Korea

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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 20, 2018 6:12 pm

about that fake news....

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Kim Jong Un's ex, North Korea's girl band leader appears at Olympic meeting despite gruesome execution rumors
By Katherine Lam | Fox News

North Korea's Winter Olympic demands: Cheerleaders, dance troupe

Kim Jong Un’s rumored ex-girlfriend and the leader of the regime’s only all-girl music group appeared at the meeting between the North and the South on Monday — one of the few images of Hyon Song Wol in public after years of speculation she was executed by the despot’s firing squad.

Hyon, the leader of the Moranbong Band, joined the four-member delegation Monday as part of the the talks to bring a 140-member art troupe to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

In this photo provided by South Korea Unification Ministry, the head of North Korean delegation Kwon Hook Bong, center, and Hyon Song Wol, the head of the Moranbong Band, left, sit during the meeting with South Korea at the North side of Panmunjom in North Korea, Monday, Jan. 15, 2018. North Korea's delegation to the Winter Olympics in South Korea will include a 140-member orchestra, the two sides agreed Monday, while discussions continue over fielding a joint women's hockey team. (South Korea Unification Ministry via AP)
Hyon Song Wol attended Monday's meeting with the South Korean delegation. She was rumored to be Kim Jong Un's ex-girlfriend. (AP)

But before her unexpected appearance Monday, Hyon, said to be in her 40s, was reportedly Kim’s ex-lover. The former couple met in the early 2000s and dated before Kim’s father and former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told him to end the relationship for unspecified reasons, Chosun Ilbo reported.

Hyon reportedly married a North Korean soldier while Kim married Ri Sol Ju. There were rumors Kim and Hyon continued to have an affair over the years.

Image
- In this photo provided by South Korea Unification Ministry, the head of South Korean delegation Lee Woo-sung, left, and the head of North Korean delegation Kwon Hook Bong, right, attend with their delegation during their meeting at the North side of Panmunjom in North Korea, Monday, Jan. 15, 2018. Officials from the Koreas met Monday to work out details about North Korea's plan to send an art troupe to the South during next month's Winter Olympics, as the rivals tried to follow up on the North's recent agreement to cooperate in the Games in a conciliatory gesture following months of nuclear tensions.  Hyon Song Wol, the head of the Moranbong Band, second right, also attends the meeting.
(South Korea Unification Ministry via AP)
Hyon was part of the four-member North Korea delegation on Monday. (South Korea Unification Ministry via Reuters)

The despot later hand-selected her in 2012 to be part of his beloved girl band. But a year later, reports surfaced that Hyon and a dozen other North Korean performers were executed by Kim’s firing squad for making and distributing pornographic videotapes, according to Chosun Ilbo.

The execution reports turned out to be false. In 2015, Hyon appeared in public in Beijing when the Moranbong Band was sent on a six-day “friendship” tour. The ex-girlfriend greeted reporters and grinned when asked about rumors of her death.

"Where do you come from?" she replied to a reporter, according to Yonhap.

Image
A member of the Moranbong Band from North Korea speaks to the press outside a hotel in central Beijing, China, December 11, 2015. North Korea's State Merited Chorus and the Moranbong Band will perform at the National Grand Theatre in Beijing from Saturday to Monday, Xinhua News Agency reported. REUTERS/Stringer ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. CHINA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN CHINA. - GF10000261945
Hyon Song Wol was seen in 2015 and didn't directly address rumors that she was executed by Kim's firing squad. (Reuters)

Hyon also wields some political power within the regime. She was promoted last year to the Central Committee of the Workers Party, the Korea Herald reported. She is also a colonel in the Korean People’s Army of the North.

Hyon’s appearance fueled rumors that “North Korea’s only girl group” — known for their western-style outfit, North Korean propaganda and odes to Kim — will also be attending the Olympic Games. One of the ensemble’s hits include a cover version of the “Rocky” theme song, Yonhap reported.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/01/16 ... umors.html
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 23, 2018 3:25 pm

North Korean defector confesses to murder: report

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A North Korean defector has reportedly confessed to murder. Pictured is border village of Panmunjeom. Source: AAP

A North Korean defector has confessed to murder during an interview with intelligence investigators, according to a news report.

Updated Updated 9 hours ago
A North Korean soldier who defected to the South under a hail of bullets in November has confessed to committing murder in the North, a news report said Tuesday.

South Korean officials said they had no comment, noting the questioning of the 24-year-old soldier had not yet wrapped up.

Oh, identified only by his surname, has told investigators that he had committed a crime involving murder in the North, the conservative Dong-A Ilbo daily said, citing an unidentified intelligence official.

Image
Video shows North Korea defector's getaway as soldiers open fire

The soldier's defection made headlines worldwide with footage showing him driving to the border at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone before dashing across as his comrades tried to kill him.

The soldier has been recovering in hospital from multiple gunshot wounds and doctors will decide this week whether to discharge him, Yonhap news agency said, in which case he will be transferred to an adaptation centre for defectors.

There is no extradition treaty between North and South Korea.

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/north-korea ... der-report

"I just want FREEEDOM! By the way, I committed murder..."

That is simply delicious. Get him some boodle and he's ready for the ruling class, all the qualifications.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 12, 2018 5:46 pm

Pence’s bid to isolate North Korea at Olympics falls flat

Image
Kim Yo Jong, top right, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, sits alongside Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korean Parliament, and behind U.S. Vice President Mike Pence as she watches the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 9, 2018. (Patrick Semansky, Pool/Associated Press)

By Zeke Miller and Matthew Pennington | AP February 9

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — For all of Vice President Mike Pence’s efforts to keep North Korea from stealing the show at the Winter Olympics, the images of the two Koreas marching together — and their officials shaking hands — at a time of heightened tensions on the peninsula proved impossible to counteract.

Pence spent the days leading up to Friday’s opening ceremonies warning that the North was trying to “hijack the message and imagery of the Olympic Games” with its “propaganda.”

But the North was still welcomed with open arms to what South Korean President Moon Jae-in called “Olympic games of peace” and the U.S. appeared to be the one left out in the cold.

Pence sat stone-faced in his seat as Moon and North Koreans officials stood together with much of the stadium to applaud their joint team of athletes. White House officials stressed that Pence had applauded only for the American team, but Asia experts said the vice president’s refusal to stand could be seen as disrespectful to the hosts.

U.S. officials have been urging South Korea to be cautious in its rapprochement with the North — a point Pence drilled home in private meetings with Moon on Thursday.

But North Korea’s terrible record on human rights and the growing threat from its nuclear weapons program appeared out of mind as Moon warmly greeted Kim Yo Jong, the sister of dictator Kim Jong Un, and Kim Yong Nam, the country’s 90-year-old nominal head of state.

Even Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has shared the American skepticism of warming inter-Korean relations, greeted Kim Yong Nam.

At an earlier VIP reception for delegation leaders, Pence arrived late and stayed for just 5 minutes — and did not interact with the delegation from the North.

“The Koreans will think it’s a mood kill,” said Frank Jannuzi, an expert on East Asia at the Mansfield Foundation in Washington. He criticized the Trump administration for straining too hard to signal disgust of Kim Jong Un’s government.

“The grievances that the world has about North Korea are very legitimate. But the Olympic moment that President Moon is trying to generate here is not a time to nurse those grievances,” Jannuzi said. “It’s a time to focus on messages of reconciliation and peace.”


As it turned out, with the two Koreas celebrating a moment of unity, the United States was left outmaneuvered by an adversary and out of step with an ally.

Past administrations have been wary of efforts by Pyongyang to drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, but still generally supportive of efforts to calm tensions at the heavily militarized border.

On Saturday, Kim Yo Jong and other North Korean delegates will have lunch with Moon at the presidential Blue House. Rumors are swirling that she could be carrying an offer for Moon to travel to North Korea. The last inter-Korean summit was in 2007.

