North Korean Threats: Again

North Korean Leader Vows ‘High-Profile’ Retaliation (NYTimes)

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: January 27, 2013

SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has ordered his top military and party officials to take “substantial and high-profile important state measures” to retaliate against American-led United Nations sanctions on the country, the North’s official media reported Sunday.

 

North Korea did not clarify what those measures might be, but it referred to a series of earlier statements in which Mr. Kim’s government has threatened to launch more long-range rockets and conduct a third nuclear test to build an ability to “target” the United States.

Mr. Kim threw his weight behind his government’s escalating standoff with Washington when he called a meeting of top security and foreign affairs officials and gave an instruction in his name. He inherited the posts of supreme party and military leaders from his father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December 2011.

By calling such a meeting and having it reported in state news media, Mr. Kim appeared to be asserting his leadership in what his country called an “all-out action” against the United States, unlike his father, who tended to remain reclusive during similar confrontations.

“At the consultative meeting, Kim Jong-un expressed the firm resolution to take substantial and high-profile important state measures in view of the prevailing situation,” said the North’s Korean Central News Agency, or K.C.N.A. “He advanced specific tasks to the officials concerned.”

The K.C.N.A. dispatch, which was distributed on Sunday, was dated Saturday, indicating that the meeting in Pyongyang, the capital, took place then. That was the same day on which the North’s main party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said that the United Nations Security Council’s resolution last Tuesday calling for tightening sanctions against the North left it with “no other option” but a nuclear test.

“A nuclear test is what the people demand,” it said in a commentary.

The resolution was adopted unanimously — with the support of the North’s traditional protector, China — as punishment for its Dec. 12 rocket launching. The Security Council determined that the launching was a cover for testing intercontinental ballistic missile technology and a violation of its earlier resolutions banning North Korea from conducting such tests.

The North rejected the old resolutions, as well as the latest one, insisting that launching rockets to put satellites into orbit was its sovereign right. Its successful rocket launching in December, coming after a failure last April, was the most visible achievement Mr. Kim’s government could present to its people, who have suffered decades of poverty and isolation. In North Korean propaganda, defending the rocket program is likened to protecting national pride and independence — even if the country has to pay a high economic price.

Last Thursday, North Korea said that its drive to rebuild its moribund economy and its rocket program, until now billed as a peaceful space project, would be adjusted and redirected toward efforts to foil hostilities by the United States. On Sunday, it said the Security Council’s action “has thrown a grave obstacle” in the way of its efforts to focus on “economic construction so that the people may not tighten their belts any longer.”

Still, it said it had to “defend its sovereignty by itself” because “different countries concerned” failed to “fairly solve the problem.” In the past few days, North Korea, without citing China by name, expressed bitterness and defiance against its longtime Communist ally for endorsing the American-led Security Council resolution. On Saturday, the Rodong Sinmun reaffirmed its dislike of “sadae,” or toadying big countries, including China.

China provides all of North Korea’s fuel and remains its biggest trading partner, but analysts believe that its influence is limited on the recalcitrant government in Pyongyang. Beijing has been thus far reluctant to use its economic leverage, fearing that it would only drive its neighbor into more provocations, which would be a blow to China’s interest in maintaining stability in the region.

International attention has focused on the Punggye nuclear test site in northeastern North Korea, where the country conducted its two previous underground nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009. Enough preparations have been made there recently that a third test could happen on short notice from the North Korean leadership, South Korean officials said.

In a report issued Sunday, the Institute for National Security Strategy, a research organization affiliated with South Korea’s main intelligence service, said that North Korea might use provocations this year to tame the incoming government of President-elect Park Geun-hye, who will be sworn in next month.

“It will wait and see until the new government’s North Korea policy shapes up,” it said. “If the policy is not favorable, the North may lash out with provocations.”

North Korean threat: all rhetoric, or reality? | The Japan Times

North Korean threat: all rhetoric, or reality? | The Japan Times

Photo from Korean War

1968 - Assassination Attempt on President Park

When NK Commandos Tried To Assassinate South Korea’s President

This Day in the History of the DPRK: January 21, JUCHE 56 (1968)

by Brandon K. Gauthier , January 21, 2013

     

   

The soldiers, a self-fulfilling prophecy of impending death, advanced unflinchingly with one goal: kill Park Chung-hee, then President of South Korea.

It was dark when it started, just before midnight on January 17, 1968.  Thirty-one North Korean soldiers moved stealthily through the DMZ.  Reaching a chain-link fence, the men changed into coveralls and army uniforms from the Republic of Korea (ROK).  They cut openings in the fence—ever so quietly—and squeezed through onto South Korean territory.  Nearby American soldiers, less than a 100 feet away, remained stunningly oblivious.  The sun rose on January 18, and the men hid, waiting for the refuge of darkness to move again.  They continued on like this, at one point resting less than two miles from a U.S. Army Divisional Headquarters.

