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N. Korea - Entropy in Motion
...the Chinese have a more urgent reason than anyone else at the table to want major reforms in Kim Jong Ilâs regime without delay. Hunger and oppression inside North Korea have spawned an epidemic of violent crime on the Chinese side of the border. âThe North Koreans arenât afraid of anything,â says one area resident. âNow weâre the ones living in fear.âALTHOUGH BEIJING has mostly kept the crime wave out of the papers, itâs no secret to anyone who lives in the area. More than 100,000 illegal North Korean refugees live in China in hiding, under constant threat of being sent home to face starvation, imprisonment and possible execution if they are caught. Robbing or stealing is sometimes the only way to survive. North Korean soldiers have added to the chaos, in-filtrating across the line and attempting armed robberiesâeven, NEWSWEEK has learned, a bank holdup in the border town of Tumen Yup, right there on page 58 of my Juche Handbook: Patriotic Self-Reliance and Correction of Deviant Corrupt Robber Barron Activities thru Stickups. As if that werenât enough, Pyongyang has sent swarms of operatives into China to track down defectors and refugees. The hunts can end in murder. In one border town, armed North Korean agents apparently killed a pair of South Korean missionaries along with four North Korean refugees whom they were hiding. In another incident, a North Korean refugee killed two local police and a Chinese border patrolman in the town of Longjing, west of Tumen. Last week, thousands of Chinese troops arrived in the regionâs main city, Yanji. Local sources say that they will be stationed at a string of newly constructed military garrisons in Tumen and other frontier towns, replacing smaller units of border police. So on one hand we have NK troops crossing the border in order to feed themselves. This indicates a serious breakdown. On the other hand, we have regime agents recieving and executing orders, which says to me the final collapse is not upon us. Yet. "Newly constructed military garrisons," eh? Whatâs the difference between a "garrison" and a "jumping off point"? Posted by: Pete Stanley 2003-08-24 |
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