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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]

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9 Responses

  1. That Andrew Morse guy looks a bit wet behind the ears, needing four takes to cover a two sentence piece. But as I understand from Friends of Kim, his tapes have now found its way into Alejandro’s drawer anyway.

    By the way, the code of conduct is much stricter when visiting Panmunjon from the South compared to the North. Come from the South, and you can’t film a thing, have to dress up a bit, frequent security checks, and certainly no shouting to do.

    Then when you visit from the North, you can pretty much film a fair deal, no soldiers entering the bus at all and you can pretty much dress like a complete bum (with shorts and sandals) when entering the paviljon. And if you, like Alejandro’, want to ‘convey a message’, then that’s possible too.

  2. Anyone who doesn’t let you make Hawaiian good luck gestures is pure evil.

    As I noted here, I wonder if this wasn’t a proactive counter on Robert Park making an appearance at Panmunjom.

  3. Alejandro has to be one of the most useless human beings on the planet.

    I, too, immediately thought of Robert Park when I heard of this threat. But i also thought that North Korea may want to eliminate DMZ-related tourism competition to strengthen its “argument” for re-opening Kumgangsan.

  4. I don’t know, slim. The interested parties running tours to Panmunjom and the two main “observatories” are entirely different from the ones running tours to Kaesŏng and KÅ­mgangsan, no?

  5. “Yankees come home!” Quite, quite mad. Still, it’s better than what his Falangist forebearers did to Spanish Gypsies and Jews.

    Is there any intrinsic tourist value to the DMZ, or is it part of morbid fascination?

    like, say, the Hawaiian Good Luck Salute

    I’ve seen Orientals, such as Koreans and Vietnamese, using a genuine gesture of good luck like the reversed Victory Sign, laid over their hearts. Problem is, it looks like the Agincourt Salute (which has nothing to do with one of those many French military defeats).

  6. Kushibo – The fact they are different operators is why North Korea would want to force them out of business. “Come see the beautiful part of the border; not the razor wire, Yankee-filled shameful scar.” This is all just speculation anyway.

    It could also be that:

    -North Korea is grasping at anything that can convince Lee Myung-back and Barack Obama that it is a danger, rather than a nuisance.
    -North Korea does not want the OPCON Transfer to go ahead.
    -The North Korean military wants more resources or to spin more propaganda for the masses with a manufactured threat on its southern flank.

  7. slim wrote:

    Kushibo – The fact they are different operators is why North Korea would want to force them out of business. “Come see the beautiful part of the border; not the razor wire, Yankee-filled shameful scar.” This is all just speculation anyway.

    Ah, I see your point (and I didn’t make mine very clear). You’re saying Pyongyang could be trying to plug up Panmunjom so that those who desire to set foot in the North will have to go to Kaesŏng or KÅ­mgangsan.

    Possibly, but (and this was more to the point I was getting at) the types of tours are entirely different, such that they attract a very different clientele. There are plenty who would want to visit the DMZ but never wish to give a dime to the DPRK, and plugging up the Panmunjom tour would have zero effect on getting them north of the border.

    It is kinda cool to say that you’ve set foot in North Korea when you take the DMZ tour, but that’s a secondary part of the whole thing, which also sets it apart from the Double-Ks.

    At any rate, as I wrote above, I think this move is proaction on Pyongyang’s part related to Robert Park’s stated intent to visit the DMZ and do something there.