This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/27/north-korea-attacks-south-president-park-geun-hye-obama

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
North Korea attacks South's 'prostitute' president after Barack Obama visit North Korea labels South's president as 'crafty prostitute' after Obama visit
(about 5 hours later)
North Korea has launched a personal attack on the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, calling her a "crafty prostitute" in thrall to her "pimp" Barack Obama, as it said it was ready for "full-scale nuclear war". North Korea has launched a vitriolic attack on the South Korean president, comparing her to "crafty prostitute" in thrall to her "pimp" Barack Obama.
In an unusually strongly worded diatribe even by its own standards, North Korea lashed out at the relationship between a "master and its puppet" and said that Park would pay a "dear price". It also described Park Geun-hye as America's "comfort woman", a reference likely to enrage many in South Korea, where anger still runs high over the plight of thousands of women who were enslaved in Japanese military brothels during the second world war.
"Park Geun-hye's recent behaviour with Obama was like a mean, immature girl begging gangsters to beat up someone she does not like," said the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) on Sunday. The comments were issued on Sunday by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), which handles cross-border affairs, following the US president's two-day visit to Seoul. He arrived in Malaysia on Sunday for the penultimate stop on his four-nation tour of Asia.
"Or a crafty prostitute eagerly trying to frame someone by giving her body to a powerful pimp," it added, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). While Pyongyang is known for its aggressive rhetoric, recent remarks have been unusually personal.
KCNA's official English translation of the Korean-language dispatch offered "capricious whore" as its description of Park. Earlier this month state media ran misogynist articles, including one headlined "We accuse Park the bitch", labelling her as a lunatic, idiot and "cold-blooded animal" and emphasising the fact that she has never married or had children.
The vitriol came the day after Obama wrapped up a two-day visit to South Korea, during which he called North Korea a "pariah state" whose isolation would deepen further if it pushed ahead with a fourth nuclear test. Those remarks were presented in the form of quotes from ordinary North Koreans, while the latest tirade, carried by state news agency KCNA, is presented as a statement from an official body.
Recent satellite imagery has revealed heightened activity at North Korea's nuclear test site, and Park warned on Friday that Pyongyang was ready to stage another atomic test. It comes days after a homophobic diatribe which described the head of a United Nations commission on human rights in North Korea as a "disgusting old lecher". Pyongyang was angered by the team's report, which said it was committing grave and systematic human rights abuses on a scale unparalleled in the modern world.
Both presidents cautioned that defiance of international rules would mean harsher sanctions on the impoverished country, and urged China to discourage its wayward ally from a new provocation. "What Park did before Obama this time reminds one of an indiscreet girl who earnestly begs a gangster to beat someone or a capricious whore who asks her fancy man [pimp] to do harm to other person while providing sex to him," North Korea's CPRK said.
The CPRK, the North's body tasked with handling cross-border affairs, criticised the pair's remarks as "intolerable insults" against its leadership. Obama and Park had warned Pyongyang it could face strengthened sanctions if it detonated a fourth nuclear device, after North Korea said it could carry out a new kind of test. Satellite imagery has shown increased activity at a test site.
"If Obama and Park Geun-hye believed that they could change our minds with such threats and blackmailing, they can't be more foolish," it said. Those remarks "laid bare her despicable true colours as a wicked sycophant and traitor, a dirty comfort woman for the US and despicable prostitute selling off the nation," said the CPRK.
"In particular, Park Geun-Hye continued to viciously take issue with our dignity, system and nuclear programmes," it said, characterising her remarks as "froth(ing) at the mouth". It said the trip had shown North Korea was right to have concluded it should deal with the US "by force only, not just talking, and should finally settle accounts with it through an all-out nuclear showdown".
"She thus laid bare her despicable true colours as a wicked sycophant and traitor, a dirty comfort woman for the US and despicable prostitute selling off the nation," the KCNA translation said. The committee also accused Obama of being "utterly indifferent to the sorrow of South Koreans" over the sinking of the Sewol ferry, which has left more than 300 people, including many children, missing or dead.
The allegation that Park is a "comfort woman" – a euphemism for women enslaved to provide sex to Japanese soldiers during the second world war – will likely prove extremely controversial in South Korea, where it remains a hot topic in relations with Tokyo. "Had Obama even an iota of ethics and morality, he should have postponed or shelved his trip," it said.
The CPRK also denounced Obama, whose visit was "utterly indifferent to the sorrow" felt in South Korea over the sinking of a ferry full of schoolchildren. The US president expressed his condolences and offered South Korea any help required within 24 hours of the disaster. In contrast, North Korea expressed no sympathy until a full week later.
"Had Obama even an iota of ethics and morality, he should have postponed or shelved his trip," the KCNA translation said. The statement also suggested that Park would be assassinated like her father, the late South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee. "Genes remain unchanged," it said.
"The latest visit by Obama only reaffirmed our long-held belief that might, not words, are the only option to deal with the old enemy US and strengthened our resolve and determination to stick with our policy to fight a full-scale nuclear war. But experts do not believe the attacks are propelled by lingering animosity towards her father.
"Park Geun-hye will pay a dear price for abandoning the opportunity we earlier gave and choosing a path of anti-unification and anti-peace and a path to confrontation and war." "It's not so much about her personally, but rather a symbol of a new rhetoric … I think this is an attempt to use the same kind of emotional abuse as [Kim Jong-un's] grandfather," said Tatiana Gabroussenko, an expert on the regime's ideology and propaganda at Korea University in Seoul.
The latest invective follows months of increasingly colourful personal attacks on Park. Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was also the target of highly personal criticism by North Korea's state media, but the attacks on Park have been notable for their repeated allusions to her sex – she is Seoul's first female president. She said that while North Korea always attacked its southern neighbour's politicians, the "loud, personalised" tone of recent abuse seemed to echo the approach of the 1950s and early 60s. It might be part of emphasising his likeness to his grandfather, with a return to "proletarian candour", she said.
Pyongyang earlier likened her to a "peasant woman babbling to herself in the corner of her room" and derided her as a "low-quality politician" who talks "nonsense gibberish". "That was something used in Kim Il-sung's time and applauded; it meant he was 'one of us', not an elite intellectual, speaking from his heart," she added.
Since assuming office in February 2013, Park has repeatedly spoken of her desire to build trust with Pyongyang while remaining firm in the face of any provocation. John Delury of Yonsei University described the remarks as "a new low point in the misogyny".
The policy has not gone down well in Pyongyang, which has angrily rejected her proposal to prepare for unification as an attempt to absorb North Korea into the South. He added that Pyongyang's "deeply counterproductive" methods showed how ignorant it was of South Korea.
"There are deep fractures in South Korea and a lot of ways that North Korea could manipulate that," he said.
Using the "comfort women" comparison in particular touched on an extremely sensitive issue, not only insulting Park but also the survivors of the second world war brothels, he noted.