Talk:North Korea/Archive 3

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Mexico

Which is North Korea's take on Mexico? El Chompiras 15:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Context? "Yes, Mexico.. It's a country.. over there.." --Streaky 05:03, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Ryugyong Hotel link

Request:

Ryugyong Tower link to the external links: http://ryugyonghotel.com/

You can be brave and add the link yourself, you know, although I think that hotel link would work much better in the Pyongyang article. --TonyM ^{ｷﾀ━( °∀° )━ｯ!!} 17:33, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Box formatting

Something's wrong with the flag and coat of arms label, at the top of the box on the right. Can someone fix it? HSL 23:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Name

Shouldnt the name of this article be Democratic People's Republic of Korea (that is the official name) insted of north korea? Revengeofthynerd 13:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree but see the discussion regarding altering the name of the DPRK on wiki. The result was no consensus hence it was never changed Jsw663 06:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Best reason to keep it as it is, you're looking up the country after "North Korea", not "Democratic Repu...", so the shortened name is the commonly used one and probably what you'd find in a hard cover encyclopedia as well (with the offical name in brackets after it ;-) ). --Grendelshitsuren 21:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

But note that even Chris Hill (the US govt official on East Asian + Pacific affairs) refers to the country in official press conferences as the DPRK, not North Korea. Jsw663 04:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Will the user from Takoma Park, MD, USA (IP 71.252.52.8) stop vandalizing the page? Jsw663 06:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Archiving

I've done my best to archive any inactive discussions from above, as the page was getting intolerably long. I tried to leave behind any discussions where there were comments from July or August of 2006, since those might still be active. If I accidentally moved any active discussions, it might be better to restart the discussion further on down than to dredge up the original back out of the archives - I saw a lot of sections with comments from 2005 or even 2004 followed up by comments from 2006. Might be a good idea to come back and do some more archiving in a month or so. crazyeddie 06:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

2006 missile test

The article currently states that a 7th (or possibly 6th, since the 6th in the series is currently disputed) missile was fired on July 6th. I've not been able to find reference to this, and the Wikipedia article on the whole incident seems to only contain rumors that a 7th launch was being readied, not that on was fired off. Could it be that somebody just jumped the gun in reporting that 7th launch here? Or is my researching ability being imparied by the fact that is about 3AM local time? At least it is already marked with a "citiation needed" notice...

At any rate, I'd like to link to the main article on the missile test, and reduce the amount of language this article dedicates to it. I won't attempt that now, because of the aforementioned local time. If anybody gets a chance to do something about this before I get a round to it, be bold. crazyeddie 07:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggestions to make this sentence more NPOV?

I would suggest changing:

North Korea has the sovereign right to test its missiles and pursue its weapons program.

to

North Korea claims that it has the sovereign right to test its missiles and pursue its weapons program.

or something similar. Suggestions? Objections? Alternatives? crazyeddie 08:16, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, with the addition of what rationale used by DPRK to claim that it has such a sovereign right (e.g. a UN resolution, its own inalienable rights, something Juche-related...?) Leaving "has the right" seems to be slanted in favour of the regime, "claims it has the right" makes it sound a bit dubious... "claims it has the right" with verifiable backup info seems just right to me. Nach0king 11:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That sounds good, except I'm not sure what NK's actual rationale is, or where to find that out. (Where's Bjornar when you need him/her?) Could somebody figure that out, or suggest an interim solution until somebody figures it out? crazyeddie 16:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[1] has some good info. I will now amend the sentence in a preliminary fashion but any further editing is more than welcome, particularly from someone with more expertise on the subject than myself. Nach0king 17:24, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Tweaked it some, more for reasons of aesthetics than NPOV or anything else. crazyeddie 19:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I was in something of a rush as I wrote it. Not to mention that my writing is clumsy at the best of times :) Nach0king 10:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Reunification

The section currently consists of:

Since Korea was split into two parts as a result of United States actions in 1945, both regimes have held a desire to reunify the Peninsula on its own terms.

