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Now that Bush is safely out of the way, the truth can finally be told: Siegfried Hecker says that North Korea is building its own light-water nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

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North Korea bites the hand that feeds it:

Rodong Shinmun, the daily publication of the Chosun Workers’ Party, asserted in an editorial on the 11th, “We should wake up to western countries’ aid diplomacy,” citing a quote attributed to Kim Jong Il, “There is no more stupid and dangerous attitude than to look forward to the imperialists’ aid while failing to see their aggressive and predatory nature. The imperialists’ aid is a trap of plundering and subordination; giving one so as to extort ten or hundred times more.

Here’s proof, if any more were needed, that North Korea’s is a regime that defines its national interest not by the welfare of the starving masses, but by the egos of a tiny oligarchy of porcine little men.

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You know, sometimes when I read KCNA, I just don’t get what effect they’re trying to achieve.

The national power has reached the highest stage, a heyday of the greatest prosperity in the nation’s history spanning 5,000 years has been ushered in the country and its dignity and pride have been fully demonstrated before the whole world under the Songun banner. [….]

The Songun politics helped all Koreans at home and abroad feel the immense pride and honor that the Korean nation is the best in the world. That is why they are turning out as one in the struggle to carve out the independent destiny of the nation, being optimistic about a rosy future of a reunified powerful nation.[KCNA]

Who still believes this? Who does the Rodong Sinmun still believe believes this? Does even Alejandro Cao de Benos still believe this? Could the idea be to convince all of us that North Koreans are still capable of believing this?

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What’s 46 dead sailors among friends?

South Korea may drop its demand that the North first apologise for sinking one of its warships before long-stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks can resume, a report said Tuesday. A willingness by Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions was more important to restart the six-party forum than an apology for the March sinking of the Cheonan, a senior presidential aide told Yonhap news agency.

“With regard to the six-way talks, whether North Korea has the will to denuclearise is the more important condition than (the sinking),” he was quoted as saying.

Which it won’t, of course. So not only does North Korea escape any real consequences for sinking a South Korean warship, its fifth column in the South — to include large portions of its main opposition party — will continue to wallow in a fever swamp of Cheonan conspiracy theories. This would be another blow to deterrence, and to South Korea’s collective sanity. This is what I’d have expected from Roh Moo Hyun.

21 Responses

  1. “but by the egos of a tiny oligarchy of porcine little men.”

    My eyes are playing tricks on me. I read this line so fast that I thought it actually said:

    “..tiny oligarchy of porcelain little men..”

    I just thought, “well that’s a new one Joshua..”

  3. Is North Korea waking up to Western countires aid diplomacy? Does it believe that the imperialists’ aid is a trap? Here’s a test for DPRK.

    U.N. i.e. Ban Ki-Moon, urges food aid for North Korea.
    Mark McDonald and Kevin Drew in the New York Times.

    “‘I saw a lot of children already losing the battle against malnutrition,’ said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, after a visit to North Korea this month. ‘Their bodies and minds are stunted, so we really feel the need there.'”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/world/asia/18korea.html?_r=1&ref=world

  5. Who still believes this? Who does the Rodong Sinmun still believe believes this? Does even Alejandro Cao de Benos still believe this? Could the idea be to convince all of us that North Koreans are still capable of believing this?

    Joshua hits the nail on the head here: belief is the key to understanding North Korea which may be the most religious dictatorship on earth. If the religion of Juche is abandoned (at least in conscience) then the foundation is laid for regime collapse and reunification under ROK terms. This is why the DPRK has bet the farm on Juche as the state religion with its ‘jihadist’ tenet of reunification under the ‘eternal leadership’ of the Su Ryong (great leader) Kim Il-sung.

    Juche has increased in rigor as a way of countering outside information and decreased in relevance to the rank and file North Korean, at least according to defector debriefs.

  6. In all fairness, KCJ, the Kim Jong Il leadership managed to conjure up the Songun “theory” out of thin air to replace communism, socialism and the proletarian dictatorship all in one go, while the Chinese replaced socialism with money pretty much in a heartbeat.

    In addition, you started by saying “Belief is the key to understanding North Korea” and ended on “Juche has… decreased in relevance to the rank and file North Korean”, which seems, on the face of it, to be a contradiction. Maybe I am misunderstanding you.

    I suspect we should never anticipate there being a limit to the rhetorical hoops that dictatorship systems will jump through in order to maintain the veneer of legitimacy while completely changing their focus in practice, and I equally confident that if the people of North Korea felt it would get them more food in their bellies and money in their pockets, they might very well queue up to do the jumping.

  7. I’m pretty sure at this point that even the most loyal elderly woman to Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong il living in the remote mountains must be wondering why her nation, if a paradise on Earth is recieving food aid supplied by countries that are supposed to be worse off than them. In fact i’m pretty sure that all North Koreans know they are living in an ungilded cage, except for the children.

  8. The only thing holding the DPRK together at this point is an ingrained “racial duty”. The ruling apparatus has no choice but to increase xenophobic behaviour amongst the populace if they are to survive. Those who do not embrace the third succession wholly will be targeted as Korean race traitors, and in North Korea it is better to be a lepor than that.

  9. I understand KCJ’s argument to be that belief or the lack thereof is the key to understanding North Korea. But increasingly, I think money is the key to understanding North Korea. All other pretenses seem to be fading pretty quickly.

