Alejandro
Cao de Benos de Les y Perez
President
of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA)
Special
Delegate of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries
-Government of the DPRK
DPRK
Consultant to the House of Asia – Ministry Foreign Affairs, Spain
IT
Consultant for Business Schools - 22
August 2002
Since the creation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the USA, through its intelligence agency and South Korean sponsored organizations, are trying to isolate and destroy the public image of the country by preparing an orchestrated campaign against it. These groups are continuously fabricating false facts by distorting the reality with the aim of creating confusion among the people.
Below are some examples that show how far the imperialist media will go to manipulate the minds and influence the public that have no knowledge about the real situation in North Korea.
The Melodrama of Defectors
About the news about the 'defectors' crossing the border between the DPRK and China and escaping en mass: This 'news' is nonsense and only the uninformed readers on the subject would believe such 'news'. It is a pure and cheap propaganda. The borders are tightly guarded and it is not possible to enter China in the way the news alleges. The 'defectors' admit that they had been in China for several years, and so theirs was not a desperate escape from North as claimed in the news but a well meditated and planned theatrics.
It is strange that the ‘defectors’ never carry a passport or papers that can prove their North Korean citizenship.
The Dr. Norbert Case
Dr. Norbert Vollersten is a German medical doctor. He is one of the main organizers of these "defection" shows. He entered North Korea using the ‘Cap Anamur’ (NGO) under the pretense of helping the people in need just after the natural disasters hit North Korea several years in row. His true mission was a sinister one - to get as much information on North Korea as possible for the US CIA and the South Korean government.
Trips to Asia aren’t cheap and an average medical doctor like Vollersten can hardly afford one - let alone several. This man does practice medicine and one wonders who has been paying his bills? He trots the globe - to Seoul, Beijing, Washington and even to Mongolia at will. He says he is setting up a camp in Mongolia for North Korean refugees. Where does he get the money for his world travels? How does he make living?
The logical answer is: the governments of the USA and South Korea.
Yes - it is true that North Korea gave him a medal for his work helping flood victims. Since he came with a charity NGO, North Korea had no reason to doubt his true intentions. His true intentions became known only after he got the medal.
He claims that he is the ‘first foreigner’ to be awarded with the ‘medal of friendship’ - the 'highest order of medal - which is incorrect. First of all, the ‘medal of friendship’ is the lowest in its category awarded to foreigners, and second, many foreigners had received it before him.
He is the one who, together with some South Korean and American NGO's, is paying money some people to put up 'defection' dramas at foreign embassies in Beijing. Is it a coincidence that every time a 'defection' occurs news camera are there waiting? How do groups of desperate 'escapees' know when and where TV cameras all set for them?
Who ring up AFP, Reuters or other news agencies and give them 'hot' tips: ‘Hi, at 17:32, we’ve a group of refugees waiting for you to – spontaneously - rush into the US Embassy’.
Vollersten was the feature speaker at the 3rd International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees held in Tokyo in February 2002. The Tokyo conference was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, a foundation funded by the US Congress. One of the featured speakers was James Lilley, a former diplomat and CIA analyst.
Why would a major news agency publish concocted 'news'?
Well - 'hot' news sell and bring in money; the more spectacular the news, the more ad revenues. It is strictly business and the veracity of news comes second. The conclusion is clear: the defections aren’t real, cannot be probed and they’re not recognized by the government of the DPR of Korea.
The following are just a few examples of how the 'news' is used in the West - to keep the big lie alive. Note that the interesting point here is to read the news some years after, so one can see the difference about ‘what they said’ and ‘what really happened’.
Institute of Peace -USA, October 1996:
“The food and energy
crises have raised critical questions about the need for contingency planning to
prepare for any sudden changes that might occur in North Korea in the absence of
reforms. Likewise, advance preparations are critical for refugee flows that
might result from further economic decline and/or widespread famine in North
Korea”
Major David S. Maxwell -United States Special Forces, 1996:
“It is possible that
North Korea is near collapse. Recent statements by key officials show that US
and ROK national leadership are becoming increasingly concerned with this
possibility, although the focus remains on the possibility that such
disintegration may lead to a desperation attack. In a recent article in Jane's
Defense Weekly, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant
General Kenneth Minihan said, "North Korea is collapsing economically.
