410개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Yesterday's TOP STORY in the int'l media...
...and, of course, it was also the "number one hit" in the Korean(north & south) media:
The dear respected Kim Jong Un made a New Year address(*) on January 1, 2013. The following is its full text:
Dear comrades,
Officers and men of the heroic People's Army and all the beloved fellow countrymen,
Dear compatriots,
Having seen out the year 2012 characterized by the events that will go down in the history of the nation, we are seeing in the new year 2013 full of high hope and confidence in final victory.
Reflecting the unanimous reverence of all the service personnel and people for President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il, the fathers of the nation and eternal Sun of Juche, I would like first to pay the highest tribute and New Year greetings to them.
I extend my warm greetings to the service personnel and people who are devotedly striving for the prosperity of the country, firmly united around the Workers' Party of Korea, and sincerely wish all the families across the country harmony and greater happiness.
My New Year greetings also go to our compatriots in the south and abroad who are ringing in the new year with yearning and expectations for the reunification and prosperity of the nation and the world's progressive peoples and our foreign friends who love justice and peace.
Last year was a historic year in which the great Generalissimos were upheld as the eternal leaders of our revolution and a firm guarantee was provided for brilliantly carrying forward the revolutionary cause of Juche to completion under the leadership of the Party.
The President and the General were great leaders whom our people acclaimed for the first time in their history spanning thousands of years; they are the eternal images of the great Paektusan nation and banners of all victories and glory. Last year we celebrated the centenary of the birth of the President as the greatest national holiday, reviewed the 100-year history of Juche Korea with pride and held up the General as the eternal leader of our Party and people, realizing the cause of immortalizing the leader. By doing so, we have been able to glorify the new century of the Juche era as the annals of victory and glory for the accomplishment of the revolutionary cause of Juche under the unfurled banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
Although they saw in 2012 in tears of blood after the sudden demise of the General whom they had believed in as in heaven, our service personnel and people determinedly rose up following the Party with firm faith that the great General would always be with them and fully supported the leadership of the Party. With loyalty as pure as white gem, noble sense of moral obligation and all sincerity, they refurbished the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in the most sublime way as befits the supreme sanctuary of Juche and erected the statues of the Generalissimos on Mansu Hill and in several other places.
Placing deep trust in and faithfully supporting the Party, they established the ties of blood with it, their hearts pulsating in the same beats with it, and always shared sweets and bitters with it. Major political celebrations held amid the deep interest of the whole nation and the days of last year bore testimony to the single-hearted unity between the Party, the army and the people which was further consolidated to be unbreakable ties of blood.
Last year our service personnel and people achieved historic victories which would brilliantly shine in the history of the country by waging a general offensive to put the intentions and instructions of the General into practice.
Our reliable scientists and technicians successfully launched the artificial earth satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2, carrying out the instruction of the General with credit and fully demonstrating the high level of space science and technology and overall national power of Juche Korea. That we successfully manufactured and launched the scientific and technological satellite by entirely relying on our own efforts, technology and wisdom was an event of national jubilation that raised the dignity and honor of the Sun's nation onto the highest level and a great event which inspired all the service personnel and people with confidence in sure victory and courage and clearly showed that Korea does what it is determined to do.
Through the parade held in celebration of the centenary of the birth of the President, our revolutionary armed forces demonstrated the inexhaustible might of the powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu steadfast in ideology and faith and equipped with Korean-style modern military hardware capable of defeating any formidable enemy. And they reliably safeguarded the security of the country by resolutely smashing every war provocation and anti-DPRK smear campaign of the enemy. The officers and men of the People's Army and the People's Internal Security Forces made breakthroughs on all major fronts of building a thriving country with the mettle of "At a go" and did many good things for the happiness of the people, thereby living up to the expectations and trust of the Party and people.
Although the situation was acute and complicated and severe natural calamities hit the country in succession last year, our army and people made great strides in their efforts to build a thriving socialist country and improve the people's living standards by displaying an indomitable will and waging an unyielding struggle.
We put the Huichon Power Station and Tanchon Port into commission, built many Juche-oriented and modern factories and enterprises and reconstructed major production bases in key industrial sectors on the basis of advanced science and technology, thus further consolidating the material and technological foundations of our economy.
Thanks to the exalted patriotic zeal of the service personnel and people, monumental edifices including Changjon Street and Rungna People's Pleasure Park sprang up in Pyongyang and many cultural facilities for the promotion of the wellbeing of the people were built in different parts of the country, changing its looks.
Last year, the superior socialist education system was further consolidated through the adoption of the law on enforcing universal 12-year compulsory education; our sports people achieved laudable successes in international games, adding glory to the country; and our revolutionary artistes conducted artistic activities in a fresh and enterprising manner, imbuing society with an animating spirit and greatly encouraging the people in their struggle.
The brilliant successes we achieved in the revolutionary struggle and construction work last year were ascribable to the fact that the General had unfolded an ambitious blueprint and laid firm foundations for the building of a thriving country. Last year's significant successes were a valuable fruit born of the unshakeable determination and correct leadership of our Party to glorify Kim Il Sung's and Kim Jong Il's Korea all over the world by translating the far-reaching plan and instructions of the General into reality and the lofty sense of loyalty and patriotic devotion of our service personnel and people unfailingly faithful to the Party.
I extend my warm thanks to all the service personnel and people who adorned the first year of the new century of the Juche era with great victories in hearty response to the Party's militant call.
