Gee, was today like the shittiest news day about North Korea in recent memory? The big news of the day, of course, was Pyongyang’s verbal assault on South Korea for taking in over 400 North Korean defectors over the last two days. I’m still looking for the full Korean-language statement — apparently, the North Koreans said some other not-so-nice things that didn’t make the regular sound bites going around. The NYT had a piece on it today, which not only featured a quote by Park Soo-gil (former rector of the Kyung Hee University Graduate School of Peace Studies), but also one by this jerk:
Lee Keum Soon, director of the center of North Korean Human Rights Studies at the Korean Institute for National Unification, which is supported by the government and advises it, said most North Koreans have crossed into China for economic, not political, reasons.
“Most of them never had any intention of going to South Korea,” Ms. Lee said in a telephone interview from Seoul. “But then the N.G.O. groups and brokers who are in China manipulate the situation.”
Even if I’ll grant Mr. Lee that the NGOs probably have their own agendas and are more than likely manipulating things (like all NGOs do, including the ones that support this administration), perhaps they’d be less effective if the Korean government actually pretended like it cared about the thousands of defectors roaming around China. Moreover, it’s important to know who you’re talking to — you might get away with saying something like that to certain local South Korean papers, but when you say something like that to the NYT, it makes both you and the government you work for look like heartless jerks. A few PR skills never hurt.
Meanwhile, word has it that next month’s intra-Korean ministerial talks may be in jeopardy. In fact, contacts between the two Koreas seem to be at a total standstill, with one notable exception — from the Chosun piece:
North Korea is showing signs of straining relations with South Korea. It refused to hold working-level talks, which were slated for August 3, in preparation for an inter-Korean ministerial meeting. North Korean officials also rejected Seoul?????s proposal to discuss the schedule for an inter-Korean ministerial meeting, saying that they received no order from their superiors. Prior to the refusals the North unilaterally delayed maritime working-level talks and military working-level talks on the pretext of the South Korean government?????s disapproval of the South Koreans attending the memorial service for the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung. But related to the South?????s rice aid and economic cooperation, the North has continued to maintain contact with the South.
Personally, I’m not too concerned about the intra-Korean ministerial talks. Check that, I am concerned — not because I fear they will canceled, but because I shudder to imagine what Seoul is going to have to pay Pyongyang for it to end its tantrums. Today’s editorial cartoon in the Chosun says it all.
Meanwhile, North Korea’s representative to Panmunjom wrote a letter to U.N. General Secretary Kofi Annan calling for dissolution of the U.N. Command in South Korea:
North Korea urged the United Nations on Tuesday to dissolve the U.N. Command on the tense peninsula and press for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea.
In a rare letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, North Korea’s representative at the Korean War truce village, Panmunjom, called on the United Nations to dissolve its 50-year-old command.
“It is our view that a war in Korea is almost unavoidable as long as the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK goes on,” said the 1,100-word letter, which the official KCNA news agency said was written by Col. Gen. Ri Chan Bok. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Ri is the long-serving North Korean representative at Panmunjom, which lies in the demilitarized zone that has separated capitalist South Korea from the communist North since the 1950-53 Korean War.
North Korea remains technically at war with the U.S.-led U.N. forces in the South because the conflict ended in an armed truce that has not been replaced by a peace treaty.
The U.N.’s crack division of professional comedians respond:
At the U.N. headquarters, spokesman Farhan Haq said, “The secretary-general is aware of the letter, but I don’t think we’ve formally received it.
“The U.N. Command, despite its name, is not a U.N. peacekeeping force,” the spokesman said. “It’s a U.S.-led force, so it’s something to take up with the U.S.”
Anyway, not only did Ri ask the U.N. to dissolve its command and call war “unavoidable,” he also issued some additional meaningless threats:
The Pentagon had said last year that it would spend $11 billion on advanced weaponry, which would assuage South Korean concerns that [troop reductions] would weaken defenses against the North’s 1.1-million-strong army.
“Such massive arms buildup of the U.S. prompted the KPA side to judge that the U.S. preparations for a preemptive attack on the DPRK have reached their height,” Ri wrote, repeating a mantra of North Korea and its Korean People’s Army.
“A preemptive attack in such relations of belligerency as those between the two countries cannot be a monopoly of the U.S.,” he wrote.
He said a preemptive attack by the North would be an “effective defense to smash the enemy’s attempt to attack.”
Speaking of the U.S. imperialists’ preparations to attack North Korea to make it a base from which to invade the rest of Asia in step with the Japanese militarists, it appears that the U.S. military is shifting some of its artillery from South Korea to Iraq, making at least some South Korean running dog lackeys uncomfortable.
