North Korea's Kim Jong Un Officially Visits DMZ

[bluesky79]

North Korean Young Leader Kim Jong un officially visited the heavily armed border with rival South Korea, Panmunjon village in the DMZ. During his visit, Kim Jong un ordered troops to "maintain the maximum alertness as they are standing in confrontation with the enemies at all times." Furious about posting threatening slogans beneath portraits of Kim Jong Un and his deceased father by a South Korean military unit near Seoul, 150,000 North Koreans, both its citizens and military officials, rallied in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung square, chanting slogans inciting violence against the South Korean president. We believe that the threats are aimed internally as Kim Jong Un bolsters his power among the elite and military as the third generation of his family to lead the country. However, nothing will change in the future. The ROK will likely ignore Kim Jong Un's official Panmunjom visit as it has no storng impact. Moreover, the international voice against North Korea and the wave of revolution within is irreversible.

 

[idb]

North Korean Young Leader Kim Jong un officially visited the heavily armed border with rival South Korea, Panmunjon village in the DMZ. During his visit, Kim Jong un ordered troops to "maintain the maximum alertness as they are standing in confrontation with the enemies at all times." Furious about posting threatening slogans beneath portraits of Kim Jong Un and his deceased father by a South Korean military unit near Seoul, 150,000 North Koreans, both its citizens and military officials, rallied in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung square, chanting slogans inciting violence against the South Korean president. We believe that the threats are aimed internally as Kim Jong Un bolsters his power among the elite and military as the third generation of his family to lead the country. However, nothing will change in the future. The ROK will likely ignore Kim Jong Un's official Panmunjom visit as it has no storng impact. Moreover, the international voice against North Korea and the wave of revolution within is irreversible.

What revolution?

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "He is too! - he's as loony as his old man...

Kim Jong Un is not crazy
Tue April 2, 2013 - Stephan Haggard: North Korea is mostly bluffing in its threats against South Korea; Haggard: Escalating signals of resolve suggest nervousness as much as strength; He says Kim Jong Un may not have fully consolidated his authority; Haggard: As a result, some of the rhetoric could be driven by domestic politics

March brought us a series of what pundits like to call "provocations" by North Korea. On closer inspection, Pyongyang has opted for rhetoric over actual military actions. While Kim Jong Un's pursuit of nuclear and missile capability remains worrisome, escalating signals of resolve could suggest nervousness as much as strength. So, is the regime in trouble?

The first round of saber-rattling came as the U.N. Security Council deliberated on a new sanctions resolution after North Korea's satellite launch in December and its third nuclear test in February. The Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a party organ dealing with North-South relations began putting out public statements in an effort to chip away at the institutions of the armistice, such as military hot lines and the stationing of a North Korean military mission in Panmunjom.

North Korea ultimately "withdrew" from the armistice, but it had done so before and it is not clear what its recent statements actually mean. The armistice is not a peace treaty, but merely a cease fire. The armistice is stable not because of verbal commitments but because of the deterrent capability of both sides. Is anything really different as a result of this "re-withdrawal"? It doesn't seem like it.

Equally unfortunate was North Korea's decision to renege on a number of North-South agreements, such as a North-South agreement on the denuclearization of the peninsula. But Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons had made this and a number of other agreements moot in any case. North Korea's bluster had little if any effect on the U.N. debate. If anything, its threats may have been counterproductive. Although the resolution was portrayed as the result of a U.S.-South Korean cabal, China also signed on and the resolution was passed unanimously.

MORE

See also:

US officials: North Korea trying to assert itself as nuclear weapons state
April 2nd, 2013

Senior administration officials say North Korea's threats to restart its nuclear reactor is part of a pattern of North Korea asserting itself as a nuclear weapons state. The North Koreans want the U.S. to deal with them as they dealt with the Soviets: the U.S. accepted them as a nuclear power and then they held talks as two nuclear states.

North Korea has repeatedly said it would rather have "arms control" talks with the U.S. as opposed to talks about disarming its nuclear program. "This is part of a premeditated campaign to force acceptance of their nuclear status," one of the officials said, who added, "it's not going to happen. It would blow up the entire global non-proliferation regime."

Officials say they have not seen any signs the North has begun reconstituting facilities they've shut down. But the officials say they do already have a uranium workshop up and running and are "within months" of completing construction of a small plutonium reactor.

Source

Related:

U.S. Forces Korea website down
April 2nd, 2013 - The website for U.S. Forces Korea is down and has been off-line all day.

A U.S. Defense Department official tells CNN, “This was a hardware crash. It could be awhile before they get back online, because they have to rebuild the system. Right now there’s no signs this had anything to do with a cyber attack or outside intrusion. These are initial indications, but right now it doesn’t appear to be caused by outside influence.”

But the official says they haven't completely ruled out an outside attack.

If you go to the site, you will see a message reading, "Network Error… The gateway may be temporarily unavailable, or there could be a network problem.”

U.S. Forces Korea website down – CNN Security Clearance - CNN.com Blogs

 

[waltky]

Pyongyang 'Cannot Guarantee' Safety Of Foreign Embassies...

