Mike Bassett raises questions about ongoing propaganda campaigns against North Korea http://t.co/XUbwWRW1pV pic.twitter.com/dbMZTPBT3F
— The Korea Observer (@koreaobserver) September 12, 2015
Here is an interesting analysis by a North Korean defectors on how the Kim regime is using propaganda to influence their domestic audience that the recent provocation cycle was a success. Also of note is how the defectors believe that the ROK propaganda speakers were of great concern to the Kim regime:
One of the most notable aspects about the joint statement issued by South and North Korea is that Pyongyang expressed regret over the land mine incident that maimed two South Korean soldiers. It’s not unprecedented, but it’s certainly not common for the North to do so. Today we sat down with our reporters Choi Song Min and Kang Mi Jin, who both are from North Korea, to get some more insight about the matter.
My first question goes to Choi Song Min. Pyongyang has failed to apologize for its many previous provocations in the past. Why do you think it took such a different path this time?
CHOI: It’s because the loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts on the border can do much more harm to Kim Jong Un’s leadership than any other weapons of mass destruction. Just as Kim Jong Il said, ‘You may not be able to gain surrender with bullets and shells, but propaganda broadcasts can change the hearts of ten million.’ He himself knows just how powerful broadcasts can be. It’s because it exposes the many atrocities committed over the three-generation leadership, and it could lead to discontent and resistance against the current leader.
In expressing its regret, Pyongyang specifically referred to itself as ‘the North’. By doing so, it in some ways claimed responsibility — completely different from the many times in the past when it denied its involvement. How are we to interpret this action?
KANG: That’s right. Just until a few days ago, the North was out with its ambassador to the UN, its General Reconnaissance Bureau chief Kim Yong Chol, and its diplomats all over the world to publicly deny its involvement in the land mine incident that occurred on the southern side of the demilitarized zone. Having been so stubborn about this matter but then going along to express its regret over it and admitting to it is akin to bowing in front of the world.
What I think is more interesting is not the use of the word ‘the North’ but the word ‘regret’, which even to the smallest extent expresses its acknowledgement of wrongdoing. As mentioned earlier, in the past, North Korea has always denied its involvement, so for it to express regret shows just how desperate it was to get those loudspeakers to stop, as they could play a role in changing people’s perceptions.
The joint statement was also made public to people in the North through state-run media. What do you think people there are making of this?
CHOI: Based on the fact that the North’s media reported on the joint statement very quickly, it’s very likely it has branded this whole incident as one of ‘Kim Jong Un’s great achievements’ and a ‘grand victory in a fight against the South’. It will play it up through public lectures and broadcast propaganda and paint it as a victory ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Party Foundation. Casting aside its regret over the land mine victory, it will promote the fact that the South halted propaganda broadcasts and agreed to hold reunions for separated families. But, North Koreans all know the typical methods used by Pyongyang, so they will have a bitter smile for themselves. [Daily NK]
You can read more at the link.
Not much really since the ROK is trying to balance showing action to their domestic audience and not broadcasting things that would upset the Kim regime to where it would make it very difficult for them to deescalate. The propaganda speakers are also a bargaining chip because the ROK right now is broadcasting little propaganda, but could threaten to broadcast more if things do not deescalate:
The loudspeakers that the military is using consist of 40 or so high-output 500 watt digital speakers that are around 4m by 3m in size. During the day, the broadcasts can be heard more than 10km away in the Kaesong Industrial Complex. At night, the sound carries as far as 24km. At the moment, the messages are broadcast intermittently. North Korea also began broadcasting propaganda into South Korea on Aug. 17. Since North Korea is using antiquated analogue loudspeakers, its broadcasts are reportedly hard to even understand in South Korea. The broadcasts that the South Korean military is sending into North Korea typically are not very political, focusing more on news in North and South Korea, world affairs, and the weather. One female defector from North Korea also takes part in the broadcasts, telling the story of how she defected and talking about her life in South Korea. But the fact that South Korea could use the broadcasts to criticize the North Korean regime if it so chose appears to be putting pressure on North Korea. [Hankyoreh]
You can read more at the link.
You know the propaganda balloon campaign continues to be effective when the group continues to get this kind of reaction from the Kim regime:
North Korea threatened to attack South Korean activists, Monday, for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the inter-Korean border.
