people. M.C. Brown Shoes 07:10, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

(If anyone was wondering, the US will keep its military forces in South Korea because we know that if we were to leave, the KPA would conquer the peninsula. Thus, the reunification will only consist of the ROK government, with our help.)

Korea will not be reunified until Kim Jong-Il dies or is overthrown, events that will lead to complete chaos and political in-fighting. It remains to be seen whether the DPRK can continue to smuggle drugs in diplomatic pouches to maintain its power of patronage. The military top brass were said to be less than pleased that Kim Jong-Il would assume the leadership as the concept of monarchical succession is alien. The decision to appoint him was a result of a compromise. I would imagine that he bought them off with increased power, wealth and privilege. But this has increased their political power and I believe Kim Jong-Il will eventually come to blows with the military elite. It may seem odd, but although he is an extreme despot, he is more keen to engage personally with the outside world than the military command. I believe he recognises the simple fact that his power of patronage cannot be sustained unless DPRK earns foreign currency and this means an expansion of free trade zones, which are a violation of Juche - which is more of an excuse for totalitarian isolationism than an ideology - and could potentially undermine the military's goal of isolating the country. This is the tension within the DPRK political system.

Alejandro is a non-entity as far as the DPRK is concerned; he is more interested in prosetylising than the North Korean state is and is dependent on them. He will have to obey the most powerful forces and this could lead to many personal dillemmas. He is not in their pay; he is driven by a love for totalitarianism. In the 1930s, his type would have been Franco's propagandists and torturers. The eventual collapse of the DPRK will see Alejandro vanish into obscurity. He doesn not have the intelligence to get a career or to adapt.

Actually, reunification will likely mean some version of a confederal system, with the North and the South adopting a common currency, citizenship, and united foreign policy, but retaining their separate political systems and leadership and complete autonomy over their internal affairs. This is actually the course favored by both the DPRK and the ROK governments, because the ROK has taken notice of the economic and social problems that accompanied the reunification of Germany. In this case, Alejandro would still have a place in the North. Mike1981 04:05, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

He is a thug. His Spanish army credentials are just related to his passing out from national service, he has no military honours. At best, he will become a shopping centre security guard. --Rugover

He says he is not in their pay, but do we really know that?

Does any buddy know anything about his personal back ground. I heard that his grandfather was a member of the Spanish Facsist elite, is that true? What are his educational credentials, does he have a university degree? What is his personal source of income? Is his income related directly or indirectly to association with North Korea? Or does he have private employement? Does he have ties to the traditional Spanish communist party or other leftwing organizations? In Spain and Korea how well known of a figure is he? Does any one know anything about his personal life? Is a homosexual or hetrosexual? Is he married? Does he have kids? I want to know this information because I would like to edit his biography. - Anon

Answer: He is a complete unknown person in spain, no one knows anything about him.

I have heard that Alejandro's family have a fascist background, although I do not know whether his family are related to any elite. Chances are that many Spaniards have Falangist connections in their family, as the fascists ruled Spain for more than four decades. Consequently, I do not think you can implicate Alejandro personally in the actions of his family.

I strongly suspect that this is not his real name. He is both a fantacist and a fanatic and, having met him, I do not believe he is driven by monetary gain, although I don't doubt that he receives some kind of stipend, even if it is a travel allowance.

He also has no university education. He has admitted to me that he is "not an intellectual" but a "military man." He certainly likes to speak up his military background, but he has never been a professional soldier; the only involvement he has had in the army is national service and he has never held officer rank. He is rather obese, so I doubt he would be fit enough to be accepted as a professional soldier. He also has a big attitude problem which would be unwelcome in the army.

He has no ties to any particular party, nor has he any known background. His KFA group has links with extreme Stalinist sects in North America and Europe. He shows no interest in the Marxist ideologies of European Communist parties and even pours scorn on Marxist-Leninism.

His sexuality and his private life are his own business, unless the allegations that he is "entertained" by women at the behest of the DPRK. I do not believe he has any children or is married. I would imagine that he would be a very difficult person to live with as he is over-bearing, aggressive, unpredictable and bullying, sometimes to the point of violence. He has threatened me and my family on the phone and I am unsure of what this man is capable of. Is he mentally unhinged or just a bully?

He is unknown in both Spain and the two Koreas and it is bizarre that he should be considered the subject of an encyclopaedic entry. --Rugover

Thank you Mr. Rugover, I appreaciated you answering questions. I would say that Mr. De Benos is the Joseph Goebbels of our time accept I do not think he is important enough for that distiction- Anonamous.