That may turn out to be errant speculation, but the U.S. doesn’t appear to share global relief that there’s a glimmer of hope for diplomacy after a year of escalating tensions and fears of nuclear war, fueled by insults slung between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

Although South Korea has been a trenchant supporter of Trump’s campaign of “maximum pressure” against North Korea, Moon has been keen to use the Olympics to pry open the door to better relations with its adversary. North Korea has jumped at the opportunity.


The downside for Washington is that it could expose growing differences with Seoul on the best way to deal with North Korea and achieve the ultimate goal of denuclearization.

American officials attempted to paint a rosier picture of Friday’s ceremony as showing solidarity among allies. They stressed the North Koreans in the VIP box had watched Pence, Moon and Abe hold a running discussion in the front row for the more than two-hour ceremonies.

The officials, who spoke on condition because they were not authorized to discuss the U.S. approach publicly, also denied that Pence had been blindsided by the seating arrangement — with the North Koreans in the row behind him, allowing Kim Yo Jong to be easily pictured in profile next to the vice president.

Although some White House aides were leery that the arrangement could produce less-than-ideal optics for Pence, there was no concerted effort to lobby their Korean counterparts for a change, in part out of fear of upsetting the Olympic hosts, said one administration official.


“It’s not a complete disaster,” said James Schoff, former senior Pentagon adviser for East Asia policy. He supported Pence’s moves to meet with North Korean defectors, paying respects at a memorial to 46 South Korean sailors killed in a 2010 torpedo attack blamed on the North. Pence also invited as his Olympics guest the father of U.S. college student Otto Warmbier, who died after he was imprisoned by North Korea for stealing a propaganda poster.

But Schoff said that by pouring cold water on hopes for better inter-Korean relations, Pence’s stance could be viewed as critical of Moon’s outreach to North Korea.

“The fact that’s become the narrative is due in part to things that he’s said and his body language,” Schoff said.

While Moon did not hesitate to shake hands and smile with his North Korean visitors, Pence didn’t appear to even look in the direction of the North Korean delegation during the Friday event.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ol ... b7d445bf0f

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[Commentary] Despicable Act of Abusing Sacred Olympics for Confrontation Plot
Date: 12/02/2018 | Source: Rodong Sinmun (En) | Read original version at source

Despicable Act of Abusing Sacred Olympics for Confrontation Plot

Pence, who is visiting south Korea to attend the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, is rebuffed and blasted at home and abroad for his anti-DPRK confrontation hysteria unfit for the atmosphere of the Olympics.

Pence let out a torrent of abuse pointing an accusing finger at the others' event, instead of just sitting to watch it as a guest. His behavior is nothing but an ugly sight being reminded of crazy Trump.

We never sent the high-level delegation to south Korea in order to create the possibility of a dialogue with Americans by meeting them who are not worth human beings.

We do not do such mean and nasty things like the U.S. abusing such sports festival as Olympics for a political purpose.

We are ready for a variety of plans to cope with any attempts of the U.S., such as military strike, sanctions and pressure and confrontational racket.

Pence must know that his frantic acts of abusing the sacred Olympics for confrontational ruckus are as foolish and stupid an act as sweeping the sea with a broom.

As exemplified by the Winter Olympics that opened with splendor by the concerted efforts of the north and the south, the whole Korean nation's ardent aspirations and wishes for concord, unity and reunification can't be dampened with anything.

If Pence wants to avoid experiencing a hot agony of shame on the stage of the Olympics, he had better stop behaving imprudently and clearly learn about how ardently the compatriots of the north and the south of Korea wish to reunify the country by their concerted efforts and quietly disappear.

Kim Chol Myong

https://kcnawatch.co/newstream/15184080 ... tion-plot/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:11 pm

Socialism and Democracy in the DPRK
MARCH 28, 2017 ~ COMMIEDAD
The DPRK is continuously cast as a villain in international politics. The “hermit kingdom” is painted as tyrannical, repressive, and dynastic. In this essay, I want to argue the opposite: North Korea is a deeply democratic country, and this is reflective of its socialist values.

Contrary to popular belief, elections do in fact take place in the DPRK. Bourgeois media, such as AJ English, admit this. However, they portray the elections in an incredibly dishonest way. One report alleged that the elections consist only of a yes/no vote on a single candidate selected by the party, carried out in view of the public and with the no vote requiring an accompanying written explanation [1]. This is at best half-true and at worst entirely fabricated. Here, I will argue that the DPRK is democratic, and its elections are one reason why this is the case.

Before we proceed, however, we must provide for ourselves a working definition of what democracy actually is. It is my opinion that we ought to return to the word itself. Demos means people, while -Krata is used to mean rule. Democracy, therefore, must mean rule by the people. This is how the website dictionary.com defines the term. They write that democracy is, “government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system” [2]. A democracy is a society in which the majority of the people has the ability to make decisions about their political and social life. My use of the dictionary here is not meant to imply that dictionaries are the supreme authority on definitions. I make use of it simply to avoid accusations that my definition of democracy is ideological. I have not invented a definition of democracy that includes the DPRK because I want to force you to consider it democratic. I have taken a mainstream source whose political agenda is the polar opposite of mine.

The DPRK has county, city, and provincial elections to the local people’s assemblies, as well as national elections to the Supreme People’s Assembly, their legislature. These are carried out every five years.

Candidates are chosen in mass meetings held under the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland, which also organizes the political parties in the DPRK. Citizens run under these parties or they can run as independents. They are chosen by the people, not by the “party” (in fact, the parliament in the DPRK consists of three separate parties as of last election, the Workers Party of Korea, the Korean Social Democratic Party, and the Chondoist Chongu Party) [3].

The fact that there is only one candidate on the ballot is because there has already been a consensus reached on who should be up for nomination for that position, by the people in their mass meetings. This is a truly democratic arrangement, as it places power directly in the hands of the people rather than in the hands of wealthy “representatives” who have no idea how the majority actually live. According to one report, the median income of a member of the United States congress is 14 times that of the average citizen [4]. It is simply impossible for them to understand the struggle of the masses. In the DPRK, by contrast, the masses advocate for themselves directly. They understand their own interests and are able to advance them openly. This is what real democracy entails.

The DPRK does in fact allow foreign observers of their election. People vote in a separate room from anyone else and are afforded privacy. The mass meetings require input from the popular masses, so they are not secret, nor should they be, since this would impede the democratic process and make it more difficult for the deputies to directly address the needs and demands of the people. They are more than votes and ballots, they are meetings where the people are given a voice and the power to impact their political system in a meaningful way.

The Central Electoral Committee is composed of several members of the SPA, WPK, and Presidium. It is formed by a vote of the Presidium. The DPRK displays extensive political stability and I know of no instances of the candidates chosen by the people being rebuked by any part of the democratic process.The elections are effectively a fail-safe against any corruption of the democratic process that occurs during the mass meetings. The results are therefore expected to show overwhelming support because a no-vote indicates the mass meetings failed to reach a consensus with popular support [5].

Here, we see the profound difference in DPRK elections and American elections. American elections are designed merely to give the illusion of popular participation in government. Citizens are given a choice, effectively, between two candidates who both represent the interests of big business. It is virtually impossible to break out of the two-party system, unless one is independently wealthy. Ross Perot, for example, was only able to run against billionaires because of his status as a billionaire [6]. He was only able to break out of the two-party system imposed by corporate capitalism because he himself embodied corporate capitalism. Time and again, we see that it is the candidate with the most money who wins elections in the United States [7]. In the making of policy, it is monied interest groups who get what they want, not ordinary working class people [8]. Despite the veneer of democracy that the US has adopted, it is in fact a dictatorship of the capitalist class. There is no genuine alternative to the interests of capital (which are in reality the interests of a minority of business owners), and thus no real democracy.

