The basic objectives of North Korean psychological warfare are to create a favorable condition to communize the entire peninsula, and the directions can be categorized as follows:
First, to spread revolutionary indoctrination throughout the South Korean populace, that is, to instill anti-America and anti-government sentiment in the South and to instigate struggle against the South Korean government through revolutionary indoctrination of a whole range of South Korean society including workers, farmers, the youth, students, intellectuals and the military.
Second, to provoke struggles for anti-American independence and anti-dictatorship democratization among South Koreans, thus linking anti-American and anti-government struggle with the communization of the entire peninsula.
Third, to launch, consistently and aggressively, disguised peace offensives against South Korea, thus attempting to create a favorable atmosphere to communize the South by urging the USFK to withdraw from the peninsula, precipitating the disintegration of the South, and putting forward false peace offensives to dress up the regime's image.
Fourth, to induce internal discord within South Korean society and the disintegration of its system, North Korea has been launching political and ideological offensives to create chaos in South Korean society, drive a wedge between the people and the government, and provoke strife between the ruling elite and the military.
Fifth, to create a favorable international environment to incite revolution in the South. By continuously asserting the inevitability and righteousness of the revolutionary struggle in the South, North Korea hopes to gain support from the international community.
B. Organizations for Psychological Warfare
Under the direction of the Secretariat of the KWP, the supreme organization in the North Korean political system, Pyongyang has pursued continuous integrated psychological warfare in all aspects of political, economic, social and military affairs at both tactical and strategic levels.
The United Front Department of the KWP Secretariat operates psychological warfare through radio, TV and loudspeaker broadcasts, leaflet distribution, and visual displays. Major propaganda apparatus employed are such radio and TV stations as Pyongyang Broadcast Service, Pyongyang FM Service and the Kaesong TV Station. They are operated by the Committee on Broadcasting toward South Korea which is under the direct control of the United Front Department. North Korea also operates the Democratic People's United Front Broadcast Agency, the so-called Voice of National Salvation, a malicious propaganda machine against the South.
Under the supervision of the United Front Department of the KWP, the Enemy Breakup Operation Department of the General Politburo under the MPAF is in charge of loudspeaker broadcasts. Leaflet operations are carried out by Liaison Office #310 and rubber balloon platoons of the MPAF, which are also under the control of the KWP United Front Department.
C. Activities by Propaganda Machinery
In 1995 Pyongyang broadcast over thirty propaganda programs over loudspeakers at the DMZ, repeating them anywhere from two to ten times for ten or eleven hours per day. Recently, however, the broadcasting period has tended to be shorter due to aging broadcasting equipment and shortage of electricity. Leaflets containing criticism against the South and self-praising propaganda, are dispersed by rubber balloon toward the South from some ten points along the front line, especially the section immediately north of the Seoul metropolitan area.
North Korea has established more than 500 visual display posts on the subjects of personality cult of Kim Jong-il, self-praise of the North Korean political system, and anti-American and anti-military propaganda. They utilize neon lights, engraved stones, standing signboards and walls. Most of them, however, are worn out and crude in appearance.
D. Recent Trends of Psychological Warfare against the South
Recent
North Korean propaganda and instigation are intended: to intensify criticism and reproach
against specific persons and the South Korean government by criticizing and fabricating
false stories on the globalization, summit diplomacy and reform policies of the incumbent
government; to create distrust among the South Korean populace against the government by
spreading distorted and exaggerated information on the irregularities within the South
Korean military and regarding living conditions of the populace, and thus estranging the
public from the government. North Korea, while it unilaterally abrogated the Armistice
Agreement, has continuously strengthened propaganda offensives against the South as usual.
First, North Korea has intensified vilification and reproach specific persons. It has criticized and reproached South Korea's diplomacy toward Europe, the UN and the Asia-Pacific region as flunkeyism and sellout diplomacy. It has also vilified and reproached specific persons regarding the rectification of history and the general elections to the Fifteenth National Assembly.
Second, Pyongyang is instigating an anti-American and anti-government struggle in South Korea. It has been heightening tension on the peninsula, falsely labeling ROK government response measures to the nuclear issue as well as ROK-US joint military exercises as "exercises to attack the North." While it spreads anti-American sentiment among the South Koreans in relation with South Korea's market opening and the ROK-US SOFA agreement, North Korea is instigating an anti-government struggle to oppose the construction of nuclear waste storage sites and to abolish the ROK's National Security Law.
Third, North Korea has plotted the disintegration of public consensus among South Koreans by falsely propagating information on the South Korean military and society. It has intensified its vilification against the South Korean military service conditions to make the servicemen weary of their duties and to curtail their morale. It has also schemed to arouse distrust among university students and workers against the current government by vilifying government policy regarding the Kwangju incident and labor disputes, thus instigating an anti-government struggle and the disintegration of public consensus.
Fourth, it has continued to carry out disguised peace offensives by proposing "Ten Principles for Uniting the Korean People" and advocating a peace treaty with the US. It has intensified its disguised peace offensives to project a peaceful image for itself at home and abroad and to take initiative in the South-North dialogue. In order to carry out these aims, North Korea conducted the August 15 Pan-Korean Assembly and proposed the Federation of Koryo Republic, Ten Principles for Uniting the Korean People, and the replacement of the existing Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty with the US.
Fifth, North Korea has continued to launch propaganda about the supremacy of the North Korean-style socialist system. Faced with a system crisis after the collapse of the East European communist bloc, North Korea has stepped up its propaganda on the supremacy of the socialist system and its ideology. Since the death of Kim Il Sung, North Korea has highly praised Kim Jong-il's leadership and tried to implant a pro-North Korea group in the South and to strengthen internal cohesion of its system by calling for allegiance to Kim Jong-il.
All in all, North Korea has been trying to establish a basis for achieving unification by communizing the South through such psychological warfare as vilification of individual persons, thus attempting to impair the legitimacy of the current ROK government, and instigation of anti-government struggle and social disorder.
