Trouble at the DMZ

Those North-South Korea talks lasted just 22 minutes, all of them tense, and hopes that they would end with make-up sex were not realized.  It looks like there’s trouble at the DMZ:

North Korea accused South Korea of a “serious provocation” by moving a marker on their heavily guarded border, raising tensions after rare talks between the two ended without agreement.”This serious military provocation is a wanton violation of the Armistice Agreement and a deliberate and premeditated action to escalate tension in the areas along the MDL,” the North’s official news agency said, referring to the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which marks the border.

South Korea’s military denied moving the post. “We call on North Korea to stop unnecessarily raising tension by making groundless claims,” said a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  [AFP]

The South also asked the North Koreans to release the South Korean Kaesong manager it’s been holding for several weeks now, on charges of inducing a North Korean woman to defect.  It’s now threatening to go narc to the U.N. (no! please!)   And the most delicious irony of all?  North Korea is suddenly in an activist mood about the low wages of the slave laborers at Kaesong!

“North Korea said it will reconsider all privileges it has given to the South at Kaesong,” the South Korean government said in a news release. The North demanded talks on “readjusting wages to a realistic level.   [N.Y. Times]

The North Korean government deducts either most or all of the cash from the “wages” South Korean companies pay to Kaesong workers, who receive either a small cash pittance and rations, or perhaps some rations and nothing else.  The answer has never been entirely clear, except that the lion’s share of the “wages” goes directly to Kim Jong Il and his minions.

Even the Hankyoreh sees that Kaesong’s future is in doubt, but it’s anyone’s guess what the real reason for that is.  North Korea always seems to find excuses to blame everyone else for its own behavior, but it always has reasons of its own for doing what it already wanted to do anyway.