N. Korea Preparing Uprising in the South?

A tip of my hat to the Nomad for pointing out this series in the World Peace Herald, which I’m obliged to point out was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung-Moon. The Rev. Moon, as regular readers know, has gone from uncompromising right-wing cold warrior to being one of Kim Jong Il’s favorite investors. Moon purchased a large parcel of land near Pyongyang for his own personal Vatican (fourth item) and even signed a deal to build a ski resort on Mt. Kumgang back in 1998. One of his companies in Japan reportedly sold North Korea mini-subs in the 1990s (declassified report here). The WPH continues to be one of Rev. Moon’s mouthpieces, judging by this fawning August 2005 tract by an ex-ROK Unification Minister, who actually believes that we can all break the six-party deadlock with “Father Moon’s love.”

In other words, treat this source with no more suspicion than you would OhMyNews, a Nick Kristof op-ed, or an official statement from the present Unification Minister. (The more interesting question is whether North Korea really has room for two messiahs, but not to worry. Kristof didn’t stay for long.)

– II –

I don’t really care much about the religious beliefs of the writers, as long as those beliefs don’t influence the objectivity of the reporting. In fact, the story gains some credibility from that fact that it doesn’t reflect the Unification Church’s recent pro-Sunshine dogma. I’ve also seen some of these facts reported in other sources. Thus, I have no reason to doubt this report’s veracity:

North Korea has engaged in such operations relentlessly for more than half a century since the division of the peninsula. Operations are generally conducted by agents who infiltrate South Korea through a number of channels and means, and then embed themselves in different areas of society, including political, academic and media circles. South Korean security sources say the number of such agents reaches 40,000 or 50,000.

Other operations carried out more openly attempt to influence South Koreans who are inclined to agree with North Korea’s positions on many issues.

Both types of operations have gone into full gear immediately before each of South Korea’s past presidential elections and times of power transition.

So how does the North intend to capitalize on this influence?

Subsequent to June 2000, North Korea’s strategic view of the South has changed so that it now sees it as a regime with which it can compromise on occasion.

In other words, North appears to have come to the conclusion that it can convince South Korea to support its positions on issues such as human rights and nuclear development.

The National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s intelligence agency, says that in the last five years it has intercepted 670 directives from North Korea to its covert operators in the South. In recent years, North Korea has begun to diversify its means of communicating with operatives, including a wider of use of the Internet, where messages are more difficult to block.

I don’t have any inside knowledge here, but the hypothesis has common sense going for it. I don’t think many serious observers believe that North Korea could defeat South Korea with a conventional mechanized attack, but that attack might have a real chance of success if southern-based agents could grab hold of some key terrain–particularly heavily populated areas–in the South. This historic example comes to mind. It’s why popular sentiment in South Korea is a direct threat to the safety of U.S. forces in Korea.