  12. Joshua is right. Money is THE MOST important upkeep Groundsman of the DPRK regime. No matter all their rhetoric, the North Korean few select royal court members do not give a damn about the Korean people, North or South.

    They have perfected the fact that they are more evil than the Capitalists which they preach against. The Capitalists give them aid, that is a fact. And that Truth is Poison to the DPRK. We Capitalists do not need to rub it in their faces, They rub our aid in their own peoples faces against us…. Let them

    The last Days of the DPRK under the current North Korean ruling family will end in the Summer equinox of 2014-18 officially(Give or take 3 seasons). The Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung will be the only place left before Kim Jong Il’s palace guards turn on him in one of the escape tunnels underneath the city. Unlike Caligula, he will have passed away 4 years before the equinox of 2018 and had a good amount of years before demise..

  14. His other unnoficial sons and daughter(s) will live a long life, well Jung Un however, that is still a mystery… But by 2019, the North Korean People will have fully embraced Democracy by South Korean role model standards if Jung Un played cards right. By that Time, China will have grown impatient with arrogant North Chosun, finally. And China and the U.S. will Conspire together as equals.

    What the couple thinks out is for the time being just my ramblings of the supposed future.

  16. Let me clarify with a quote from an article in the Christian Science Monitor:

    North Koreans are taught to worship Kim Jong Il as a god. In a manner unique among nations, the North exerts extraordinary control through deification – a cult ideology of complete subservience – that goes beyond the “Stalinist” label often used to describe the newly nuclear North.

    While outsiders can see film clips of huge festivals honoring Mr. Kim, the extraordinary degree of cult worship is not well known, nor that programs promoting the ideology of Kim are growing, according to refugees, diplomats, and others who have visited the Hermit Kingdom.

    In fact, in a time of famine and poverty, government spending on Kim-family deification – now nearly 40 percent of the visible budget – is the only category in the North’s budget to increase, according to a new white paper by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul. It is rising even as defense, welfare, and bureaucracy spending has decreased. The increase pays for ideology schools, some 30,000 Kim monuments, gymnastic festivals, films and books, billboards and murals, 40,000 “research institutes,” historical sites, rock carvings, circus theaters, training programs, and other worship events.

    In 1990, ideology was 19 percent of North Korea’s budget; by 2004 it doubled to at least 38.5 percent of state spending, according to the white paper. This extra financing may come from recent budget offsets caused by the shutting down of older state funding categories, says Alexander Mansourov of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

    The North uses “ideology rather than physical control,” Lee says, whenever possible. The current variation of the program is called “military first.” It is intended to bolster North Korea’s nuclear efforts. Military First started as a campaign to support juche, and as a slogan designed to remind Koreans that the nation is at war.

    My point is this:

    1. NK controls its people with [false] religion – not much different from Iran in some aspects.
    2. Dissent from the religion of Juche is considered betrayal of the Father Kim Il-sung and the Fatherland, Korea.
    3. Betrayal is treason, siding with the enemies of North Korea (we are at war).
    4. Treason must be dealt with by capital punishment or ‘reducation camps’ such as Yodok.
    5. Defectors report that some Koreans condemned for betrayal of the Father and the Fatherland felt real guilt – even after having been tortured.
    6. The only way to counter the infiltration deluge of foreign information and cultural products is to make the cult more rigorous and more compulsory.
    7. The more coercive it becomes, the less credible.

    I concede that economics and racial pride xenophobia are important tools for maintaining control, but they are not the center of gravity. The cult of Juche, its god Kim Il-sung and its jihad, reunification through sacred struggle are the real nexus of control in the DPRK, and it is on a trajectory of costing more in both GDP and what little freedom North Koreans may believe they have. The rising cost of the cult and its increased rigor will reach critical mass soon, especially with a full-court press from ROK missionary organizations gaining steam and converts among defectors, who went past the 20,000 mark this week.

  17. I wrote:

    I say a volcanic eruption of Paektusan will topple the regime.

    I meant it would topple the regime… if it happened. Which it might (it’s in the link above, but also here).

  18. Chris, I was speaking of the NK people’s fear of the wrath of their dear leaders if they dissent or question anything. But yeah, good question.

    Pefect love drives out fear- there is a lack of love there.

    They are afraid for their lives and I don’t blame them, but I am praying for the kind of courage that can only come from up above- that the people will rise up and take back their country.

  19. N. Korea Seen Working on New Reactor
    Mark McDonald, New York Times

    “Charles L. Pritchard … toured the Yongbyon site … . He was told by North Korean officials that they were building an experimental light-water reactor.”

    “Light-water reactors are typically used to generate electricity for civilian purposes and are considered relatively safe in terms of proliferation risks.”

    The old Yongbyon reactor, which had been used to produce plutonium, reamains inoperative, according to Mr. Prithcard … .”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/world/asia/20korea.html?_r=1&ref=world

  20. Kushibo, on the bases that Kim Jong Il will not even be seen alive after 2013,

    His most trusted sister (Look her up at nkleadershipwatch.com) as I stated before, Nephews and Neices of him will help Jung Un in his succession of power, but only by their mother’s instructions! Even in North Korea, the ruling woman is more likely the one who puts the Dictator to sleep at at night by comforting him. His sister has maneuvered her on, and off again husband as the Cheif Knight. Again, After KJI is gone, his elder sister will be the Queen Bee of the DPRK court,…

    Funny how the Men of North Korea do not listen to their own Women more. If they did, then the DPRK would not be asking the supposed (desolate south), for Grain and Food.