In the DPRK, however, democracy flourishes. As we have seen, they are designed with the explicit goal to empower the popular masses. The no-vote is a direct result of this.It is not evidence of the monopolization of power into the hands of the Party but rather evidence of the power of the people. No-votes arise when the discussions of the masses become too contentious. In a certain sense, the masses sometimes have too much power. The elections exist to mediate this and come to truly democratic conclusions, where the will of the majority is enacted. The elections are not a barrier to democracy, but rather an expression of it.

Citizens in capitalist countries are typically only made aware of one aspect of the election process in the DPRK. They are led to believe that only one candidate ever appears on the ballot, and this is used to paint the DPRK as dictatorial. The same method of selective reporting could be used to misrepresent Western ‘democratic’ systems. If the media only covered the electoral college during an American election, for example, they could easily assert that just 538 Americans were allowed to vote for president. This reveals the importance of rigorous research regarding the DPRK. While there may be elements of truth to Western reporting on the DPRK, they never reveal the whole picture. It is vital that we strike out on our own and refuse to trust the bourgeois media in the United States.

Elections, though, are not the only marker by which democracy is determined. The United States has elections, but I have just argued that it is undemocratic. This must mean that arenas beyond parliament (or similar bodies) also play a role in determining whether or not a country is democratic. In my view, an important area to consider when talking about democracy is the economy. It is the economy which determines whether or not we stay alive, let alone what political forms we adopt. It would be virtually impossible to spend a day theorizing about politics if one had to worry about whether or not one would eat that night. As such, the question of who controls the economy is an important one. If a small minority of individuals controls the economy, then it follows that the same group has the final say in the politics, art, and culture of a particular society. This can be seen in the United States. A minority of the population is made up of wealthy business owners, who exercise a huge amount of control over policy. They only hold this political power because they have money. It is therefore the case that the primary center of power in society is the economy. Societies can only be considered democratic if the masses of people manage the economy as well as the political sphere.

This is obviously not the case under capitalism, but is it the case in the DPRK? I would argue that this is the case. Workplaces in the DPRK are managed according to the Tean Work System, which is described this way by Country Data:

The highest managerial authority under the Taean system is the party committee. Each committee consists of approximately twenty-five to thirty-five members elected from the ranks of managers, workers, engineers, and the leadership of working people’s organizations at the factory. A smaller “executive committee,” about one-fourth the size of the regular committee, has practical responsibility for day-to-day plant operations and major factory decisions. The most important staff members, including the party committee secretary, factory manager, and chief engineer, make up its membership. The system focuses on cooperation among workers, technicians, and party functionaries at the factory level [9].

This system has persisted long in the DPRK. In his New Year’s address at the thirtieth anniversary of the Taean Work System, Kim Il-Sung said:

[The] Taean work system is the best system of economic management. It enables the producer masses to fulfill their responsibility and role as masters and to manage the economy in a scientific and rational manner by implementing the mass line in economic management, and by combining party leadership organically with administrative, economic, and technical guidance [10].

The DPRK’s economy is a dual state-owned/cooperative economy, with workers in the latter constitutionally entitled to ownership of their workplaces. According to the Constitution of the DPRK:

Article 22

The property of social cooperative organizations belongs to the collective property of working people within the organizations concerned.

Social cooperative organizations can possess such property as land, agricultural machinery, ships, medium-small sized factories and enterprises.

The State shall protect the property of social cooperative organizations [11].

The Korean revolution gave opportunities to workers and landless poor peasants that were unimaginable under the past oppressive conditions. Korea expert Bruce Cumings writes, “At any time before 1945, it was virtually inconceivable for uneducated poor peasants to become country-level officials or officers in the army. But in North Korea such careers became normal.” [12]. He also notes that inter-class marriages became normal, common, and widespread with the establishment of Democratic Korea, and educational access opened up for all sectors of society.

Arguably the most important part of the economy is land ownership. Prior to the revolution, land was concentrated in the hands of an astonishingly small Japanese elite. The Worker’s Party undertook a gradual but steady process of converting private land ownership into cooperative organizations. Beginning with the process of post-war reconstruction in 1953, only 1.2% of peasant households were organized as cooperatives, which encompassed a mere .6% of total acreage. [13]. By August of 1958, 100% of peasant households were converted into cooperatives, encompassing 100% of total acreage. [14]. Ellen Brun, an economist whose 1976 Socialist Korea study remains the most comprehensive to date, writes that “In spite of lack of modern means of production, the cooperatives – with efficient assistance by the state – very early showed their superiority to individual farming, eventually convincing formerly reluctant farmers into participating in the movement” [15]. Collectivization was not forced from above, but rather an expression of the will of the masses. It was-and remains-a democratic action.

Local people’s committees, in which any Korean worker could participate, elected leadership to guide agricultural production and collaborated with national authorities to coordinate nation-wide efficiency [16]. These people’s committees were the primary means by which “the Party remains in contact with the masses on the various collective farms, thus enabling it to gauge public opinion on issues affecting the policies of the country people’s committee” [17]. In 1966, the Worker’s Party introduced the “group management system,” which “organized groups of ten to twenty-five farmers into production units, each of which was then put permanently in charge of a certain area of land, a certain task, or a certain instrument of production” [18]. This represents another instrument of people’s democracy implemented in Korean socialist production.

No serious antagonism between the countryside and industrial centers developed in the process of socialist construction in Democratic Korea. Brun notes that “tens of thousands of demobiilized men and many junior and senior graduates as well as middle school pupils went to the countryside in the busy seasons and rendered assistance amounting to millions of days of work,” all voluntarily and without coercion by the state [19].

Most importantly, Korean socialist construction reorganized industrial production by and in the interests of the formerly dispossessed Korean proletariat. Drawing on the mass line – the Marxist-Leninist organizing method that “is both the cause and effect of the politicization and involvement of the masses in the process of economic development and socialist construction” – the WPK implemented the Taean work system, described above, in December 1961 [20]. In contrast to the past system, in which managers were appointed to oversee a workplace unilaterally by a single party member, “The Party factory committee assumes the highest authority at the level of the enterprise” in the Taean work system [20]. Brun further describes this system, and I will quote her at length:

“Ways of solving questions affecting production and workers’ activities, as well as methods of carrying out decisions, are arrived at through collective discussions within the factory committee, whose members are elected by the factory’s Party members. To be effective this committee has to be relatively small, its precise numbers depending on the size of the enterprise. At the Daean Electrical Plant, with a labor force of 5,000, the Party factory committee is made up of 35 members who meet once or twice a month, while the 9 members of the executive board keep in continuous contact. Sixty percent of its members are production workers, with the remainder representing a cross-section of all factory activities, including functionaries, managers, deputy-managers, engineers, technicians, women’s league representatives, youth league members, trade union members, and office employees. Its composition thus gives it access to all socioeconomic aspects of the enterprise and the lives of its worker.

This committee has become what is called the ‘steering wheel’ of the industrial unit, conducting ideological education and mobilizing the workers to implement collective decisions and to fulfill the production target. Through its connection to the Party it has a clear picture of overall policies and aims as well as the exact function of individual enterprise in the national context. In other words, this setup ensures that politics are given priority” [21].

Workers have input and supremacy in production and interact dialectically with the state to plan and carry out collectivist production on behalf of the whole Korean people. The fact that the economy is managed, often directly, by the whole of society is evidence that the country is a democratic one. Workers are not trapped in top-down workplaces to be ordered around, as are workers in the United States, but rather have a say over what is produced and how it is done. The people have a say over the economy, and thus a say in all other aspects of life. This, as I have argued, means that the country is vastly more democratic than all capitalist countries, even the most advanced.