North Korea warns foreign embassies to prepare escape
5 April 2013 - North Korea has told foreign embassies in Pyongyang it cannot guarantee their safety in the event of conflict, and to consider evacuating their employees.

Both Russia and the UK said they had no immediate plans to evacuate their embassies in the North Korean capital. The North's move comes amid threats to attack US and South Korean targets. South Korea has reportedly deployed two warships with missile defence systems after the North was said to have moved at least one missile to its east coast. Military officials told South Korean media the two warships would be deployed on the east and west coasts. Seoul has played down the North's missile move: It said the move may be for a test rather than a hostile act. For its part, the US said it would not be surprised if North Korea were to conduct a new missile test, with White House spokesman Jay Carney telling reporters: "We have seen them launch missiles in the past."

Russia 'deeply concerned'

British diplomats said on Friday the North had asked them to respond by 10 April on what support the embassy would need in the event of any evacuation - and they were considering their moves. "We are consulting international partners about these developments," said a Foreign and Commonwealth Office statement. "No decisions have been taken, and we have no immediate plans to withdraw our Embassy." Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was "deeply concerned about the escalation of tension, which for now is verbal". "We want to understand the reasons behind this offer," he said. "We were interested in finding out whether this was a decision taken by the North Korean leadership to evacuate embassies, or just an offer." Anecdotal reports from Pyongyang suggest the mood there is calm, and many believe North Korea is deliberately trying to create a sense of crisis, says the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul.

One of the US targets named by Pyongyang was the Pacific island of Guam, which hosts a US military base. On Thursday, the US confirmed it would deploy a missile defence system to Guam in response to the threats. South Korea's foreign minister told MPs on Thursday that the North had moved a missile to the east coast, which is the location for previous military tests. Unconfirmed reports on Friday said the North had moved two missiles - thought to be mid-range Musudans, which are untested in flight but are thought to have the capacity to reach as far as Guam - and loaded them on to launchers. Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, said that two warships equipped with Aegis defence systems would monitor the situation.

'Turn down volume'

See also:

North Korea is far from suicidal
Fri April 5, 2013 - Sung-Yoon Lee: Despite threats, North Korean leadership isn't crazy or suicidal; Lee: North Korea's goal is to get the U.S. to withdraw troops from South Korea; He says the regime's strategy is to instill fear in South Koreans and Americans; Lee: The risk of North Korea starting an all-out war is quite small

North Korea is no laggard when it comes to bluster and vituperation. For decades, the regime has issued threats of turning South Korea into a "sea of fire" or used choice words such as "human scum" or "political idiot" when denouncing South Korean and U.S. leaders. But even measured against such standards, North Korea's barrage over the past month, from threatening to launch an "all-out war" to "diversified precision nuclear strike" against Washington, "wipe out" a South Korean island, or hurling a sexist insult against Park Geun-hye, South Korea's first female elected leader, to, most recently, warning of an imminent "moment of explosion," is quite unusual. And now, after saying that plans for merciless operation has been "finally examined and ratified," Pyongyang is hinting at another long-range missile launch. What's going on?

First, we must assume the North Korean leadership is not crazy or suicidal in spite of bizarre things it says and does. Cruel, totalitarian and solipsistic the Kim dynasty surely is. But the fact that it has managed to preserve itself for more 60 years and, in the post-Cold War era, in spite of the everyday existential threat of facing an immeasurably more successful Korean state across the border, the impoverished North has shown itself to be, if nothing else, calculating and resilient. What is Pyongyang calculating? The same it has since the end of the Korean War 60 years ago. The two constants in North Korea's foreign policy are its continual calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea and blaming "U.S. hostile policy" for the tension enveloping the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang sees the U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea, as powerfully symbolized by the presence of American troops in the South, as the greatest impediment to its highest state task. As North Korea states in the charter to its communist party, that task is to "(en)sure the complete victory of socialism in the northern half of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the accomplishment of the revolutionary goals of national liberation and the people's democracy on the entire area of the country." In plain language, that means dissolving the South Korean government and communizing the entire Korean Peninsula by force. North Korea's frequent threats are a means to a long-term end.

The first step is to impregnate the South Korean public with war hysteria and the illusion that the withdrawal of U.S. troops would lead to peace and reconciliation between the two Koreas. The second is to instill fear in the American public by one day demonstrating its capability to marry a nuclear warhead with an intercontinental ballistic missile with the range to hit the U.S. West Coast. When that day comes, Washington may have second thoughts about its treaty commitment to the defense of South Korea, Pyongyang calculates. So far, timing seems to be in Pyongyang's favor. Over the past year, all the major powers in North Korea's neck of the woods have undergone a leadership transition. Moreover, in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo, leadership transitions have occurred only in recent months. That creates a particularly appeasement-prone environment, as no newly elected leader wishes to spend political capital on a foreign policy crisis created by North Korea when many other pressing domestic issues beckon.

More http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/opinion/lee-north-korea/

 

[idb]

The question in my mind is how much control the little dictator actually has.