Footnote response: The discussion above is of some interest and relevance, as I do see President Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les y Perez Zu Sun-il worthy of inclusion in the wikipedia. He is important qua President of the KFA, and the KFA is important since it's the first thing people all over the world meet when they do net searches for "North Korea". Everyone's first ever contact with North Korea seems by necessity (as of 2006) to go via the KFA. I personally find it disturbing that the KFA does not really represent a genuine "Friendship Association", and that the KFA is not open to people who are positively interested and positively curious about the DPRK. I speak from experience. However, having managed to say all this, I do take exception to the as-of-today included paragraph

<< Although it may have no personal effect on Cao, a former colleague in the KFA claimed to have discovered that his family was involved in pogroms in Spain against the Jews and Roma [5]. >>

First, the claim is not substantiated in any useful and verifiable way. Secondly, even though this might be included in any serious biography of the person, should anyone wish to produce one, I find it highly irrelevant for the purposes of a wikipedia article on the person. So I suggest that this paragraph is taken out. -- A. Nonymous, April 2006.

[edit] Rugover, how would he...

You don't live in Spain or South Korea, do you? If you live in the US, how could he find you or even send some North Korean henchmen to find you? How would North Korean henchmen enter the US in the first place? What did you do that caused him to give you threats?

It's also chilling that I actually received correspondence from him at one point, sometime in May. I visited korea-dpr.com and asked "korea@korea-dpr.com" if that was Kim Jong-il's email address and here's what the reply said:

"Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 16:18:09 +0200 (CEST) From: Special Delegation -DPR of Korea <korea@korea-dpr.com> To: MY EMAIL ADDRESS WITHHELD Reply-to: korea@korea-dpr.com Subject: Re: Is this Kim Jong-Il's email address?

Dear Sir,

This is not the personal e-mail of our Leader Kim Jong Il, however if you wamnt to send him a message, we'll forward it to him.

Best regards,

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Alejandro Cao de Benos

Special Delegate -DPRK Government President of the KFA Delegate Counselor of the AINDF -Hanminjon- <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

My University's own email client detects what time zone the sender submitted from, and CEST is Central European Summer Time. This site shows in which countries that TZ is used: http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/eu/cest.html

Hence, he was most likely in Spain when we submitted this. --Shultz 05:40, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe he can't harm anyone. I certainly don't think he has any authority over any North Korean official to carry out his threats and I do not think the DPRK is interested in assassinated all its critics. It it was, it would have a lot of work to do.

Alejandro is a loner and is not within the orbit of the DPRK authorities. They distrust all foreigners and Alejandro's absolute enthusiasm - bordering on mania - will not impress anyone in the DPRK. The North Korean government may be fascistic, but it is not stupid. I think it sees straight through Alejandro. It obviously holds Alejandro at arms length, because of the volatility of this absurd individual and his peculiar devotion to Korean nationalism, which strikes anyone in Korea as being laughable and bizarre. The KFA has tense relations with the DPRK's diplomatic service, which has only minimal contact with the group. After all, why should the DPRK trust a group of unwordly foreigners over its own officials? The regime does not like egomaniacs, apart from the Dear Leader. North Korea frowns on those who draw attention to themselves through self-glorification. --Rugover

That said, Rugover, I don't think you can completely dismiss him as nothing but a goofy wannabe. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that Alejandro has any real power, especially within the country. However, membership in the organization he founded (the KFA) is about the only way a American who isn't a journalist or working for an NGO can get into the DPRK. From the anecdotal research I've done, approval of visas for American KFA members is somewhat up to him. Though I imagine he does like to think of himself as the DPRK's Norman Bethune, I agree with you that he is far from it. But he does have some modicum of influence, at least in a few small areas.

This KFA seems to be a rather patetic bunch. I guess half of its membership consists of inteligence agents and undercover journos.

--Revaaron 21:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Something I posted on his colleague Bjornar's User Talk page

Whenever Bjornar returns to Wikipedia, what might he say/do in regards to this story I gave him? I wonder if he'll get Alejandro to send me threats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Bjornar#Bjornar.2C_verify_if_this_is_true.2C_please.


Alejandro says that he is associated with a business school somewhere in Europe, but, naturally, he declines to say which one. Does anyone know anything about this?


[edit] Alejandro meets high-ranking officials of the DPRK

If anyone doubts Alejandro's importance, I have here a picture [1] of Mr. Cao de Benos (Left) meets Mr. Kim Yong Nam, President of the Presidium of the DPR of Korea (Second ranking after Kim Jong Il) and Mr. Mun Jae Chol, Minister of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. These are people working closest with Kim Jong Il. The picture is taken in 2005. Alejandro is described by DPRK officials as not typical Korean but instead having the same kind of temper as our Leader Kim Jong Il. --Bjornar 22:55, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

You can see him smile here, Shultz. Almost forgot to mention that Kim Jong Il is informed about all the activities of the KFA on a regular basis and even has personally reviewed our webpages and Forum by looking at printouts of the pages. --Bjornar 22:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

So what? I have met three British prime ministers and plenty of government ministers, does that make me important? Note that the picture shows him at the head of a line of useful idiots glad-handing this pioneer of the Korean gas chambers and mass starvation. Are they also close friends of Kim, or just this year's tourists to North Korea? --Rugover 20:11, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

The link to that image seems to be down. Hey Bjornar, what's going on with the autographed photos of the Dear Leader? Where are we gonna get them in the gift shop? M.C. Brown Shoes 01:34, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Personal ad

I don't want to advocate on behalf of Cao in any way, so on behalf of the article and Wikipedia let me say that I think the personal ad is not encyclopedic material. There is plenty of secondary material available on Cao so that we don't have to resort to original research to fill out the article. Furtherm this is a very poor source. A posting like this personal ad could have been placed by anyone from anywhere. In this article the link is clearly intended as an innuendo of Cao's (supposed) homosexuality. If that's the case then let's either say so in the article based on wikipedia:reliable sources or leave it out.