Comrades,
The new year 2013 is a year of great creations and changes in which a radical turnabout will be effected in the building of a thriving socialist country on the road of the onward march in the new century of Kim Il Sung's and Kim Jong Il's Korea.
All the people and service personnel should dynamically turn out in the grand onward march for building a thriving country full of pride of victors and confidence in a rosy future.
The road of Juche is the only path for our Party and people to invariably follow and great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the ever-victorious banner of our revolution. We should march forward along the road of independence, the road of Songun and the road of socialism to the end upholding the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. Our Party will triumphantly build a thriving socialist nation, the most powerful country, on this land in our own way, the way the General did, by relying on our people who are the best in the world.
This year we will be greeting the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, our glorious motherland, and the 60th anniversary of the victory in the great Fatherland Liberation War.
The dignified and glorious present of our people and the bright prosperous future of our country are ensured by the immortal nation-building exploits the Generalissimos performed while founding a genuine state of the people for the first time in the 5 000-year-long history of our nation and developing it into a powerful socialist country that is independent, self-sufficient and self-reliant in national defence and by the great achievements the President made while leading the Fatherland Liberation War to brilliant victory on the strength of his outstanding strategy and tactics and wise leadership.
In this significant year we should add brilliance to the immortal achievements of the great Generalissimos and make persevering efforts to build a thriving socialist country and carry out the cause of reunifying the country.
The building of an economic giant is the most important task that comes to the fore in the present stage of building a thriving socialist country.
We should further consolidate the successes achieved so far in economic construction to raise the status of our country to that of an economic giant in the new century, thus realizing the wish of the great General who devoted all his life to making our people well off with nothing to envy in the world.
In the same manner as we demonstrated the dignity and might of Songun Korea through the manufacture and launch of the Juche-based application satellite, the entire Party, the whole country and all the people should wage an all-out struggle this year to effect a turnaround in building an economic giant and improving the people’s standard of living.
"Let us bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant with the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in conquering space!" -- this is the fighting slogan our Party and people should uphold this year.
All sectors and all units of the national economy should launch a vigorous general offensive to boost production in hearty response to the Party's militant slogan.
All economic undertakings for this year should be geared to effecting a radical increase in production and stabilizing and improving the people's living standards by solidifying and making effective use of the already-built foundations of the independent national economy.
By adopting decisive steps to shore up the vanguard sectors of the national economy and the sectors of basic industries, we should develop coal-mining, electric-power and metallurgical industries and rail transport on a preferential basis and provide a firm springboard for the building of an economic giant. We should make innovations in coal-mining and metallurgical industries in particular so as to revitalize the overall economy of the country.
The success in economic construction should be manifested in the people's standard of living. We should direct great efforts to bolstering up the sectors and units that have a direct bearing on the people's livelihoods and increasing production there, so as to give them more benefits in living.
Agriculture and light industry remain the major fronts for economic construction this year, too. We should fulfil this year's plan for grain production without fail by concentrating nationwide efforts on farming and raising the efficiency of agricultural production by dint of scientific and intensive methods. We should take concrete measures for the supply of raw and other materials to light-industry factories and thus increase the output of quality consumer goods.
We should decisively bolster up livestock, fish and fruit farming to provide the people with a better, more bountiful diet. The soldiers of the People’s Army and the shock-brigade members who volunteered to work at the reclamation site of Sepho tableland in response to the Party's call should achieve miraculous successes and perform heroic feats in this year's campaign to open a bright prospect for carrying the Party's grand nature-remaking plan to completion at an earlier date.
We should wage a dynamic struggle to boost production at the modern factories and production bases that were built under the leadership of the General who, going on with his super-intense forced march, made painstaking efforts to improve the people's living standards. By doing so, we should ensure that his ennobling affection reaches the people as it is.
All sectors and all units of the national economy should push ahead with a socialist emulation drive to reenergize production and fulfil their quotas as fixed in the national economic plan for this year.
We should bring about a radical turn in the building of an economic giant on the strength of science and technology by fanning the flames of the industrial revolution in the new century.
The industrial revolution in the new century is, in essence, a scientific and technological revolution, and breaking through the cutting edge is a shortcut to the building of an economic giant. Like the satellite scientists who conquered outer space we should wage a dynamic campaign to push back the frontiers of science and technology so as to develop the country's overall science and technology to the world standards as soon as possible. All sectors of the national economy should direct primary efforts to the development of science and technology, bring science and technology into close combination with production in order to boost production by relying on domestic resources and technology, and introduce CNC technology in equipment and production lines and achieve their full automation in the long run.
We should improve economic guidance and management as demanded by the developing reality.
All sectors of the national economy should make scrupulous arrangements for economic planning and guidance to boost production by tapping every possible reserve and potentiality, and work out in a scientific way the immediate plans and long-term strategies for stage-by-stage development and push ahead with them in a persistent manner. We should hold fast to the socialist economic system of our own style, steadily improve and perfect the methods of economic management on the principle of encouraging the working masses to fulfil their responsibility and role befitting the masters of production, and generalize on an extensive scale the good experiences gained at several units.
We should continue to channel great efforts into consolidating our political and military might in every way.
The single-hearted unity of the army and people around the Party is our strongest weapon and a powerful propellant for the building of a thriving socialist country.
We should invariably carry forward the proud tradition of single-hearted unity, the tradition of adorning the red flag of the revolution only with victories on the strength of the harmonious whole wherein the Party believes in the people and the latter absolutely trust and follow the former.