8 Comments
USFK doesn’t fire any type of weapon over the roofs of private houses. At least not deliberately.
The big problem in Korea is that families who werre kicked off their lands by the Pak administration in the sixties to make training ranges for the military, were never paid for their lands, and are now creeping back onto these lands and taking up residence again.
Artillery and tank training is all conducted at ranges set aside for this specific purpose. air to ground firing is conducted mostly offshore or in Taebaek mountain area.
Jeremy Kirk and his boys at the Stars & Stripes are just looking for shock value.
Yay, the US is going to rule Asia based from North Korea soon! I gotta start packing my bags to go colonize!
But on a more serious note, about the Koreans living in Manchuria- I was once talking to a group of college age South Koreans who were gleefully explaining to me how wonderful it was that their destitute ethnic brothers lived in this part of China since it strengthend Korea’s claim to old Kogureyo lands.
Also, anyone have any good quotes/links to Korean newspapers or intellectuals publicly stating how they prefer their starving countrymen in NK death camps or living on the run in China rather than “weighing down” the SK economy? Seriously, it would help alot for a project of mine. Thanks.
From the Stars & Stripes piece: “South Korea, one of the most heavily populated nations, is the only place in the world where U.S. artillery fires directly over the roofs of private houses during training.”
Jesus, as much as Korea whines endlessly and overreacts to every perceived injustice committed by Americans, surely the USFK could be a bit more considerate and play it up for some better PR. Less logical refutations, more public apologies, shooting artillery somewhere other than directly over people’s houses…
Marmot, The Voice of People is the place to check for the DPRK-tinted Southern opinions. The full Korean text from the Peaceful Unif… is here, originally from Yonhap.?¡°????‰?™”?†???¼?œ??????Œ??” ??´??¸?°” ‘????¶????’?“¤??? ??¨?¡°?????? ??Œ??´?°??œ¼?¡œ??¨ ?¶???¨?´€?³???¼ ?²¨?????œ ?Œ€?²°????´????¡œ ?ª°????°€?³? ?????” ??¨?¡°??? ??¹????? ?³?????????¸ ?œ???¸????¹???‰?œ?, ?…Œ?????‰?œ???¼ ??¼?¡±??? ??¨????³¼ ?†???¼??? ?°”??¼??” ??¨ ??¼?¡±??? ??´????œ¼?¡œ ?¤€??´??? ?·œ?????œ??¤. (…)
??´?²? ?????œ?°€ ?¹???´??¼ ????³¼??? ?Œ€??´??œ??” ???????œ¼?¡œ ??¨?¡°??? ??¹????´ ?±…????§€?²Œ ??? ?²???´??° ??´??? ??‘?¡°??œ ??¤??¸ ??¸????“¤??? ?°??“œ??œ ?¹???¼ ?Œ€?°€??¼ ?¹???´?²Œ ??? ?²???´??¤.
Thanks, sir. Particularly liked this part:
??¨?¡°?????? ???Œ€ ?†??¹?????“¤??€ ??°??? ?³??™”???????œ ?????¼ ?§€??€ ??¸?°??“°????¸°?“¤??? ??Œ??´??¤ ?°??³??™”???Œ€?²°?±…??™????¡œ ??´?ª°?????¤.”
Browsed the other day my collection of Korean weekly magazines, of which I have especially many issues of Hankyoreh 21. In that mag there were many sympathetic articles about the plight of DPRK refugees in China and in Southeast Asia, and the cold treatment they’ve gotten from the ROK officials, especially the Security Planning Office, as it was called that time. The case of Germany before unification was cited as an example, that every refugee should be taken.
Oh by the way, the articles are from 1997.
Actually, the artillery firing reference is to the fact that the artillery in Korea will fire from one training area at an impact area in another training area. Because there is not one huge maneuver base to train in, the flight path of the round may indeed travel “over” civilain houses. But it is not the case that they are pulling up in somebody’s back yard to fire off a few over the roof. Nor is the impact area where the rounds land anywhere close to civilian dwellings.
My aunt used to live several miles away from a military base on the Salisbury plain in England and sometimes when they fired the artillery her house would shake and things would fall off shelves. It was a big inconvenience but she wasn’t fuming pissed at the UK military. However in Korea, where it’s done by a foreign military, this kind of thing gets put into the mythology of everything being evil migun’s fault.
The alliance needs to get stronger or dissappear in order for this blame game to end. Personally, I think there needs to be an East-Asia NATO to recognize Korea’s maturity and lower the regional tensions - in effect a “more equal” alliance.