WHO IS THE PROVOKER?

The suspicious “land mine explosion” in the western Demilitarized Zone along the Military Demarcation Line that bisects the Korean peninsula has created a touch-and-go situation in the peninsula.

On August 4 this year, a land mine exploded near an MP post in the south of the Demilitarized Zone. South Korea, in its report on “joint investigation” shared with the United States, insisted that it was an “intentional attack” by means of a land mine the north Korean soldiers had laid after trespassing on its territory. As soon as the report was made public, US soldiers with UN helmets on their heads appeared on the Military Demarcation Line at Panmumjom, and megaphoned that it was a “violation of the Korean Armistice Agreement,” and a “serious challenge to the south-north agreement on nonaggression.” They thus revealed by themselves that the “land mine explosion” was a plot the south Korean authorities concocted in collusion with the United States.

As a matter of fact, various types of land mines, including those made in the former Soviet Union, China and the United States, have been buried in a disorderly fashion in the Demilitarized Zone. It is a stark reality that many of them are washed away in rainy season and explode whenever a fire breaks out.

This notwithstanding, on the excuse of this incident, the broadcasting for smear campaign against north Korea resumed by the south Korean military authorities along the whole front is continuing day and night; to make the matter worse, conservative organizations have been enlisted for leaflet scattering against north Korea.

Leaflet scattering is now expanding to the whole area along the Military Demarcation Line. Leaflet scattering, an open provocation for war, is the most naked act of psychological warfare, which is, in essence, an act of aggressive war against north Korea.

In relation to this, on August 20 the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army sent an ultimatum to the south Korean Defense Ministry to stop the resumed anti-north broadcasting and withdraw all the means of psychological warfare or else it would immediately launch a powerful military action.

Unheedful of this warning, the south Korean military authorities fabricated another incident, this time “firing of a shell by the north,” and on August 20 provoked the north on the Midwestern section of the front by firing dozens of artillery shells northward on the absurd pretext that the KPA fired one southward.

The gravity of the prevailing situation lies in that the south Korean military authorities perpetrated the provocation without identifying the source of firing and the point of impact of the fired shell that should have been found out on their own territory and without ascertaining whether it was an anti-aircraft shell, a rifle shot or a rocket.

In retrospect, whenever an accident happened, the south Korean authorities provoked the north as a habit. There are numerous examples to illustrate this. They attributed the sinking of a corvette to the north’s torpedo attack and branded an unidentifiable drone far overhead as the one flying from the north. They even asserted that a door of the WC was a residue of the north’s drone and a broken vacuum flask, a fragment of a rocket fired from the north’s multiple launch rocket system. They went so far as to call the north’s peaceful artificial satellites long-range missiles, with a sinister aim of swaying public opinion. As is widely known, having aggravated the inter-Korean relations on the groundless excuse of “land mine explosion” and “firing of a shell,” the US and the south Korean authorities are staging joint military exercises on an extensive scale driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of war.

To cope with this critical situation, the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea convened an emergency enlarged meeting. The meeting checked the frontline large combined units’ combat preparedness and discussed political and military countermeasures to frustrate the enemy’s war moves. It also examined and ratified the KPA Front Command’s offensive operational plan, which is designed to launch an immediate counter strike and counteroffensive across the front in times of emergency. Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un of the KPA ordered the large combined units on the front to get into a war state at 17:00 on August 21, armed so fully that they could start operations at any moment, and declared a semi-war state in the frontline areas.

Now the army and people in north Korea are fully determined to deal a merciless, annihilating blow at the provokers.

The south Korean authorities should act with prudence, and they are well advised to think how their hysteric outrage will end up.