Korea still dangerous flashpoint

Tension increases in world's most heavily militarized zone, writes GEOFFREY YORK

Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2003  

PANMUNJOM, NORTH KOREA -- As they gaze across the border at their American enemies, the North Koreans make jokes about the obesity of the U.S. soldiers.

But they also issue a grave warning.

They say that the world's most heavily militarized region is becoming more dangerous than ever.

The confrontation line between North and South Korea is the last frontier of the Cold War, with more than 1.2 million troops -- including 37,000 Americans -- within striking range of each other. And now there is the nuclear factor.

"The United States is making excuses to invade us," a pistol-packing military officer at the border said.

"They say we have nuclear weapons."

He won't comment on the nuclear allegation (although his government in Pyongyang has boasted of its nuclear capacity). He does confirm, however, that tensions are rising along the border, with gunfire exchanged across the Korean War ceasefire line this summer. He says the South Koreans sparked the exchange by firing an unprovoked shot. The South Koreans say the first shot came from the North.

The peninsula already has the world's greatest concentration of troops and heavy armaments. The vast majority of the 1.8 million soldiers in the two opposing armies are within 100 kilometres of the border.

North Korea now very likely possesses as many as six nuclear weapons, according to U.S. reports, and its nuclear program could produce dozens more warheads in the next few years. Last month it threatened to test a nuclear weapon, a step that would probably trigger a U.S. response.

The United States, meanwhile, heightened the tensions by announcing an $11-billion (U.S.) upgrade of its armed forces in South Korea, including the installation of a new state-of-the-art Patriot missile-defence system last week. It also spearheaded a multinational military exercise this month to practise intercepting North Korean ships at sea.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter warned this weekend that the Korean nuclear crisis is the biggest threat to peace in the world today.

He said that some of the latest U.S. actions, including its missile-defence deployment and its military exercises, have given North Korea a legitimate reason to fear a pre-emptive invasion, similar to the U.S. attack on Iraq.

North Korea's expectations of war have been mounting ever since U.S. President George W. Bush branded it part of the "axis of evil." Generations have been indoctrinated with an anti-American hatred, and now the hatred is being whipped up to new heights.

In cities across North Korea, propaganda signs portray the United States as a loathsome foe. A billboard in Pyongyang shows U.S. missiles and soldiers being crushed by a giant North Korean hand. A billboard in the port city of Wonsan shows a North Korean boxer knocking out a U.S. soldier.

In shops, history books are emblazoned with the phrase: "Wipe out the U.S. imperialist aggressors, the sworn enemy of the Korean people!" Every issue of the weekly Pyongyang Times contains articles denouncing the United States as a nation of sinister plotters and brutal war criminals. Newly published books accuse the United States of being "the empire of terrorism."

Even the thousands of children who attend the Pyongyang circus are indoctrinated with the same message. In the clown act at the circus, a drunken U.S. soldier -- a clown in a blond wig -- is the buffoon for a shrewd Korean clown who repeatedly kicks him from behind.

At the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, visitors are always taken to the Hall of American Atrocities, a gruesome display of photos showing massacres, beheadings, torture, germ warfare and other alleged U.S. war crimes from the 1950-53 Korean conflict. One display case contains a variety of knives, bats, swords and other weapons allegedly used by Americans to torture and kill Koreans. A guide explains that the Americans are "cruel beasts with two legs."

To show that the U.S. military can be defeated, the museum includes a large collection of captured U.S. flags, rifles, tanks and artillery guns from the Korean War, along with a huge photo of a grieving U.S. general gazing at a vast field of graves at a war cemetery. The museum also displays the remains of a U.S. warplane, shot down "while it was bombing schools and hospitals." Wartime allies of the United States, including Canada, are described as nothing more than U.S. "satellites."

In another constant reminder of the enemy's tactics, the USS Pueblo -- a U.S. spy ship captured in international waters in 1968 -- is permanently displayed at a dock on the Taedong River in Pyongyang.

At a museum in the border zone, visitors are told that the United States was the first to provoke the war in 1950, and the first to seek a ceasefire a year later. The same photo of a grieving U.S. general is displayed there too.

This ceaseless anti-American message helps North Korea justify its "army first" policy, which gives highest priority to its military in all matters. More than 30 per cent of its GDP is devoted to the military -- the highest percentage in the world. In addition to its million active soldiers, its army includes about 3,500 battle tanks, more than 10,000 heavy artillery pieces, and about five million reservists.