First off, I'm fairly sure that more was involved than just the actions of the United States, so this would appear to be pretty POV. Secondly, this is pretty stubby, even for a summary. Any suggestions on how to improve this? crazyeddie 08:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I've decided to be bold and removed this section; I was going to beef it up but decided that if South Korea doesn't have an explicit section on reunification, then this article doesn't need one either. --Bletch 00:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It might be better to add more information to both articles than to simply remove the section. While South Korea doesn't have a section dealing with reunification, it does have a paragraph dealing with its relationship with the North. Perhaps something similar should be done here, a paragraph dealing with the North's relationship with the South rather than a seperate section? crazyeddie 20:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: Here's the relevant paragraph from SK's article:

North and South Korea continue to dispute which country should be deemed the "rightful successor" to the previous Korean states. Despite longstanding animosity following the Korean War in 1950 (which has still not officially ended), the South and North have in recent times sought to establish a more conciliatory relationship. This road has however been punctuated by a number of difficulties, including the North-South presidential summit corruption allegations in June 2000. Nevertheless, events such as the Olympic Games, where the two Koreas currently enter the opening ceremonies together but still compete as separate teams, show a new and more optimistic side to the North-South relationship.

I've inserted a paragraph into the main foreign relations section dealing with NK's reunification policy, which I basically cut and pasted from the Korean reunification article:

Although still technically at war, both North and South Korea proclaim that they are seeking eventual reunification as a goal. North Korea's policy is to seek reunification without what it sees as outside interference, through a federal structure retaining each side's leadership and systems. Both North and South Korea signed the June 15th North-South Joint Declaration in which both sides made promises to seek out a peaceful reunification. [2]

I think it is best to talk about NK's policy rather than SK's policy in this article, so I've left out many of the details. crazyeddie 20:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Issues

I feel uncomfortable about having a seperate first level section for "issues." I'd like to move the human rights subsection to foreign relations and the famine subsection to economy. This isn't a perfect solution, but I think it's better than the current status quo. Comments? crazyeddie 20:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

On a similar note, wouldn't tourism be better placed under Economy than Culture? Or would it be better to remove the section altogether, and link to tourism article from See Also? crazyeddie 20:21, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the information from the famine subsection into the economy section, where there was already some langague dealing with it already. Could use a bit of massaging to blend it in better. crazyeddie 20:55, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

That's done, now I'll just listen for screams.... crazyeddie 19:29, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

"Websites critizing north korea"

So, just because jesusland is gearing up to invade north korea doesn't mandate a list of websites criticizing the country. No other country seems to have such a section in their respective articles. It is ridiculous & I urge that it be removed asap.

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no concensus for move. Also North Korea, although not its self-identifying name, follows the naming conventions for countries. Joelito (talk) 18:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

North Korea → Democratic People's Republic of Korea … Rationale: Proper name of the country, North Korea is informal. --Hamedog_Talk|^@ 09:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

• Support. Use the proper name, and redirect if needed.--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 09:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
• oppose seems more usual to use common name, ie United States not "United States of America", France not "French Republic" etc --Astrokey44 04:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). --Kusunose 06:26, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Naming conflict#How to make a choice among controversial names. --Kusunose 08:29, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support - The official name of the country is DPRK. --Riley 07:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Everything you read on the internet that the country published refers to t as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They don't call it "North Korea" and neither should we, since the common name to them is DPRK. -Jonquière 07:04, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

