Part II: NORTH – SOUTH RELATIONS
Mourners for Kim Jong Il not only in the North but also in the South and Overseas: But none from the South were able to attend at Kim’s funeral
Since December 19, 2011 at noon when DPRK government officially announced the December 17th’s death of their charismatic and “deeply revered leader” Kim Jong Il, tens of millions of mourners were all over in the North.
However, mourners for the Kim’s sudden death were not in north only. There were many Koreans in the South and in many overseas Korean immigrant communities around the world as well.
Particularly in many third world nations, also in China and Russia, there were many who deeply and genuniely mourned for the death of Kim, too.
Like people in the North, they, too, seemed to have shared their genuine grief and sorrows with people in the North.
Many governments starting China, Russia, Brazil, Cambodia, Cuba, Iran, Laos, Syria, Thailand, Vietnam, Venezuela and many others around the world have also expressed their sincere condolences in their official eulogies to the DPRK government.
Many nations also sent their warm words of supports and genuine wishes for DPRK’s newly-declared top leader Kim Jong Un.
About some 200 overseas Koreans even flew to Pyongyang in order to attend at Kim’s national funeral on Dec. 28.
Many in the South, too, had also attempted to go to north. However, none of them had succeeded to go, though they’d tried hard.
Of course, needless to say, it was due to Lee Myongbak regime’s obnoxiously confrontational anti-north policy. At the moment, the disapproval rate for Lee is now “close to 80%” of South Korean population.
After 4 years of continued failures, miseries and despair among many Koreans in all walks of life, he has become “the most hated, despised or disapproved” figure not only by a great majority number of people in the South but also in the North and in many overseas Korean communities around the globe as well.
Two widows of former President Kim Dae Jung and former Hyungdai-Asan Corp CEO Chung Mong Hun, however, were the only exceptions. But, in fact like all others in the South, they were also not allowed to attend at Kim’s funeral but to pay a simple tribute only to the deceased Kim on the 26th of December and return back to Seoul immediately afterward.
What that meant was they were allowed to stay in Pyongyang for about a half day only, not even a full day. Many argue therefore the only exception for two widows’ less than a full day trip to north through Panmunjom at the 38th Parallel was a “political cover-up of Lee’s typical dirty politics with full of lies as his despicable trademark.”
In other words, just like last 4 years in power, Lee cunningly attempted again to hide his hatemongering of the North thereby unwillingness to allow even those highly-publicized two highlevel widows go to north who’d known late Kim for years in person. No matter what and how, he didn’t want to allow them either.
However, due to mounting political pressures from all over both inside and outside, he had to do something to show at least some sort of political gesture, though not genuine, toward the North. So, as usual and typical as he’s been, he again lied to his own people in the South and to the North and before the world.
Allowing them to stay for a half-day in Pyongyang, while not allowing them to both attend at the Kim’s funeral and have any substantive talks with DPRK officials, was another deceptive card as one of many tricks he’s been typically playing with whenever he had to deal with either his own people in the South, the North or the outside world.
In the meantime, even two former heads of “North Korea’s two most traditional enemy states” like former US President Carter and former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi “sent their sincere condolences to DPRK government,” no matter how sincere, genuine, diplomatic or not their words of condolences may be.
The important thing is they sent their words of condoleneses to the North anyway.
But the sitting South Korean president not only didn’t do anything something positive, however unwilling and not wanting he personally was, for the sake of nation but also did everything possible to disallow many who did want to go and attend at Kim’s funeral.
It was believed to be Lee’s cunning and deceptive political play to avoid any further both domestic and international criticisms and accusations.
Anyhow he was able to successfully(?) manage not to allow ANYONE from SOUTH to attend at Kim’s funeral anyway, while he made himself look generous to outside world by appearing to “allow the two widows to visit north.”
While he didn’t allow any genuine mourners from south to attend at Kim’s funeral in north, however, he allowed those government-organized, -funded, -coordinated anti-North groups and peoples to “send tens of thousands of airballoons in which they put more than 200,000 anti-North, anti-Kim Jong Il demonization campaign pamphlets, flyers, cartoons, even US dollars” in blind beliefs that those will sow the seeds of social instabilities, divisions and internal strifes in the North.