All officials, Party members and other working people should become genuine comrades united with a single heart, who share ideology and purpose, weal and woe with our Party on the road of the Songun revolution, and make devoted efforts for the sake of their country and people. They should orient all undertakings towards defending and cementing the single-hearted unity, and strengthen the political and ideological position of our revolution as solid as a rock by grasping the people's sentiments and rallying broad sections of the people firmly behind the Party.
The military might of a country represents its national strength; only when it builds up its military might in every way can it develop into a thriving country and defend the security and happiness of its people. We should put continued stress on increasing our military might under the great banner of Songun, reliably safeguard the security and sovereignty of the country and render services to assuring regional stability and global peace.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the advancing of the slogan "a-match-for-a-hundred" by the great Generalissimo Kim Il Sung. It is important to bring about a fundamental change in strengthening our revolutionary armed forces and perfecting their combat preparedness.
The People’s Army should set up a revolutionary command system and military climate, establish steel-strong military discipline and perfect its regularized features as befits an elite revolutionary force. It should make its training more intensive, as the anti-Japanese guerrillas did on Mt. Paektu, so as to prepare all its officers and men to be a-match-for-a-hundred combatants who have acquired capabilities for actual warfare, and maintain full combat readiness. If the aggressors dare launch a preemptive attack against our sacred country, the People's Army should mercilessly annihilate them and win victory in the war for the country's reunification.
Officers and men of the Korean People's Internal Security Forces and members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards should intensify combat and political training and maintain full combat readiness with a determination to safeguard their Party and leader, country and people, and defend their hometowns.
The sector of defence industry should develop in larger numbers sophisticated military hardware of our own style that can contribute to implementing the Party's military strategy, thereby fulfilling its mission as the arsenal of the powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu.
We should spur the building of a civilized socialist nation to usher in a new era of cultural efflorescence in the 21st century.
The thriving socialist country we are building is a civilized socialist one where all its people are possessed of profound cultural knowledge, sturdy physique and noble moral virtues, enjoying a socialist life to their heart's content under the most cultured conditions and environment, and a beautiful and sound lifestyle pervades the whole society.
All sectors in cultural construction should implement to the letter the ideas, lines and policies set forth by the General, and develop education, public health, literature and the arts, physical culture, public morals and all other branches as appropriate to an advanced civilized nation.
We should develop Pyongyang into a more majestic and picturesque city as befits the capital of Juche Korea, the centre of Songun culture, and turn all streets and villages, mountains and rivers in provinces, cities and counties into a socialist paradise. At the same time we should set up modern cultural and welfare facilities, parks and pleasure grounds in larger numbers, thus making our people enjoy a cultured life of a new era to their heart's content.
In order to effect a radical change in this year's campaign to build a thriving socialist country, officials should make a fundamental turnabout in their ideological viewpoint, work style and attitude.
Those who acquire the President's and the General's outlook on the people, make tireless efforts for their good, rid themselves of the old way of thinking and attitude and make ceaseless innovations in all work, and rouse the masses to make breakthroughs for the advance, can be rightly claimed to be genuine officials required by our Party at present. Officials should strive with devotion, upholding the slogan "Everything for the people and everything by relying on them!" They should work to the best of their abilities with a high sense of responsibility, eagerness and an enterprising approach to work, so that their loyalty and performance can be judged by the Party and the people.
Party organizations should further enhance their militant function and role.
As the political staff of the units concerned, they should firmly establish policy-oriented principles in implementing the Party's policies and conduct political and organizational work with scrupulous care. By doing so, they should ensure that a great upsurge is brought about in their respective sectors and units. Party organizations, out of maternal feeling, should embrace all the people, take warm care of them and lead them forward to ensure that they share the same destiny with the Party to the end and fulfil their tasks at their posts in a responsible manner.
We should conduct Party work in the same way as it was done on the battleline in the 1970s, and put a focus of the work on thoroughly applying Kim Jong Il's patriotism in all activities.
Kim Jong Il's patriotism is the eternal soul and breath of Kim Il Sung's nation, and a driving force for the building of a thriving country. Party organizations should ensure that all officials, Party members and other working people cherish Kim Jong Il's patriotism deep in their hearts and give full play to their patriotic enthusiasm and spirit of devoted service in the ongoing sacred struggle to achieve prosperity of their socialist country.
Working people's organizations should conduct effective education among their members to suit their specific features, thus inspiring them to an all-out offensive for this year. Youth league organizations should educate young people to dynamically advance straight forward along the road indicated by the Party and become youth heroes who glorify the present era of great upsurge with their creative activities and feats.
The reunification of the country is the greatest national task that brooks no further delay and was the lifelong desire and instructions of the great Generalissimos.
Deeply grieving over the national division, President Kim Il Sung and General Kim Jong Il, the fathers of the nation and lodestars of national reunification, worked heart and soul throughout their life to hand down a reunified country to their fellow countrymen, laying firm foundations for the independent reunification, peace and prosperity of the nation.
We should staunchly safeguard and add brilliance to the undying exploits the great Generalissimos performed for the sacred cause of national reunification, and accomplish the historic cause of the country's reunification, a long-cherished desire of our nation, true to the lofty intention of the peerlessly great persons.
This year the entire Korean nation should turn out in a nationwide patriotic struggle for reunification in unity so as to usher in a new phase in the reunification movement.
