NIIGATA, Japan - A planned visit to Japan by a North Korean ferry was canceled by Pyongyang Sunday after opposition by residents in Japan and a massive security clampdown by the Japanese government. North Korea warned of possible "catastrophic consequences," but the news brought relief in the city of Niigata on Japan's northwest coast.
Catastrophic Consequences? - canned Juche speech #23 - not even spittle worthy...
| Seems like everything brings "catastrophic consequences" when dealing with the Hermit Kingdom... |
Many there had opposed Monday's planned visit by the Mangyongbong-92 after allegations that the ferry, the only direct passenger link between Japan and North Korea, had been used for spying and smuggling missile parts. The ferry used to make the trip to Niigata about twice a month but has not visited since January, when there were noisy clashes between passengers and demonstrators at the dock. "We have heard from the government that the ship is not coming and we are now holding this rally on the basis that we have won," said Toshio Sasaki, one of the organizers of a campaign to oppose the ferry's entry. More than 1,000 police had been mobilized as well as dozens of government officials with X-ray machines and sniffer dogs to thoroughly inspect the incoming and outgoing people and goods when the ferry docked.
NOT SO DANGEROUS
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ended a summit in Japan Saturday vowing no tolerance for any kind of atomic arms program in the communist North. But Roh, speaking in a Japanese television show Sunday, also played down the risk from the North.
typical - glad we're moving our troops away from the DMZ - this fool makes it more dangerous every time he opens his piehole
Asked to comment on a survey showing about 90 percent of Japanese saw Pyongyang as dangerous, against 60 percent of South Koreans with similar fears, Roh said: "I think that people are excessively anxious out of line with the facts." Roh said North Korea was weaker than South Korea, and far weaker than Japan.
not counting their army and nukes, of course
| Counting their army and nukes. I've been seeing more reports that the NKors have taken to eating long pig again and that the songun™ transport doesn't have gas and spare parts to move a huge army made up of short people with big heads south. Roh's problem is his impulse is to feed the loons, rather than just letting his neighbors continue living as part of one big Alferd Packer social club. That's also not taking into account the tightness of Dear Leadere's wrappings, which could result in an attempt, however failed, to launch that war machine. If he could manage to conquer SKor and keep it, that gives him enough juche fat to live off for another fifty years. |
A pro-Pyongyang group representing North Koreans in Japan said the ferry service was called off because of what it called politically motivated provocation. "We can't accept the high-handed steps being conducted with political aims as being inevitable," said Nam Sung U, a vice chairman of the Chongryon group. "The acts ... to prevent Mangyongbong-92 from entering port debase our country's dignity and sovereignty," Nam said, adding that the allegations about the ship were baseless.
| Not accepting something implies that you're going to do something about it. If I was the Japanese, I'd show this guy what the penal system's like. |
ABDUCTIONS FUEL MISTRUST
The city of 500,000 people, set in one of the country's richest rice-growing regions, is home to several Japanese abducted by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s. The allegations of a nuclear weapons program in North Korea, which emerged last year, have further frayed ties between the two nations. "We are neighbors and we would like to be friends," said 59-year-old Kenichi Takasugi, a local government employee. "But they always do such horrible things."
| Could be because they're horrible, y'know. Maybe you don't want to be friends with horrible people? |
North Korea slammed the security clampdown it blamed for the cancellation of the ferry visit. "If this means a beginning of "sanctions" against the DPRK touted by the U.S. (United States) and its followers, it will push the situation to an unpredictable phase and bring about catastrophic consequences," said the official Korean Central News Agency. Chongryon's 100,000 or so members, who are mostly descendents of Koreans brought to Japan in the early 20th century as forced labor, use the ferry for trips to visit relatives, often carrying large amounts of cash to the poverty-stricken North. |