Kim Jong Un may have fired up rhetoric
about declaring a quasi-state of war and being ready to take on full-fledged
battle last month, but internally he ordered his troops on the border area to
ensure no such thing would happen. Concerned about the immense losses the
country would suffer in the case of war, Kim is said to have left strict orders
with the military, Daily NK has learned.
“Last month on the 20th, when the South
returned artillery fire to the North, family members of soldiers and other
residents were temporarily moved to a shelter,” a military source in Kangwon
Province told Daily NK on Thursday. “They received orders from the [Korean People’s Army, or KPA] General Staff to absolutely make sure no one got drawn into provocations from the
South.”
“Unlike the strong countermeasures we
usually hear about, threatening to turn the South into a sea of fire if they
even so much as touch a blade of grass in our territory, the orders were to
make sure not to get involved, so the soldiers were puzzled,” the source
explained. The orders were handed down from the KPA General Staff to each military
corps from the commander in chief Kim Jong Un, he added.
Specifically, ranking officials were told
to ensure no actions were taken based on emotions and to manage troops well to
avoid any conflict stemming from accidental fire. Not only that, high-ranking
officers under the KPA General Staff were dispatched to units along the border area
to confirm the orders were being implemented.
“The whole notion of all-out war was to
boost soldiers’ morale, but the border areas would have seen huge losses if
that really happened, since we would have been attacked with state-of-the-art
weaponry from the U.S.” he asserted. “The commander in chief (Kim Jong Un) is
well aware of America’s power, so that’s why he probably gave out those orders
through the General Staff.”
Added the source, the incident has led to
confusion among soldiers, since they know that it’s the North that first
provokes the South, yet they are told not to get drawn into provocations. Most soldiers
are aware that provocations along the border area originate from the North.
This account from Kangwon Province was
corroborated by another source in North Hwanghae Province. Naval troops based in
Haeju in South Hwanghae also received the ‘restrain from engaging’ order. This is
how military officers knew that despite the ‘quasi-state of war’, things would
not escalate into full-fledged war and end at the negotiating table instead,
she explained.
“The order drafted in the name of the KPA General Staff did cause some anxiety among soldiers and their families, but it
also led to some officers making sarcastic comments about being scared off
without even giving it a fight,” she concluded.
*The content of this article was broadcast
to the North Korean people via Unification Media Group.