An important issue in putting an end to the division of the country and achieving its reunification is to remove confrontation between the north and the south.
The past records of inter-Korean relations show that confrontation between fellow countrymen leads to nothing but war. Anti-reunification forces of south Korea should abandon their hostile policy against their fellow countrymen, but take the road of national reconciliation, unity and reunification.
Respecting and thoroughly implementing the north-south joint declarations is a basic prerequisite to promoting the inter-Korean relations and hastening the country’s reunification.
All the compatriots in the north, south and abroad should launch a dynamic struggle to carry out to the letter the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, great reunification programmes common to the nation in the new century and milestones for peace and prosperity.
The reunification issue should be solved by the concerted efforts of our nation in an independent manner.
The driving force of the reunification movement is the entire Korean nation, and nothing is impossible if it achieves firm unity. All the members of the Korean nation in the north, south and abroad should subordinate and orientate everything to the great national cause of reunifying the country from the standpoint of giving priority and attaching importance to the nation and achieving its unity. The entire nation should vehemently reject any moves for domination, intervention, aggression and war by outside forces, and never tolerate any acts hindering the country's reunification.
Whatever trials and difficulties lie in the way of national reunification, we will build a reunified thriving country without fail on this three-thousand-ri land by the concerted efforts of the whole nation.
In the present international arena, the moves of the imperialists to interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign states and their acts of military aggression pose a serious threat to peace and security of mankind. The Asia-Pacific region, the Korean Peninsula in particular, has become the hottest spot in the world in which constant tension persists.
The aspiration and desire of mankind to lead an independent life free from all sorts of domination and subjugation is growing stronger, and no force can stem the trend of history towards independence and justice.
The present international situation demands that our Republic continue to advance along the road of independence under the unfurled banner of Songun.
By holding fast to the ideals of independence, peace and friendship, we will, in the future, too, strive to develop relations of friendship and cooperation with the countries that are friendly to our country out of their respect for its sovereignty, and safeguard regional peace and stability and make the whole world independent.
A brighter and broader vista is open for us in the new year, and only victory and glory are in store for our people on their onward march.
Let us vigorously strive to achieve the prosperity of our country, our motherland, firmly rallied behind the Party under the banner of Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism.
Source: KCNA, 2013.01.01
* Here you can watch Li'l Kim's complete performance, broadcasted y'day in NK's KCTV. And please pay attention to the "interesting" editing technique!! (BTW: Kim's New Year message was NOT recorded in front of any audience...^^)
IMAGINATION...
"It is the fixed determination and will of our party to achieve the final victory of the revolution under the uplifted banner of Juche and build the strongest power, people's paradise looked up by the world on the 3 000-ri land(*)." ('the dear respected' Kim Jong-un via KCNA, 12.21)
...and REALITY
Photographed by "Suomi NPP" satellite (Sept. 2012)
* '3,000-ri land'... What the (f*cking)hell does that mean?
Well, we can find possibly one explanation in Wikipedia: "The Aegukga, the national anthem of South Korea, mentions 3,000 ri, which roughly corresponds to 1,200 km, the approximate longitudal span of the Korean peninsula." (^^)
Here's one of the leading 'news' reports, released by last Thursday's KCNA:
No comment...(^^)
And - of course(^^) - KCNA's 'report' became immediately one of the main topics in the int'l/western media:
☞ Unicorn lair 'discovered' in North Korea (Guardian, 11.30)
☞ Unicorns’ Existence Proven, Says North Korea (Time, 11.30)
☞ North Korea Finds Secret Unicorn Lair... (Huffington Post, 11.30)
Although the following - possibly very controversial(^^) - text, written by Chr. Hitchens, is already two years old... but (IMO) it's still worth reading!!
A Nation of Racist Dwarfs
Kim Jong-il's regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought
Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world's most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The people of South Korea, he pointed out, were becoming mongrelized. They wedded foreigners—even black American soldiers, or so he'd heard to his evident disgust—and were losing their purity and distinction. Not for Mr. Chae the charm of the ethnic mosaic, but rather a rigid and unpolluted uniformity.
I was struck at the time by how matter-of-factly he said this, as if he took it for granted that I would find it uncontroversial. And I did briefly wonder whether this form of totalitarianism, too (because nothing is more "total" than racist nationalism), was part of the pitch made to its subjects by the North Korean state. But I was preoccupied, as are most of the country's few visitors, by the more imposing and exotic forms of totalitarianism on offer: by the giant mausoleums and parades that seemed to fuse classical Stalinism with a contorted form of the deferential, patriarchal Confucian ethos.
Karl Marx in his Eighteenth Brumaire wrote that those trying to master a new language always begin by translating it back into the tongue they already know. And I was limiting myself (and ill-serving my readers) in using the pre-existing imagery of Stalinism and Eastern deference. I have recently donned the bifocals provided by B.R. Myers in his electrifying new book The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters, and I understand now that I got the picture either upside down or inside out. The whole idea of communism is dead in North Korea, and its most recent "Constitution," "ratified" last April, has dropped all mention of the word. The analogies to Confucianism are glib, and such parallels with it as can be drawn are intended by the regime only for the consumption of outsiders. Myers makes a persuasive case that we should instead regard the Kim Jong-il system as a phenomenon of the very extreme and pathological right. It is based on totalitarian "military first" mobilization, is maintained by slave labor, and instills an ideology of the most unapologetic racism and xenophobia.