As for this article and the KFA, they're not so bad. Perhaps some editors are too close to the topic. Instead of all this edit warring I suggest that we all relax, go edit articles on North Korean cuisine, small towns in Spain, minor fascist movements of Uruguay or other topics that we might be interested in, yet dispassionate about, and let this topic rest a bit. There's plenty of time to get the history right on this subject. Cheers, -Willmcw 09:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I still see no evidence that Cao placed the ad. -Willmcw 23:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

As much as I despise this man, I'm going to vouch that the personal ad be removed. It's just irrelevant and bad taste. M.C. Brown Shoes 00:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

This guy is Clearly on Kim Jong IL's pay role. He is indeed to the Koreas what Goebbels was to the Jews.


Why is there are page dedicated to this man? He is not famous, he leads a relatively unimportant group and little influence in world affairs. This is just advertising for a non-person with a fetish for jackboots - Dan.

I moved the above comment from the top of the page down here. Just so that you know, the style on Wikipedia is to add new comments to the bottom of talk pages.

As to his importance, I would agree with you that he isn't a great person, but I do think that he deserves a page. You might disagree with him (as I do), but that doesn't mean he isn't notable. The fact that I came to this page looking for more information on him should be enough to show that there is a use for this article. Furthermore, I think that the article contains more than enough information on the importance of its subject matter. I'm going to take off the tag on the front of the article. If you disagree, feel free to put it back up and come back here to discuss this further. NoIdeaNick 06:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] YouTube videos

Cao de Benos has been documented in several YouTube videos and one would probably serve well as an external link. One located at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH3HXV_DrGY seems good but there are others. Any ideas? Smoove K 11:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Doubts

When Cao de Benos became " an advocate of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)" he must have been 16 years old (as he was born 1974). Great research! --60.48.180.74 13:46, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

That's what his CV states: Alejandro Cao de Benos was born on 1974, and has worked for North Korea since the year 1990.

[edit] Bad Google cache

Although it may have no personal effect on Cao, a former colleague in the KFA claimed to have discovered that his family was involved in pogroms in Spain against the Jews and Roma [2].

The Google Cache finds nothing. Wayback Machine has the page but there is nothing about pogroms. According to the above line:

Controversial material of any kind that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous.

I have moved it here.

[edit] YouTube links

This article is one of thousands on Wikipedia that have a link to YouTube in it. Based on the External links policy, most of these should probably be removed. I'm putting this message here, on this talk page, to request the regular editors take a look at the link and make sure it doesn't violate policy. In short: 1. 99% of the time YouTube should not be used as a source. 2. We must not link to material that violates someones copyright. If you are not sure if the link on this article should be removed, feel free to ask me on my talk page and I'll review it personally. Thanks. ---J.S (t|c) 07:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

This guy has "occasionally" been mentioned on North Korean TV, he organises trips to North Korea, he runs an ebay shop selling badges and he has crazy arguments with journalists. Basically, the man is a bad tour operator for a bad country. He doesn't hold a position within the government of North Korea, yet there is virtually nothing else on North Korean ministers. This is just a vanity page for some Spanish guy with a love of a Stalinist regime. Why is it here?--الأهواز | Hamid | Ahwaz 12:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Because he is (or was) the de facto propaganda minister of the DPRNK, as far as the outside world is concerned? Besides, I do find his story fairly interesting. Why would a person do such a job? Especially some Spanish guy? Dysmorodrepanis 17:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Romanization Problem

The Romanization of his adopted name doesn’t work. It is listed as Zo Sun-il. North Koreans don’t normally hyphenate – that is a recent South Korean trend. Additionally, hangul lost the ability to replicate the Z sound long ago when Koreans (both north and south) opted to cast aside the ㅿ character. The name 조선일 can be Romanized in several fashions, but none of them would utilize a Z.

[edit] Which languages does he speak?

Does he speak Korean? If so, where did he learn it? If not, how is he as involved as he is with DPRK affairs? 143.229.132.41 00:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Considering how dedicated he is to North Korean affairs, he probably does speak Korean, or can at least understand it. --Mrdie 14:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

In videos of trips, he seems to need the help of translators, and his English is also very stilted. It seems that he is only fluent in Spanish, or perhaps Spanish and Catalan. Smoove K 00:24, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why?

It is strange that all the references to a very extended criticism have been removed. Is this neutrality?--QIrus (talk) 13:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)