Open Sources: Is South Korea running info ops in the North?
Hmmm:
South Korea’s military has been dropping leaflets into North Korea about democracy protests in Egypt and also sent food, medicines and radios for residents as part of a psychological campaign, a legislator said on Friday. The campaign was aimed at encouraging North Koreans to think about change, conservative South Korean parliament member Song Young-sun said. The food and medicines were delivered in light-weight baskets tied to balloons with timers programmed to release the items above the target areas in the impoverished North, Song said in a statement.
South Korea’s defence ministry declined to confirm the move, citing its policy of not commenting on sensitive issues in its dealings with the North.
The food items bore a message that they were sent by the South Korean military and were safe for human consumption but could be fed to livestock to test safety, Song said. The leaflets also carried news of public protests in Libya against the country’s long-time leader, Song’s office said. [Reuters]
Publicly, the South Korean government’s position on the democratization of North Korea continues to be ambiguous. Privately, my conversations with the South Koreans and other informed observers convince me that the various ministries and personnel are divided in their views, and that the policy that results often appears uncoordinated. I hope this is true, because it gives me hope that the South Koreans are at least willing to consider more technologically advance and efficient means to disseminate information.
If that is true, it is huge, and it is wonderful. Also, Song Young-sun should be zapped with a cattle prod for revealing it in a press conference.
Speaking of things that people shouldn’t say in public, here’s a great way of sneaking information into North Korea that I wish the Chosun Ilbo hadn’t printed:
The most common conduit is North Korean traders who frequently travel to China. They store the pictures and videos on USB memory sticks and bring them out with them. “In February last year we developed ‘stealth’ USBs and distributed hundreds of them in the North,” said Kim Heung-kwang of defector group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity.
Kim said when customs officials check the USBs on their computers, they look empty with “0 byte” appearing on the monitors. But after a certain period of time the content is automatically restored. “The stealth USBs appear to contain nothing when they are sent to North Korea and can easily pass through screening,” Kim said. “But South Korean dramas, news or other content are restored later.”
Although most North Koreans have no Internet access, they get information about the outside world through USBs, CDs or DVDs. Some young North Koreans who used the USBs ask NKIS to send more TV dramas instead of “dull” pro-democracy propaganda. [Chosun Ilbo]
So, depending on what you read, the North Korean street is bubbling with discontent, just beginning to boil over, or mostly copacetic. I don’t doubt that this comment and link from Milton represents the sincere belief of at least one South Korean official that there is now unrest, and that soldiers are among those protesting. Nor do I doubt that this report, in the Korea Times, represents the view of some anonymous Unification Ministry official that he “has observed no signs of a popular uprising in North Korea.” Public inconsistency is what we’ve come to expect of the South Korean government, as any close observer of the Cheonan Incident will clearly recall.
I tend to think it may take a few days before we have a reasonably clear picture of this, at least in North Korean terms. I’m particularly skeptical of this reporting from the New York Times, which dismisses all of the reports of “a winter of discontent.” First, the Times doesn’t cover North Korea very well under ideal conditions (as in covering talks by getting quotes from diplomats). Second, these aren’t ideal conditions, so the race goes to the swift — those who have good contacts with traders and clandestine correspondents inside North Korea itself. Those reports are the most current, but I usually only believe them after I’ve seen three consistent and plausible reports from different sources saying pretty much the same thing.
The Times report still has some interesting gems for the reader, however, including near-universal agreement that reform is nowhere on the horizon, and these statements by the former British Ambassador to North Korea, John Everhard, who notes that “[t]he gap between the elite and the rest of the country has probably never been wider. Then he says:
After the fall of East Germany, Mr. Everard said, top North Korean leaders were shown videos of former East German officials selling pencils in the streets, as a cautionary lesson on what can befall those who relax their grip on power.
North Korea’s foot-and-mouth disease outbreak has reportedly caused the regime to quarantine Pyongyang. Interesting, military pork farms have been hit hard by the outbreak.
The Daily NK has more on the decision to contract the boundaries of Pyongyang.
An widely-attended exhibition on life in North Korea’s prison camps, held in Insa-Dong in Seoul, seems to have had a profound effect on one editorial writer.
Strategy Page, citing South Korean sources, says that North Korea’s air force performed poorly when its aircraft were scrambled during the shelling of Yeonpyeong:
The flying skills of combat pilots was particularly bad, as was the performance of many aircraft (indicating poor maintenance). There were several crashes, and many near misses in the air, and a general sense of confusion among the North Korean Air Force commanders and troops.
Knowing that the Republic of Korea has finally resumed sending aid into North Korea via air raid messages with food mixed in is a very good sign. This shows the world, that not only is the Southern Korean twin more affulent than its northern reflection, the Southern twin is also more successfull in EVERY way. It is time for South Korea to reclaim Korea. South Korea can do it without violence, North Koreans beg for freedom. 95% of North Koreans would support a South Korean style Unification. The ROK should move now.
Pyongyang shrinks every day. The Regime proved it finally this year by excluding former elite districts of the city to the winds outside the “walls” of Kimland Central. Cut off Elite residents used to the red tape are even growing in discontent. The R.O.K. has the full support of the U.S., along with the entire United Nations council to seize control of Pyongyang and retore the DPRK and it’s people back to modern 21st century human status. It will be costly for the ROK to do so now. But it will be more costly to that nation if does not act now. The ROK needs to deploy every non-violent means of communicaion at hand neccessary into the DPRK. The fact that out of all nations on Earth, the ROK is the most wired, while the DPRK is the least, is a modern day Greek Tragedy. Seoul needs to act now.