North Korea is implosion and explosion going on at the same time"
After six years, the ‘sudden changes’ failed to materialize - even though many really believed in the danger of ‘North Korea’. The articles use the fear to give some consistency to the tale. This is the same fear that President Bush Jr. is using as an argument to create the National Missile Defense and deploy it in South Korea. The same excuse is used to keep more than 37.000 US soldiers and 1,000 nuclear weapons near the DMZ.
Channel News Asia -June 2002:
Japan has started work
to salvage a suspected North Korean spy ship from the bottom of the East China
Sea, with the permission of Beijing….
Japan claims it needs to
raise the ship to find out what country it came from.
In this kind of news, we can clearly see the manipulation of the information. So Japan doesn’t know at all the identity of the ship, but since the beginning, it was accusing North Korea to the international community. Although two months passed since this report, there’re no comments or news talking about the ship or showing any evidence that links it to North Korea. ‘Throw the stone while hiding the hand’ is a typical gesture of the capitalist media that no serious investigator should accept.
The Guardian, UK, -May 2001:
Kim Jong-nam (son of
Chairman Kim Jong Il), his wife, son and another relative were deported to
Beijing three days after immigration officials at Tokyo's Narita airport
detained them for attempting to enter Japan on false passports.
The only 'proof' of this case was a picture of ‘Kim Jong Nam’at the airport. The picture doesn’t match at all with the real son of Chairman Kim Jong Il.
The news was published in all the media worldwide and was never questioned its veracity. In this case, the big lie is easy. 98% of the readers believed it because they don’t know what the son of the Dear Leader looks like. But I know, and he wasn’t the one in the picture.
Is North Korea changing
to capitalism?
The answer is No.
Stories like this are repeated in the history. Take a look at the newspapers of some years ago. Since the changes to capitalism started in some socialist countries (we’re talking about 20 years back), the media argued that North Korea won’t last more than a few months and that a flooding of refugees and even civil war were imminent. Now in the year 2002 and after the difficult time of the ‘arduous march’, the country is recovering fast and becoming stronger than ever, demonstrating that the citizens fully support the Leader Kim Jong Il and the Worker’s Party of Korea.
Where are now all the articles from ‘prestigious academicians or self-claimed specialists?’ Now, they try to be more cautious and they have started saying… ‘well could be that it will take some years to North Korea to adopt the free market system’ and other rubbish like ‘Chairman Kim Jong Il visited Shanghai to apply Chinese reforms in his country…. Chairman Kim Jong Il visits Far East Russia to study the transition to capitalism’.
For some people, it’s really easy to be an armchair North Korean expert in the Ivory towers, while drinking coffee and guessing the future of a country. But curiously most of those North Korea "experts haven’t been to Pyongyang, or at best, they took a one-week guided visit of North Korea decades ago.
The government of North Korea isn’t going to change its socialist system based in the Juche Idea, created by Great Leader President Kim Il Sung and now carried forward under the direction of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. The recent reforms in the economy were made inside the own socialist economy for the only purpose of increasing production. The Free Market System (Capitalism) isn’t going to invade the country, and North Korea won’t follow ‘the transition of other socialist countries’ like some newspapers claim.
‘They’ll have to kill each one of us if the capitalists pretend that the free market system will enter in the socialist land of the DPRK, we’ll sacrifice every drop of our blood and we’ll never surrender even under the most difficult conditions’, this is the phrase that I hear in the universities, the government and the villages. The convictions and strength of the citizens of the DPRK is clear, and any news referring to a capitalist change is just a rubbish.
Absolutely all the welfare systems (kindergarten, schools, universities, libraries, hospitals and medical treatments, culture centers, free housing, holidays, etc.) will continue to be covered by the government, assuring the dignity and quality of life of all the citizens in North Korea under the care of the Worker’s Party of Korea. Any foreigner visiting North Korea can attest to this truth.