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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| N.Korea Demolishes Border Villages to Stem Defections |
| 2013-04-30 |
| North Korea is demolishing villages near the border with China along the Duman River and forcing residents to move south in order to prevent defections. A government source here said on Friday, "North Korea has been forcibly relocating villagers along the Duman River to places further from the border." The source added soldiers have been mobilized to demolish homes in some of the villages. In one village in Onsong, North Hamgyong Province, around a hundred homes were reportedly demolished. The Duman narrows as it passes Onsong, making the area a popular spot for defectors to cross into China. Activists in South Korea who help North Korean defectors said one Onsong resident was executed by firing squad recently after being captured in the attempt to defect. "The regime believes that stemming defections is an effective method of staying in power," the government source said The North has stepped up border patrols and installed high-tech surveillance equipment, including devices that track the sources of cell phone signals. In some parts of North Korea, rice from military storage is being doled out to local residents to combat food shortages. "Every soldier has been ordered to donate several kilograms of rice and send it to local food distribution centers," the source said. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #5 FWIW, I thought they already had banned any settlements within about 25 km of the border anyways... Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2013-04-30 19:21 |
| #4 "The regime believes that stemming defections is an effective method of staying in power," the government source said. While enslaving and starving the rest? Seems pretty dumb to me. Power requires living people over whom power is wielded. Not gonna be many of those left at this rate. |
| Posted by: RandomJD 2013-04-30 15:58 |
| #3 Oh, wait, Tuman River, not Yalu. Also plenty of farmland, but the other side of the watershed. Apparently the Yalu will drown your ass if you try to cross it in the dead of night? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2013-04-30 09:32 |
| #2 Hmm, looks like a lot of farmland along the Yalu border. Are they sending the peasantry back under guard during the day to work the fields, or are they abandoning the farmland, too? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2013-04-30 09:28 |
| #1 As said before, the DPRK may no longer have the ability to wait many years + decades for de facto reunification wid the ROK - IT NEEDS REUNIFICATION ASAP LEST CHINA TAKE IT OVER JUST BY SIMPLE NON-WAR ECONOMIC ATTRITION = ECON-LED STATE COLLAPSE. WHAT MORE CHINESE TAKEOVER DUE TO WAR-LED COLLAPSE? However, the DPRK is caught in the parallel larger, more dangerous issue of China's demand for strategic MilPol access for the PLA in various Asian mainland + maritime regions. CAN NORTH KOREA + INTER-KOREAN REUNIFICATION SURVIVE CHINA'S "MANIFEST DESTINY"? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2013-04-30 00:17 |