Many allege that the firm establishment of ‘Songun’ politics; a policy the Worker’s Party of Korea describes as “giving precedence to arms and the military” [22] nullifies the aforementioned democratic gains. I would like to assert that this is not the case. Despite Western insistence to the novelty of Songun politics, the official history of the DPRK points to the development of Songun decades before the DPRK was even formed. This is important to note because it highlights how an anti-imperialist and essentially national liberation struggle has tempered the politics of socialist Korea from the very beginning [23]. Regardless, the collapse of the Soviet Union did bring qualitative changes to the political structure of the DPRK. Notably, the National Defence Commission has become the “backbone organ in the state administrative organ” and “commands all the work of the politics, military and economy”. This can largely be attributed to the unique position the DPRK assumed following its de facto isolation internationally in the mid 1990′s. The fall of the Soviet Union meant deep economic austerity, moreover, it meant an emboldened US and comprador south. This meant the DPRK was forced to pursue a deeply militaristic road of development (hence, the superiority of the National Defence Commission and wide dissemination of Songun politics) [24]. Ultimately what we see emerge from this 1990′s transformation is a unique worker’s state conditioned by the intense contradictions between its socialist construction and the ever present threat of imperialist intervention. Unique not only in its precarious historical predicament but also in the related development of its internal contradictions which no doubt assume an intensely dialectical relationship with parallel external contradictions.

In light of these contradictions, we must examine the organs of class power in the DPRK; namely the state organs and their relationship with the broader Korean people. Clearly, the state organs of the DPRK exercise supreme authority over the economy and social life. The state, constitutionally, represents the interests of the working people and thus has legally excluded exploiters and oppressors from formal representation:

The social system of the DPRK is a people-centered system under which the working peoples are masters of everything, and everything in society serves the working peoples. The State shall defend and protect the interests of the workers, peasants, and working intellectuals who have been freed from exploitation and oppression and become masters of the State and society. [25]

Therefore the political organs of class power have taken become explicitly proletarian organs of class power; at least in the sense that is provided constitutionally to the Korean people. The guiding political force in the DPRK remains the Worker’s Party of Korea (WPK) which holds 601/687 seats in the Supreme People’s Assembly and the de facto leading party in the ruling coalition Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland [26]. All Koreans over the age of 17 irrespective of race, religion, sex, creed etc. are able and encouraged to participate in the organs of state power. Elections are routinely held for local and central organs of state power being usually People’s Assemblies which comprise the core of state power in the DPRK; from which come the ‘standing’ organs of class power being institutionally the National Defence Commission and the Korean People’s Army (KPA) [27].

As mentioned earlier, the road of Songun has meant material developments in the social realities which comprise what the West considers North Korea. The large emphasis on military advancement and might has only assisted the imperialist detractors in their description of the DPRK as a ‘military dictatorship.’ This is at best a surface-level analysis. It is considered the highest honor for a Korean to serve their Fatherland in the struggle against imperialism by joining the Korean People’s Army. Unlike other standing military forces, the KPA is definitively involved in the social as well as material construction of socialism in north Korea. Understanding this helps us understand how the unique internal developments of socialist Korea created an equally unique expression of class power.

The people are also closely connected to the leaders of the DPRK, the Party cadres.The Party cadres are an inescapable feature of north Korean political apparatus and are therefore possibly the closest link the Korean people have to their formal organs of power. Cadres as well as Party officials and administrators are known to visit workplaces and provide motivation as well as guidance to the working people [28]. This is in sharp contrast to the relationship between capitalist politicians and citizens. In the capitalist countries, politicians are far removed from the people and have no idea what their struggles are like. In the DPRK, the opposite is true.

Because the working class is the vast majority of the population of the DPRK (roughly seventy percent [29]), the management of the state by the working class means that the state is managed by the majority of the people. This is consistent with the definition of democracy proposed earlier.

It is often claimed that none of this matters because north Koreans are forced to engage in hard labor for their crimes. The state keeps 200,000 political prisoners, according to Amnesty International. It is the same state that shot dead three North Korean citizens who were trying to cross the border into China in late December” [30].

A more nuanced appraisal of the Korean prison system in the north ironically comes from bourgeois liberal historian Bruce Cumings. In his 2004 book, North Korea: Another Country, he notes that most claims about the Korean penal system are grossly exaggerated. For instance, he writes that “Common criminals who commit minor felonies and small fry with an incorrect grasp on their place in the family state who commit low-level political offenses go off to labor camps or mines for hard work and varying lengths of incarceration,” the goal of which is to “reeducate them” [31]. This reflects a materialist understanding of the roots of crime, arising in large part from a person’s material conditions and incorrect ideas, which can change through altering a person’s conditions. It’s important to note that the vast majority of criminals in the Korean penal system fall into this category and thus the aim is to rehabilitate and reeducate, as opposed to the punitive aims of the American penal system.

Cumings notes the contrast between Democratic Korea’s criminal justice system and that of the United States, especially in terms of a prisoner’s contact with and support from their family. He writes:

“The Aquariums of Pyongyang is an interesting and believable story, precisely because it does not, on the whole, make for the ghastly tale of totalitarian repression that its original publishers in France meant it to be; instead, it suggests that a decade’s incarceration with one’s immediate family was survivable and not necessarily an obstacle to entering the elite status of residence in Pyongyang and entrance to college. Meanwhile we have a long-standing, never-ending gulag full of black men in our prisons, incarcerating upward of 25 percent of all black youths” [32]

It should also be noted that the only north Korean ever to escape from a prison camp, Shin Dong-hyuk, recanted large parts of his story from Escape from Camp 14. According to a New York Times article on the subject,

“Mr. Shin, who gives his age as 32, now says that the key fact that set him apart from other defectors — that he and his family had been incarcerated at a prison that no one expected to leave alive — was only partly true, and that he actually served most of his time in the less brutal Camp 18. He also said that the torture he endured as a teenager, instead happened years later and was meted out for very different reasons” [33].

Similarly, the revelation that chemical weapons are used on prisoners in Camp 22 has since been proven spurious. The story was first invented in the 2004 BBC documentary Access to Evil. The documentary featured several interviews with Kwon Hyok, a DPRK defector and former head of security at the camp. The documentary’s evidence for this claim was also based on a “Letter of Transfer” supposedly authorizing human experimentation. These claims, however, we entirely manufactured. Even intelligence agencies in south Korea quickly ruled that the documents were forgeries. They write,

“First, it was revealed that Kwon had not been military attache in Beijing as claimed. Next, attention was focused on the Letter of Transfer…there were problems with nomenclature, size of seals, and type of paper.



Joseph Koehler…a virulent critic of the North…came to the conclusion that the document looks like a fake” [34].

While this is not evidence that every claim by defectors is spurious, this does call into question the validity of the story. It is not a surprise that defectors would exaggerate their stories, given that, “South Korea said on Sunday that it would quadruple the cash reward it provides for North Korean defectors arriving with important information to 1 billion won, or $860,000, in an effort to encourage more elite members from the North to flee” [35]. North Korean defectors are not simply persecuted individuals seeking a better life. They have a direct economic incentive to lie about the country. It is important, as I said above, to verify each story independently rather than blindly trusting them.

The fact that time in the Korean penal system does not result in social castigation like it does in capitalist countries reflects a stark point of contrast with capitalist penal systems. Using one’s family as a support network, the state encourages political reeducation and opens opportunities for rehabilitated prisoners to re-enter Korean society as full citizens. The prison system in north Korea is far more humane, on principle, than the system in the United States. It is based on a people-centered philosophy which holds that criminality is not innate to humanity. This is strong evidence that the DPRK is a state of the majority, and thus democratic.

The suppression of religion in the DPRK-a favorite chestnut of the right-is also vastly overstated. In article by Dae Young Ryu, ‘Fresh Wineskins for New Wine: A New Perspective on North Korean Christianity’ [36] begins by noting a new openness of Christianity in the 1980s, with new churches built, a strengthened Protestant theological college in Pyongyang, and an increase in worshippers, now put at about 12,000.

