North Korea
Please lift up in prayer one whose situation is extremely difficult. That is Kenneth Jun-Ho Bae whom we have mentioned before. He is under arrest in North Korea and is sentenced to death for espionage. He is a tour operator based in California and a Christian who was taken as he was leaving North Korea with his tour. It is unlikely that his sentence will be carried out and the North may try to use him as a pawn but there is no recent news so we do not know more about his situation. I am sure, though, that it is very difficult for him. Please keep him in your prayers.
The political situation is very troubling but I do not believe that Kim Jong Un is the least interested in attacking either the United States or South Korea and no one is about to attack him, at least not under the present circumstances. Even though he declares a "state of war", this has been the technical situation all along. The fighting ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty. The North has been trying to get a treaty through the years but the young leader is making it more difficult rather than easier for himself. The most troubling thing to me and to others is that he does not have either his father's or his grandfather's experience in international or domestic politics. He is young and very inexperienced. I also wonder if he has the intelligence of either Kim Jong Il or Kim Il Sung, both of whom were very intelligent men with great skill at knowing how far to push and get what they want and when to back off. The young leader seems at times to be almost a victim of his own rhetoric. My greatest concern is that he has no one who will or can tell him the truth and that he will do something to trigger an accidental war that most likely be his complete undoing.
The people of North Korea have been under great strain for a number of weeks now as he has ratcheted up the tension and put the whole country on top alert status. This is taking a great toll on the people as they are forced to participate in drills that take them away from earning their own living while not providing them with anything else. The countryside is also being devastated as military units wipe out young forests and steal for their own food. In the meantime, the soldiers themselves are having a rough time of it as they are forced to do things for which they received not training--like driving trucks. Because of the lack of fuel, drivers never have any experience in driving, sometimes for the whole duration of their time in the military, and the trucks have straw in the tires for lack of new ones. They often use trucks converted to burn wood gas. These pour out clouds of smoke and can only move at about 20 miles per hour or so. One person even quipped that they'd mobilize faster using ox carts. The people are complaining more and more as the situation deteriorates. The Leader is doing all of this, it seems, to secure his position internally--with the forlorn hope of getting the U.S. to negotiate with him directly. He well may go too far and stir up more trouble for himself.
What is even more absurd is that North Korea has people in China trying to drum up tourist business and who are assuring everyone that there is no danger of war.
For anyone who is interested in following things inside North Korea, I recommend www.dailynk.com. The website opens in Korean but there is a link to the English version as well as Chinese and Japanese pages. Most of the links above are to articles here. Korean versions of most of them can also be found on the site.
All in all the situation is, in many ways, more pathetic then dangerous but danger cannot be ruled out. On the other hand, all of this is taking a great toll on the ordinary people of North Korea. Keep them in your prayers and do pray that Kim Jong Un will back down and the situation stabilize.
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