“Lee who is pro-US & pro-Japan to the bone” forced his two pro-reconciliation, self-determination, and peaceful reunification predecessors Kim & Roh into the “early tragic deaths”
From the first year in power, by clandestinely orchestrating his Prosecutor’s Office, known as “the most corrupted ‘slave to the power,’” to wrongly charge the former President Roh Moo Hyun for an “unproven bribery” scandal, Lee had viciously defamed and discredited his predecessor thereby cornered, pushed, and ultimately forced him into a suicide death in May 2009.
Roh was only in his early 60s. It’s been, as many have argued since then, identified as “an act of political assassination of Roh” who was much more liberal (in many senses “progressive”), deeply honest, moral and conscientious, particularly reconciliatory toward and cooperating with the North, while trying to become independent from US during his presidency.
In a state of deep indignation at Lee’s “evilness, treacherousness, viciousness,” and of devastating sorrow at the death of Roh, former President Kim Dae Jung, a former Nobel Peace Laureate, who’d been praised for his extraordinarily enduring and resilient personality throughout his whole life which had been riddled with many great sufferings caused mainly from political persecutions and imprisonments by US-controlled South Korean military dictatorships for years, also died prematurely much earlier than many expected.
He died less than three months after the Roh’s tragic death. He was in his mid 80s.
Many including his own family members, who knew Kim’s quite good health condition then, have also indignantly argued he must have lived much longer if Roh had not been dead and if Lee had acted differently.
But, with deep sorrow from Roh’s most tragic death and deep indignation at Lee’s evilness, the former President Kim was believed to have been fell to ill and soon died.
This is the main reason why so many have consistently charged “Lee is the one who deliberately killed his two predecessors” who’ve been deeply respected by both many Koreans and non-Koreans around the world.
Lee “the worst US puppet regime” destroys over 60 years of achievements for reconciliation, self-determination and peaceful reunification of Korea
The deaths of two former South Korean presidents who’d made heroic political milestones, together with late Kim Jong Il who was believed to have initiated, engineerd and propelled the two most historic June 15 Joint Declaration in 2000 and October 3 Declaration in 2007 came with the rapid and complete destructions of the whole sociopolitical, legal, cultural, economic, national achievements many millions of Koreans have worked so hard with so many sacrifices for over 60 some years.
As well-known now, whatever achievements Koreans have made with regard to their ultimate goal of self-determined and peaceful reunification isn’t in line with the interests of US at all.
However, if whatever is done by whoever is something opposite to that Korean dream, then that’s something absolutely in line within the realm of US interests.
Therefore what Lee has done last 4 years was his faithful service to the interests of the US, while discarding Korean dreams and yearnings for independence, self-determination and peaceful reunification.
That’s what Lee exactly did!
That’s the very reason why he’s been called and identified as “the worst-ever national traitor than any traitors in the past throughout the whole Korean history.”
This is the very reason why, since the physical partition of a whole Korean peninsula into the two divided enmities which had been designed and forcibly imposed by the US upon all Koreans right after the WWII in 1945, anything relating to the national reconciliation, peace and self-determined reunification has been mercilessly destroyed by the US “Occupation” Troops till this very day.
Of course, US has employed a numerous number of its most faithful servants among many Koreans who’d been sent to various different high sociopolitcal, economic and military positions including the presidency as was in the cases of the first US-installed president Syngman Rhee, the second, third, and fourth US-installed three Generals-turned-to-Presidents Park Jung Hee, Chun Do Hwan, Roh Tae Woo, and back to civilian presidents again but still US-installed therefore diehard anti-North and pro-US Kim Young Sam and Lee Myongbak.
Lee, however, has far surpassesed any of his predecessors in all aspects of sociopolitical, legal and financial crimes in addition to “the worst-ever record of national traitorousness.”
He is now even often described in most South Korean media outlets as “the worst one-ever present among all Korean leaders since the ‘Dangun’ (檀君) era” when Korean people began their nation’s recorded history more than 5,000 years ago.
The US military first landed on Korean soil in September 8, 1945. What happened with their uninvited arrival then was the transfer of colonial ownership of Korea from Japanese to Americans.
The period of 10 years during both Kim and Roh presidencies before Lee began his tragic saga in 2008 has been identified by the rightists as “lost 10 years.” However, that period of 10 years was the only time when government-sponsored many historic developments toward the self-determined and peaceful reunification goal had been taken place between north and south throughout almost 70 years of Division History.