Although the government itself constructed new churches during this period, Ryu claims that this is not a recent phenomenon. In fact, it goes back to Christians of the 1950s who adopted Marxism-Leninism and supported the leadership of Kim Il-sung. This development is even more remarkable, since it took place in a context where Christianity was widely viewed as an imperialist, American phenomenon. Indeed, evidence indicates that the government tolerated about 200 pro-communist Christian churches during the 1960s. He writes:

Contrary to the common western view, it appears that North Korean leaders exhibited toleration to Christians who were supportive of Kim II Sung and his version of socialism. Presbyterian minister Gang Ryang Uk served as vice president of the DPRK from 1972 until his death in 1982, and Kim Chang Jun, an ordained Methodist minister, became vice chairman of the Supreme People’s Assembly. They were buried in the exalted Patriots’ Cemetery, and many other church leaders received national honors and medals. It appears that the government allowed the house churches in recognition of Christians’ contribution to the building of the socialist nation [37].

I would like to conclude with an examination of Kim Il Sung and the supposed “cult of personality” surrounding him. The mass grief surrounding his funeral is taken as evidence that he is worshipped as a god in the DPRK. In reality, this grief stemmed from the immense popular support he enjoyed as a leader, during and after the revolution.

Kim scorned Korea’s inability to resist foreign domination. The Japanese regarded him as a highly able and dangerous guerilla leader, going so far as to establish a special anti-Kim insurgency unit to hunt him down [36]. The guerillas were an independent force, inspired by a desire to reclaim the Korean peninsula for Koreans, and were controlled by neither the Soviets nor Chinese. While they often retreated across the border into the Soviet Union to evade Japanese counter-insurgency forces, they received little material help from the Soviets.

Unlike the US, which imposed a military government and repressed the People’s Committees, the Soviets took a fairly hands-off approach to their occupation zone, allowing a coalition of nationalist and communist resistance fighters to run their own show. Within seven months, the first central government was formed, based on an interim People’s Committee led by Kim Il-sung.

Contrary to popular mythology, Kim wasn’t handpicked by the Soviets. He enjoyed considerable prestige and support as a result of his years as a guerilla leader and his commitment to national liberation. In fact, the Soviets never completely trusted him [38].

Eight months into the occupation, a program of land reform was begun, with landlords dispossessed of their land without compensation, but free to migrate to the south or work plots of size equal to those allocated to peasants. After a year, Kim’s Workers Party became the dominant political force. Major industries, most owned by the Japanese, were nationalized. Japanese collaborators were purged from official positions.

Citizens of the DPRK support Kim Il-sung because of his courageous defiance of U.S. domination, his commitment to the reunification and the real accomplishments of socialism. In the face of those who wage war for exploitation and oppression, Kim’s decisions represented the aspirations of Korean workers, peasants, women and children – the united Korean nation – for freedom. Kim’s support was not derived from a cult of personality or taken by force. On the contrary, he earned the support of his people in struggle.

Indeed, there were no mechanisms by which to force the Korean people to support Kim Il-Sung during his rule. Lankov writes, “North Koreans in the Kim Il-Sung era were not brainwashed automatons whose favorite pastime was goose-stepping….nor were they closet dissenters….neither were they docile slaves who sheepishly followed any order from above” [39]. Kim Il-sung’s DPRK was not a police state, but rather a democratic and socialist country waging a valiant war against imperialism. The Korean people were-and continue to be-unified in struggle and support their leaders on this basis.

A survey of defectors estimates that more than half of the country they left behind approves of the job leader Kim Jong Un is doing. Seoul’s Institute for Peace and Unification Studies, as reported by Yonhap news agency, asked 133 defectors to hazard a guess as to Kim’s actual approval rating in the country, which at least publicly buys into the absolute cult of personality surrounding its leadership. Just over 60 percent said they think most of the country is behind him. In a similar survey in 2011, only 55 percent believed Kim’s father and predecessor, Kim Jong Il, had the support of the majority of the country.

As the BBC writes:

“Experts put Kim Jong-un’s popularity down to efforts improve everyday citizens’ lives, with an emphasis on economic growth, light industries and farming in a country where most are believed to be short of food, Yonhap says. There are no opinion polls in the closed communist state, where — outwardly at least — the leader enjoys full and boisterous support. Though not directly comparable, the perceived approval rating outshines those of Western leaders. A recent McClatchy poll suggested only 41% of Americans back President Barack Obama’s performance, while UK Prime Minister David Cameron scored 38% in a recent YouGov poll” [40].

The Wall Street Journal, quoting the poll, says more than 81 percent of the defectors said people were getting three meals a day, up from 75 percent of the previous batch surveyed.

“It points to a successful consolidation of power for the young leader, who took over with the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in December 2011. That seemed uncertain a year ago, at least based on the institute’s previous report on defector interviews. Speaking then with 122 people who had fled North Korea between January 2011 and May 2012, it found that 58% were unhappy with the choice of the young Mr. Kim as successor. (Of course, people who flee the country may tend to be more dissatisfied with it than people who remain.)

“The new leader seems to be tightening his grip, with 45% saying society is tightly under control, up from 36% in the previous report. Anti-regime leaflets and graffiti are a bit less common (but maybe that’s the high approval rating at work): 66% of the latest group said they’d seen such things, down from 73% in the 2012 survey and 70% in 2011. Travel to other parts of the country has become more difficult. The percentage who reported having done so, after rising for five consecutive years—to 70% among the defectors interviewed in 2012, from 56% among those interviewed in 2008 — retreated to 64%” [41].

Bourgeois media continues to portray the DPRK as a totalitarian nightmare, populated exclusively by a pacified and frightened citizenry. As I have shown, this is far from the case. The north Korean people have a far greater say in how their lives are structured than do citizens of even the most “democratic” capitalist countries. They are not forced to adhere to a Party Line handed down from on high, but rather are encouraged to participate in the running of society. The DPRK is an excellent example of socialism, which is focused on developing the working class-and humanity-to its full potential. It is only through socialism that we can realize our collective dream of a free and prosperous society. The DPRK is marching towards this dream, even in the face of unparalleled imperialist aggression. It is partly on this basis that we should pledge solidarity with the country. To reiterate the point I made in my last post, however, the DPRK should be supported regardless of whether it is itself socialist. It is standing against imperialism, which is the greatest enemy of socialism. Indirectly or directly, the DPRK works in the interests of socialism.

Hands off DPRK!

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/l ... 33222.html
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120303 ... PUOFGF.pdf
https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data- ... e-american
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4P0dMEH4RQ
http://mashable.com/2015/08/06/trump-ri ... andidates/
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/1 ... house-and/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201 ... lic-unive/
http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-9558.html
Ibid.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitu ... rev._1998)
Bruce Cumings, North Korea: Another Country, The New Press, New York, 2004.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ellen Brun, Jacques Hersh, Socialist Korea: A Case Study in the Strategy of Economic Development, 1976, Monthly Review Press, New York and London
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Suh, Jae-Jean. 2004. The Transformation of Class Structure and Class Conflict in North Korea. International Journal of Korean Reunification Studies. p. 55 http://www.nkeconwatch.com/wp content/uploads/2007/07/transformation%20of%20class%20structure.pdf
Ibid. p. 56
Ibid. p. 57
Ibid.
10th Supreme People’s Assembly. Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Article 8. http://www1.korea-np.co.jp/pk/061st_issue/98091708.htm
] http://www.rodong.rep.kp/en/
Korea-DPR. 2013.
Journal of Asian and African Studies. 2013. Elite Volatility and Change in North Korean Politics: 1970-2010
https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... os/kn.html
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/ ... ing-order/
Bruce Cumings, North Korea: Another Country, The New Press, New York, 2004. Op. Cit.
Ibid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/worl ... story.html
http://ipcprayer.org/ipc-connections/it ... ing-fields
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/worl ... wards.html
Journal of Church and State 48 (2006), pp. 659-75.
Ibid, 673.
Bruce Cumings, “Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History (Updated Edition),” W.W. Norton & Company, 2005; p. 404
Ibid.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... im-jong-un
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013 ... orea-poll/

http://writetorebel.com/2017/03/28/soci ... -the-dprk/
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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:21 pm

And ya wonder why the capitalists never stopped hating on DPRK?

