Mick Hartley

Within the past couple of weeks there have been what appear to be organised attacks on North Korean border guards along the Chinese border:

Unidentified armed men carried out a series of attacks on North Korean border guards along the country’s border with China right before the lunar New Year, according to North Korean sources.

The sources also claimed that some of the unidentified armed men who conducted the attacks carried firearms and showed signs of organized movement, which has piqued curiosity as to their identity. […]

North Korean sources say that North Korean authorities consider this the work of a dissident organization composed mainly of defectors who are emulating the June 1937 Battle of Bocheonbo.

In his memoirs titled: “With the Century,” former North Korean Leader Kim Il Sung wrote, “The goal of the Bocheonbo battle was to create the sound of gunshots in Korea and let everyone know the existence of an armed struggle.”

Inside North Korea, rumors that the attacks were launched by defectors who went to South Korea are already spreading.

Joshua at One Free Korea (via whom) recalls the December Freedom House conference:

Lim Chun Young, who served 14 years in one of the North Korean military’s special warfare units before defecting to the South in 2000, said that former soldiers are best suited to end leader Kim Jong Il’s regime and improve human rights conditions.

“We will try to bring about regime change unless North Korea abolishes its slaughterhouse-like political prison camps and unleashes the freedom of its people who are chained to the country’s system,” Lim said at the news conference.

“This is not word play, but a last warning ahead of action,” Lim said. In a press release, the group said it plans to forge links with the North Korean military. Lim said the group planned to carry out “direct activities” in relation to North Korean border guards, though he provided no details. Wednesday’s news conference was attended by eight other former soldiers. Lim said his group includes some 53 ex-soldiers from the special units.

This could be significant – or it could be nothing.