Former NBA basketball player Dennis Rodman, right, and former NBA players wait at the departure hall of Beijing International Capital Airport in Beijing Monday, Jan. 6, 2014.BEIJING – Dennis Rodman said Monday he wants to show that North Korea isn’t so bad, as he took a team of former NBA players on a trip for an exhibition game on Kim Jong Un’s birthday.
The flamboyant Hall of Famer headed to the North Korean capital from Beijing with a squad of a dozen former basketball stars including Vin Baker and Cliff Robinson in what Rodman calls “basketball diplomacy,” although U.S. officials have criticized his efforts.
“It’s about trying to connect two countries together in the world, to let people know that: Do you know what? Not every country in the world is that bad, especially North Korea,” Rodman told The Associated Press in an interview outside his hotel before heading to the Beijing airport with the team.
“People say so many negative things about North Korea. And I want people in the world to see it’s not that bad.”
The U.S. is at odds with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, and Rodman has been faulted for not talking about North Korea’s human rights record, described as one of the world’s worst by activists, the U.S. State Department and North Korean defectors.