Skip to main content

I (still) Believe North Korea...

From the CJL archives, c. 1997.


I Believe! by Casey J. Lartigue Jr.

A resident of Songnam City, Pundang, Korea

I believe North Korea when it says that South Korea started the Korean war in 1950. I didn't believe Boris Yeltsin when he released secret documents revealing that North Korea started the Korean war.

I believe North Korea didn't send 31 commandos into Seoul in 1968 to kill Park Chung Hee. I believe North Korea didn't send another 130 guerrillas onto the East Coast area of Uljin and Samchok later that year. Or June 1969 when it didn't send armed agents into Huksan. Or April 1970 into Hukchon.

I believe the assassin who killed the South Korean first lady in 1974 wasn't a North Korean agent. I believe several North Korean agents didn't cross the border in October 1979. I believe the Earth moved and they only appeared to be in South Korea. I believe that three North Korean agents shot near the Han River in March 1980 were just out for a swim. I believe that North Korean agents shot to death in November 1980 in Hwenggando got lost while hiking.
I believe that three North Korean agents shot to death in Namhae a few months later were part of a search party looking for those lost hikers. I believe that three agents who infiltrated into Kumhwa in March 1981 were sleep walking.

I believe that it is routine for North Korean agents to go to sleep in North Korea and magically wake up in South Korea the next morning, fully armed with grenades, a machine gun and dreams of reunification.

I believed the North Koreans when they said they weren't digging tunnels underground in the 1970s. I didn't believe the South Koreans when they showed the pictures of the tunnels to the world. I believe the mob of North Koreans who chopped up two U.S. army officers in 1976 did it in self-defense. I believe nine North Korean agents shot to death after their boat sank off the coast of Susan in 1981 were lost fishermen. I believe that North Korean agents shot to death near the Imjin River in July 1981 and June 1983 were wayward scuba divers. I believe the North Korea agents spotted along South Korea's east coast in 1982 were tourists.

I believe the North Koreans didn't set off the bomb killing South Korean government officials in Rangoon in 1983. I believe that the alleged North Korean agent who killed three South Korean civilians in September 1984 was a South Korean decoy. I believe that Kim Hyun-Hee, who helped blow up a South Korean plane in 1987 (killing all 115 on board), wasn't a North Korean agent. If she was, technically speaking, a North Korean agent, I believe she honestly forgot to take her bomb off the plane.

I believe that North Korean agents shot to death in May 1992 (three along the West Coast) and October 1995 (two in Puyo) were bringing reunification messages. Or messages of apology about the terrorist plane bombing. Or were lost. Or whatever the North Korean government says they were doing.

I believe that it is the responsibility of people who have never been to North Korea to feed starving North Koreans. I believe North Koreans want peace, and that the imperialists and puppets from the U.S., Japan and South Korea who are feeding starving North Koreans want war.

I believe that defectors from North Korea are "rats," "criminals," and "cowards." I believe that North Korea is a worker's paradise and that only rats, criminals and cowards would voluntarily leave. I believe that if North Korea opened the border that only rats, criminals and cowards would leave. I believe the North Koreans are trying to protect the South Koreans from those rats, criminals and cowards.

I believe that reports of North Korean soldiers illegally entering the DMZ is South Korean propaganda to justify increased military. I believe that the North Korean government official who threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of flames" was misquoted. I believe he meant to say a "sea of happiness." Or a "sea of love." He was misquoted in his own life story. His words were mistranslated from the Korean language into the Korean language. He wasn't there. He was having an off-day.

I believed North Korea when it said that one of its submarines, while on a "routine mission" in September 1996, "drifted" to the South because of "engine trouble." I didn't believe North Korea when it threatened to retaliate against Seoul "a hundred and a thousand times" for killing most of the submarine's 26 agents who had fled months later when its spokesmen of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed "deep regret" for the submarine incident.

I believed North Korea two days later when it blamed Seoul for the submarine incident. I believed North Korea when it said it would try to prevent future incidents. I believed that it couldn't prevent such incidents because North Korean subs naturally drift to the South when they have engine trouble. I believe the South uses a large magnet to attract North Korean subs.
I believed North Korea last month when it said that its submarine "drifted" into South Korean waters after it experienced "engine trouble." I believe the South Koreans were responsible for the nine crewmen committing suicide. I believe the dead man discovered washed up on a beach wearing North Korean clothing and armed with North Korean weapons wasn't a North Korean agent.

