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

Random photos from today

I went walking around today. Whereas some people like to go walking in the mountains, I enjoy walking around in the city. Well, not D.C. or other cities with many homeless, crazy and/or armed people walking around... * * * Here's where I had lunch today. About $1.90 for a hamburger hamberger.   * * * Ha-ha! Bet you never would have guessed that Batman is a drinking place in Korea! * * * Man Clinic? The Koreans walking by seemed to be very curious about why I was taking a photo of a "Man Clinic." They may know something I don't know...Actually, I wasn't curious enough to go in and find out what it was... * * * Right down the street from the Man Clinic...there's a Love Shop! I love the euphemism. "Love Shop" sounds much better than Sex Shop. I'm guessing that if you don't go to the "Love Shop" to buy condoms that you may need to visit the Man Clinic a short time later? * * * Nobo

Teach North Korean Refugees Project

  On November 1, we will be holding the 20th "Teach North Korean Refugees Project" session. The project launched in March 2013 when Casey Lartigue Jr. and Lee Eunkoo matched 5 North Korean refugees who were teachers in North Korea with 5 English speaking volunteers. The refugees wanted to improve their English in order to improve their chances to become teachers in South Korea. We met at a Toz in Gangnam, matching them. We have directly matched at least 117 NK refugees and 8 South Koreans who assist NK refugees with 164 English speaking volunteers. We have since hosted numerous sessions with a number of themes matching NK refugees with volunteer English speakers: * Staff at NGOs helping NK refugees (to help refugees working at NGOs and also helping NGOs build up their capacity) * special summer or winter study sessions (for students who have more free time during the break, look for another session in late December and early to mid January 2015) * Bring or recommend a

2014-02-14 Yeon-Mi Park`s debut

Yeonmi Park, February 14, 2014, making her debut! Yesterday I was one of the speakers at a special session on North Korean refugees at the Canadian Maple International School. Wow, it was a wonderful time! * Yeon-Mi Park delivered her first major speech in English. She was wonderful! She told her story (35 minute speech without notes), discussed different aspects of North Korea, and then handled questions from students for more than an hour. She did seem to be nervous at the beginning-she took a deep breath just as she started, looked at me, then told her story from her heart. * Returning from the speech, I told Yeonmi that she had star potential. She told me that she didn't believe it, but I told her that the way she handled Q&A and told her story, I would be lucky to have her still returning my phone calls within a year. * The students had many questions. They have been learning about North Korea. They are now reading "Escape from Camp 14" featuring Shin Dong-h

From nothing to something super special (2023-02-10)

FSI has moved into a better institutional neighborhood where we are the poorest in the area. In August 2022, I was elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Freedom Speakers International (FSI) and in January 2023 FSI achieved incorporation status in South Korea. This has meant that FSI must upgrade operations and structure and I am the one, as chairman and co-president, who will be blamed if it doesn’t happen. I really should not be the chairman, for a variety of reasons, but anyway I am. Eunkoo and I are not the typical executives of a growing organization. In addition to being mainly responsible for building and fundraising for the organization, we are the hands-on leaders who are constantly in contact with North Korean refugee speakers. We look forward to the day we can afford staff to handle many tasks. Until then we can expect to continue having more days like yesterday, even on Eunkoo’s birthday. 2023-02-10 Meeting #1: planning We started Eunkoo’s birthday with a planning

CFE forum on Korea-EU FTA (Korea Herald)

Public forum on FTA on Thursday 2011-07-05 19:21 A conference on economic opportunities and challenges arising from the Korea-EU FTA which came into effect on July 1 will take place in Seoul on Thursday. The conference, taking place at the Koreana Hotel from 2 p.m., will also examine the current economic crisis in Europe and economic development in Korea. The event is being jointly hosted by the Center for Free Enterprise, a Seoul-based free market think-tank, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty, a German foundation for the promotion of individual freedom which has offices around the world including in Seoul. “We picked the date hoping National Assembly members wouldn’t find a way to delay the agreement going into effect. So this is really timely because we are holding this less than a week after the agreement went into effect,” said Casey Lartigue Jr., manager of international relations at the CFE. Speakers at the conference titled “Economic Freedom