Category: Inter-Korean Issues

Here is what President Moon had to say on the 70th anniversary of the Korean War:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on North Korea Thursday to join a bold move to formally end the Korean War in peace overtures, coupled with a clear warning message, commemorating the conflict that started seven decades ago, with the fragile Korea peace process at stake.

“We cannot commemorate the Korean War in a genuine manner yet. That is because the War has yet to come to an end,” he said during a speech at the war anniversary event held at Seoul Air Base, a military compound just southeast of Seoul. 

He was pointing out that the three-year war finished in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, which has left the two Koreas technically at war and repeatedly facing sharp military tensions.

Moon expressed hope that the North will “boldly embark on an endeavor to end the most sorrowful war in world history.”

“If we are going to talk about unification, we have to achieve peace first, and only after peace has continued for a long time will we be able to finally see the door to unification,” he stressed, addressing the nighttime ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the war.

He reaffirmed that South Korea has no intention to force its system on the communist neighbor and emphasized the importance of building peace first.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it doesn’t matter that President Moon does not want to impose the South’s system on the North. This is because the Kim regime still wants to impose their system on South Korea. This has always been their ultimate goal. Kim Jong-un has never come out and stated otherwise. This is because the democratic system in the South is a direct ideological threat to the Kim regime and must be opposed at all costs. This will never change as long as the Kim regime remains in power in North Korea.

Here is the latest on the recent North Korean manufactured “crisis”:

North Korea was seen removing multiple propaganda loudspeakers reinstalled recently along the border with South Korea, officials said Wednesday, after leader Kim Jong-un ordered the suspension of military action plans against the South.

The North recently set up around 20 to 30 loudspeakers in border areas after threatening to take military action against what it called “the enemy” in anger over Seoul’s failure to stop defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border.

“North Korea is taking down those newly installed loudspeakers from earlier today,” a military source said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the most obvious question likely no one in the media will ask, is what did the Moon administration promise the Kim regime in return for reducing tensions?

This could be the last balloon launch for the Fighters for A Free North Korea for a while considering how the ROK government has put the clamps on their activities:

A South Korean activist group released balloons containing anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border in the dead of night on Monday, in defiance of the South Korean government’s attempts to prevent such acts amid heightened tensions with North Korea.    
   
Park Sang-hak, head of the organization Fighters for a Free North Korea, said six members of his group launched 20 balloons containing half a million leaflets, 500 books advertising the success of South Korea’s capitalist system, 2,000 one dollar bills and 1,000 memory cards across the border towards the North from a secluded location in Paju, Gyeonggi, from 11 p.m. to midnight.    
   
One of those balloons was discovered stuck on trees on the banks of a stream in Hongcheon County, Gangwon, by police Tuesday afternoon.  
   
“In order to evade [South Korean] police surveillance, I trained members unaccustomed to dispatching leaflets to send the flyers,” Park announced, before delivering a tirade condemning the Moon Jae-in administration for attempting to silence defector groups from speaking out.   
   
The Ministry of Unification, South Korea’s top inter-Korean agency, on Tuesday expressed “deep regret” at the act, and announced it was taking “serious” measures to punish the group for violating the government’s ban on leaflet distributions.    
   
“The government once again stresses clearly that it will strongly respond to the dissemination of leaflets and items towards North Korea, which raise tensions between South and North and endanger the lives and safety of local residents,” the ministry stated in a press release.  
   
The ministry spokesman raised doubts, however, about Park’s claim that his group had released 500,000 leaflets Monday night, saying that based on investigations of the amount of leaflets the group prepared beforehand and the wind conditions that night, none of the released balloons appear to have entered North Korean territory.   
   
After police confiscated the group’s hydrogen gas supplies used to fuel balloon launches in the past, the group apparently obtained only enough helium to float a single balloon — likely the one found at Hongcheon, the ministry said. The balloon that was retrieved did not contain books, dollar bills or memory cards, it added.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I remember the good old days of North Korean propaganda music on the DMZ and U.S. troops station at the JSA may get to experience it again:

North Korea is reinstalling propaganda loudspeakers in regions along the inter-Korean border after removing them under a 2018 summit agreement with South Korea, military officials said Monday.

After the summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on April 27, 2018, the two Koreas agreed to halt all hostile acts against each other and eliminate their means, including broadcasting through loudspeakers and distribution of leaflets.

