Hidden Nook

The tape, which is the third to emerge from North Korea in two weeks, appears to be the first ever of an anti-government organization in North Korea. Those who made the tape would almost certainly have faced a firing squad had they been caught. Because the tape is 35 minutes long, we couldn't translate all of it, but we did translate three banners and one excerpt of a lengthy political discussion. The first banner, with the jerky images of black ink on beige paper, says:

Overthrow Kim Jong Il! Let's rise up, my fellow citizens, and throw out Kim Jong Il!

The second banner, which is written in red ink, says:

The deaths Kim Il Sung and Kim Young Un, who demanded liberalization, and the arrest of Jang Sung Hyok, were all the acts of Kim Jong Il. Why should we die of hunger and in rags? Where are you leading us? Let's fight and take back freedom and democracy!

Red ink is emotionally loaded in Korean culture; it signifies extreme anger. The third picture, posted above, says:

Kim Jong Il--Who are you? [illegible sentence] The people will throw you out of your position! We claim freedom and democracy! Reform and an open-door policy are the only way to live.

Both of the latter two posters are signed, "Young Comrades for Freedom." Finally, one excerpt of the political lecture translates very roughly as follows:

Kim Jong Il blames America for our depression and our bad economy. But think about the fact that if life under socialism compares this way to life in America, then which system is really more democratic?

If authentic, the tape would validate one of the foundational assumptions behind the North Korean Human Rights Act--that at least some of the North Korean people are deeply discontented with the regime and searching for ways to oppose and overthrow it. If the tape reflects the views of a fairly large percentage of the North Korean people, money appropriated to stir dissent could be money well spent. Such forthright advocacy for the overthrow of the regime suggests that it may indeed be possible to hasten its the extinction by supporting and empowering internal resistance.