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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 09, 2018 12:55 pm

S.Korean president says planned DPRK-U.S. summit to become historic milestone
Source: Xinhua 2018-03-09 14:09:55
SEOUL, March 9 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Friday that the agreed summit between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States will become a "historic milestone" for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

U.S. President Donald Trump has agreed to meet DPRK top leader Kim Jong Un by May at the invitation of Kim "to achieve permanent denuclearization."

Moon said through his spokesman that the summit will be recorded as a historic milestone in the future, which created peace on the peninsula, according to the Blue House.

"If U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean (DPRK) leader Kim Jong Un meet after the South-North summit, the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will go into a full orbit," said Moon.

Chung Eui-yong, top security adviser for Moon, met Trump in Washington to brief the U.S. president on his visit to Pyongyang earlier this week.

Chung said in a statement that he told Trump about Kim's eagerness to meet the U.S. president as soon as possible, and Trump told Chung that he would meet the DPRK leader by May to achieve permanent denuclearization.

The two Koreas already agreed to hold a summit in late April at Peace House, a South Korean building in the truce village of Panmunjom that straddles the two Koreas.

If held as agreed upon, Kim will become the first DPRK leader who sets foot on the South Korean territory.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-0 ... 027220.htm

a couple quotes from Phil Greaves:

Be wary of these claims made about DPRK denuclearization & "being ok with US military on the Korean peninsula", they are not coming from DPRK reps themselves.

****

What's more likely is that DPRK have agreed to hold-off further missile testing on the condition talks with US-RoK will proceed, not that they will preemptively & unconditionally abandon their nuclear defense program altogether.

****

Evidently, US aims to usurp direct DPRK-RoK talks on reunification & turn them into a one-sided "permanent denuclearization" of the DPRK, giving nothing in return: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-0 ... 027220.htm … Expect DPRK press releases to show completely different priorities.
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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Fri Mar 09, 2018 2:47 pm

Kim Jong Un, statesman
Posted by stalinsmoustache under another world is possible, DPRK | Tags: Kim Jong Un, Moon Jae-in, reunification |

This has already gone beyond what might have been expected: another step towards Korean reunification. As multiple sources report in the two Koreas, a high level delegation from the south has recently concluded a two-day visit to the north. This is the third such event in the last couple of months. They met with Kim Jong Un and other leading officials and put everything on the table.

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As KCNA reports: (also here):

Shaking hands of the special envoy and his party one by one, respected Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un warmly welcomed them to Pyongyang.

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Jong Ui Yong courteously conveyed a personal letter of President Moon Jae In to the Supreme Leader.

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The members of the special envoy delegation presented gratitude to the Supreme Leader for having dispatched high-level delegations and various large-scale delegations with the 23rd Winter Olympics as a momentum to ensure its successful holding.

Expressing thanks for this, Kim Jong Un said it is natural to share the joy over an auspicious event of fellow countrymen of the same blood and help them. The recent Winter Olympics served as a very important occasion in displaying the stamina and prestige of our nation and providing a good atmosphere of reconciliation, unity and dialogue between the north and the south, he added.

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Then he had an openhearted talk with the south side’s special envoy delegation over the matters arising in actively improving the north-south relations and ensuring peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

He repeatedly clarified that it is our consistent and principled stand and his fixed will to vigorously advance the north-south relations and write a new history of national reunification by the concerted efforts of our nation to be proud of in the world.

After being told about President Moon Jae In’s intention for a summit by the special envoy of the south side, the Supreme Leader exchanged views and reached a satisfactory agreement.

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He gave an important instruction to the relevant field to rapidly take practical steps for it.

He also had an exchange of in-depth views on the issues for easing the acute military tensions on the Korean Peninsula and activating the versatile dialogue, contact, cooperation and exchange between the north and the south.

The talk proceeded in a compatriotic and sincere atmosphere.

The dinner afterwards was also celebrated in a ‘warm atmosphere overflowing with compatriotic feelings’.

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What, exactly, is a ‘satisfactory agreement’? Moon Jae-in’s office clarified, after the southern delegation returned:

A summit next month between Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in, to be preceded by discussions over a ‘hotline’: ‘The South and the North have agreed to set up a hotline between their leaders to allow close consultations and a reduction of military tension, while also agreeing to hold the first phone conversation before the third South-North summit’.
The topics: denuclearisation, believe it or not, which also entails that ‘military threats against North Korea removed’ and the safety and security of the state ‘be guaranteed’.
A promise from Kim Jong Un ‘not to use not only nuclear weapons but also conventional weapons against the South’.
Obviously, these developments were unexpected only a few months ago. But Moon Jae-in has perhaps an even more delicate diplomatic task, given the fact that 20-30,000 US forces occupy the south. So, on the one hand he stresses the need for US-DPRK talks (to which the north has agreed) and the need to keep ‘sanctions’ in place with the aim of full denuclearisation. But as he does so, he also observes:

The dismantlement of the (North’s) nuclear program is the end goal. But given that the immediate dismantlement of it may be difficult, I think we can go through a certain road map before reaching that dismantlement stage.

In other words, we’ll get on with talks aiming at reunification and peace on the Korean peninsula even if the aims of others are a long way off. Or, as the Unification Minster of the south put it, the ‘government will utilize the current momentum to develop inter-Korean ties in a stable manner and bring peace to the Korean Peninsula’.

Meanwhile, what is the USA doing as all this happens? It is largely reduced to flapping at the sidelines, with Trump employing the great diplomatic tool of twitter as a sign of sheer uselessness. But these developments have a history, apart from the consistent north Korean policy of reunification, without outside interference, peacefully and through a federal system. Already at the ASEAN summit last year, the USA was sidelined. Asian countries realised that the USA is in serious decline and no longer a major player, so they began finding ways to solve their own problems. Clearly, Kim Jong Un has seen the opportunity to act on long-standing policy in the north – as his new year statement made clear. But so also has Moon Jae-in, once the bluster from the US passed. It seems as though the Koreans are genuinely trying to deal with their own problems.

Now, all of this may not lead to anything, but I do find that I get more optimistic as I get older. So it seems that Kim Jong Un may well be a greater statesman than many might have expected.

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https://stalinsmoustache.org/2018/03/07 ... statesman/
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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Thu May 10, 2018 11:50 am

[Book Review] A Strong Antidote to Western Propaganda on Korea
Patriots, Traitors and Empires: The Story of Korea’s Struggle for Freedom, by Stephen Gowans. Montreal: Baraka Books, 2018. Paper, $24.95, pp 270

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The following is a review of Gowans’ book by Gregory Elich

The release of Stephen Gowans’s superb new book could not be better timed. With the Korean Peninsula on the potential brink of major change, looking to Western mainstream media for reasoned analysis is a fool’s errand. Gowans provides a valuable service in filling that gap by situating Korea in its historical context, while making no compromise with received opinion or resorting to lazy formulations.

A key to understanding Korea is its experience under harsh colonial rule by the Japanese Empire from 1910 through the end of the Second World War. As was the case elsewhere, some of those under oppression chose to serve power, and others resisted. While Imperial Japan shipped off Koreans as forced laborers throughout its empire and cast women into sexual slavery, a determined resistance movement arose, particularly in Manchuria, where future North Korean leader Kim Il-sung was a prominent guerrilla leader. Many of those who would later fill the ranks of the South Korean government chose a different path, and actively collaborated with the Japanese occupiers.

