 MILNET Brief North Korea |
| MILNET Brief North Korea |
South Korea 
(map) /
North Korea 
(map)
Terrorism North Korean Nuclear Threat
The conflict between South and North Korea is probably familiar to most reading this report. With a war in the mid 1950s that at times threatened to engulf the world in a new World War, with China and Russia facing off the U.S. and the United Nations who were doing there best to keep Communist expansion from over-running the small nation of South Korea.
Today a tense no-man's land lies between the divided country, with a rabid communist regime in the North fighting their internal struggles including famine, and a frankly frightened government in the South facing their own domestic economic strife.
North Korea
North Korea has hinted at the nuclear card, implying they are only a few years (if not months) away from having the components to producing nuclear weapons. This and their purchases of components and nuclear power facilities that have dual use, have forced the non-proliferation treaty signees, led by the U.S. to put pressure on the North to cease and desist. While fiction writers have predicted and spelled out in great details various schemes for a Northern attack on the South, since the war ended, there has been no major attack in either direction across the DMZ.
Decades of nationalistic rhetoric have provided a war of words as well as anxious allies since the two countries agreed to the demilitarized zone between North and South, but have provided few opportunities to resolve the differences.
North Korea today remains one of the last holdout communist nations, practicing a socialist agenda with a very Soviet like government. It is one of the few cases where we can't find a reason for the conflict based upon culture, language or borders. Pure politics are at play here with a democratic nation in the South and a socialist-commnist country in the North.
As a closed nation, little is known about popular dissent or terrorism that takes place in Korea, since anything negative reported by the state run media is immediately attributed to illegal South Korean dissident criminals and murders.
The current North Korean regime is facing food shortages admits rising costs to keep the military functional, and conditions in the country appear to be mirroring those of the last days of the Soviet Union. Indeed, as South Korea keeps up the pressure, it appears North Korea is headed for popular revolt as basic living requirements for the people will eventually force the government to collapse.
The western world, however, is concerned that the government of North Korea, never known for its maturity and better known for ruthless disregard for life, may choose to go out in a blaze of glory. With the possibility they may have a few nuclear weapons or at least the capability to deliver dirty weapons, the concern is for the welfare of South Korea in that eventuality.
South Korea
In the Korea before the Korean War, the deliberate use of violence, including occasional assassination, to express or advance political goals was common among both the right and the left in Korea after liberation in 1945 and up to the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950.
Subsequent political violence up to the 1980s, apart from exchanges between police and participants in political demonstrations or rallies, was largely limited to the illegal government use of violence or the threat of violence to suppress dissent and intimidate political opponents. During the presidency of Syngman Rhee (1948-60), for example, the government mobilized the anti-Communist Youth League and members of street gangs to smash facilities of critical newspapers and intimidate opposition candidates for election (see The Syngman Rhee Era, 1946-60 , ch. 1).
The Park government continued illegal police practices, including torture of some dissidents, intellectuals, and even members of the National Assembly, and was often indirectly involved in violence. The Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) also used various means, including physical threats, to intimidate South Korean journalists in the United States. Such methods continued under Chun, occasionally resulting in the deaths of political defendants under police torture. Police were passively present while hired thugs broke up dissident religious services or union meetings. Under Roh Tae Woo, police handling of political suspects retained some of the illegal violence of earlier times, although improved media freedom also meant greater scrutiny of police misconduct. In contrast with earlier regimes, however, the Roh government permitted prosecution and conviction of police officers and even of military personnel in several cases involving violence during its first year in office.
Public violence against government institutions was rare from the 1950s through the early 1980s. When students overthrew the Syngman Rhee government in April 1960, mobs destroyed the headquarters of Rhee's anti-Communist Youth League. More spontaneous forms of violence often occurred during student protest rallies in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, when small numbers of rock throwing students at the edges of large rallies clashed with club wielding riot police, or security forces dispatched martial arts experts and plainclothes officers to beat or arrest demonstrators. Students also occasionally beat up police informants or plainclothes officers. This pattern changed following the killings of students and other demonstrators in Kwangju in May 1980.
The Kwangju incident permanently stained the legitimacy of the Chun government for subsequent generations of student activists, many of whom also blamed the United States for what they believed to be its supportive role. The use of Molotov cocktails by some elements among student demonstrators, both as a counter to increasingly effective police use of tear gas and as a reflection of increased militancy, became a feature of student demonstrations during the 1980s.
In 1988, under the general guidance of the National Association of University Student Councils (Chondaehyop) or the Seoul Area Federation of Student Councils (Soch'ongnyon), small groups of students armed with Molotov cocktails, metal pipes, and occasionally tear gas grenades or improvised incendiary or explosive devices, staged more than two dozen raids on United States diplomatic and military facilities. Students also conducted a similar number of attacks against offices of the government and ruling party and the suburban Seoul residence of former President Chun.
North Korean Nuclear Chronology
The South continues to expend huge sums on their military budget, hoping to keep up the pressure on North Korea. The strategy appears to be working as North Korea, paranoid as ever continues to chew up resources needed to keep the government and people functional. When President George Bush added North Korea to his list of nations part of the "Axis of Evil" many countries complained and the media went berserk with cat calls. However, within a month, North Korea began making preparations for talks and announced their willingness to discuss the future of the two nations.
South Korea is in negotiations to buy several new ships and aircraft for its military, and this, as usual has brought on harsh criticism from the North.
The following are other recent events:
Terrorist Groups Active in South Korea
Terrorist groups active in South Korea are mainly student activists such as:
