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Category: Propaganda

February 22, 2010

South Korean Leftists Should Take a Tip from Oh Kil-Nam

To Oh, a left-leaning South Korean economist, defecting to North Korea with his entire family seemed like a peachy idea at the time (1985). Today, Oh is one of a very few people who has a souvenir photograph of his family standing in the snow at Camp 15, the infamous Yodok Camp described by Kang Chol-Hwan in “The Aquariums of Pyongyang.” As it turns out, “the relevant organ” means the large intestine. His activism attracted the attention of North Korean...

Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Propaganda/The Camps
February 2, 2010

Christopher Hitchens on Brian Myers’s “The Cleanest Race”

Hitchens writes: All of us who scrutinize North Korean affairs are preoccupied with one question. Do these slaves really love their chains? The conundrum has several obscene corollaries. The people of that tiny and nightmarish state are not, of course, allowed to make comparisons with the lives of others, and if they complain or offend, they are shunted off to camps that–to judge by the standard of care and nutrition in the “wider” society–must be a living hell excusable only...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Books & Films/Korean Society/Propaganda/Racism
January 30, 2010

North Korea Threatens Senders of Leaflet Balloons as Messages “Gain Trust” of North Koreans

Balloon-carried leaflets sent by South Korean civic groups to North Korea are unnerving the North Korean authorities as the anti-Pyongyang messages are gaining trust among North Korean citizens, a local daily said on Saturday. In the past, when the anti-North Korean leaflets were spread in Pyongyang, North Korean residents didn’t believe their contents. However, the situation is different now. According to the Chosun Ilbo, civic groups’ leaflets these days are much more effective than in the past as they are...

Categories Propaganda/Subversion/Terrorism (NK)
January 28, 2010

The Great Confiscation Backfires, Badly

How can we tell that North Korea is in a state of self-inflicted economic chaos? When the regime can’t even conceal it from the barbarians. AFP, quoting an unidentified Western diplomat via Yonhap, reports that “[a]t the Koryo Hotel where many foreigners stay, the [North Korean won exchange] rate swung from 51 won to 120 in the space of a few hours on January 22.” Another report says that currently, prices in North Korea are “anyone’s guess” and that in...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics/Subversion
January 26, 2010

Breaking Kim Jong Il’s Blockade

A fascinating new New York Times story tells us how clandestine journalism inside North Korea is doing more than bravely telling us stories that went untold before. Services like the Daily NK and Open Radio are coming into their own and improving the quality of their reporting in the face of challenges that traditional journalists wouldn’t (and shouldn’t!) even attempt to overcome: The reports are sketchy at best, covering small pockets of North Korea society. Many prove wrong, contradict each...

Categories Subversion
January 15, 2010

North Korea Battles Rising Cell Phone Use

Cell phone use continues to grow in North Korea, despite the government’s best efforts to block it. Handsets are used to make appointments and payments and to trade goods. Even South Korean pastors are using cell phones to give sermons to people in North Korea. If cell phones connected to the North are linked to the South via the Internet, this provides valuable information unobtainable through traditional media. Competition for breaking news is expected among South Korean civic groups related...

Categories Inside NK/Subversion
January 14, 2010

“Chutzpah” in Korean = “막무가내”

North Korea, which is ironically quite fond of accusing South Korea of the “suppression” of its puppets in South Korea, is demanding that South Korea prosecute the activists who’ve resumed showering its countryside with anti-Kim Jong Il leaflets: The chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency that “South Korean organizations, swept by anti-communism, caused a disturbance by flying tens of thousands of leaflets from Paju, Gyeonggi Province on Jan. 1. “South...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/Propaganda/Subversion
January 9, 2010

2 Million Dead Later, Kim Jong Il Admits N. Korea One Vast Shithole

I can’t imagine Kim Jong Il (or more likely, his minions) would make this sort of subtle concession if the Bowibu was reporting that the peasants were singing his praises contentedly while dancing merrily to the accompaniment of their accordions: “The president has said that people should be allowed to eat white rice and meat soup, wear silk clothes and live under tiled roofs,” Kim Jong-Il was quoted as saying by Rodong. “But we’ve so far failed to carry out...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Propaganda
December 22, 2009

Biting the Hands that Feed Them

Via Open News for North Korea, we learn that the regime is blaming the H1N1 outbreak in North Korea — which has killed six students under 18 — on South Korea, the country that offered immediate and unconditional aid to help control said outbreak. After all, all bad things in North Korea come from beyond its borders. According to a source, North Korean Health Department has stated that the new strand of flu spreading in North Korea originated from South...

