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Can N.Koreans Topple Their Dictator?

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starmoon

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The North Korean regime is paying close attention to the latest developments in Libya because of the similarities between the Moammar Gadhafi and Kim Jong-il regimes. These include the psychopathic personalities of the dictators, their iron grip on power, and their hoarding of national assets to ensure their survival and buying of loyalty.

North Korea did not worry much about the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia which led to the ousters of their dictators, but closely monitored the Libyan revolution. When the Libyan rebels were cornered, North Korean state media confidently warned, "Only death awaits traitors to the revolution." It remained silent when Gadhafi was on the run after NATO forces intervened. Following the uprising in Libya, North Korea's National Defense Commission, which protects the Km Jong-il regime, went into emergency mode, while all universities in Pyongyang were closed indefinitely in June.

Gadhafi's death may have rattled Kim Jong-il, but it is extremely difficult for a democratic uprising to take place in the North because of the unprecedented degree of oppression and the fact that most North Koreans are still oblivious to what is happening in the outside world. More importantly, China refuses to recognize North Korean defectors as political refugees.

Before any democratic uprising can happen in North Korea, the repressive state apparatus must dwindle, more information must become available to ordinary people, and an escape route must open up for democracy activists should they fail in their attempt to overthrow the regime. As long as China refuses to recognize North Korean defectors as political refugees, an internal uprising in North Korea would be very difficult.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his son Jong-un have set up more political prison camps despite international pressure to shut them down. And North Korean security agents have launched a bizarre campaign against South Korean TV soaps and other TV imports. The North Korean regime is making a frantic, last-ditch effort to keep its border from collapsing by brutally torturing and executing defectors who are sent back from China.

The South Korean government and the international community have largely ignored these three conditions. If the South Korean government were to confront North Korea about its political prison camps, the Kim Jong-il regime would be unable to continue oppressing its people. One important step the South could take would be to resume psychological warfare against the North, because if the propaganda message reaches the military along the frontlines, an uprising by North Korean troops could topple the Kim Jong-il regime. Seoul must also resolve the issue of North Korean defectors through negotiations with China. Seoul's "quiet diplomacy" policy has prevented it from speaking frankly with Chinese officials, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have been killed. South Korea cannot escape blame for this tragedy.

Kim Jong-il's fate could change if Seoul acts. The 23 million North Koreans need the help of the South to topple their dictator. South Korea's Constitution stipulates that it is its responsibility to protect the lives of all Koreans.

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Geopolitics

The PDRK is by far more hermitlike than Lybia. It also occupies a unique geostrategic position as a bulwark between the three most important blocks of the World. Just consider its borders

To the South they border with South Korea, the American bases, Japan, more American bases, and hence the West in general.

To the North and West they border with China, the other big block.

And finally to the NE they share a short border with the post-superpower, Russia. They also share a contract from Soviet times in which the people's republic supply slaves to work the Russian Far East logging industry. 90s http://www.independe...ps-1428700.html and a few years ago

In the antipodes of North Korea, the World's major political, economic and cultural blocks spread thin until they become unrecognizable in grey regions that switch allegiances (like Brazil, North Korea's aprox geographical antipode).

But North Korea itself is like a bulwark that prevents those three clearly defined blocks from touching too close. It serves a purpose. At the expense of 23 million prisoners, it's better to be preoccupied about the clearly defensive nuclear program of a highly disciplined and extremely anachronistic dictatorship, than allow for three actual superpowers (Washington, Beijin and Moskva) to share a triple frontier. The resulting, very high concentration of troops and "missile shields" might seriously disrupt international trade. But by allowing the North to be a fully sovereign country South Korea becomes an artificial island, for all practical purposes as insular as Japan.

Korean Politics

I don't know much but I do know that Korea, like Taiwan and Japan, are actually Nationalist countries (unlike Canada or Argentina which both state in their Constitutions that their lands are open for the World to immigrate to). The Koreans have to put that in their constitution, but it doesn't mean they have to uphold that - at all.

http://en.wikipedia....reans#Fishermen

Finally, the Corporations that run South Korea are terrified of a German reunification scenario and would rather see the plus side of the unhappy situation of their divided nation. Rather than spend a lot of energy in a propaganda campaign to create turmoil and blood-spill without a clear expectation of actual change; Korea's Alpha corporation is investing in a different, conciliatory, approach. This is expected to have unexpected consequences by both sides. The South hopes it will foster the liberalization of the North and its transformation in a poor but sovereign country they can exploit without having to carry all of the weight of a failed state. The North fears the same but needs the money and the calories provided by the following experiment in what AR called mixing bread with poison. (Only the South Korean bread is already a little bit poisonous).

http://www.hyundai-asan.com/ (kaesong)

Plight of the Refugees (and of the ones left behind)

It breaks my heart and I have fantasized about different kinds of information bombardment, etc, but let's not forget that there is at least ONE channel that is successful in helping those who make it to China, the most receptive of the three countries that border NK. That channel is the Evangelical Christian churches.

Edited by volco
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