I believe all of this because I don't believe that North Korea actually exists. I believe that North Korea is a figment of South Korean imaginations. I believe that Boris Yeltsin has the secret documents to prove it.

CJL
Linked by NetRightNation
One of Kim Il-Sung's mentors

Popular posts from this blog

Rich talking back

The rich are talked about very often in negative terms, but how often do the rich respond in kind? Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, who inherited most of her money but apparently has also done very well with it, recently railed against class warfare and had some advice for the non-rich : "There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," she writes. "If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself - spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing and more time working."   She complained about politicians raising taxes, regulations that slow investment, and other anti-business policies that harm the poor. "If you want to help the poor and our next generation, make investment, reinvenstment and businesses welcome."
Read more

Get rid of that watermelon!

Part 1: When I was a youngster I used to collect Confederate money, posters and photographs with caricatures of blacks, and "No blacks allowed signs." I loved the money because it was a reminder of how far the sorry Confederacy had fallen. I had one poster of a dark-skinned black boy munching on a watermelon. I would look at that small poster and wonder, "What in the world is wrong with anyone wanting to eat watermelon?" Yes, white people, I'm talking to you. Your parents, grandparents, and other ancestors who thought making fun of blacks for eating watermelon were crazy ! Even people who say that nothing has changed in race relations must acknowledge that the many stereotypes of blacks are no longer prevalent. But then, there are also some ready to remind us of days-gone-by by debunking stuff that doesn't need to be debunked today. According to the Washington Post: The sound you just heard was yet another racial stereotype going kersplat ! Some ...
Read more

Why I won't go to North Korea (Korea Times, December 27, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. “Have you ever been to North Korea?” This is the question I am almost always asked here in South Korea when people learn that I have become an activist for North Korean escapees. My response is curt: “No.” “Do you plan on going?” they ask next. My answer remains the same: “No.” When they start to ask a follow-up question, I cut them off: "No." People are often just trying to make conversation, I know, but I am blunt for a reason: I am not interested in going to North Korea as long as North Koreans are held captive. I could go one day, but for now, I can do without a government-guided tour by " men-stealers and women-whippers ," to borrow a phrase from American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. I don’t mean to criticize people who have gone to North Korea for political, educational, business, religious reasons or just plain curiosity. However, some people push me on the issue, ― and I push back. A good friend wh...
Read more

Last weekend: Suicide, Kim Young Ha, NK

Credit: Joanne Cho Event 1: Friday night I went to a talk given by Fulbright junior researcher Joanne Cho. She did a great job putting together statistics about some of the most commonly cited reasons that so many Koreans commit suicide. Probably the most provocative tidbit: Cho watched 86 dramas from the spring of 2012 to now, she says that 63 had "scenes depicting or discussing suicide" in a favorable light (as a way to solve problems, that troubled people can be forgiven for their sins and are even seen as sympathetic).  Another interesting tidbit: While it is often cited that Korea is number one in the world in suicide (among countries reporting reliable statistics), what I had not realized or had forgotten is that Korean men are number 8 in the world compared to men in other countries with reliable statistics, Korean women are #1 in the world when compared to women in other countries. My questions for the speaker: 1) What was a finding in your research th...
Read more

Common Sense on North Korea (Korea Times, April 2, 2012)

By Casey Lartigue, Jr. As interesting as Kookmin University professor Andrei Lankov’s writings are, there is nothing quite like attending one of his lectures. He can barely restrain himself behind the podium, often pointing and waving his arms. I also enjoy his unscripted speeches, but his answers in Q&A sessions are like the difference between watching Michael Jordan shoot baskets in warm-ups and an actual game. I have finally discovered the secret behind Lankov’s consistently solid analysis about North Korea: Use common sense. At an Asan Institute conference last summer, he argued that North Korea watchers should try to understand North Korea from its perspective. Don’t most people know that you must understand the mindset of others you are dealing with? Yet, common sense in theory gets ignored politically. From the North Korean perspective, nuclear weapons are the best thing they’ve got going. They will NOT give them up easily, even if President Obama ...
Read more