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by Christian / Base21 Media Activists
dvs-b@t-online.de

Even the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK, in Korean: Joseon Minjuju-ui Inmin Gunghwa-guk) agreed last Friday with multilateral talks about the nuclear crisis the DPRK created last year the threat of war here isnt banned yet.

Before news of DPRK's willingness to begin 6-way talks broken last Thursday, U.S. undersecretary of state John R. Bolton delivered a highly aggressive attack on the North Korean leader with whom the U.S. hopes to negotiate. 　Kim Jong-il seems to care more about enriching uranium than enriching his own people,　 Bolton said in a speech in South Korea. 　While he lives like royalty in Pyeongyang, he keeps hundred of thousands of his people in prison camps, with millions more mired in abject poverty.　　For many in North Korea, life is a hellish nightmare,　 Bolton said, adding that a State Department report on human rights estimated that 400.000 peoples had died in North Korean prisons since 1972.

"It is very easy to destroy North Korean nuclear facility in Yongbyon", R. Perle, one of the main advisers to US war minister Rumsfeld, said on his visit in Germany, according to newspaper Tageszeitung. Some weeks before in Berlins German Society for Foreign Policy he said: 　It would be a big mistake to rule out military force against North Korea.　 He said like Israel bombed the nuclear reactor in Osiraq/Iraq 20 years before 　we can do the same in 2003 against Yongbyon.　　Technically it would be no problem and military very easy: and suddenly theres a big hole in Yongbyons ground.　

Words like that - last month U.S. Vice Secretary of 　Defense　 Wolfowitz demanded very openly 　regime change　 in the DPRK - are highly provoking to the North but also to many people in South Korea.

But if it is not enough like that, here it comes much more heavy: In late May 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed military commanders to develop a new approach for conflict with North Korea, Operations Plan 5030. Critics of the plans provisions claim that it blurs the line between war and peace. Under the draft plan, US Forces Korea would conduct pre-conflict maneuvers to draw down North Korea's limited military resources. This might place such stress on the North's military that it might provoke a military coup against the country's leader, Kim Jong-il

According to U.S. media, options available under OPLAN 5030 include flying RC-135 surveillance aircraft closer to North Korean airspace, provoking the DPRK to wear out scrambled interceptor aircraft and burn up jet fuel. Under another gambit, US commanders might stage a surprise or short-notice military exercises, provoking North Korean forces to disperse to [or from] bunkers. This could disclose details of DPRK war plans, and deplete reserve of food, water, and other materiel.

The initial draft of 5030 included a variety of operations not included in traditional operational war plans, such as disrupting financial networks and strategic disinformation activities. Indeed, the entire OPLAN 5030 story might be part of such offensive information operations, creating a bewildering wilderness of mirrors for the historically paranoid DPRK.

Since the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions erupted last October, when officials in Pyeongyang disclosed they had a secret program to enrich uranium, the Washington has sought to pressure the regime into giving up its nuclear programs without offering inducements or entering into negotiations. US administration officials have sought to enlist Japan, South Korea and China to join in isolating North Korea, and have begun laying the groundwork for a maritime campaign to shut down North Korea's narcotics and weapons smuggling operations. For the D P R K a reason for a war against the U.S., Rodong Shinmun, central newspaper of North Korean Workers Party, said repeatedly.

North Korea has insisted on direct bilateral negotiations with Washington, although officials briefly participated in trilateral talks with China and the United States, and over the months it has taken increasingly provocative steps. It ousted international inspectors, restarted a shuttered nuclear facility and appears to have reprocessed at least a few hundred of 8,000 spent fuel rods that can provide plutonium for weapons. The spent fuel would give North Korea enough nuclear material to build two to three nuclear bombs within a few months, doubling the estimated size of its arsenal. Last Friday North Korean news agency announced that the North is now ready even for multilateral talks, like demanded by the U.S. administration.

In the last developments the U.S. deployed F-117 stealth bombers on South Korea air base and some 24 B-1 and B-52 long distance bombers on the pacific island Guam.

The last step was the deployment of a U.S. Stryker Rapid Combat Unit north of Seoul for 　military exercise　, South Korean newspapers reported.

For anti-war activists here, the last developments and several sentences they had to hear from Washington this are clear signals, that the U.S. means it serious with the threat of 　"regime change"　 in Pyeongyang. So yesterday around 200 student activists from Hanchongryeon (Korean Confederation of Student Councils) went to Pocheon north of Seoul in Gyeonggi-do (province), where the Stryker platoon is based. There the activists protested against the U.S. policy of militarism on the Korean peninsula, but also in the Middle East. After a rally the demonstrators tried to enter the military area but were blocked by large units of riot cops. During around three hours battle with the cops at least 5 students were arrested and several injured. The activists demanded the withdrawal of USFK (United States Forces Korea) and steps for a peaceful reunification with the North. On the end of the protest as a last act of showing their displeasure with the U.S. imperialism they destroyed the sign board of the military camp.