A poster smuggled from North Korea showed a sailor smashing an enemy ship, splitting it in two. Suspiciously, the Cheonan was also split in 2, resulting in the deaths of 46 sailors. North Korea has also handed out medals to a submarine crew.
North Korea adds insult to injury
CHOE SANG-HUN, SEOUL
July 18, 2010
A PROPAGANDA poster recently smuggled out of North Korea depicts its military smashing an enemy warship in half, a scene evocative of the sinking of a South Korean warship earlier this year.
Although the poster did not identify the ship in the poster as the Cheonan, the South Korean corvette sunk in March, it raised suspicions that North Korea may have begun bragging about the sinking for domestic propaganda purposes, said Radio Free Asia, which released a photograph of the poster.
With the caption, ”If they attack, we will smash them in a single blow”, the poster shows the red fist of a North Korean sailor splitting an enemy ship.
Advertisement: Story continues below// The Cheonan was split in two and sunk in waters near the disputed western sea border between the two Koreas. Forty-six sailors were killed.
A South Korean-led team of international investigators concluded in May that the ship was destroyed by a North Korean torpedo attack, though the North has vehemently denied involvement.
But North Korea secretly awarded medals to the crew of a North Korean submarine and boasted of its victory during propaganda lectures for its military and party elites, according to recent reports by South Korean websites that collect news from sources inside the North.
The government in Seoul could not confirm those reports, and the North’s official news media have repeatedly accused the South and the United States of fabricating the Cheonan sinking to raise tensions.
Radio Free Asia, which is supported by the US, said it obtained the photograph of the poster from a Chinese businessman who recently returned from North Korea.
It remained unclear whether the poster was made before or after the Cheonan sinking, or whether it depicted an earlier North-South naval clash and had been distributed now to put up a fierce face amid rising tensions with the West. Posters and public slogans are a major tool of propaganda in the isolated North.
NEW YORK TIMES
