Despite “Sports Diplomacy,” Assholes Still Firmly in Control in North Korea

Here’s another brick that can be pried out of the wall of Unifiction idiocy. Shallow thinkers across South Korea once told us that sports diplomacy would be another one of those gentle, warming rays that would eventually give us a kinder, gentler North Korea. Proponents of that theory were willing to overlook some early setbacks from the 2002 Universiade Games at Taegu, when North Korean “journalists” attacked peaceful human rights protestors, and when North Korean cheerleaders became hysterical at the sight of portraits of His Porcine Shriveled Majesty getting rained on. A few years later, word reached the South that some of those same cheerleaders whispered to their family and friends about the abundance they saw in the South, for which they were duly shipped off to a concentration camp.

Well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs; perhaps the sun needed more time to shine. How about now?

North Korea has accused South Korea of poisoning its football players with an “adulterated foodstuff” ahead of last week’s World Cup qualifier match. North Korea coach Kim Jong Hun made the allegation after his team lost 1-0 to South Korea on 1 April. Seoul has denied the claim. The North’s football association said the act was part of Seoul’s “moves for confrontation” with Pyongyang. [….]

In a statement about the match, the North’s football association said: “It was beyond all doubt that the incident was a product of a deliberate act perpetrated by adulterated foodstuff as [the players] could not get up all of a sudden just before the match.” [BBC]

Nothing says “sportsmanship” like accusing your victorious opponents of poisoning your players. We are one!