The threat by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) came three days after a conservative civic group flew about 10,000 leaflets to the North from Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, located close to the border.
The leaflets featured an “execution list after Korean unification” that included North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the North’s party officials and military brass, along with Kim’s wife, Ri Sol-ju.
“We regard the leaflet distribution as an apparent act of war and are running out of patience with it. Such a small action can lead to the destruction of the group,” the CPRK said.
“The leaflets carry unacceptable and offensive crap. It is another military provocation.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but these balloon launches are one of the few ways that the South Koreans are able to get through the information blockade that insulates much of the interior of North Korea. The border area have long been the source of the majority of the refugees due to the proximity of the border and the fact that outside information from China is available via radio and cell phone towers.
You have to hand it to the North Korean propagandists for finding new ways to bush the US:
You’ve probably seen Riley. He’s a dog who got internet-famous for looking super stoned at his birthday party. He’s a funny little pup. But the North Koreans aren’t laughing. They recently showed the image on state TV to prove just how decadent American culture is.
As the Guardian explains:
KCTV commentator Lee Chung-song claimed in the clip that American billionaires are buying $15,000 dog collars for their pets, paying for dog hotels and spas or even hosting expensive birthday parties for their canines, such as the one enjoyed by Riley, while many homeless people are forced to live in boxes, he said.
You can read the rest at this Gizmodo link.
This should come as no surprise that the man who slashed US Ambassador Mark Lippert was a radical leftist inspired by North Korean propaganda:
The South Korean man who slashed the top U.S. envoy to Seoul earlier this year committed the crime after being influenced by North Korea’s propaganda, police said Tuesday.
Kim Ki-jong attacked Mark Lippert with a knife at a breakfast function at a cultural center in central Seoul on March 5, leaving the US ambassador with deep gashes on his face and arm that needed more than 80 stitches to close.
Prosecutors have charged Kim with attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction.
On Tuesday, police brought an additional charge of violating South Korea’s National Security Law that prohibits citizens from supporting or praising North Korea.
Police said Kim’s alleged attempt to kill Lippert was inspired by North Korea’s propaganda that incited the killing of the U.S. envoy.
North Korea has hailed Kim as a hero, comparing him to Ahn Joong-keun, a renowned anti-Japanese independence fighter revered in both Koreas. Still, North Korea has disavowed its involvement in the attack, which South Korean officials called “an act of terrorism.”
Police also said books and other materials confiscated from Kim’s home support North Korea’s strategy of communizing South Korea.
In April, he told the first session of his pretrial at a court that he did not try to murder the ambassador and that he was proud he reduced the annual South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises by one day. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link.
The findings of bullying in the military is not surprising, but criticizing South Korea for limiting the political activity in the classrooms by their teachers? Does the State Department believe that South Korean teachers should have the right to teach pro-North Korean and anti-US propaganda to their students?:
An annual human rights report released on June 25 by the US State Department cited violence in the military and restrictions on political involvement by government employees and teachers as problem areas for South Korea. The department’s Human Rights Report for South Korea rated it as a country that generally respects human rights, but included the two new areas in addition to previous concerns about the National Security Law. “The primary human rights problems reported were government interpretation of the National Security Law, libel laws, and other laws to limit freedom of speech and expression and restrict access to the internet; the continued jailing of conscientious objectors to military service; and bullying and hazing [of new recruits] in the military,” the executive summary read. The mention of bullying and hazing in the military appears to be a reference to incidences such as the death of a private first class surnamed Yun in Apr. 2014.
“During the first half of the year, the Ministry of National Defense reported 37 suicides among military personnel, generally attributed to bullying, hazing, or inability to adjust to military life,” the report said. In regard to punishment in libel cases, the report mentioned the indictment of former New Politics Alliance for Democracy floor leader Park Jie-won after allegations that President Park Geun-hye used a “non-official system” to choose appointees. In terms of press freedoms, the report mentions the indictment of the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun’s Seoul bureau chief for defamation over allegations about President Park’s whereabouts during the Apr. 2014 Sewol ferry sinking. While the State Department’s 2013 report had only mentioned restrictions on labor rights and interference with striking rights as problem areas, the latest report notes that “[r]estrictions on workers’ rights, including freedom of association and assembly and limitations on political engagement of public servants and teachers, were also problematic.” [Hankyoreh]
You can read the rest at the link.
