North Korea is denying their involvement in Kim Jong-nam's death and claiming the Malaysian government fabricated the evidence. Not only this, but they insist South Korea must be involved. They state, though, that the "biggest responsibility for his death rests with the government of Malaysia as the citizen of the DPRK died in its land."
South Korea, on the other hand, is blasting all the news coverage of it at the border for the North Koreans to hear.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/23/north-korea-malaysia-investigating-kim-jong-nam-death
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2017/02/23/south-korea-blasts-news-of-kim-jong-nam-murder-to-north/
Okay, so the first article seems a little bit like a James Bond movie. I had no clue that they had video of the assassination. But the second article caught my attention. At first it just sounds funny that South Korea is blasting news of the assassination across the border, but then you have to look at it from a different angle. North Korea doesn't have the same kind of news freedoms as we do, so if the citizens get news of the what happened then maybe there will be a rebellion of some sort.
ReplyDeleteIt does seem like a James Bond movie. This case is really so interesting and they're constantly finding more things out. I believe they recently discovered the type of poison used. I also read an article where they talked about the assassination suspects and it's really sad because all of their friends and family think there's no way they could have knowingly done it. It really makes you start to think about what if they were my sister, aunt, or friend? I probably wouldn't think they did it either.
DeleteYeah. My understanding of it is that South Korea has been doing this for years, intending to inform North Koreans. North Korea does it back, too. While the goal is to inform, the reality is that mainly only soldiers are going to hear it, and both sides are trained not to believe a thing the other side says. It would be great if they could realize the truth coming across the border, but even if that day comes, Kim Jong-eun has so much control over them because they're constantly living in fear of their authorities. Hopefully someday a rebellion would work though.
While I hope that a rebellion does happen, I'm not exactly looking forward to it. I mean, I am looking forward to it, but the problem is that the rebellion would have to require at least a small portion of the local soldiers, here's why. North Korea has a long history of having big missiles. If the civilians alone revolt, then the soldiers would put it down rather easily, and keep out outside help. If at least some of the soldiers side with the rebellion then there is a chance of getting in outside help, and that would save lives. Without the local soldiers the only thing that a rebellion would achieve would be a message to the world.
DeleteWell, it would be possible to get in outside help if the local troops didn't side with the revolt, but it would be a lot harder and most likely result in war and a whole lot more death.
If they rebelled it would definitely require a large percentage of the people. I don't think there's a way it could go down without it being a big ugly mess, though.
DeleteIt is likely they could get soldiers on their side; a huge chunk of the North Korean population is soldiers, since they have a mandatory 7-year/woman and 10-year/man conscription. However, it would take a lot more than a bunch of local soldiers. Soldiers aren’t rare in the DPRK, they’re not hard to replace if they don’t heed the law. They don’t have much more power than the average citizen either, so a successful rebellion would likely require them to get some of those higher up officials on their side, but I think the chance of them getting enough on their side is very slim. The life of the authorities is good enough that they wouldn’t necessarily have the motivation and they get even more brainwashing than the regular civilian. Things couldn't get much worse for the average DPRK citizen than they already are, so I could see them rebelling despite very limited power.
A few soldiers isn’t going to keep out a war either. It wouldn’t really change the likelihood of, for example, the US sending help. It would require a much bigger force than a few local soldiers.
I don’t see what the missiles have to do with what you said either. If you’re implying the rebels could have missiles on their side if they recruited soldiers, I can’t imagine the government would let the average soldier have access to the missiles. If you’re saying it would be easy to put down a protest, I don’t think they would need a missile for that.
Why would it be harder and result in more war? If higher-ups aren't with the rebellion, then no matter what, if the ROK/US got involved, it could definitely start a world war. Even with them it could.
I think the best we can hope for at the moment is that Kim Jong-eun’s reign will end and his successor will possess actual common sense. There are other things that could happen, such as China ending their enabling of North Korea or the US and South Korea assassinating Kim Jong-eun or something, but I don’t see the China thing happening anytime soon and there's so many things that would go wrong right now if SK and the US took matters into their own hands. I'm totally down with the idea of a rebellion, but the circumstances are really bad for it right now and I don't know if/when that will change. If they rebelled, they would have to play their cards very carefully.
Okay, most of these answers would make a little bit more sense to you if you knew that I thought the soldiers had a little bit more power then I know they do now.
DeleteThe soldiers turned to the rebellion, in my mind, would have been able to keep the missiles from being launched towards outside help as it approached. I didn't think that the missiles would be on the rebels side, but that the turned soldiers would be able to delay them from launch.
All in all, I was in Navy SEAL or Star Wars rebel mode.:) I was thinking of what it would take to cripple the country from the inside. It would have been easier if the soldiers had a bit more power though.
Thanks for responding, it really helped. It didn't do much for my hope of an effective rebellion, but it is always better to have the truth. Please ask if you need any more clarification.
That makes a lot more sense, thanks for clarifying. :) I can definitely see where you were coming from now. To be honest I was super tired when I wrote that comment and probably should've waited until later to respond. Also I know more about North Korean military/politics than almost any other country, if this was about Vietnam or something I would have no clue. What you said is probably very true for a lot of countries.
DeleteI really like having input, thanks for commenting so often! I hope circumstances will change one day so they can break away from their beyond corrupt government. The first step would definitely be, going back to the original comment, informing the people.
Does anyone really believe that North Korea had nothing to do with this? I certainly don't. As for rebellion, I don't see it soon in North Korea UNLESS China stops supporting Kim Jong-Eun. The North Korean government is kind of like an addict, and China is its supplier/enabler. The whole country is going to have to be let go and hit bottom before it changes, and at the moment, China isn't letting that happen. It's a harsh thing to say because many more people will die in the process, too, but I think it's what it will take. I could be wrong though...
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, today's CNN 10 covered the assassination today and there are four male suspects, all of them are North Korean. That makes it a little bit harder to blame anyone else. That obviously hasn't stopped the DPRK from doing it though.
ReplyDeleteI thought that was crazy too! I just found out there are a total of 8 North Korean suspects, 7 of which they are still looking for. I believe that encompasses the 4 they talked about in CNN 10
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