Begin forwarded message:
> From: Doug Murray <doug@...>
> Date: Tue Sep 23, 2003 10:06:13 PM America/Vancouver
> To: boundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: IBRG <IBRG@...>
> Subject: DMZ
>
>
> For those of you who missed or couldn't see the CNN documentary on the
> DMZ (like me), there is more! One of Canada's national papers, The
> Globe and Mail, has been running a series on North Korea.
>
> Today they had an article about the border. Online, it is at:
> http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20030923/
> UKOREQQ/TPInternational/TopStories
>
> or
>
> http://tinyurl.com/oghg
>
> And here is the text:
>
> Korean still dangerous flashpoint
>
> Tension increases in world's most heavily militarized zone, writes
> GEOFFREY YORK
> UPDATED AT 1:05 AM EDT Tuesday, Sep. 23, 2003
>
> PANMUNJOM, NORTH KOREA -- As they gaze across the border at their
> American enemies, the North Koreans make jokes about the obesity of
> the U.S. soldiers.
>
> But they also issue a grave warning.
>
> They say that the world's most heavily militarized region is becoming
> more dangerous than ever.
>
> The confrontation line between North and South Korea is the last
> frontier of the Cold War, with more than 1.2 million troops --
> including 37,000 Americans -- within striking range of each other. And
> now there is the nuclear factor.
>
> "The United States is making excuses to invade us," a pistol-packing
> military officer at the border said.
>
> "They say we have nuclear weapons."
>
> He won't comment on the nuclear allegation (although his government in
> Pyongyang has boasted of its nuclear capacity). He does confirm,
> however, that tensions are rising along the border, with gunfire
> exchanged across the Korean War ceasefire line this summer. He says
> the South Koreans sparked the exchange by firing an unprovoked shot.
> The South Koreans say the first shot came from the North.
>
> The peninsula already has the world's greatest concentration of troops
> and heavy armaments. The vast majority of the 1.8 million soldiers in
> the two opposing armies are within 100 kilometres of the border.
>
> North Korea now very likely possesses as many as six nuclear weapons,
> according to U.S. reports, and its nuclear program could produce
> dozens more warheads in the next few years. Last month it threatened
> to test a nuclear weapon, a step that would probably trigger a U.S.
> response.
>
> The United States, meanwhile, heightened the tensions by announcing an
> $11-billion (U.S.) upgrade of its armed forces in South Korea,
> including the installation of a new state-of-the-art Patriot
> missile-defence system last week. It also spearheaded a multinational
> military exercise this month to practise intercepting North Korean
> ships at sea.
>
> Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter warned this weekend that the Korean
> nuclear crisis is the biggest threat to peace in the world today.
>
> He said that some of the latest U.S. actions, including its
> missile-defence deployment and its military exercises, have given
> North Korea a legitimate reason to fear a pre-emptive invasion,
> similar to the U.S. attack on Iraq.
>
> North Korea's expectations of war have been mounting ever since U.S.
> President George W. Bush branded it part of the "axis of evil."
> Generations have been indoctrinated with an anti-American hatred, and
> now the hatred is being whipped up to new heights.
>
> In cities across North Korea, propaganda signs portray the United
> States as a loathsome foe. A billboard in Pyongyang shows U.S.
> missiles and soldiers being crushed by a giant North Korean hand. A
> billboard in the port city of Wonsan shows a North Korean boxer
> knocking out a U.S. soldier.
>
> In shops, history books are emblazoned with the phrase: "Wipe out the
> U.S. imperialist aggressors, the sworn enemy of the Korean people!"
> Every issue of the weekly Pyongyang Times contains articles denouncing
> the United States as a nation of sinister plotters and brutal war
> criminals. Newly published books accuse the United States of being
> "the empire of terrorism."
>
> Even the thousands of children who attend the Pyongyang circus are
> indoctrinated with the same message. In the clown act at the circus, a
> drunken U.S. soldier -- a clown in a blond wig -- is the buffoon for a
> shrewd Korean clown who repeatedly kicks him from behind.
>
> At the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang,
> visitors are always taken to the Hall of American Atrocities, a
> gruesome display of photos showing massacres, beheadings, torture,
> germ warfare and other alleged U.S. war crimes from the 1950-53 Korean
> conflict. One display case contains a variety of knives, bats, swords
> and other weapons allegedly used by Americans to torture and kill
> Koreans. A guide explains that the Americans are "cruel beasts with
> two legs."
>
> To show that the U.S. military can be defeated, the museum includes a
> large collection of captured U.S. flags, rifles, tanks and artillery
> guns from the Korean War, along with a huge photo of a grieving U.S.
