North Korea Warns South in Annual New Year's Day Message - WSJ.
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ASIA NEWS JANUARY 1, 2011, 11:56 A.M. ET
North Korea Warns South in Annual Message
By EVAN RAMSTAD
SEOUL—North Korea's authoritarian regime, in its annual New Year's message, on Saturday underlined
its desire to take over South Korea and warned the South's government to stop what it called "north-
targeted war moves" and a "smear campaign" against it.
Much of the nearly 6,000-word message repeated
statements it made last year and in previous years.
Most of it focused on a long-promoted drive by the
North's government to build a "prosperous nation" by
2012, the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Kim Il
Sung, who founded North Korea and was its absolute
ruler from 1948 until his death in 1994.
Mr. Kim's son, Kim Jong Il, has led North Korea since
then and, in late September 2010, tapped his youngest
North Korea calls for an end to confrontation with the son Kim Jong Eun as his heir apparent, in a sign the
South but offers no specific proposal for talks. Video
courtesy of Reuters.
family will attempt a third generation of control over
the nation of 24 million.
As in the 2010 statement, the last 1,500 words or so of the 2011 message was devoted to the decades-
long tension between North and South Korea. The Korean peninsula was divided by other countries in
the aftermath of World War II. Since then, North Korea's regime has spoken of "reunification" under its
totalitarian leadership.
South Korea's government, meanwhile, envisions a united Korea with its democratic government in
control. The North's government calls that vision "antireunification" and "treachery."
"Today there is no more vital task than national reunification for the Korean people," the North's
message on Saturday said. "The stand of attaching importance to the nation, the stand toward
independent reunification, is the touchstone by which to distinguish patriotism from treachery."
The message indirectly referred to North Korea's Nov. 23 attack of a South Korea-controlled island, the
first attack by the North on South Korean land since the war of the 1950s. The North in Saturday's
message again blamed South Korea's government and "outside forces," a reference to the South's allies
the U.S. and Japan, for inciting the attack with "north-targeted war moves."
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North Korea Warns South in Annual New Year's Day Message - WSJ.com 1/3/11 7:12 PM
the U.S. and Japan, for inciting the attack with "north-targeted war moves."
"The danger of war should be removed and peace safeguarded in the Korean peninsula," the message
said. That was stronger language than it used in the 2010 New Year's message, when it said, "The way
for improving north-south relations should be opened."
The 2011 statement went on to outline a number of steps the South's government should take to avoid
confrontation, including a halt to weapons purchases and its military alliance with the U.S.
"Collaboration with outside forces leads to war and national ruin," the message said. "The entire nation
should never tolerate the criminal moves of pro-U.S. war hawks who stake their fate on foreign forces
and drive the situation to the brink of war in collusion with them."
It called for "active efforts" to "create an atmosphere of dialogue and cooperation" between the two
Koreas and said "free travel of and exchanges between people from all walks of life should be ensured."
The message also reiterated the North Korean regime's oft-stated themes of independent development,
which it puts into practice by limiting freedoms of its citizens, including their ability to travel and obtain
information about the outside world while telling them there is no life better that the one they are
leading.
"There are no party and people in the world as great as ours, which have an ever-victorious history and
a highly promising future," it said.
The New Year's statement is one of the main messages of the year by the North's leadership to its
people. It is printed in every major North Korean newspaper and read on state-run broadcasts. Its state
news agency distributed the entire message, along with seven separate news stories about it early
Saturday.
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