Foot and mouth disease in pigs is more often more serious than in cattle. Pigs can lose their entire trotters and become permanently unable to walk — worse, their form of the virus produces huge quantities of the air-borne or aerosol virus, so that an untreated pig outbreak often becomes a true downwind epidemic. Still, it is less a lethal illness than a very seriously debilitating one. A figure of several thousand pig deaths suggests the outbreak is very severe indeed.
I agree that it would have been better not to print the USB story. But on the other hand can you imagine the difficulty North Korean customs officials will have if we send over a few boxes of USB drives in bulk!
I think the balloons / psy ops hit a nerve this time.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE71Q0EO20110227?ca=rdt
On the last topic mentioned in the post, an official Chinese website has a short photo gallery of North Korean airplanes for the connoisseurs..
Actually much more impressive is the heavy equipment China is rolling into Dandong to deal with any social disturbances or wave of refugees. (Link is to the Dandong Public Security Bureau website, which is a Chinese language page, but the photos speak for themselves.)
By the way, surprised not to see any discussion of this English Daily NK story of the major faux pas made by the North Korean media when it released footage of Kim Jong Eun/Un/The Third Represent ™ holding his binoculars upside down while doing military inspections on his dad’s birthday. The realization that the successor now looks incompetent in foreign eyes seems to have gotten KCNA into a bunch of knots, and the Agency thereafter had to report on obsequious Chinese bowing to Kim Il Song and run a rather oblique but obviously connected story about a cameraman who couldn’t figure out how to do his job when photographing Kim Il Song. Mirroring the trend — as when the Chinese Foreign Ministry magazine Shijie Zhishi broke the story on Kim Jong Il’s seven-year-old kid — Beijing’s CCTV covered this story on their evening news, so now we and the Chinese can mock the Kim family together. I thought heathen regimes were supposed to stick together!
Also, it seems that People’s Daily responded openly (and in English, thank God) to the earlier story promoted here and elsewhere about Chinese troops being stationed in Rajin/Sonbong. Are the Chinese troops still there as far as you are concerned? At what point do you suppose Chinese troops will march into Sinuiju to put down the nascent rebellion? I mean, the Chinese really have some good practice at this, whereas the North Koreans are only now getting their riot police outfits organized. I highly doubt the North Koreans have the equipment or the tear gas (chemical weapons, sure, but tear gas?) in the quantity or quality of their Chinese counterparts (so we’re back to the Dandong PSB)…
Anyway, great work recently, thanks for keeping folks up to date.
Let us hope that you are right james. Let the nerve of North Koreans; Elite or not, here the truth about the Frogwell. The most Advanced wired/wireless nation on Earth, South Korea, must Defend it’s Worldwide renowned status as an “underdog frontrunner”. The ROK has already allowed it’s northern twin to slap themselves and rest of the World Constantly for the last 60 years. It is time that the sons of Seoul realize that they are the rightfull inheritors of Pyongyang. Well, at least we Americans Hope they do soon. Even if they don’t, we will be there to protects them.
“protect”.
The Contract of protection has expired several times now. If South Korea defers again in 2016 and insists that the United States refrain from withdrawing their troops from the Korean Peninsula, then the United States will have no other choice than to officially proclaim South Korea as a Colonial United States Sovereign Republic. If the United States is not allowed to leave Korea, or any nation under it’s wing after a given previous set point in time, then that said Nation will become a Colony of the U.S. if the United States Military are demanded by the Government of a host nation to stay. Believe it our not, Americans loathe Empires, yet we are oblivious when called an “Imperialist American!”. Then again, we don’t visit Pyongyang much, so of course we don’t here the phrase at all .
Adam Cathcart linked to a picture of Kim Jong-Un holding binoculars upside down. Maybe Kushibo will cite it as conclusive proof that the succession has been cancelled.
@Glans: 😉
Adam Cathcart’s links above are wonderful — but the equipment isn’t “heavy”. It’s no different from what our own SWAT teams would use. It’s also marked Police — so that China can legitimately claim it has no troops in Rason — only paramilitaries, like our own US police.
And after years of my brain rattling — I’ve just made the connection. Juche of the DPRK is almost cognate with German Juchhe, or “Hooray”
Adam, That picture of KJU you linked was priceless.
Well, technically the USB comment came from an open forum on “improving human rights in NK” sponsored by National Human Rights Committee (êµê°€ì¸ê¶Œìœ„ì›íšŒ) and the head of the NK Intellectual Solidarity had also given an interview to Yonhap on the same day (2/23) prior to the open forum. It was widely published in all national papers (of non pro-NK leanings).
I’m sure as you know that there is always a constant political battle within SK to convince the populace that (1) NK issues are important and (2) the current gov’t’s tactics are more effective than endless sunshine policy. So, when people leak this kind of info to the press, it’s usually just to convince SK populace that “there is a way forward.”
Most of SK citizens are indifferent to NK issues, not because they just hate the thought of reunification or have pro-North leanings (although there are significant number of people who believe either/both) but because they don’t see a way forward under current geopolitics. It’s like if you have a problem you can’t solve with your powers, why waste energy trying to come up with answers that won’t work. It’s a somewhat defeatist attitude, but that is what’s behind the mind of most SKs. So there is importance in giving people hope (or false hope) that “there indeed is a way out of this.”
Imagine how more priceless that picture would be if the American CIA had collaboration with the South Korean NIS to finally topple the North Korean Dictator along with his Imperial family. Wait, we both do…
The ROK and US should however allow amnesty for the first 20 top elite families to flee from Pyongyang. By now even the Very wealthy are ready to head south to best Korea.
Upside down? How do we know it wasn’t a double-lensed kaleidascope or a very advanced Viewmaster slide viewer?
That photo is just more proof that the “Il” regime is headed for a fall. The current wave of countries expressing their NEED to decide their government is awesome!!! North Korea will fall in this also! 🙂