“We demand that North Korea immediately stop interfering with a progressive party of the South” . . . really.
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This entry was written by R. Elgin, posted on January 30, 2008 at 7:36 am, filed under South Korean Politics. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.
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6 Comments
There are two factions within the DLP, NL and PD. If you know the history of the 386 generation, I don’t think you will find that demand odd.
“The Democratic Labor Party on Monday distanced itself from North Korea over the involvement of senior party members in an espionage scandal in 2005.”
Yeah, nearly three years and one presidential election later (which was won by a conservative on top of it).
“the aggressively pro-Pyongyang national liberation faction in the party”
They should name names.
So, only now do they get around to expelling guys serving prison sentences for espionage. That was quick.
#4,
Just in time for the inauguration of a conservative president and the elections this spring.
With extremely restricted legal contacts between the Koreas and no DPRK representation in ROK, it’s quite telling of the present state of the DLP that it sees it necessary to ask the North to stop interfering in its affairs.
Yet the funny or ironic thing is that DLP, despite its leading faction being pro-DPRK, has not been given the reception of a significant political player. It has not been allowed to deal directly with the Workers’ Party but with one of its foreign relations bureaus, the “Social Democratic Party.” (More precisely, one office in the Exchange Division of the Unification Bureau of the Workers’ Party.) DPRK doesn’t even support DLP in the Southern elections, as some visitors to the North before some of the previous election told that instead of DLP, the hosts urged to vote for the Government party. (Can’t even remember its name anymore.)
But the DLP with the leadership it has lately had must have been a useful tool for the aforementioned DPRK “party.”