by James Coles

Created on: December 31, 2007

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is anything but democratic...nor is it a republic...the DPRK is a failed, vile, feudal fiefdom wholly created by Joseph Stalin; nurtured by Mao Tse Tung (old spelling) and dominated by the Kim Ruling Clique. Neither Stalin, nor Mao nor the patriarch of the Kim clan; Kim Il Sung, cared a whit about the people in that unfortunate area of Northeast Asia. Their concerns were spreading radical international socialism along with building and perpetuating their personal power.

While sending aid to the people of north Korea feels good on a personal level, and looks good at the national political level sending aid is the worst thing individuals and nations can do for the people imprisoned in "Gulag Koryo." (Koryo is the official DPRK name for the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula...and would have been extended to include the entire peninsula had the elder Kim's dream of conquest been completed.)

I write from personal experience, from personal knowledge of the Koreas and from many interactions with north Korean officials during nearly a decade of working with US Forces in Korea and the UN's Korean Armistice Agreement organization. I've traveled, as much as a foreign government official may travel, in the north. I've seen this terror state up close and what I saw is not pretty.

Kim Il Sung, the Great Leader, took frequent trips around his fiefdom; each heralded by the state propaganda organ Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) as a great and popular success. The Great Leader's coming to any town or province was a big deal. Grimy, rundown villages would get a fresh coat of paint, gaping holes in the roads would be filled, the Korean People's Army (KPA) would truck in more food for the visit than the villagers would normally see in a year. And then the Great Leader would arrive, inspect a collective farm or pig production facility or some other state-owned operation...and he would give 'on the spot correction' instructions which KCNA would hail as 'the thoughts of the great genius, Comrade Kim il Sung, the Great Leader."

But in truth, north Korea was the last place on Earth where radical socialism should ever have existed. The Northern part of Korea is mostly semi-arid mountains with little viable agricultural land. Pyongyang, even during the brutal decades of Japanese colonial occupation, was a thriving industrial center; fed by grains and other food products grown in the agricultural South. The few successful farming operations

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>