Latest North Korean Threat Directed at DMZ Tours
North Korea warned on Monday of unpredictable disaster unless the South and the United States stop allowing tourists inside a heavily armed border buffer that is one of the most visited spots on the peninsula.
President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 as a reward for giving up its nuclear weapons program. On February 3, 2010, President Obama decided not to restore North Korea to the list.
An unnamed army spokesman of the North’s Korean People’s Army said South Korea was engaged in “deliberate acts to turn the DMZ into theater of confrontation with the (North) and a site of psychological warfare” by allowing tours inside the border zone. [Reuters, via WaPo]
Psychological warfare, you say? You mean like this?
Alejandro really gets his groove on at about 6:00.
As the report points out, thousands of tourists visit the DMZ every year. I’ve actually done it twice — once with the other defense attorneys, and once while hosting a good friend and combat-wounded Korean War vet to flew from South Dakota to Seoul to attend my wedding. I was required to wear my Class B uniform, in all of its green polyester glory, both times. We were all under strict instructions not to make any gestures — like, say, the Hawaiian Good Luck Salute — or hold up any signs. You can be sure none of us carried megaphones or harangued the people on the other side of the line. I suppose this means the North Koreans are at least thinking about staging some kind of incident up there.
Update, 31 March 2010: KCNA’s report becomes all the more hilarious after you watch the video of Cao’s antics:
The south Korean military warmongers have been busy staging an anti-DPRK psychological warfare in the Demilitarized Zone with agents specializing in this warfare and other riff-raffs involved since the mid-February under the signboards of “visit,” “tour” and “observance”.
It is a well-known fact that the south Korean military concluded what it called “MOU on supporting news coverage of the DMZ” with 15 media organizations in a bid to let their reporters tour not only the DMZ but nearby frontline areas and prepare materials for anti-north smear campaigns and release them by means of newspapers, broadcasting services, internet, etc.
As already known to the world, Paragraph 9 of Article 1 of the Armistice Agreement stipulates that “No person, military or civilian, shall be permitted to enter the Demilitarized Zone except persons concerned with the conduct of civil administration and relief and persons specially authorized to enter by the Military Armistice Commission.”
It is preposterous for the U.S. and south Korean sides to allow those who have nothing to do with the civil administration and relief to enter the DMZ, given that the Military Armistice Commission was completely demised and the military machines of both sides tasked to supervise and control the implementation of the AA in place of the commission have not been in existence for nearly two decades due to the deliberate moves of the U.S. to scrap the AA.
In the final analysis, all these moves of the south Korean military warmongers cannot be interpreted otherwise than deliberate acts to turn the DMZ into theatre of confrontation with the DPRK and a site of psychological warfare against the north in disregard of the AA and strain the overall situation on the Korean Peninsula. [KCNA]