These conclusions of his, in a finely argued and brilliantly written book, carry the worrisome implication that the propaganda of the regime may actually mean exactly what it says, which in turn would mean that peace and disarmament negotiations with it are a waste of time—and perhaps a dangerous waste at that.
Consider: Even in the days of communism, there were reports from Eastern Bloc and Cuban diplomats about the paranoid character of the system (which had no concept of deterrence and told its own people that it had signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in bad faith) and also about its intense hatred of foreigners. A black Cuban diplomat was almost lynched when he tried to show his family the sights of Pyongyang. North Korean women who return pregnant from China—the regime's main ally and protector—are forced to submit to abortions. Wall posters and banners depicting all Japanese as barbarians are only equaled by the ways in which Americans are caricatured as hook-nosed monsters. (The illustrations in this book are an education in themselves.) The United States and its partners make up in aid for the huge shortfall in North Korea's food production, but there is not a hint of acknowledgement of this by the authorities, who tell their captive subjects that the bags of grain stenciled with the Stars and Stripes are tribute paid by a frightened America to the Dear Leader.
Myers also points out that many of the slogans employed and displayed by the North Korean state are borrowed directly—this really does count as some kind of irony—from the kamikaze ideology of Japanese imperialism. Every child is told every day of the wonderful possibility of death by immolation in the service of the motherland and taught not to fear the idea of war, not even a nuclear one.
The regime cannot rule by terror alone, and now all it has left is its race-based military ideology. Small wonder that each "negotiation" with it is more humiliating than the previous one. As Myers points out, we cannot expect it to bargain away its very raison d'etre.
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 by the brevity of its duration. But race arrogance and nationalist hysteria are powerful cements for the most odious systems, as Europeans and Americans have good reason to remember. Even in South Korea there are those who feel the Kim Jong-il regime, under which they themselves could not live for a single day, to be somehow more "authentically" Korean.
Here are the two most shattering facts about North Korea. First, when viewed by satellite photography at night, it is an area of unrelieved darkness. Barely a scintilla of light is visible even in the capital city. (See this famous photograph.) Second, a North Korean is on average six inches shorter than a South Korean. You may care to imagine how much surplus value has been wrung out of such a slave, and for how long, in order to feed and sustain the militarized crime family that completely owns both the country and its people.
But this is what proves Myers right. Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.
No comment...(^^)
Related stuff(i.e. some of the recent announcements in the N.K. 'media'):
It is the unanimous will of the army and people of the DPRK that if the belligerent forces dare make a provocation, they will take it as a golden opportunity and turn it into a Great War for National Reunification. (Minju Choseon, 10.2)
The army and people of the DPRK are closely following the group of traitors who are escalating military tension while making a string of remarks inciting confrontation with the DPRK almost every day backed by its master. If a chance is given, they will wipe out at a breath the group of traitors and realize the nation's cherished desire for reunification. (KCNA, 10.1)
The Southwestern Front Command has already received the operation order from the Supreme Command to turn the West Sea of Korea into a deadfall of enemies and wage a Great War for National Reunification if enemies fire even a bullet into the area of the DPRK side. (KCNA, 9.22)
For the first time(as far as I know) a S. Korean "progressive" newspaper reported about the cruel reality in N. Korea without any "sugarcoating"!! Last Wednesday(9.19) Kyunghyang Shinmun("leftist, moderate progressive", according to Wikipedia) published the following feature:
A Famine Caused by Exploitation and Inequality in a Jungle Where Death and Crime Run Rampant
They existed in the form of man as a phenomenon.
Their senses were dull to the deaths, violence, and crimes born inevitably from the long and cruel famine they endured. Their eyes sparkled only at survival and money, and there was no trace of anyone who used the words like tomorrow or hope.
They did not trust others. The instinct telling them that one can only be protected by one's own self clouded over their eyes. Strangely, they were obsessed with religion. But when they talked about their children, they often showed tears.
These were the North Koreans we met near the North Korea-China border. They were people at the "crossroad" just about to lose their humanity completely. To them human rights was a luxury.
Parts of North Korea are facing "the worst famine and starvation since 2000" was the common statement of the North Koreans whom The Kyunghyang Shinmun reporters met in China.
The situation in Hwanghae-do was in fact graver than in other areas--a large number of people recently died of starvation there despite the fact that it's the largest breadbasket of North Korea.
Crops had failed due to the flood last year and the drought earlier this year. One manager from the farming area in Hwanghae-do estimated that the people who starved to death in his village would add up to about 10% of the total 60 families. He explained that they had bad crops in the spring, when food is scarce, and that people died the most in April and May.
He recalled, "when there were many deaths, we just looked on as 5~6 families perished in a day."
One middle-management official of the Workers' Party of Korea from South Hwanghae Province conveyed the famine situation in detail. "The usual death rate in South Hwanghae Province is one in a thousand. But last April, the rate was higher than 30 times that. Since the population of South Hwanghae Province is about 2 million, I think about 60,000 people died."
One person, who disposed the bodies in this area stated, "The number of people who starved to death surged this year. We couldn't dispose of the bodies properly, so we waited until 10 bodies were gathered and then buried them together." They made a grave without a burial mound in a low hill near the town. He said they couldn't do the work without the half bottle of liquor they were provided with.
Starvation makes people suffer pain over a very long time before they die. Among the people who put up with the shortage of food for tens of days, some chose to take their own lives to avoid death by starvation.