It seems that North Korea is very serious about stopping the Fighters for A Free North Korea from releasing balloons with copies of “The Interview” on it:
North Korea on Sunday renewed its threats against a South Korean civic group’s plan to send anti-Pyongyang fliers across the border via balloon, warning it will use “all the firepower strike means” to destroy them.
The message, posted as an open notice by the frontline units of the North’s Korean People’s Army (KPA), came about a week after a leading activist in Seoul reaffirmed his intent to scatter materials criticizing the communist regime across the border around March 26.
The date marks the 5th anniversary of Pyongyang’s torpedoing of the South Korean corvette Cheonan.
Park Sang-hak, head of the activist group, said earlier this month he and other North Korean defectors would release balloons holding 500,000 leaflets, as well as DVDs of the U.S. film “The Interview,” a comedy depicting a fictitious assassination of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un.
According to the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the KPA’s open notice said the campaign “deliberately (escalates) tension on the Korean peninsula where the situation has reached the brink of war” on top of the annual Seoul-Washington military drills that kicked off March 2.
Should the campaign be carried out, the North’s frontline army will “blow up” the balloons with “all the firepower strike means,” it said, adding that any countermeasures will “entail double and treble merciless retaliatory strikes.”
In October the two Koreas exchanged gunfire after the North attempted to shoot down balloons carrying similar leaflets. South Korea suffered no casualties or property damage. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but the group should just secretly fly the balloons across the border so the North Koreans do not have a chance to retaliate against them if they are dead set on doing this.
There is no place in the classroom for teaching pro-North Korean propaganda and hopefully this teachers were all fired from their jobs:
Four teachers received suspended jail terms Friday after a Seoul court found them guilty of engaging in pro-North Korea activities.
The four, who are part of a progressive teachers’ union, were indicted in February 2013 on charges of holding two lectures endorsing North Korean ideals from January 2008 to May 2009. The lectures, prosecutors said, took place in front of prospective teachers and fellow members of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union, the country’s second-largest teachers’ union.
The four were also charged with the possession of original North Korean texts and the distribution of excerpts from a memoir by North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in violation of the National Security Law.
The law bans any activities meant to praise, promote or propagandize North Korean ideals.
The Seoul Central District Court found them guilty of these charges and gave them 18-month sentences with a two-year stay of execution.
“The court finds them guilty of possessing documents that praise North Korea’s ‘songun’ and ‘juche’ ideologies,” Judge Cho Yong-hyeon said in a ruling, referring to the North’s military-first and self-reliance philosophies. “It is inappropriate for South Korean citizens, let alone teachers, to have such documents in their possession.” [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but for those that don’t know the Korea Teachers’ Union has been filled with North Korean propagandists and sympathizers for years.
This isn’t the first or will be the last of the assassination threats that North Korea has made against balloon activist Park Sang-hak:
North Korea issued a death threat against a defector-turned-activist after he announced a plan to send copies of a satirical Hollywood film about a plot to kill Kim Jong-un into North Korea.
The South Korean government said Thursday it will take necessary measures to protect its citizens.
Last week, Park Sang-hak, who heads the Fighters for a Free North Korea, said he planned to send 100,000 DVDs and USB memory sticks containing the movie “The Interview” via balloons across the border into North Korea to destroy the personality cult build around Kim Jong-un.
He said the Sony Pictures’ movie will have Korean subtitles and he will start sending the balloons as early as late January.
According to the Ministry of Unification, the North aired an ultimatum against Park on Wednesday. Using extremely cruel language, the North’s Pyongyang Broadcasting Station said Park must “go to hell.”
It promised to “bleed him out and gut his intestines.”
“In order to end this tragic reality of national division forced upon our people and homeland by outside forces, we must ruthlessly eliminate those maniacs who encourage inter-Korean confrontations,” the broadcast said. “And the Korean people select Park as the first target.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but hopefully Park Sang-hak has taken the appropriate security measures to protect himself from North Korean assassins. Back in 2011 a North Korean assassin was arrested before he could carry out his plot to kill Park with poison needles.