Travelling across North Korea confirms that it is still the world's most heavily militarized country. The country appears to be in a constant state of alert. There are electrified fences at the border and along the beaches on the sea coasts, as if the Americans might come storming ashore at any moment.

The Pyongyang subway system is essentially a huge network of bomb shelters, with most stations at least 100 metres below the surface.

Every village reportedly has a bomb shelter. Massive tank barricades -- 12-metre-high concrete towers that can be toppled onto the road to block tanks -- have been erected at regular intervals along every highway.

Road tunnels are often guarded by soldiers.

War movies are favourite fare on television, and even children's cartoons are based on war stories. Armed soldiers and other military icons are constantly shown on billboards and on television during songs and concerts.

One of the most common images on television shows an alert soldier peering into the sky with binoculars at sunset, watching for attackers, with anti-aircraft guns pointing upward behind him.

North Korea's dictators, Kim Jong-il and his late father Kim Il-sung, have always viewed the history of the past two centuries as proof that a powerful army is essential for national survival.

The Opium Wars in China, the Japanese colonial era in Korea, the fall of the Soviet bloc and the latest Iraq war are all seen as strong evidence that a nation without a mighty army will be swiftly overrun by foreigners.

The military -- and its nuclear arsenal -- are seen as crucial to the country's fate.

"The fact that the armed forces wavered when socialism in Eastern Europe was collapsing emphasizes the importance of a correct solution to the military question in advancing the socialist cause," states a book published in Pyongyang last year on military policy.

"Kim Jong-il regards military affairs as the most important of all state affairs," the book adds. "Priority must be given to strengthening the armed forces."

Under a 1998 constitutional amendment, the military was further upgraded and the chairman of the National Defence Commission -- the position held by Kim Jong-il -- became the highest-ranking post. The army-first policy meant that "the rifle stands above the hammer and sickle," the leader said. "We can live without cake or candy, but we cannot live without weapons and bullets."

Propaganda photos often show Kim Jong-il doing "ceaseless inspections" of his military units, giving "on-the-spot encouragement" to the troops. He is said to have travelled 48,000 kilometres to inspect 430 military units in the second half of the 1990s alone.

North Korea says its army is "invincible." Each soldier is told that he must be the equivalent of a hundred enemy soldiers. Each soldier is taught that his greatest honor is to sacrifice his life for his country.

Because of the army-first policy, the economy has been badly distorted to serve military needs. Heavy industry, for example, has drained resources away from other sectors, including consumer goods and the service sector, since heavy industry serves the defence sector.

This, in turn, has left the regime dependent on the defence industry for many of its own economic needs.

Missile sales, for example, are one of the few remaining sources of hard-currency export revenue for the government.

And military labour has become crucial to the economy. Manual labour by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, in factories and dams and farm fields, has become essential for staving off the further collapse of the economy.

North Korea Calls Rumsfeld Illiterate Psychopath

Sat Sep 27,10:28 AM ET

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea described Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a dictatorial psychopath and a politically illiterate old man for criticizing Pyongyang and predicting its system would collapse.

Rumsfeld told U.S. and South Korean business leaders on Tuesday he had a night-time satellite picture of the divided peninsula in his office that showed the North almost entirely in darkness and the South aglow.

"While the situation in North Korea sometimes looks bleak, I'm convinced that one day freedom will come to the people and light up that oppressed land with hope and promise," he said in a speech mostly about the U.S.-South Korean military alliance. The response from the North's official KCNA news agency was harsh even by its own rich rhetorical standards.

"His remarks only go to prove that he is just an old man politically illiterate as he cannot measure up the present reality when all the countries are promoting peaceful co-existence, reconciliation and cooperation irrespective of ideologies and beliefs," it said in a long commentary.

"It is not likely at all that he would speak truth as he is obsessed with wantonly harassing peace and security in different parts of the world and igniting wars. His outbursts, therefore, cannot be construed otherwise than a desperate shrill cry of a psychopath on his death bed."

It said Rumsfeld was cursed and hated worldwide.

The North's criticism echoed remarks it made about State Department official John Bolton in August. It called him "human scum" for describing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as tyrannical dictator.

KCNA said it was true North Korea had what it described as temporary economic difficulties but blamed the United States and said the communist country would emerge victorious.

North Korea and the United States are at loggerheads over Pyongyang's nuclear program. A first round of six-way talks with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea ended inconclusively in Beijing last month. Another round is unlikely before November.

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