ASF - thanks for good 1st hand info. Certainly I would expect those who escaped to be very critical, and very receptive to western/other systems - they obviously saw the facts, liked what they saw outside korea, and were motivated enough to go. We should not expect their attitudes to be typical of the overall population - especially if the overall population is uneducated. If the residents of Pyonyang don't believe peasants are starving, or believe its because of evil outsiders - well, they're welcome us just like the Iraqi Ba'athists did. When a totalitarian state controls the flow of information, by radio,tv,newspaper etc - the population can easily be brainwashed. if the totalitarian state writes the textbooks and starts every schoolday with a propoganda lesson, well, the wounds of the Korean war may be recent and painful enough for the general population to hate all things american. But hey, that's only to be expected. We can surmount this - but only if we recognize and plan for these possibilities. if the same people that threw away the toplevel US state department report titled saying "post-war Iraq ain't gonna be a vacation" because they didn't like the projections in it are now turning their eyes to NK....well, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
Here is the first thing I hear about this from the media: A denial from NK. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1512&ncid=2181&e=6&u=/afp/20041119/wl_afp/nkorea_kim I notice that there is also a link to a couple of stories about this from the NY Times, which should be more in depth. (I'm not registered so I can't access it.) Anyway, I will try to keep up by e-mail with what they say in China, and if there is anything significant I will post it.
A quote from that Yahoo story. "General Kim Jong-Il is the fate of the Korean people and the DPRK's socialism, it is unimaginable that the DPRK people and army can separate their fates from Kim Jong-Il," he said. This is what Marxism has evolved into. Incredible.