Kansas City Star Thursday editorial

North Korea’s “court” system has sentenced two American journalists to a dozen years of hard labor — a senselessly harsh verdict for reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were only doing their jobs.

The women were detained March 17 by North Korean troops patrolling the border with China. Lee and Ling, employed by San Francisco-based Current TV, had been working on a story dealing with a topic highly sensitive to the Pyongyang regime — the trafficking of North Korean women.

The circumstances surrounding the reporters’ capture remain clouded; it’s not clear whether they actually crossed into North Korea. They were found guilty of committing unspecified “hostilities” against the Pyongyang regime.

If the sentence is carried out, the two would face brutal conditions in one of the regime’s labor camps, where many prisoners die from overwork and lack of food. Some camps are reserved for high-level offenders, where inmates receive more adequate provisions and better treatment.

Unfortunately, the reporters have become bargaining chips in the perennial diplomatic tug-of-war prompted by North Korea’s constant provocations, the latest being its launch of a series of missiles and the recent testing of a nuclear device.

No doubt, the secretive regime’s ongoing succession drama also played a role in the decision to detain the women, presumably with the hope of provoking the Obama administration.

Washington should send a special envoy to urge the release of the women. Former Vice President Al Gore, co-founder of Current TV, would be a good choice. But the White House must not fall into the old pattern of answering North Korean provocations with fresh allotments of aid. The days of paying bribes to Pyongyang should end.

The Obama administration could also pressure North Korea financially by crimping off its access to the global banking system, a tactic employed by the Bush administration to good effect.

Meanwhile, Washington should press the Chinese, a key source of North Korea’s food and energy, to lean on Pyongyang to release the journalists and moderate its behavior.