After the end of the Second World War, the U.S. divided the Korean Peninsula along the 38th Parallel, an act that Gowans points out the Korean people had not asked for. Liberation from Japanese rule, Koreans felt, meant that the country was once again theirs. People’s committees spontaneously sprang up throughout the peninsula, as newly freed Koreans sought to forge their destiny.

The Soviet presence in the north was mostly hands-off, allowing events to unfold unhindered.

It was a different story in the south. U.S. General John R. Hodge, as military governor of South Korea, along with his advisers “drew up a four-point plan to destroy the movement for independence.” The plan called for building up an army and police force to be largely staffed at upper levels by those who had collaborated with Japanese imperialism. Gowans quotes U.S. military sources as describing the Korean police force under Japanese colonial rule as “thoroughly Japanized and efficiently utilized as an instrument of tyranny,” which made these men a natural choice for U.S. occupation authorities to perform the same role in establishing an anti-communist police state. People’s committees were systematically crushed, as tens of thousands of leftists were killed or rounded up and imprisoned. For Koreans in the south, one colonial master had simply been exchanged for another, as it was the U.S. that called the shots. Traitors who had served the Japanese now took orders from the Americans. “By 1950,” Gowans writes, “between 100,000 and 200,000 Korean patriots had been killed by U.S. occupation forces and their Korean subalterns.”

The division of the Korean Peninsula was intended to last no longer than a relatively brief interregnum, but discussions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union on establishing a provisional government went nowhere. Soon the U.S. abandoned any pretense of respecting the agreement on postwar Korea. “An ongoing U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula,” Gowans observes, “offered too many attractions to Washington to leave Korea to Koreans.” The U.S. proceeded to build a separate government by launching an election process in its occupation zone that was boycotted by a majority. Nevertheless, the U.S. pushed ahead. “Koreans, after all, weren’t the object of the exercise,” Gowans reports. “The building of a global U.S. empire was.” Voting in the south was organized by a police force that was dominated by former Japanese collaborators, along with right-wing thugs. Under the circumstances, the outcome was preordained.

The Soviet Union withdrew its forces on schedule from North Korea in 1948. Decades later, the U.S. military remains firmly ensconced in South Korea, and showing no inclination of ever leaving.

The division of the Korean Peninsula, which most Koreans opposed and few recognized, laid the groundwork for the Korean War. For Koreans, the war was a brutal nightmare made far worse by the U.S. program of total destruction and the aim of annihilating North Korea along with a significant percentage of its population.

South Korea endured long decades under right-wing dictatorship. Gowans is eloquent in describing the harsh realities of life under repression, and this section is one of the book’s many strengths. Through continual struggle, the South Korean people eventually managed to throw off the shackles of dictatorship, yet in many ways, the nation remains subservient to the U.S. That liberation remains to be won.

For more than a century the history of Korea has been a contest between people’s needs and the demands of the powerful. Gowans places Korea in the context of the global struggle for liberation from imperialist domination, a perspective that sheds much light on developments in recent decades.

The analytical framework and information provided by Gowans reveal the basis for U.S.-North Korean animosity and depict a far more complex picture of U.S.-South Korean relations than we customarily encounter. It is fair to say that if all one knows about Korea before coming to this book is from mainstream news, then the reader will come away with a far deeper understanding and appreciation of Korea’s fight for independence and self-determination.

Stephen Gowans is not a writer to mince words or to defer to mainstream distortions. He makes no concessions to the standard self-serving Western narrative, and this is one of the reasons his work is so consistently refreshing. Gowans is also noted for his careful research and masterly knack for deploying information in support of logical analysis. Patriots, Traitors and Empires is no different in those respects. His book is an impassioned call for justice, imbued with a deeply felt sympathy for the Korean people and their struggle for freedom.

Patriots, Traitors and Empires can be ordered from Baraka Books:

http://www.barakabooks.com/catalogue/pa ... d-empires/

Stephen Gowans’s book tour:

https://gowans.files.wordpress.com/2018 ... le-iii.jpg

Follow Stephen Gowans at @GowansStephen

http://www.zoominkorea.org/a-strong-ant ... ok-review/
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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Fri May 11, 2018 10:16 pm

Seoul 'tricked' N. Korea waitresses into defecting: manager
Agence-France Presse Agence-France Presse11 May 2018

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Businesses established by Pyongyang abroad -- including restaurants like this one in Shenyang, China -- are a crucial source of foreign exchange

The 12 North Korean waitresses who defected from China two years ago were tricked into doing so in an operation by the South's intelligence services, their manager told South Korean television in a bombshell revelation.

The high-profile case has long been controversial, with Pyongyang insisting the women had been kidnapped and saying there would be no more reunions of families divided by the Korean War unless they were returned.

Seoul insisted that they had defected of their own free will.

But Heo Gang-il, the manager of the North Korean restaurant in Ningbo where they worked, said he had lied about their final destination and blackmailed them into following him to the South.

Heo told JTBC television he had been recruited by Seoul's National Intelligence Service (NIS) in China in 2014.

Fearing exposure in 2016, he asked his NIS handler to arrange his defection. At the last minute the minder told him to bring his staff too.

"The 12 waitresses did not know where they were going," Heo told JTBC's Spotlight, one of the South's top investigative current affairs programmes.

"I told them we were relocating," he said.

The women only realised their final destination when they arrived outside the South Korean embassy in Malaysia.

When they hesitated to enter the building, one of them told the show, "manager Heo threatened us, saying he will tell security authorities that we watched South Korean TV dramas and we would be executed, or exiled into provinces and our families would also be affected".

"Thinking back, it was all nonsense but back then, I had no other choice," she said.

"If it was possible for me to go home even now, I would like to return to the bosom of my mother," she said.

Campaigners were outraged.

Lawyers for a Democratic Society, an influential group of human rights lawyers which has unsuccessfully been seeking to interview the waitresses, called for a thorough investigation of what they branded a "heinous crime committed by the NIS".

Those responsible should be given "stern punishment" and "the waitresses must be allowed to return home and reunite with their families", it said in a statement.

- 'Need to verify' -

The group's arrival in the South in April 2016 made headlines as the largest group defection for years, while Pyongyang waged a vocal campaign through its state media demanding their immediate return.

After four months of acclimatisation education -- standard for defectors -- the women were released into society, but their whereabouts were kept secret by the NIS and they had made no public comments until the television show late Thursday.

Heo said he was speaking out as rewards he had been promised -- an NIS job and a medal -- had not materialised.

Seoul's unification ministry, which handles relations with the North, said the facts needed to be established.

"There are some new allegations by the manager and some waitresses about how they came to the South and whether they came here on their free will," a spokesman told journalists.

"There is need to verify their allegations," he said, adding the ministry had been unable to contact the 13 itself and relied on information given it by the NIS.

An NIS spokesman said the agency had no immediate comment on the report.

Sceptics suspect the defection may have been staged by the government of now-disgraced conservative president Park Geun-hye in an effort to sway voters ahead of parliamentary elections.

Park, 66, who was removed from office over a massive corruption scandal last year, was convicted of multiple criminal charges including bribery and abuse of power and sentenced to 24 years in prison at a trial last month.

Businesses established by Pyongyang abroad -- including restaurants like this one in Shenyang, China -- are a crucial source of foreign exchange

https://au.news.yahoo.com/seoul-tricked ... --spt.html
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Re: Korea

Post by blindpig » Wed May 16, 2018 1:36 pm

May 16, 2018
North Korea May Cancel Summit Over Bolton's 'Absurd' Demands

The Trump administration thought it was an easy path in its negotiations with North Korea. Trump was euphoric when North Korea released three U.S. prisoners and proudly announced the June 12 summit with Kim Jong-un in Singapore where North Korea would agree to give up all its nuclear weapons and nuclear development programs. Trump would get a Nobel peace prize and all would be well.