> general gazing at a vast field of graves at a war cemetery. The museum
> also displays the remains of a U.S. warplane, shot down "while it was
> bombing schools and hospitals." Wartime allies of the United States,
> including Canada, are described as nothing more than U.S. > "satellites."
>
> In another constant reminder of the enemy's tactics, the USS Pueblo --
> a U.S. spy ship captured in international waters in 1968 -- is
> permanently displayed at a dock on the Taedong River in Pyongyang.
>
> At a museum in the border zone, visitors are told that the United
> States was the first to provoke the war in 1950, and the first to seek
> a ceasefire a year later. The same photo of a grieving U.S. general is
> displayed there too.
>
> This ceaseless anti-American message helps North Korea justify its
> "army first" policy, which gives highest priority to its military in
> all matters. More than 30 per cent of its GDP is devoted to the
> military -- the highest percentage in the world. In addition to its
> million active soldiers, its army includes about 3,500 battle tanks,
> more than 10,000 heavy artillery pieces, and about five million
> reservists.
>
> Travelling across North Korea confirms that it is still the world's
> most heavily militarized country. The country appears to be in a
> constant state of alert. There are electrified fences at the border
> and along the beaches on the sea coasts, as if the Americans might
> come storming ashore at any moment.
>
> The Pyongyang subway system is essentially a huge network of bomb
> shelters, with most stations at least 100 metres below the surface.
>
> Every village reportedly has a bomb shelter. Massive tank barricades
> -- 12-metre-high concrete towers that can be toppled onto the road to
> block tanks -- have been erected at regular intervals along every
> highway.
>
> Road tunnels are often guarded by soldiers.
>
> War movies are favourite fare on television, and even children's
> cartoons are based on war stories. Armed soldiers and other military
> icons are constantly shown on billboards and on television during
> songs and concerts.
>
> One of the most common images on television shows an alert soldier
> peering into the sky with binoculars at sunset, watching for
> attackers, with anti-aircraft guns pointing upward behind him.
>
> North Korea's dictators, Kim Jong-il and his late father Kim Il-sung,
> have always viewed the history of the past two centuries as proof that
> a powerful army is essential for national survival.
>
> The Opium Wars in China, the Japanese colonial era in Korea, the fall
> of the Soviet bloc and the latest Iraq war are all seen as strong
> evidence that a nation without a mighty army will be swiftly overrun
> by foreigners.
>
> The military -- and its nuclear arsenal -- are seen as crucial to the
> country's fate.
>
> "The fact that the armed forces wavered when socialism in Eastern
> Europe was collapsing emphasizes the importance of a correct solution
> to the military question in advancing the socialist cause," states a
> book published in Pyongyang last year on military policy.
>
> "Kim Jong-il regards military affairs as the most important of all
> state affairs," the book adds. "Priority must be given to
> strengthening the armed forces."
>
> Under a 1998 constitutional amendment, the military was further
> upgraded and the chairman of the National Defence Commission -- the
> position held by Kim Jong-il -- became the highest-ranking post. The
> army-first policy meant that "the rifle stands above the hammer and
> sickle," the leader said. "We can live without cake or candy, but we
> cannot live without weapons and bullets."
>
> Propaganda photos often show Kim Jong-il doing "ceaseless inspections"
> of his military units, giving "on-the-spot encouragement" to the
> troops. He is said to have travelled 48,000 kilometres to inspect 430
> military units in the second half of the 1990s alone.
>
> North Korea says its army is "invincible." Each soldier is told that
> he must be the equivalent of a hundred enemy soldiers. Each soldier is
> taught that his greatest honor is to sacrifice his life for his
> country.
>
> Because of the army-first policy, the economy has been badly distorted
> to serve military needs. Heavy industry, for example, has drained
> resources away from other sectors, including consumer goods and the
> service sector, since heavy industry serves the defence sector.
>
> This, in turn, has left the regime dependent on the defence industry
> for many of its own economic needs.
>
> Missile sales, for example, are one of the few remaining sources of
> hard-currency export revenue for the government.
>
> And military labour has become crucial to the economy. Manual labour
> by hundreds of thousands of soldiers, in factories and dams and farm
> fields, has become essential for staving off the further collapse of
> the economy.
>
> Inside North Korea
>
> SATURDAY:
> People's paradise lost
>
> YESTERDAY:
> Kitsch, lies and propaganda
>
> © 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
>
>
> Doug Murray Productions - Border Films
> CBC POV Sports - CBC Infomatrix
> 1211 Cotton Drive
> Vancouver BC Canada
> 1.604.728.1407
>
Doug Murray Productions - Border Films
CBC POV Sports - CBC Infomatrix
1211 Cotton Drive
Vancouver BC Canada
1.604.728.1407