Not Again: Another American Crosses Into North Korea

There’s no word on who he/she is.

There’s no word on why he/she crossed.

A South Korean activist who has been the source of most information about the missionary said Thursday that he has no knowledge of the second American detainee. Jo Sung-rae of the Seoul-based group Pax Koreana said he and fellow activists sent about 150,000 leaflets by balloon across the border into North Korea on Wednesday as part of efforts to let North Koreans know about Park. Jo said the leaflets repeated Park’s demand that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il step down and dismantle camps for political prisoners.

There’s no word on whether it was all of the favorable media attention Robert Park has garnered, or some other reason, that motivated him to do cross over.

There’s no word that this person released a statement before crossing.

There’s no word on whether he brought along his own briefcase full of ransom money … you know, to save “Kim Jong Bill” Richardson the trouble.

Please, people. Stop doing this!

10 Responses

  1. Its a Spartacus moment in the making.

    The accompanying delivery of 150,000 leaflets into North Korea by Park’s activist organization, Pax Koreana is the real story here. The leaflets explain Park’s mission and will most certainly be policed up by North Korean Army regulars – 70% of whom are deployed within a few miles of the DMZ.

    Why is that important? Because when the military begins to sympathize with the dissidents, with Christians, or with ordinary North Koreans – the game is over, Juche has failed, and the Ceaucescu moment is imminent. I’m not saying that vast numbers of the Soldiers who read these leaflets will necessarily believe the messages printed on them – although some already do – but that the rumors will begin to spread into the population that a Korean-American Christian entered North Korea openly to call Kim Jong Il to repent and receive the Christian God. That will certainly cause a moral earthquake – and the 70,000+ cell phones currently in use in the DPRK may be a source to facilitate the spread of the rumors all over the country. The fact that the KCNA is reporting that 2 Americans have entered the DPRK is an inadvertant aid to the overall effort.

    After all the years of confrontation between massive armies, navies, air forces, nuclear weapons, espionage and intrigue, it may be that a weak and frail missionary, some helium balloons and small waterproof leaflets will be the David’s stone that fells the Goliath of Juche.

    God grant that Robert Park’s mission continue to grow in its effectiveness.

  2. If the Sparatcus reference isn’t clear to your rearders, here’s a short clip that shows the potential of Robert Park’s bold incursion into the heart of the Juche inferno.

  3. Remember, the Berlin Wall fell down after one East German crossed the border. When people realized that the borders were really open and that the only thing that kept them there was their irrational fear of a failing government, then the border fell.

    The same could be true here. What would it look like if a hundred Americans crossed into North Korea to be captured? What about a thousand or a hundred thousand? What if every one of those Americans who crossed had the same faith that Robert Park had, that perhaps their insane sacrifice might soften the hearts of the leadership of that country? Could this be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

    Stranger things have happened.

    If this does happen, then perhaps we’re going to be bowing our heads again in gratitude to a merciful God who overthrows one of the worst tyrants in history without firing a single shot.

  4. I don’t know about the “without firing a single shot” part, but I like these overall comments. However, I have this horrible feeling that there indeed, will be, a war.

  5. KCJ- You know what I mean. All out war. The physical kind, not just the spiritual kind. Thousands of physical lives lost, bloodshed etc.,

    It’s what I cynically fear. I am not saying it will happen, but …..

  6. Theresa – sometimes that is the consequence of generations of injustice. I am a military member myself, and I do not want war, but I have learned that sometimes the only way to purge a people of their national, social and moral transgressions is by a horrific judgment. Juche is a disgusting distortion of the worship of the one God adored by Jews, Christians and Muslims. Its only a matter of time before it collapses. Let’s pray that the suffering the Korean people have endured all these decades is enough and that God will spare them further suffering from the scourge of all-out war.

  7. If this does happen, then perhaps we’re going to be bowing our heads again in gratitude to a merciful God who overthrows one of the worst tyrants in history without firing a single shot.

    Kim Il-sung was in power 45 years and his son for 15. Merciful God can overthrow Kim Jong-il anytime now. Maybe he’ll be able to stay under the radar just like his father and Stalin did.