The phrase so-called “lost 10 years” has became a notoriously deceptive political catchphrase of both “Neocons” in US and the so-called “New Rights” (a Korean version of US neocons) in the South.
Even before Lee began his term in February 2008, Seoul’s top political figures, turned out to be mostly traitorous dirty politicians, including Lee’s older brother who’d been until most recently the notoriously most powerful figure in South Korean dirty politics, “assured the then US Ambassador Vershbow” in late 2007 by saying “not to worry [the then elected Lee] since he is the ‘pro-US, pro-Japan [politician] to the bone,’” according to the WikiLeaks.
Lee’s treacherous and traitorous acts represent US interests both in Korean peninsula and the Northeast Asian region
As discussed above, Lee and his traitorous clique in South Korean dirty politics have faithfully served US interests all along, while destroying all the previously-achieved social, economic, political, national and international developments in the following ways:
1) Not only join the US-led “anti-North isolation, strangulation and starvation policy” but also take the proactive role of US vanguard in all areas of anti-North strategies;
2) Oppress, suppress and illegalize all the ongoing nationwide popular efforts, projects and works for the divided nation’s reconciliation, self-determination and peaceful-reunification;
3) Discard all the previously-agreed, -decided and -approved intergovernmental projects and cut all the two previous governments’ funding projects for the above-mentioned efforts, projects, events;
4) Instead resume and further heighten US-led anti-North demonization campaigns;
5) Instead create, double, organize, fund and coordinate all sorts of anti-North projects, groups, individuals, and activities including anti-North media channels and outlets;
6) While keeping US-led military-confrontational policy against North both in the Korean peninsula and the Northeast Asian region;
7) In order to keep military tensions at all times by manufacturing frequent military conflicts with the North by any means necessary such as the fabricated charges against the DPRK to use, in a maximum scale, the sunken incident of South Korean naval vessel Cheonan in March, 2010;
8) Cut all sorts of both government and NGO contacts, relations, any joint projects between north and south such as Mt. Kumgang Tourist Project;
9) Prohibit all financial transactions between north and south;
10) While actively participating in all sorts of US-led aggressive military drills against North including the US-designed “DPRK-China-Russia encirclement military strategy” so-called the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) which thereby threaten the above-mentioned three nations’ national securities, regional peace and stability;
11) Most devastatingly now and in the future, Lee completely sold out the whole nation to the US business interests by signing the “Korea-US [so-called] Free Trade Agreement (FTA).”
In return US has also assured Lee for his political survival and provided all sorts of political and media coverup for his heinous crimes including all sorts of financial and legal crimes he and his traitorous clique have been committing even before he began his presidency in 2008.
Unimaginable degree of crimes committed by Lee from his power including the fabricated charges against the North in the sunken incident of Cheonan have made him further enslaved to the US demands, so that the latter has been able to arbitrarily rob the whole Korea’s wealth, resources and future.
Today, on the 10th of December, 2012, South Korean President officially visits Beijing, China. It would be a supposedly celebratory, under normal circumstances, moment for genuine wishes for all in the region. Many Koreans would be happy with their nation’s presidential visit to China and even proud of.
However, very unfortunately, it’s been an unspeakable shame and tragedy for all Koreans. It’s such a shame that many South Koreans had elected a man like him for that highest position representing them.
He’s been a miserable nightmarish figure who’s only brought shame, deaths, destructions, and seemingly nonstop tragedies to Korean peninsula and an unaccountable disadvantages to the whole Northeast Asian region, while paradoxically provided also an unaccountable number of advantages to further benefit US profits and interests.
The above-mentioned issues, situations, tragedies are the very reasons why so many Koreans have called him a “completely sold-out man to those vicious both domestic and foreign powers.”
One of the most-revered religious figure in the whole Korean peninsula the Buddhist Monk Myong Jin reminds Koreans not to forget many of their fellow members who “elected Lee to the presidency blindly believing he’d be the best choice to make their economic future better.”
But their choice, says Monk, was “terribly wrong. Lee has not only put them down in economy but also ruined the nation’s dignity, fame and future. We have to pay the price for what we had wrongly done.”
Dr. Kiyul Chung who is Editor in Chief is a Visiting Professor at School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
1) DPR Korea, USA and The World: Part I http://www.4thmedia.org/2012/01/04/dpr-korea-usa-and-the-world-part-i/?preview=true&preview_id=42526&preview_nonce=9c42551a91