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Norks 'Planned to Invade South Despite Sunshine Policy'
North Korea built about 800 bunkers in the demilitarized zone to keep military equipment between 2004 and 2007, Radio Free Asia said Monday quoting a former North Korean colonel who has worked for a South Korean military intelligence agency after defecting during the 2000s."Pyongyang had built at least 800 bunkers including an unknown number of decoys by 2007 to prepare for a possible invasion of South Korea," the ex-colonel claimed. "Each bunker contains military equipment that can fully arm 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers." Construction began in 2004, the second year of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which continued the so-called Sunshine Policy of its predecessor. "If a soldier carried all his military equipment, which weighs 32 kg, and came to the DMZ in full gear, he would already be exhausted before reaching the South," the defector said. "So they built bunkers at the DMZ and put all their operations equipment there. In the bunkers, there are South Korean military uniforms and name tags, so that they can disguise themselves as South Korean troops. Also reserved are... 60-mm mortar shells, condensed high explosives, and all sorts of ammunition." He claimed "70 percent" of the roughly 800 bunkers are fakes or decoys to confuse the South. But the semi-underground bunkers are not linked to a series of underground passages built in the past to attack South Korea, he added. "Despite Seoul's appeasement policy, or whatever the South does toward the North, Pyongyang hasn't given up its aim of unifying the Korean Peninsula by military force. They are sticking to this principle and teaching North Koreans about it," he said. The defector is scheduled to testify at a closed-door session of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday. Posted by: Steve White 2009-11-18 |
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