Categories Health & Disease/Propaganda
December 21, 2009

South Korea Clears Mines from the DMZ (and Why I Think That’s a Shrewd Decision)

You say you want reunification? Fine, then. Dig up the mines along the DMZ and open the border. No, I’m not kidding: The South Korean military said Monday it has removed some 1,300 land mines this year from the country’s rural areas bordering North Korea, a reminder of the tense 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce. In the operations that lasted from April to November, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) mobilized 3,300 personnel to remove mines from...

Categories NK Military/North-South/Refugees/ROK Military/Subversion
December 12, 2009

Once Again, More Slowly: Isolating the North Korean People Only Helps Kim Jong Il

Now it’s a Japanese government minister suggesting that Japan shouldn’t grant visas to North Korean athletes. I fear an important distinction is being lost here. On the one hand, I strongly agree with the need to isolate the North Korean regime financially — to do no harm, to refuse to sustain or legitimize an evil system of government. On the other hand, I recognize that maintaining the isolation of the North Korean people actually helps sustain that system. Because the...

Categories Deprogramming/Japan & Korea
December 10, 2009

More on Australia’s Denial of Visas to N. Korean Propaganda Artists

In Australia, five artists from the Mansudae Art Studio were invited to the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland state to talk about 15 pieces the organizers commissioned for the exhibition, which includes work from more than 100 artists from 25 countries. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith rejected the artists’ applications for an exception to a visa ban on North Korea, part of targeted sanctions imposed in 2006 in response to the country’s steps to develop atomic weapons. Organizers...

Categories "United" Nations/Censorship/Propaganda/Sanctions
December 10, 2009

On the Grand Peoples’ Study House

I ask you — what site that has better readers than this blog? In response to Enzo’s question about the Grand Peoples’ Study House, a reader and friend sends this response: This so-called NK’s central library (“Inmin Dae Hakseup Dang”) opened in April 1982 to mark the Great Leader’s 70th B-Day. It is open to the NK public (adults) as well as foreigners. You can find several good photos of the building and its interior on the web, including a...

Categories Inside NK/Propaganda
December 2, 2009

My, How Times Have Changed

During my last last visit to the DMZ, the interpretive displays were all about the 2000 Summit and Kaesong. Not anymore: According to the AP’s caption: A South Korean child watches a television program reporting North Korean prisoners at a unification observation post near the border village of Panmunjom, the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 20, 2009. A key U.N. committee expressed ‘very serious concern’ Thursday at...

Categories North-South/Propaganda/Sunshine
November 17, 2009

RSF Gives Large Grant to Defector Radio Stations

After years on shoestring budgets, broadcasting services by an for North Koreans have won a large new source of funding: An international organization of journalists will provide financial help to three anti-Pyongyang radio stations in South Korea, the Voice of America (VOA) reported Saturday. According to the VOA, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF) will provide US$380,000 to the three radio stations — Open Radio for North Korea, Free North Korea Radio and Radio Free Chosun — which produce and transmit...

Categories Propaganda/Subversion
November 17, 2009

It’s time for another installment of the KCNA drinking game!

I do not think that word means what you think it means. Citing facts to prove that from a historical point of view the imperialists look down upon those countries with weak military power, force them to meet their unilateral and brigandish demands and consider them as targets of their armed intervention and aggression, the article goes on: [KCNA, Nov. 9. 2009] Take a drink! If a country, though small, increases defence capability, attaching importance to military affairs, the imperialists...

Categories Propaganda/Unintended Humor/WMD