The manager from the farming area, who crossed over to China a month before looking for a way to earn money, told us the story of how a neighboring family killed themselves. One day in April, when they ran out of the food that they had harvested last fall, his neighbor, Cheori's mother (alias) came to him and borrowed 3 kilograms of corn.
She then put rat poison in the corn, which the family shared for their last meal and died. The manager was later found guilty of lending her the food and was called into the Safety Department for a while after that.
The number of people starving to death is rising this year in the Hwanghae-do breadbasket, which did not suffer even during the Arduous March, when millions of people starved to death in the late 1990s.
After interviewing over twenty North Korean residents, we have come to the conclusion that this situation is not just a case of a temporary shortage of food due to natural disasters. The rice yield decreased each year because of soil and seed degradation accumulated over the years and because of a lack of fertilizers, pesticides and electricity.
In addition, the North Korean government imposed the same quota when they collected the provisions for the capital and the military failing to consider last year's flood and this spring's drought. The famine in the biggest breadbasket, which fed the nation, was an artificial famine caused by the authority's exploitation and a long build up of social inequality.
Asia's progressive economist, Amartya Sen saw famines as a problem with democracy rather than a problem caused by natural disasters. It's because under a dictatorship, extending the life of the regime is top priority when distributing the budget even in crisis situations.
Therefore, when there is a shortage of food, residents, who have no safety net, are likely to starve to death. Sen claims that an absolute famine or shortage of food does not occur in a developed democratic nation.
Jiro Ishimaru, the Chief Editor at Asia Press, who has met with North Korean residents at the North Korea-China border for 15 years, also insisted, "The famine sweeping across North Korea's farms this year is not the result of natural disasters, but the failure of North Korean socialism, which they have overstrained to sustain for decades."
He claimed, "Currently, the system in North Korea is worn out, and they've come to a state where it's difficult for them to even maintain their most important breadbasket. You can say that the North Korean government has weakened considerably." He pointed out that, "It (the famine) is expected to be worse next year than this year. North Korean officials must request the aid of the international society immediately."
It's not just the famine. The violence and crimes, the collapse of social order, extreme individualism all triggered by the famine are making the current North Korean society more ill, and pushing the already shattered human rights over the cliff. The number of felonies such as robbery and murder has increased.
The Workers' Party official from Hwanghae-do told us a story of young men who ran away after killing an old man while stealing corn from their village. He added, "There are so many thieves, we can't relax even with our doors locked." It's because the thieves break down the walls to get in.
According to the official, recently thieves are robbing more houses of officials, and there have been frequent incidents where people were stabbed to death while trying to guard their home. A health official in his fifties, who is also from Hwanghae-do, said that thoughts like, "The dead are idiots. The living are the heroes, whether they rob or kill," are prevalent.
Contempt for senior citizens, the not economically active population, has intensified. One Hwanghae-do resident said, "More and more children refuse to take care of their parents. There's even a tendency to treat their parents like animals, since all they do is dip into the food."
Recently, in this area, an old lady died by hanging upside down in a large crock filled with water, just to keep from being a burden on her children. The Hwanghae-do official in his fifties sighed, "Everyone has become hardened because it's so difficult to survive. Social order, manners, these things have all disappeared, and now only the law of the jungle remains."
Some claim that the distribution and consumption of "human meat," which took place during the Arduous March in the 1990s, have reoccurred recently. A man in his fifties living in North Pyongan Province told us, "The Safety Department investigated a home, which had been starving these recent months, because the smell of meat suddenly came from their place.
They revealed that the younger brother ate the older brother, who had died." According to the manager from Hwanghae-do, a person was executed in April for distributing the human meat of 11 people as pork. Kim said, "I was born and grew up in this village, but this is the first time anything like this has happened."
Professor Chung Byung-ho of Hanyang University's Department of Cultural Anthropology stated that when a famine extends over a long period of time, "the family or small units of human relationships similar to the family collapse, and the selfishness, which deems only one's own survival important, increases."
However, Chung added, "Problems like the distribution of human meat is deviant behavior in extreme circumstances. The real problem with North Korea's famine is that regional deviations are much greater, and that they are spread out locally in intense conditions."
He explained, "Sociocultural problems like their wide-ranging impoverished way of life has tortured more people than starvation over a long period of time. In fact, most of the Hwanghae-do and Pyongan-do residents we interviewed did not seem to trust their country any longer, which failed to provide them with a social safety net.
When we asked one trader in his thirties from Hwanghae-do by phone what he was most concerned about recently, he answered, "There is always the fear that robbers will get me since public order has deteriorated." The Hwanghae-do health official, who was doing manual labor while temporarily staying in China, expressed his anger stating, "The country's a thief."
He also mentioned that people now just snorted at government policies. Discontentment with inequality has also built up. One person even said, "The people in Pyongyang may not even know that people outside are starving to death."
Most of the people we met did not know the meaning of the term, "human rights." One resident of North Hamgyong Province said, "Instead of the term ‘human rights,' there is the term, ‘right of freedom' in Joseon. But there is no one who thinks he can fully exercise his right of freedom." To them human rights is a concept that does not exist.
