Korea, media control and silencing the masses

monosharp · 13-06-2010 2:37pm #1

So I was in Seoul today and came across a large protest regarding the recent sinking of the South Korean ship, the Cheonan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking

The protesters believe that their government is lying to them regarding the involvement of the North in the incident, they instead believe that it was an accident, the most common opinion is that it was actually caused by an American mine which the navies had jointly positioned against intrusions by the North.

Anyways, what I've found disturbing is the South Korean governments policies at the moment.

The current president is as hard line as they come, and since he got into office the government, or more specifically, the ruling party, has replaced heads of media organisations such as heads of TV stations, Newspapers etc. They effectively control the media now.

They also have basically made protests, peaceful or otherwise, illegal. People here probably don't know this but a few months ago there was a candlelight vigil protest in Seoul regarding importation of American beef. Regardless of them been right or wrong, the protesters were not doing anything wrong, they were simply gathering in groups to peacefully protest. The government turned the riot police on them.

The same thing today, the protesters were handing out leaflets regarding the Cheonan incident and marching up a street in Seoul. The riot police were called in and madness ensued.

I won't even go into other 'rumors' where some people actually believe the current administration were responsible for the murder of the ex-president.

Basically things are looking more and more like a police state over here.

Any word on these protests on the world media ? I couldn't find any myself.

the_syco · 13-06-2010 3:13pm

From what I know of the place, SK has been in talks with NK over talks to end the war. Yup, that's still ongoing. In the past few years, there has been some head way, people allowed to visit their relatives on both sides.

In saying that, NK has tested a nuke, and before that, has launched missles over Japan, so SK may be realising that NK means business.

The "mine" theory was put forth by the Chinese. The international community concluded that NK was to blame. When this happened, SK severed trade with North Korea.

[url=http://www.military.com/news/article/nkorea-threatens-south-loudspeakers.html?]military.com[/url] wrote:

A multinational investigation led by South Korea concluded last month that North Korea was responsible. The North has denied responsibility and threatened to respond to South Korean retaliatory measures with war.

The General Staff of the Korean People's Army said in a statement Saturday that North Korea would launch an "all-out military strike" to blow up any propaganda facilities along the border, and that its retaliation would be "a merciless strike foreseeing even the turn of Seoul ... into a sea of flame."

Although NK likes to yell big threats, sinking a SK military ship during SK/American training is one way to piss of SK.

If NK does attack SK, war will resume, and it will be interesting to see what side their neighbours will take.

=-=

In war, the media is often the first thing to be controlled, so it doesn't give the enemy a heads up of it doing anything. So, in light of the sh|t happening, this looks bad.

monosharp · 13-06-2010 4:12pm

the_syco wrote: »

The "mine" theory was put forth by the Chinese. The international community concluded that NK was to blame. When this happened, SK severed trade with North Korea.

No actually it was first brought up by the Korean minister for defence, he said it 'could' have been a mine. Also its not fair to say the international community concluded that NK was to blame, it was South Korea, U.S., U.K., Sweden, Australia and Canada who concluded that.

I'm in no way defending the North, I'm sitting here right now in Seoul so if the big K did decide to attack I probably would be gone in the first few hours. But the whole situation is suspect, the timing, the finding of the parts, the lack of motivation for such an incident by the North.

I posted this before but I'm going to copy and paste the relevant parts dealing with why I, and a lot of Koreans, don't believe it was the North.

1. NK had nothing to gain from this in any capacity, in fact they will loose because this incident has helped the SK current administration and the current administration are extremely hard line with the North. The North refuses to even have talks with the SK president its that bad. There have been skirmishes in the same area of sea since the Korean war finished, year after year. People have been killed, ships damaged etc yet never was responsibility denied. It doesn't gain NK anything by sinking a SK ship and then denying it.

2. The current administration is deeply unpopular and is almost guaranteed to loose a lot of support in the elections tomorrow, castrating the current presidents power. This incident may save them some support as they are hard line against the North, very coincidental.

3. If it was an accident, especially one caused by or taken part in, by the yanks then the current administration would be in much worse trouble. Nothing would get the riots and anti-government demonstrations going then this administrations best mates causing the deaths of Korean sailors. Theres a very strong anti-American military attitude among the populace especially concerning events where Americans are involved in deaths of the local populace.

4. China has stated "Beijing would not defend those responsible for the sinking of a South Korean warship". This is an extremely strange comment from China. They can't 'not' defend North Korea from invasion, they would loose far too much by allowing the Americans into North Korea as has already been highlighted. The message is very strange in its wording, I'd put money on it that China knows, or at least thinks they know that, NK had nothing to do with it and is simply working their press releases around that fact, or imagined fact.

So the current conspiracy theory ,if you want to call it that, states that the ship was sunk by accident, either through its training exercises with the yanks or by some other means such as hitting an old mine. People then believe the current administration decided to place the blame for this at North Korea's feet in hopes of gaining support for the forthcoming elections because of their hard line policies. The US too, would hardly object to this strategy if they knew it was happening.

Quotes from Koreans supporting the above, from the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asi...c/10154787.stm

Quote:
Originally Posted by SUNGSOO JI
To be honest, I'm not sure I trust the information given to us about the Cheonan sinking. It could be a trick because it's election period at the moment, so it could be some kind of strategy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LEE JAE-YOUN
First of all, why has this happened now? We have an election in one week and many acts of provocation by North Korea have occurred in the period before an election. So we wonder - has this warship sinking accident been abused by the ruling party?
The evidence is not clear, yet our government takes the result of the investigation as a fact. But I wonder how the mark of the ink pen still exists [on the torpedo fragment] even after the explosion? And why has North Korea put a signature at the bottom of the torpedo?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GYUHANG KIM
I and many others suspect the South Korean government of deliberately accusing North Korea, even of making up the proof.
We are well aware of the anti-North Korean sentiment of the government and do not trust the official report at all.

I also think the government is ruining years of hard work of former presidents, especially Kim Dae-jung, who have worked so hard to take a first step towards reunification.

<snip>

Rumours are spreading about the cause of the sinking of the ship - such as a possible mistake with an American submarine during a joint exercise, which was covered up by the South Korean government in order to discredit North Korea.

monosharp · 14-06-2010 10:06am

Protests against the North in Seoul, which strangely were not deemed illegal nor banned from the media like the protest I talked about above which still, as far as I am aware, has had no media coverage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hka15BP2r80

SK President Lee Myung-Bak giving a speech where he says the South will re-start propaganda broadcasts against the North in the form of loudspeakers directed across the border.

p.s > Some really hot bird at the start reporting this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_0CFqnO4Ao

South Korea setting up the aforementioned speakers to which the North says they will destroy them and turn Seoul into a 'sea of flames'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKMONBXN5r0

So tensions just keep on building, the South's current administration keeps pushing back hard. Propaganda broadcasts were stopped by both sides 6 years ago, restarting them is a big step backwards from friendly relations.

All of the good work, if you consider it good, done by the 2-3 past administrations following the sunshine policy -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_Policy, is becoming undone.

Although the Souths President did say he was going to stop all trade with the North, as far as I'm aware he still hasn't. I know a few people working in North Korea who travel up and down weekly who are still going there for work, at least until today.

Korea, media control and silencing the masses

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