Tear down what wall?

Scotsman:

SCOTLAND has the Loch Ness Monster, the Himalayas has the Abominable Snowman and Pyongyang's propaganda machine has the Korean Wall, a bogus barrier that has been a mainstay of North Korea's media for nearly 20 years.

Over the weekend, the North called on the South to tear down a concrete wall on the border, which it says, stretches across the peninsula, calling it a "national disgrace".

"The existence of this wall is hindering the inter-Korean reconciliation, co-operation and independent reunification," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a communist party newspaper report as saying.

One of the greatest hindrances to tearing down the wall is that it does not exist.

Another problem is that North Korea does not allow its citizens to leave the country freely. Defectors say anyone trying to escape is shot and the state has even executed some North Koreans caught abroad and forcibly returned.

And escaping would be difficult anyway. Both Koreas have erected razor wire fences 2km away from the border to mark their side of the demilitarised zone (DMZ), a buffer strip that bisects the peninsula.

The South has put up scattered concrete anti-tank barriers near the DMZ but not a coast-to-coast concrete wall on the border.

A few weeks after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the North Korean leader, Kim Il-sung, said in a New Year's Day address that Seoul had built a massive concrete wall to divide the two states, which are technically still at war.

Analysts said Mr Kim made the claim to rally support for his state as its communist allies faded with the end of the Cold War. At the time Seoul was working to set up formal ties with the Soviet Union, the the North's biggest benefactor.

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But for a wall that is not there, North Korean propaganda has painted a vivid picture of it, claiming the border wall stands 16ft to 26ft high, is as thick as 30ft and was built by a "South Korean military fascist clique".

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The South Koreans need to call a news conference an announce that the wall has been torn down and North Korean citizens should come take a look. While the Norks are insult artist, and sometimes creative, the myth of the wall appears to be created from thin air.