This article about North Korean executions of its people trying to flee to China highlights three things:
The blurry film - from apparently a hidden camera - appeared to show two people being shot in Hoeryong town near the border with China on March 1. The condemned faced the firing squad shortly after a brief trial in which a judge found them guilty of trying to cross into China and smuggle others there, News Net said.
One, the regime is brutal in its efforts to keep the people of North Korea from escaping their gulag with a UN seat. Second, it reminds us that in the last few years, more and more North Koreans are escaping and opening a two-way communication channel with family back in North Korea. Third, it reminds us that the North Korean people have lost enough fear of the brutal consequences of defying the regime to risk trying to escape their horrible lives.
This article is not about some soccer hooliganism that the writer assumes in the report about a near-riot at a North Korea-Iran soccer game:
A World Cup qualifying match between Iran and North Korea in the capital of Pyongyang erupted into a melee Wednesday evening when fans were enraged after referees failed to call a penalty against one of the visiting players.
Bottles and rocks were thrown on the field, and masses of North Koreans surrounded the Iranian team's bus after the match — a rarely seen display of
public violence in the authoritarian country. North Korea lost, 2-0.
First of all, it's nice to see that the people of one Axis of Evil member aren't buddies with people of the other. It doesn't affect the policies but still, it's interesting to see.
More importantly, for those who recall how audiences in tightly controlled communist states usually react when observing foreigners performing or playing for them, this is very significant. I recall reading, during the Cold War, how communist audiences would just sit politely when a Western audience would react with clapping or cheering or some evidence of enthusiasm. In the communist states, such expressions could be viewed suspiciously by the regime and so the people sat like stones.
Instead, the people of the most brualized and suppressed nation in the world threw stones.
Where was the fear of the regime? The fear of executions or prison? And not just for the stone throwers but their families as well?
These articles are more evidence that the North Korean regime is dying. The North Koreans may pretend they can up the ante by demanding general nuclear disarmament in their region but this is the bluff of a regime that is on its way out. They can insist on an apology from the US for noting they are an outpost of tyranny and they can demand Japan not be allowed to participate in talks, but North Korea is in no position to insist on anything. Those in the West arguing for significant concessions make a mistake in assuming we have to live with this regime.
North Korea is dying. Help them along.