According to the authorities, North Korea has been detected setting up loudspeakers again “in multiple places” inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from around Sunday. It had dismantled dozens of loudspeakers in around 40 areas near the tense border in a first action to follow up on the Panmunjom Declaration.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The difference between the propaganda leaflets war now going on is that in South Korea people would just laugh at North Korean propaganda while in North Korea, the activists that launch their propaganda balloons is a threat to state stability:

The North’s Korean Central News Agency website showed pictures of North Korean workers sorting printed propaganda flyers in piles. One of them showed pictures of President Moon Jae-in with dirty cigarette butts in a plastic bag.

“It is very regrettable that North Korea unveiled via a media outlet its plan to send massive anti-South Korea leaflets, and we demand its immediate halt,” the ministry said in a statement. 

“Such acts by North Korea are a clear violation of the inter-Korean agreement, a step that does not resolve wrong practices between the two Koreas but rather exacerbates them,” it said, stressing that it does no good for inter-Korean relations or the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. 

It also said the government has vowed to sternly deal with anti-Pyongyang leafleting by some civic groups and stepped up control near the border towns to crack down on the activities.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is something that very visible, but at the same time no cost to North Korea to do:

North Korea blew up the inter-Korean joint liaison office in its border town of Kaesong on Tuesday, sharply escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula after near-daily threats to punish Seoul over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets.

The surprise explosion sparked concern that the communist nation could put other threats against the South into action, including taking military action and moving troops to border regions disarmed under inter-Korean agreements.

South Korea expressed “strong regret” and warned the North not to aggravate the situation.

“The destruction … is an act that breaches the hope of all people wishing for the development of inter-Korean relations and a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Cheong Wa Dae said in a statement after an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.

“The government makes clear that all responsibility caused by this rests totally with the North Korean side,” he said. “We sternly warn that if North Korea takes steps further aggravating the situation, we will respond strongly to it.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Kim regime has no fear that the Blue House “will respond strongly to it” and that is part of the problem. The Kim regime expects a Hans Blix style response.

The Kim regime will likely next occupy all the DMZ outposts they vacated two years ago. This will force the ROK Army to reoccupy their outposts, but they blew them up and would have to rebuild them all. By the way does anyone still think the shots fired last month by North Korea at a ROK DMZ guard post was still unintentional as the Moon administration has been claiming? This is all part of the usual provocation patterns used by the Kim regime for decades to extract the concessions they want from South Korea.

In this case it is to defy international sanctions and move forward with the cross-border projects they want the ROK to fund. It also appears they are using this provocation cycle to build up Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong’s standing within the regime since she has been the main spokesperson so far.

I guess we will see how effective President Moon is appealing to North Korea to be nice:

President Moon Jae-in called Monday on North Korea to leave the door for dialogue open, emphasizing the need for the two Koreas to build mutual trust based on the spirit of the 2000 historic summit accord.

“To North Korea, I request that it not close the window of dialogue,” he said in a video message for an official event to commemorate the first-ever summit between the leaders of the two Koreas. The ceremony was held at Odusan Unification Observatory in Paju, just south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). 

In a symbolic move, Moon appeared in the video wearing a blue tie that South Korea’s late president Kim Dae-jung wore two decades ago when he signed the June 15 Joint Declaration with then-North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, father of the current leader Kim Jong-un, after their summit talks in Pyongyang.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear that the Kim regime is just putting pressure on the Moon administration to see how much concessions they can extract out of him:

North Korea’s decision to sever all official communication channels with South Korea is further weighing on President Moon Jae-in, who was already frustrated by Pyongyang’s lack of response to his inter-Korean peace initiative.

Experts advise Seoul to take a “timeout” from repeatedly offering something to engage the Kim Jong-un regime, while bracing for any possible fallout from increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula.

On Tuesday, the North cut off all cross-border communication lines, including the hotline between Moon and Kim, due to its apparent anger over the South’s “failure” to prevent North Korean defectors and activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border tethered to balloons. In addition, the North said “the work toward the South should thoroughly turn into the one against an enemy.”

At the start of the year, the Moon administration emphasized the importance of inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation. In March, the President offered cross-border healthcare cooperation and made another proposal last month to deal with inter-Korean projects that could be carried out separately from the North’s denuclearization negotiations with the United States. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but what does the Kim regime have to lose by playing hard to get? They know the Moon administration will bend over backwards to accommodate them thus they will keep the pressure on them to maximize concessions.