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Anti-Kim Jong Il Posters Trigger Massive Dragnet in Small Farming Town

kwaksan.jpgA story sourced to Open Radio (link in Korean) reports that in the small farming town of Kwaksan-Up, North Pyongan Province, anti-government posters were placed on the door and window of the local party office. The posters denounced the top local party official, complaining that in his ambition to curry favor with Kim Jong Il, he had created unbearable conditions for the local people. The posters were signed by a group calling itself “Seo namu dan,” or “pine tree group.”

The posters are a matter of some concern to the local party apparatus, in part because Kim Jong Il’s name was used without any honorific title (Great General, Grand Kleagle, Most Omnipotent Plenipotentiary, His Previously Porcine Majesty). How concerned are they? Apparently, the security forces have plans to haul in 80,000 people for handwriting samples.

Me: the response will probably create more dissidents than it uncovers. Otherwise, the most likely result will be a massive waste of time and much expense for some anjon-bu and bowi-bu agents, which will probably get them off someone’s back for a little while. Of course, small and isolated acts of dissent are no real challenge to the regime, but if North Korea were flooded with cell phones, someone in Seoul could blast out a signal to thousands of North Koreans who knew nothing about each others’ identity, directing them to put up posters like these in multiple locations in multiple towns. It would be enough to overwhelm and preoccupy the security services while more consequential things were organized, and it would be a propaganda coup that would signal the birth of a national resistance network.

Hat tip to Her Hotness.

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5 Responses

  2. Inspiring entry – one can only imagine the seemingly insurmountable fear that dissidents must overcome to even contemplate dissent, at the risk of having their whole family rounded up for the death camps -“if North Korea were flooded with cell phones, someone in Seoul could blast out a signal to thousands of North Koreans who knew nothing about each others’ identity, directing them to put up posters like these in multiple locations in multiple towns. It would be enough to overwhelm and preoccupy the security services while more consequential things were organized, and it would be a propaganda coup that would signal the birth of a national resistance network.” Well said – we should do this.

  3. The idea of flooding North Korea w/ cell phones is tantalizing. But could it happen? Even if we gathered millions of cell phones, how would we get it to the people? And would they be willing to take it knowing that being caught with one could mean a one way trip to the prison camps?

    I am not asking these questions to mock. I am asking because I am hoping there is a way to do this.

  5. The idea of flooding North Korea w/ cell phones is tantalizing. But could it happen?

    The same way they’re getting DVD’s — people smuggle them across the border. People are willing to take the risk of possessing them, as well as every cell phone they can get their hands on. The greater technical problem is cell phone reception, which really only works within range of cell phone towers along the Chinese border. One answer might be to use phones that piggyback on NK military communications. Another might be to piggyback on the Orascom network currently being built exclusively for the elite. Unless someone figures out a technological fix, expensive satellite phones may be the only alternative.