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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject: N. Korea wants imaginary wall torn down |
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http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSSEO20068620071231?rpc=92
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By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster, the Himalayas has the Abominable Snowman and Pyongyang's propaganda machine has the Korean Wall, a bogus barrier that has been a mainstay of North Korea's media for nearly 20 years.
Over the weekend, the North's official media called on the South to tear down a concrete wall on the border it says stretches across the peninsula, calling it a "national disgrace".
"The existence of this wall is hindering the inter-Korean reconciliation, cooperation and independent reunification," the Korean Central News Agency quoted a communist party newspaper report as saying.
One of the greatest hindrances to tearing down the wall is that it doesn't exist.
Another problem is that North Korea does not allow its citizens to freely leave the country. Defectors say anyone trying to escape is shot and the state has even executed some North Koreans caught abroad and forcibly returned.
And escaping would be hard, anyway.
Both Koreas have erected razor wire fences 2 km away from the border to mark their side of the Demilitarized Zone buffer strip that bisects the peninsula.
There is little to mark the actual border within the DMZ, a heavily mined no-mans-land guarded by more than 1 million troops.
Analysts said Kim made the claim to rally support for his state as its communist allies faded with the end of the Cold War. At the time Seoul was working to set up formal ties with the Soviet Union, then the North's biggest benefactor.
On New Year's Day 1990 Kim, founder of one of the world's most isolated and repressive states, called it "a barrier of national division" preventing free travel between the two countries.
The North's official media have never corrected Kim, who is revered at home as a god and posthumously declared the country's eternal president.
Some international news reports accepted Kim's pronouncement as fact, prompting Seoul to invite journalists and observers a few weeks later to look into the DMZ to see for themselves that the wall did not exist.
But for a wall that is not there, North Korean propaganda has painted a vivid picture of it.
It says the border wall stands 5 meters (16 ft) to 8 meters (26 ft) high, is as thick as 19 meters and was built in the 1970s by a "South Korean military fascist clique".
KCNA has mentioned the wall about 150 times over the past decade. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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Now that is really peculiar.
The only thing I can come up with is that the North can someday show its people that the previously non-existant wall has been torn down and can brag to the people about how they deserve the credit for making the South tear it down. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:55 pm Post subject: |
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| it is there. some westerner got into NK and put the footage on you tube. well camoflagued. why wouldn't SK build a wall? it would slow down for maybe 5 key minutes any blitzkreig. |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject: |
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| mistermasan wrote: |
| it is there. some westerner got into NK and put the footage on you tube. well camoflagued. why wouldn't SK build a wall? it would slow down for maybe 5 key minutes any blitzkreig. |
link? |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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| sorry at this time you tube and i think the name of the film was something like "welcome to north korea"is the best i can recall. i'll dig around when i have time and try to find the exact one. |
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makemischief
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Location: Traveling
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 1:02 am Post subject: |
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Here's the documentary link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ6E3cShcVU
I'm mildly confused as well as the filmmaker is definitely not pro-North and has videos of the wall (I'm too lazy to watch it again, but I think it's somewhere in the last 15 minutes if I recall). Won an International Emmy.
Go figure. Maybe it's a fake wall put up by the North?
Whatever the source, it does show up quite clearly in the video (assuming that, as a respected documentary, the video itself isn't fake). |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 1:09 am Post subject: |
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thanks for doing the leg work. seven classes today.
if you wanna skip the eating bark and glassy eyed kids just go to 44:18 on the timer. it'll be right around there. |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:05 am Post subject: |
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| mistermasan wrote: |
thanks for doing the leg work. seven classes today.
if you wanna skip the eating bark and glassy eyed kids just go to 44:18 on the timer. it'll be right around there. |
that is very odd.
the wall is clearly there. the film won an award. i trust the film makers.
but the south denies.
could the north have put the wall there?
wouldn't the soldiers building the wall have been killed by the south korean soldiers for trespassing?
good film though, forgot about the wall part. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:08 am Post subject: |
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a democracy that lies to the people! shocking. this could only happen in...oh...nevermind.
hope we don't get busted for exposing state(d) secrets. |
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loose_ends
Joined: 23 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:14 am Post subject: |
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| mistermasan wrote: |
a democracy that lies to the people! shocking. this could only happen in...oh...nevermind.
hope we don't get busted for exposing state(d) secrets. |
If we assume the wall in the video is real, what would make the south lie about it?
I can see why the lie would be continued, but why would they conceal it being built. Clearly the north knows about it.
I wonder how many South Koreans have actually seen this film.
OP has been DEBUNKED! |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 2:20 am Post subject: |
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the US navy taught us to "lie to you die" once you tell a lie you gotta stand by it. it is a state secret. things are less frosty now than 30 yrs ago. the folks calling the shots in the 70's are long dead. their decisions are not.
the OP has not been debunked...rather reuters has been caught in a falsehood that even an "unemployable" english teacher could expose.
cynically, expect the clip to be pulled from you tube in 1, 2, 3... |
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Stoakley
Joined: 20 Nov 2007
Location: Florea
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 5:59 am Post subject: |
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| Google Earth? |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 10:45 am Post subject: |
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That's an informing documentary, but the video quality is so bad, I could barely see anything, much less a wall.
Stoakley suggest google earth. Anyone got the time? |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 12:09 pm Post subject: |
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I could barely see anything, much less a wall.
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It was just a blur to me, too. |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 6:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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I could barely see anything, much less a wall.
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It was just a blur to me, too. |
Maybe the wall is just in one section, for show by the North for international visitors. I know at the DMZ on the USO tour, there isn't a wall there. Yet there is a city, "Propaganda City," inside North Korea that is a farce. |
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