Asia Times: Goodwill to all mankind? Not in North Korea


	December 19, 2001	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH
Goodwill to all mankind? Not in North Korea
By Aidan Foster-Carter

Peace on Earth, goodwill to all mankind. Few would demur from this seasonal sentiment. All the world's great religions preach some such message - including of course Islam, properly understood. Most of us will echo a louder amen this year, given recent and current events. Peace and goodwill: we sure need 'em.

Not everyone agrees. The likes of Osama bin Laden, and in my view Ariel Sharon, would rather foment hate and wage jihad. And so, if rhetoric is anything to go by, would North Korea. Anyone coming across Pyongyang propaganda for the first time would think war was imminent, if not already under way. Even at the best of times, North Korean media maintain a level and tone of belligerence that is unique. They seem to know only one tune, which is seriously angry - and they play it for all it's worth, all the time.

Take for example the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the official organization whose job is to report North Korea and convey its views to the wider world. Since the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) doesn't yet deign to have its own Web presence, the Japan-based Korean News Service publishes a daily digest in English (with a few items in Spanish) at http://www.kcna.co.jp. I don't know whether the selection of items is made in Pyongyang or Tokyo. But either way, the comrades might care to ponder the kind of image they create.

Case in point: December 12. KCNA's English "news" for that day contains eight items. One, which has no actual news story, describes Anguk temple ("used for the propaganda of Buddhism"). Another reports the appointment of a new ambassador to Bulgaria. Both of these are tacked on at the end, after the real business of KCNA - which is evidently to give all North Korea's many enemies a good tongue-lashing. The lead item is headlined: "US denounced for suppressing Jeju uprising". (Interesting that KCNA uses the controversial new official ROK Romanization, rather than the more familiar Cheju.) South Korea's holiday island has indeed been in the news recently. Many have praised its beautiful new soccer stadium, where on December 10 the home team beat the United States in a friendly warm-up match for next year's World Cup.

North Korea doesn't do friendly. For Pyongyang, the big news on Cheju concerns 1948, when an uprising was brutally suppressed. That's true, and US advisers were present. So there is a story. But the claim that "the US military government commanded the massacre" is not true. Not that truth is the point. KCNA cites a supposed body, oddly named "the solidarity [sic] for the implementation of the South-North joint declaration" as declaiming: "GIs have killed so many innocent Koreans ... All the Koreans in the South, the North and overseas will pool their strength to force the US to pay for its bestial atrocities and drive GIs out of Korea without fail."

Having thus disposed of the Yankee devils, KCNA turns on the nasty neighbors. Three separate items denounce Tokyo for allegedly persecuting Chongryon, the association of pro-North Korean residents in Japan. Again there is a story, and at least this time it's current. Japanese police probing alleged fraud in Korean credit unions have raided Chongryon's headquarters for the first time ever, which politically is a big step. The charge is that ghost accounts and fraudulent loans were used to siphon funds secretly to Pyongyang.

How dare they? The party paper Rodong Sinmun pulls all the stops out: "fascist political suppression ... unpardonable plot to undermine Chongryon ... serious infringement on the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK ... will only add to the crimes Japan has already committed against the Korean people". And then the threat: "Japan will have to own full responsibility for the grave consequences." You'd never guess from all this bluster either that one accused has semi-confessed, or that Korean credit unions had earlier received a cool US$4 billion in bailouts from Tokyo. Nor is there any recognition that Japanese might fairly worry that, as one MP put it, "we pay them money and we get Taepodong missiles as a receipt".

Meanwhile, the Socialist Youth League (SYL) weighs in on another issue: old claims that 20 years ago North Korean agents kidnapped several Japanese. Once again, the preferred form of defense is counter-attack. The SYL calls this "racket" a "cover-up [and] a pretext for overseas aggression". And it warns: "If the Japanese reactionaries persistently pursue the hostile policy toward the DPRK, the 5 million Korean youth will become human bombs and missiles to destroy the bulwark of Japanese militarism." A tad over the top, no? Exploding with wrath is easy, but I doubt if the real thing a la Hamas is a preferred career path for most of the 5 million. So there's a credibility issue, as much as tact or taste. Ditto when Rodong Sinmun warns the US, again, that "if any enemy comes in attack on the DPRK, its army will not allow him to go back alive". You can just hear the Texan riposte: Oh yeah? You and who else, buster?

There's a dog in my street. It barks at anything and everything. If you walk past, it barks even louder and lunges at you. (Luckily it's behind a fence, and on a chain.) If you try to be friendly, it bares its teeth. Yet when you give up and walk on by, the barking tails off, and it looks almost wistful. Maybe it just wants attention, even affection. Naturally, we're all fed up with it. One sad loud dog - but actually not so big. If it ever got the fight it stupidly spoils for, it'd sure be sorry. So, as I was saying: peace on Earth, goodwill - yea, even unto yappy little curs. But just shut it, okay? Or try a little tenderness. It might work wonders.

((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact ads@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)