And it was all going to plan until the afternoon of January 19, when the infiltrators accidentally came upon four woodcutters.  A debate ensued among the North Koreans; an ill-fated decision was made.  Rather than kill the South Koreans, ensuring their silence, the commandos lectured them for four hours.  A communist revolution, they argued with ideological zest, was coming soon to the south.  The civilians were sent on their way with a grim warning: tell the authorities and we’ll kill your families.

The woodcutters went to the police immediately.

The Republic of Korea responded swiftly, deploying troops to seek out and destroy the infiltrators.  The North Koreans evaded capture by tapping into radio transmissions and doggedly continuing on to the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential residence.  Reaching the mountains outside of Seoul, the city’s bright lights bewildered one of the soldiers, Kim Shin-jo; the capital, he had been led to believe, was shrouded in darkness.

Late on the evening of January 20, clad in the uniforms of the local infantry division, the North Koreans trickled into Seoul in small groups.  They met up at Seungga-sa Temple and moved towards the Blue House.  Taking advantage of the city’s feverish atmosphere, the group joined in formation and marched as an ROK patrol for the last mile.  It was an audacious decision.

The infiltrators marched directly past numerous police and military checkpoints.  At some point, however, one South Korean unit second-guessed their complacence and phoned ahead.  Less than half a mile from the Blue House, a district police chief’s jeep pulled up, challenging the advancing column for information.  Their response was a burst of machine gun fire, killing the policeman and his driver.

Chaos roared.  Disparate, roving firefights filled the capital before the North Koreans finally scattered, blasting their way out of the city.  The ensuing fighting took the lives of some 36 South Koreans and wounded 64 others.  Adding to the terror, a North Korean grenade hit a crowded public bus; another was caught in the crossfire.  Twenty-four civilians died.

Members of the doomed assassination squad fled north of Seoul, as authorities, aided by an incensed populace, hunted them mercilessly.

The day after the failed attack one of the fleeing commandos burst into a household and ordered a woman to serve him food.  The soldier received a bowl of white rice, ate it, and then promptly killed himself.  Another infiltrator, the aforementioned Kim Shin-jo, found himself surrounded that same day.   Speaking with a southern accent, one ROK soldier recognized his intonation from his home village and convinced the lone North Korean to surrender peacefully.  “I had the desire to live,” Kim Shin-jo recalled of that moment.  Following an intense press conference on television, Kim curtly admitted the mission’s purpose: “I came down to cut Park Chung Hee’s throat.”  Kim was interrogated for the next year.  Eventually, he was pardoned and given ROK citizenship.  He later became a Christian pastor.

Of the remaining DPRK soldiers, 27 were killed in numerous firefights in the eight days after the raid.  Just two are thought to have made it back across the DMZ, three U.S. soldiers the cost of their escape.

If the Blue House Raid ratcheted up tensions to a level unprecedented since the Korean War, North Korea’s sudden seizure of the USS Pueblo on January 23, and Park Chung-hee’s vehement insistence on direct retaliation, took the peninsula closer to the precipice of oblivion.
It was a dangerous time.

Park Chung-hee’s daughter, Park Geun-hye, is the incoming President of the Republic of Korea. She begins office in February.

For further reading:

• Bolger, Major Daniel P. “Scenes from an Unfinished War: Low-Intensity Conflict in Korea, 1966-1969,” Leavenworth Papers, No. 19 (1991).
• Lewis, Flora. “Seoul Feels a Cold Wind from the North,” The New York Times, February 18, 1968.
• Sarantakes, Nicholas Evan. “The Quiet War: Combat Operations Along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, 1966-1969,” The Journal of Military History (April 2000), 439-458.

NK News - Comfort Women

Comfort Women and Korean History - click here

Photo: Chosun Ilbo Archive. Left to right, top-bottom: Korean comfort women; Kim Gu; killing of civilians during the Korean War and people standing trial on charges of being involved the People’s Revolution Party plot; the Samchung Re-education Work Camp.

North Korea Does Not Believe in Unicorns - By Isaac Stone Fish and Adam Cathcart | Foreign Policy

North Korea Does Not Believe in Unicorns - By Isaac Stone Fish and Adam Cathcart | Foreign Policy

Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh's Stilt House 2013

T. Norris in front of Ho Chi Minh's Stilt House. In Hanoi for six days, rained almost the entire time, but very interesting.

Kim Jong-un's New Year's Resolution

North Korean Leader Makes Overture to South

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, called for an end to the “confrontation” with rival South Korea on Tuesday in what appeared to be an overture to the incoming South Korean president as she was cobbling together South Korea’s new policy on the North.

 

 

KCNA/Reuters

Kim Jong-un delivered an address in Pyongyang on Tuesday. 

Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.

Twitter List: Reporters and Editors

North Korea issued a major policy statement on New Year’s Day, following a tradition set by Mr. Kim’s grandfather, the North Korean founder Kim Il-sung, and continued by his father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December 2011, bequeathing the dynastic rule to Mr. Kim.

Although Mr. Kim inherited the central policies of his father, outside analysts see him as trying to distance himself in a variety of ways from his father’s ruling style. Kim Jong-il was more feared than respected among his people, and his rule was marked by a major famine.

The most significant feature of Kim Jong-un’s speech was its marked departure of tone regarding South Korea.

“A key to ending the divide of the nation and achieving reunification is to end the situation of confrontation between the North and the South,” Mr. Kim said. “A basic precondition to improving North-South relations and advancing national reunification is to honor and implement North-South joint declarations.”

He was referring to two inter-Korean agreements, signed in 2000 and 2007, when two South Korean presidents, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, were pursuing a “Sunshine Policy” of reconciliation and economic cooperation with North Korea and met Mr. Kim’s father in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

As a result of those agreements, billions of dollars of South Korean investment, aid and trade flowed into the North. Billions more were promised in investments in shipyards and factory parks, as the South Korean leaders believed that economic good will was the best way of encouraging North Korea to shed its isolation and hostility while reducing the economic gap between the Koreas and the cost of reunification in the future.

But that warming of ties ended when conservatives came to power in South Korea with the inauguration of President Lee Myung-bak in 2008. Mr. Lee suspended any large aid or investment because of the lack of progress toward dismantling the North’s nuclear weapons programs, and inter-Korean relations spiraled down, further aggravated by the North’s shelling of a South Korean island in 2010.Mr. Kim’s speech on Tuesday, which was broadcast through the North’s state-run television and radio stations, was another sign that the young leader was trying to emulate his grandfather, who was considered a more people-friendly leader and is still widely revered among North Koreans.

Mr. Kim returned to the tradition of Kim Il-sung, issuing the statement in a personal speech. During the rule of Kim Jong-il, the statement — which laid out policy guidelines for the new year and was studied by all branches of the party, state and military — was issued as a joint editorial of the country’s main official media.

In his speech, Kim Jong-un, echoed themes of previous New Year’s messages, emphasizing that improving the living standards of North Koreans and rejuvenating the agricultural and light industries were among the country’s main priorities.

But he revealed no details of any planned economic policy changes. He mentioned only a need to “improve economic leadership and management” and “spread useful experiences created in various work units.”

Since July, reports from various media suggest that Mr. Kim’s government has begun carrying out cautious economic incentives aimed at bolstering productivity at farms and factories. Some reports said the state was considering letting farmers keep at least 30 percent of their yield; currently, it is believed, they are allowed to sell only a surplus beyond a government-set quota that is rarely met.

Mr. Kim also vowed to strengthen his country’s military, calling for the development of more advanced weapons. But he made no mention of relations with the United States or the international efforts to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. He simply reiterated that his government was willing to “expand and improve upon friendly and cooperative relationships with all countries friendly to us.”

Mr. Kim’s speech followed the successful launching of a satellite aboard a long-range rocket in December. North Korea’s propagandists have since been busy billing the launch as a symbol of what they called the North’s soaring technological might and Mr. Kim’s peerless leadership. Washington considered it a test of long-range ballistic-missile technology and a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions banning such tests, and is seeking more sanctions to impose on the isolated country.

The incoming leader of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, who was the presidential candidate of Mr. Lee’s conservative governing party, did not immediate respond to the speech. Ms. Park is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, the former military strongman under whose rule from 1961 until 1979 a staunchly anti-Communist, pro-American political establishment took root in South Korea.

North Korea had engineered a couple of assassination attempts on Ms. Park’s father, one of which resulted in her mother’s death in 1974. But Ms. Park also traveled to Pyongyang in 2002 and discussed inter-Korean reconciliation with Kim Jong-il.

During her campaign for president, she said that if elected, she would decouple humanitarian aid from politics and try to hold a summit meeting with Kim Jong-un. She was in part reacting to widespread criticism in South Korea that Mr. Lee’s hard-line policy did little to change the North’s behavior.

During the campaign, however, Ms. Park stuck to Mr. Lee’s stance on the most contentious issue of large-scale investment, which the North considers crucial. Ms. Park, like the current president, insisted that any large-scale economic investments be preceded by the “building of trust” through progress in curbing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Peace bought with “shoveling” of unrestrained aid under the Sunshine Policy was “a fake,” she said, citing the North’s long history of using military threats to win economic concessions.

Earlier, North Korea called her a “confrontational maniac” and “fascist.” But since her election, it has refrained from attacking her.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 2, 2013, on page A3 of the New York edition with the headline: North Korean Leader Seems to Reach Out to the South.