If we've got a missile, let's fire it into George Bush's window, say N Koreans
Sergey Soukhorukov in Pyongyang and Colin Freeman
(Filed: 25/06/2006)
In a land where anti-Western propaganda is the norm, one might have expected a triumphant state broadcast - or, perhaps, a rallying denunciation of "American lies".
But last week, as North Korea created a diplomatic storm over claims that it was preparing to test fire a missile that could hit the United States, television sets in Pyongyang were tuned into a rather different drama.
Instead of giving any details of the mounting crisis, state television broadcast the final episode of Mother, a turgid 22-part series based on a novel by the Soviet-era Russian novelist Maxim Gorky.
As with so much of life inside the world's last Stalinist state, the vast majority of North Korea's 23 million citizens remain completely in the dark about their nuclear weapons programme, or the international pariah status it has earned them.
Most have never heard of the regime's new Taephodong-2 long-range missile, which Washington claimed last week was being put in position for a test launch in the north east of the country, and which analysts fear is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to America's west coast. Nor, seemingly, are they aware of the dire consequences that such a strike would invite.
"How is it, we really have an intercontinental rocket?" asked one 50-year-old diner in a Pyongyang restaurant, sporting a lapel pin of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il.
When informed of the missile's existence, his face lit up in anger. "In this case we should fire it at United States, right to the White House, in Bush's window."
The restaurant's waitress also looked blank when asked why so few North Koreans knew that their country was at the centre of a nuclear standoff.
"We are at the state of war with USA, and there are a lot of spies, traitors and counter-revolutionaries around," she said. "Our Dear Leader knows what he does, and if it's necessary to keep something secret, we will".
Western intelligence reports last week suggested that fuel tanks have been seen around a missile launch pad at Moosan-rhee, although analysts conceded that it was difficult to be certain on the basis of satellite photographs. Kim Jong-il's regime has said it is willing to talk to America about its missile concerns, but Washington has insisted that it will meet the North only for talks directly aimed at scrapping the weapons programme.
On Friday, US officials in Seoul, the capital of neighbouring South Korea, repeated warnings that a missile launch by the North could have serious repercussions. "We still hope that they recognise that launching that missile would only isolate them further, and that they will make the right decision and not launch the missile," an official said. China and Russia - Pyongyang's remaining key allies - have also urged caution.
Last week, the US activated its fledgling ground-based interceptor missile defence system as a precaution after seeing the activity on the missile site.
Pentagon officials declined to say whether they would try to shoot down any missile in the event of a test fire.
South Korea is now pushing for a summit in September between its President, Roh Moo-hyun, and President George W Bush, in an effort to resolve differences in dealing with North Korea. The Bush administration has sought to pressure the North, while Seoul has taken the path of reconciliation.
In the meantime, the North Korean media and government has observed a black-out on the situation.
Queries from Pyongyang's tiny pool of foreign correspondents - two Chinese and one Russian journalist - are routinely ignored, while even Russian and Chinese diplomats complain of being in the dark. Most diplomats believe that the reason for pushing ahead with such a controversial missile test would be to strengthen the regime's hands in talks and bring the US to the negotiating table.
"The recent developments here are staged to make Washington change its position, lift sanctions it has imposed on several North Korean companies, and start direct bilateral talks with Pyongyang," said a Russian diplomat.
"The regime suggested this to the US via their United Nations representative in New York, but it didn't work out. Condoleezza Rice [the US secretary of state] made it very clear in her speech last week that intimidation, and the threat of the missile launch, is a bad way to start a dialogue."
The ongoing nuclear crisis has effectively scuppered hopes that North Korea might finally end its era of international isolation, which began in 1948 when Kim Jong-il's father, Kim Il-Sung, pioneered the doctrine of Juche, or self-reliance. Over the past half-century that system has translated into a Communist personality cult surpassing that of Ceausescu's Romania or Hoxha's Albania, with human rights groups documenting widespread cases of torture, public executions, and slave labour.
Up to 200,000 people are believed to be in prison and about two million are thought to have died since the mid-1990s because of famine caused by economic mismanagement.
If we've got a missile, let's fire it into George Bush's window, say N Koreans
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