There has been widespread consternation in South Korea of late following the so-called ‘knock knock defection’ of a North Korean soldier across the DMZ near Mt. Geumgang. However, shock is not the exclusive preserve of South Korea; the Kim Jong Eun regime has simultaneously been meting out serious punishments to those involved in another case, wherein a single soldier shot and killed two of his superiors before escaping across the Military Demarcation Line at Dorasan in the west of the peninsula.
“That news travelled far and wide because the soldier killed two of his commanders before defecting,” a source from inside North Korea revealed to Daily NK on the 18th. “The General Political Bureau (GPB) has ordered all units to ramp up ideological education.”
There are regularly cases of soldiers defecting across the DMZ; however, the North Korean authorities do not allow such news to spread for fear that it could harm morale and affect ideological purity. Nevertheless, given its unusual nature this most recent incident has already shot through the division in which it occurred, all around nearby Kaesong and north as far as Pyongyang.
The impact of the case is reportedly all the greater because the soldier involved hailed from the frontline Mingkyung Unit, whose soldiers have excellent backgrounds and which treats them comparatively well. It is this elite unit which performs guard duty in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom.
In an attempt to arrest the decline that the case would appear to reflect, political commissars are reportedly conducting face-to-face meetings with soldiers to inform them of the dangers of losing ideological strength and to explain that the soldier involved in the shooting betrayed his country due to ideological impurities arriving from South Korea. All the South Korean products found to be in the possession of soldiers are being confiscated, it is alleged.
The crackdown also extends to South Korean products in local markets. The source said, “They have vowed to strengthen the penalties for anyone who sells South Korean products, dramas or DVDs. The atmosphere is not lenient.”
Up in Pyongyang, from which the assailant hailed, it is said that not only the family of the soldier but also his middle school teacher and Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League leader have all been dismissed.