The words of one Hwanghae-do resident, who kept beating his chest, continue to resound in our minds: "Our people, who were once courteous, are now in a state worse than the primeval ages. It's so heartbreaking that I can't bear to look."
http://english.khan.co.kr/khan_art_view.html?artid=201209191558287&code=710100
Related article:
☞ Hwanghae Still Suffering Widespread Hunger (DailyNK, 9.25)
Since Prince Kim Jong-eun took over the power in Pyeongyang about 9 month ago, almost everyone (interested in/related to NK affairs) is expecting economic reforms. Some are expecting even significant reforms...
But a few of the reliable NK experts are more sceptical and in my opinion they're plain realists.
Like L. A. Petrov (lecturer in Korean studies at the University of Sydney)... Some weeks ago he wrote the following in Asia Times(HK, 8.04): "North Korea as we know it cannot be reformed. The problem is that the state is a hostage of its own history. So many lies and horrible crimes have been perpetrated during the 65 years of tyranny that the youngest of the Kims cannot open up the country without betraying his predecessors or jeopardizing the foundations of his own rule. Any attempt to reform the system will lead to a legitimacy crisis..."
Anyway, here's a selection of related articles/analyses, recently published in the S. Korean and int'l press:
☞ Kim Jong-eun comes of age... (Asia Times, 8.04)
☞ North Korea’s reform measures take shape (K. Herald, 8.09)
☞ N. Korea virtually ditched planned economy, state rationing (Yonhap, 8.09)
☞ N.Korea Praises Vietnamese, Chinese Reforms (Chosun Ilbo, 8.10)
☞ Economic reforms appear under way in North Korea (Hankyoreh, 8.10)
☞ North Korean leader, military waging ‘money war’ (K. Times, 8.14)
☞ Leadership shake-up adds to signs of change in N.K. (K. Herald, 8.22)
☞ Kim Jong-un Inherits Father's Taste for Bling (Chosun Ilbo, 8.22)
☞ Kim Jong Un Is No Reformer (Foreign Policy, 8.21)
☞ June 28th Policy: It's Regime Security, Stupid (DailyNK, 8.28)
☞ Fearing a Repeat of the Great Expropriation (DailyNK, 9.04)
☞ N.Korea to Let Businesses Keep 70% of Profits (Chosun Ilbo, 9.05)
☞ North Korea’s reluctance to change (Hankyoreh, 9.12)
The Panmunjom Mission of the (North)Korean "People's" Army issued today(via KCNA) the following statement, resp. DECLARATION OF WAR(*):
The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean warmongers finally kicked off Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises for aggression, defying strong public protest and denunciation at home and abroad.
They do not hide that the exercises are pursuant to "an actual war scenario" targeted against the DPRK.
Huge troops of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces and the south Korean puppet army have already set up positions in and around south Korea.
Even military personnel of those countries which took part in the last Korean war under the UN helmet are involved in the drills.
The war drills in the wake of the disclosure of the hideous state-sponsored and politically-motivated terrorism against the DPRK prove that the U.S. is the harasser of peace and provoker of a war in the new century that upsets the stability on the Korean Peninsula.
The south Korean puppet regime and other allies that are taking part in the U.S.-led saber-rattling are just poor stooges little different from sacrifice to their master.
The Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army clarifies as follows with a touch-and-go situation prevailing on the Korean Peninsula:
1. The joint military drills of the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet regime are the most undisguised and serious final-phase violation of the Korean Armistice Agreement (AA).
Paragraphs of the AA specify an unconditional halt to all arms buildup, large-scale military exercises and military provocations against the other side.
The armistice state that had been barely maintained in the unstable form of neither war nor peace by the peace-loving efforts of the DPRK has now turned into a catastrophic phase beyond control.
Now that the armistice state has been wantonly violated, the army and people of the DPRK state to the world that they have the right to do whatever they should do any time, not bound to the AA any longer.
All the actions of the army and people of the DPRK, not bound to the AA, will become merciless exercises of unpredictable and unimaginable physical strength.
2. The on-going joint military drills are a vicious challenge and violation of the peace on the Korean Peninsula.
We love and value peace. (^^)
But now that the enemies are set to harass peace on the Korean Peninsula and encroach upon the inviolable sovereignty of the DPRK by force of arms, the option to be taken by its army and people can not but be an indiscriminate counteraction.
As it has become clearer that the nation's sovereignty and peace which are more valuable than one's own life can be guaranteed only by arms, the army and people of the DPRK will take physical counteraction any moment, unhindered, to safeguard its sovereignty and peace.
3. The joint military drills are intolerable actions going against the Koreans' desire and wish for national reconciliation, unity and reunification.
It is the unanimous desire of all the Koreans to achieve the independent and peaceful reunification of the country through the national reconciliation and cooperation and by their concerted efforts under the banner of "By our nation itself".
Now that the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet regime counter the nation's cherished historic desire with military provocation, the DPRK can not but take the resolve to use force to defend the nation's reconciliation and unity and head for reunification.
The army of the DPRK has already finished the preparations to remove the root cause of all evils that stand in the way of the nation's reconciliation and unity by use of force for self-defence .
The situation shows that nothing has changed in the U.S. war policy of antagonizing the DPRK and only the great war of reunification remains to be done to settle accounts with them by the use of merciless arms.
The war for reunification to be waged by the DPRK will not end in armistice.
What remains to be done now is to wage a merciless sacred war for wiping out the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces to the last man and reunifying the country to win a great, admirable victory.
The army and people of the DPRK will never miss the golden opportunity for waging a great war for reunification but achieve the cause of national reunification without fail, in hearty response to the militant order given by Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un during his inspection of the biggest hotspot area in the southernmost part of the southwestern front for defending the country on August 17.
