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AFP. 28 March 2002. Plea for dialogue with US faces bitter anti-Americanism in N Korea. PYONGYANG -- While North Korea was this week being urged in a message delivered by visiting Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri to re-open dialogue with the United States, it is clear deep-rooted anti-American feelings still grip the country. Megawati, who arrived in North Korea on Thursday, is due to pass on Seoul's urging that Pyongyang start talks again with both South Korea and Washington, officials said. However, real progress in ties with the United States will come up against an attitude rooted in the foundations of the Stalinist state's ideology -- America is the enemy -- which seems to have been reinforced in recent months. Foreign reporters taken on a rare tour of Pyongyang this week, unconnected to Megawati's trip, were repeatedly told by locals that US President George W. Bush's description of North Korea as part of the "axis of evil" was considered a terrible slur. "The development of friendly relations between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States depends on the policy of the United States authorities," said Pak Kwong-Suk, the guide at a Korean War memorial in the capital city, using the country's full name. "Recently the US has called the DPRK the 'axis of evil'," she said. "When I heard this hostile policy towards my country, friendly relations seem impossible. This is unreasonable and senseless." While such attitudes are understandable -- perhaps even compulsory -- in Pak's job, similar views can sometimes be glimpsed in far more everyday levels of the deeply isolated North Korean society. Reporters were shown late Thursday around Pyongyang's main Korean traditional medicine hospital, with guides proudly showing off a selected few gleamingly-equipped treatment rooms. However, in a hospital corridor, large parts of one wall were taken up with gruesome wartime photographs depicting severed heads, appallingly burned bodies and the like. An accompanying text spelled out that the United States was responsible for the atrocities. "In everything, at every moment, in all ways, we must follow education against the US imperialists," read one slogan. "The American imperialists are the sworn enemy of the Korean people. Because of them, the Koreans cannot live under the same sky," another added. An official guide escorting reporters was asked if such displays were normal. "Of course, this is party policy," she replied, looking nonplussed at the question. "We are all very much angry about this unreasonable comment ['axis of evil'] on our country," said retired naval Lieutenant Kim Jung-Rok, who now guides visitors around the USS Pueblo, an American spy ship captured 34 years ago and moored in central Pyongyang's Taedon River as a museum and anti-US "prize." "We do not believe it is the American people but their authorities who are blocking the way of reunification in our country and progress in relations between the two countries," Kim said. "Especially the Bush administration, it is very hostile to our country," he added. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