This was a serious miscalculation based on a lack of understanding. It misread each and every statement North Korea made. The Trump administration has no ambassador in South Korea, the most experienced North Korea expert at the State Department left in disgust. The National Security Council is run by a maniac who had sabotaged earlier agreements with North Korea and wants to do it again.

North Korea's overarching aim is to gain enough security to cut its military expenses and to then use its resources for economic development. The method to achieve peace with the U.S. was progress in its nuclear weapons program. Each time a milestone was reached in the nuclear field North Korea sought talks with South Korea and the United States. It offered some concessions - to stop or slow its progress in its development of nuclear warheads and missile - in exchange for a peace agreement and economic support. Each time a deal was made the U.S. did not stick to its commitment. The promised oil supplies were not delivered, the civilian nuclear reactors the U.S. promised were not build. Each time an agreement failed North Korea started the next phase of its nuclear weapons program up to the next milestone.

Last year it finally reached the apex. It tested a thermonuclear device, the ultimate destructive weapon. It launched an intercontinental missile that can carry such a bomb to the continental United States. North Korea is now a full fledged nuclear state. After this achievement North Korea was again ready to negotiate.

When Donald Trump came into office promising that he would not condone a nuclear weapon capable North Korea that could threaten the United States. He launched a "maximum pressure" campaign to take away North Korea's nuclear weapons. The UN security council put strong sanctions on North Korea.

North Korea was already ready to negotiate. It were not the sanctions that brought it to the table. It was its new status as a nuclear power. The Trump administration never understood that. It believed that its "maximum pressure" campaign brought North Korea to offer "complete denuclearization". North Korea used that wording but it was meant as an aspirational aim for the whole world, not a unilateral disarmament of its new capabilities.

The Trump administration did not get it - or did not want to get it. This was partly out of stupidity and lack of knowledge, it was partly mischievous:

Trump and others are presenting this process as a route that leads to North Korea’s disarmament — even though Kim has said nothing that deviates from statements that every North Korean leader has made. And in our collective self-delusion, we have a surprising cheerleader: national security advisor John Bolton.
It is worth asking why Bolton is busy giving interviews in which he raises hopes for a complete elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons that can occur in a matter of months. He has repeatedly called for a “Libya style” deal — one in which the United States simply shows up and collects the weapons and supporting infrastructure.
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This is madness. There is no reason to think that Kim has any intention of agreeing to such a thing.
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Bolton isn’t suddenly naive. He’s working an angle. And that angle is almost certainly misaligning the president’s expectations. Bolton won’t try to kill diplomacy by opposing it. Rather he’ll kill it by making the perfect the enemy of the good. By raising the prospects of a Libya-style surrender, the much more modest settlement offered by Kim looks sad by comparison.

This is a very cynical — and dangerous — game that Bolton and others are playing.

A side effect of the false believe that "maximum pressure" worked against North Korea is the Trump administration's believe that the same will work against Iran. It is why it aborted the nuclear agreement with Iran:

The Trump administration is convinced it has an opening for a nuclear deal with North Korea because of its maximum pressure campaign. “They call it the North Korea scenario,” the European official said. “Squeeze the North Koreans. Squeeze the Iranians … and they will do the same thing as Kim Jong-un … surrender.”
When the CIA chief, now Secretary of State, Pompeo came to North Korea on May 10 to prepare further negotiations, the North Korean side warned that Washington was wrong in its thinking:

Once they arrived, Pompeo met for about an hour with Kim Yong Chol, discussing the Trump-Kim summit and Pompeo's schedule, before Kim hosted a luncheon on the hotel's 39th floor, where he formally welcomed the Americans.
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Kim then told the Americans that "we have perfected our nuclear capability," adding that "this [meeting] is not the result of sanctions that have been imposed from outside."
One condition North Korea had asked for at the beginning of the negotiation cycle was a freeze of 'strategic' military exercises by South Korea and the U.S. in exchange for a freeze of nuclear and missile tests by North Korea. This was understood by both sides. The condition had held for a while but a few days ago the U.S. and South Korea announced a new exercise:

SEOUL, May 10 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States will begin massive combined air force drills this week, officials here said Thursday, in an apparent move to strengthen their hand ahead of denuclearization talks with North Korea.
The two-week Max Thunder exercise will begin on Friday, involving some 100 warplanes, including eight F-22 radar-evading fighters as well as an unspecified number of B-52 bombers and F-15K jets, the officials said.

It is the first time that the allies have decided to deploy eight F-22 jets to a combined exercise. Observers said the planned show of formidable air power appears aimed at further pressuring the North to give up its nuclear ambitions.

F-22 stealth fighter and B-52 are nuclear capable and thus strategic assets. Incorporating them in an exercise breaks the previous understanding. In response to the exercise North Korea canceled high level talks with South Korea:

The North's Korean Central News Agency said the Max Thunder drills between the South Korean and U.S. air forces are a rehearsal for invasion of the North and a provocation amid warming inter-Korean ties.
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"This exercise targeting us, which is being carried out across South Korea, is a flagrant challenge to the Panmunjom Declaration and an intentional military provocation running counter to the positive political development on the Korean Peninsula," the KCNA report said. "The United States will also have to undertake careful deliberations about the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit in light of this provocative military ruckus jointly conducted with the South Korean authorities."
The State Department as well as the Pentagon were seemingly unaware that the exercise would have such consequences.

North Korea feels cheated. It has stopped its missile and nuclear tests. It is dismantling its "northern test site" for nuclear weapons. It pardoned three prisoners and let them leave to the States. It held several rounds of hopeful talks with South Korea and the United States. Why does it now have to endure more pressure? Why should it allow the U.S. and South Korea to breach the agreement of test freeze in exchange for exercise freeze?

Trump thought he had already won. Finally North Korea is setting him straight. It will not give up its weapons under thread only to get smashed like other countries which made such mistakes:

Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan made clear that the communist regime is not interested in any nuclear talks in which it is coerced into giving up its nuclear arsenal, according to Pyongyang's state news agency KCNA.
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Kim expressed displeasure with the U.S. bringing up previous denuclearization methods, including the one used for Libya.
The full statement singled out the 'repugnant' John Bolton:

High-ranking officials of the White House and the Department of State including Bolton, White House national security adviser, are letting loose the assertions of so-called Libya mode of nuclear abandonment, "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization", "total decommissioning of nuclear weapons, missiles, biochemical weapons". etc, while talking about formula of "abandoning nuclear weapons first, compensating afterwards".
This is not an expression of intention to address the issue through dialogue.
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It is absolutely absurd to dare compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya which had been at the initial stage of nuclear development.

We shed light on the quality of Bolton already in the past, and we do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards him.

If the Trump administration fails to recall the lessons learned from the past when the DPRK-U.S. talks had to undergo twists and setbacks owing to the likes of Bolton and turns its ear to the advice of quasi-"patriots" who insist on Libya mode and the like, prospects of upcoming DPRK-U.S. summit and overall DPRK-U.S. relations will be crystal clear.

We have already stated our intention for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and made clear on several occasions that precondition for denuclearization is to put an end to anti-DPRK hostile policy and nuclear threats and blackmail of the United States.

Trump's Noble peace prize is drifting away ...

If Trump really wants the June 12 meeting with Kim Jong-un in Singapore and an agreement he will have to stop Bolton from making overarching demands. Secretary of State Pompeo will have to issue some conciliatory statements. The Pentagon, which dislikes peace talks that may diminish its position in South Korea, will have to end its provocative "strategic" maneuvers.

There is no military alternative to further talks. The nuclear armed North Korea is allied with the nuclear armed China. Any attack on North Korea might cause a mushroom cloud raising over Washington DC. Risking that is irresponsible.



Posted by b on May 16, 2018 at 07:18 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/05/no ... mands.html

This has been obvious from the beginning, Trump is an egomanical fool who is completely out of his league. All of his 'wins' are kabuki theater but he's convinced his fans won't notice and if they don't he remain strong.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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