* Well, hopefully it's just a cheap joke!!
Related article:
☞ S. Korea to hit back harder at N.K. attacks (K. Herald/Yonhap, 8.21)
The S. Korean Hankyoreh newspaper and Asia Times (HK) published last week almost simultaneously the following readable/interesting article:
North Korea and Disneyland/Kim Jong-eun's Mickey Mouse world
When North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently watched a concert that included Disney figures like Mickey Mouse, it was big news. Foreign analysts rushed to the conclusion that the young leader was presiding over a shift in Pyongyang’s attitudes about the West. After all, Mickey Mouse is a symbol of American imperialism and Western penetration almost as potent as McDonald’s.
But the worlds of Walt Disney and Kim Il Sung are actually not that far apart.
The world of Disney is the closest thing to totalitarianism that the entertainment-industrial complex has ever produced. The founder, Walt Disney, created a saccharine, air-brushed utopia that has been a dystopic reality for so many who have worked in the many enterprises of the Disney universe. The affinity between Disneyworld and the world of North Korea goes beyond any taste for Western-style entertainment that Kim Jong Un might have picked up during his Swiss education.
Walt Disney, born in 1901, created an empire of cartoons, movies, and theme parks, first in the United States and then throughout the world. He is described today in the Disney materials much as North Korean literature describes Kim Il Sung. “One hundred years ago, Walt Disney was born. And the world changed forever,” reads the Disney website. “We all hold a special place for the magical legacy of this one man.”
You can buy a book called “Walt’s Famous Quotes,” published by the Disney company, in which the founder gives his insights about the world. Disney himself maintained tight control of the company when he was alive, engaging in his own form of “one the spot guidance” to ensure that the Disney brand remained consistent.
Maintaining tight control has allowed Disney to penetrate the minds of children everywhere. Disney’s successors, like Michael Eisner, worked hard to maintain the founder’s vision. "It was Eisner's dream that the typical consumer would patronize Disney movies, watch Disney TV shows, buy Disney videos, spend money at Disney stores, vacation on Disney cruise lines, take his or her kids to Disney theme parks - all the while becoming completely enveloped in the Disney subculture," according to Peter Bart of Variety.
Disney, in other words, is not simply a choice among many. Disney is intended to be all-encompassing.
The novelist Robert Harris, who has written books about Nazi Germany, has analyzed the totalitarian nature of Disney and critiqued its project of rewriting history and myths in order to produce its own version of the truth. He points out that Disney, like all totalitarian leaders, focuses on children, employing “that classic totalitarian technique of preaching family values while subverting the family structure, appealing over the heads of parents directly to their children.”
Disney was not content to create theme parks. He also wanted to build entire cities. The town of Celebration, Florida, is Disney-built and Disney-maintained. It looks like the set of a Disney movie depicting the 1950s: manicured lawns, white picket fences, kids on bicycles. The company even controls the weather, organizing fake snowfalls in December. Behind the scenes, however, Celebration has suffered the same problems as the rest of America: a high rate of foreclosure, suicide, and even murder.
Then there’s Disney’s approach to labor regimentation and surveillance, which rival that of North Korea. Those who aspire to work at Disney Land, for instance, go through a training period in which they are instructed to look “all-American.” In other words, according to one such aspirant, “Men were not allowed piercings, visible tattoos, or unkempt facial hair; we could wear one ring on the left hand if we wanted. Women were given an ‘appropriate’ range of hair length and amount of skin showing.” Trainees and workers are closely watched to make sure that they never violate any of the rules of Disney.
And those who manage to get a job with the company discover that, after all the deductions, they barely make enough to survive. Some employees have to rely on church donations and government assistance to get by.
Disneyland presents one face to the world: cheerful, child-like. But the reality behind Disneyland is grim.
The world of Walt Disney is the kind of social engineering that the North Korean regime has aspired to create. North Korea, too, has a founder who serves as a substitute father for all children, who established a governing template that his successors religiously maintain, and whose wisdom continues to be celebrated through word and image. North Korea projects a utopian vision of smiling, hard-working people that turns out to be very different in reality. The government attempts to maintain strict social control, particularly in Pyongyang, the showcase capital.
And both Walt Disney and Kim Il Sung realized the power of film to capture and shape the imagination, particularly of children. They realized that if you change the minds of children, you can change the future. In North Korea, children imprint on Kim Il Sung, much as baby ducklings will imprint on the first face they see and much as children all over the world imprint on Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
Kim Jong Un may turn out to be a Gorbachev-style reformer in North Korea who moves his country in the direction of the West. But the evidence for this belief is rather thin. He studied in the West and, it turns out, has a very pretty wife who is a stylish dresser. But then, Bashar al-Assad in Syria also studied in Europe and has a stylish wife, and that hasn’t prevented him from launching large-scale repression in his country.
As for Kim Jong Un’s embrace of Mickey Mouse, it may just reflect a deeper affinity between North Korea and Disneyland. The sons of Kim Jong Il have all reportedly visited Disneyland in Japan, with Kim Jong Nam deported from Narita airport in 2001 after trying to use a fake passport to gain access to his favorite destination. Portrayed as temporary escapes from their rigidly controlled country, these visits were nothing of the sort. At Disneyland, Kim Jong Un and his brothers must have felt right at home.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/545001.html
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