Defense Ministry Approves Plan to Reconstruct the DMZ Christmas Tree
|Two months ago the infamous DMZ Christmas tree was pulled down and now for whatever reason the Defense Ministry has decided to allow a Christian group to construct a new one:
A North Korean religious association slammed a South Korean Christian group’s plan to light a big Christmas tree in the Aegibong Peak Observatory in Gimpo, south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
It said Friday that the lighting is, “an act of madness and it is unacceptable.”
“The Christian Council of Korea (CCK) attempts to use religion as a means to spur confrontation between the people of the two sides. It should realize that the malicious plan could lead to a military action from the North,” the North’s association said.
The reaction came weeks after the CCK unveiled a plan to set up a big Christmas tree in the observatory and light it on Dec. 23. The tree will be dressed in Christmas lights for two weeks until Jan. 6, the group said.
The Ministry of National Defense approved the plan. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the tree is used by the ROK military as a psychological warfare weapon. The North Koreans can look across the border and see the lights of South Korea to include this Christmas tree which stands in stark contrast to the regular power outages they face in North Korea.