  Oh really? "Everything you read on the internet"? The "newspaper of record" doesn't --rogerd 17:21, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• Soft Oppose. Proposal has its merits, but prefer following Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names). Of course they don't call themselves "North Korea". They probably want to rule the entire Korea. It's probably their POV that their govt is the only legit govt in Korea. As an outsider, I just want two simple names to distinguish the two current political entities. The use of North & South Korea seems fine to me. --PFHLai 07:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. That’s just its formal name… much like, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or United States of Mexico or Commonwealth of Australia or Dominion of New Zealand, Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, Most Serene Republic of San Marino etcetera etcetera etcetera--Greasysteve13 09:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. Ditto Lee Stanley 09:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons stated by Greasysteve13. That is also just it's formal name and not what most people know it as. TJ Spyke 21:35, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose We should use the most common name for English speakers, despite formality; that would be North Korea. Even the United States article isn't at United States of America. joturner 15:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose Using the example of South Korea, which is called by its common name instead of Republic of Korea --rogerd 17:21, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
• Soft Support DPRK is the country's actual name, and it's logical that the country would be listed under that. While the USA's article is listed under United States, it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be United States of America, which is the country's actual name. However, I concede that it is way more common to hear the country called North Korea in English speaking nations, much like the United States of America is simply called the United States.--Majorpayne27 13:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
• Support If wikipedia wants to show itself as a proper encyclopedia that can rival Encyclopedia Britannica, etc., it needs to be more formal. I don't see what's wrong with a redirection from North Korea to the DPRK page. Perhaps when the DPRK citizens themselves start calling their own country North Korea instead of the DPRK (in Korean) then maybe it would be time to change. Until then, the DPRK should be the official name. Jsw663 09:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose North Korea is NOT a Democratic Peoples Republic, they dont deserve to be called it! 09:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

As Per Astrokey44's comment, I suggest moving every country page to their proper name/full name.--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 05:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Gotta be consistent. But I don't look forward to the scores of edit wars that will ensue. (Am I too much of a pessimist ?) -- PFHLai 07:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that there is precidence for a case like this, in East Germany/German Democratic Republic. The article is under the name German Democratic Republic, despite the common english name of East Germany.12:44, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Anon is right about the German Democratic Republic article, however, the country is still referred to as "East Germany" throughout its own and in many other articles (including Germany). Common names like North Korea and East Germany flow a lot easier mid-sentence than they would if they were replaced by their full official names at every occurence. Lee Stanley 12:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Just want to point out that "East Germany", in current use, doesn't always refer to "German Democratic Republic", but the eastern parts of Germany (including "West Berlin", so I heard....) The ambiguity necessitated that change. This doesn't apply to North Korea, at least not yet. -- PFHLai 14:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I dont know about in Germany itself but in today's world if a person that didnt live through the Cold War talks about East Germany they are probably talking about the Eastern portion of the country. And since Berlin is in the middle of that both the Western and Eastern sides of it would be in East Germany. I think refering to it as GDR is a really good thing hopefully though a redirect was created for East Germany to the GDR or a disambigutation page. Other then that per Wikipedia policy the more common names should be used when they can be and here it can be.

This is from WP:Naming Conventions: To determine the balance of these criteria, editors may find it useful to construct a table like the following:

Criterion	Option 1	Option 2
1. Most commonly used name in English	?	?
2. Current undisputed official name of entity	?	?
3. Current self-identifying name of entity	?	?
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.

Mark each box with 1 for a yes, or 0 for a no. Add the totals of each column to get final scores for the options. The option that has the highest overall score should be used as the article name. In case of equal scores, criterion 1 takes precedence, except for conflicting scientific names, in which case the (most) undisputed (of the) "official" name(s) is best used (see above).

My understand is that the table would look like this, if option 1 was Democratic People's Republic of Korea and 2 North Korea:

Criterion	Option 1	Option 2
1. Most commonly used name in English	0	1
2. Current undisputed official name of entity	1	0
3. Current self-identifying name of entity	1	0
1 point = yes, 0 points = no. Add totals to get final scores.

Providing self-identifying name is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", then we have a further support for a change to Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

故金日成

I know how silly it is, but, according to North Korean law, Kim Il Sung (deceased) is forever the President of Korea. It sure is cultish, bizarre and freaky, but I don't think we should disregard his official status no matter how absurd it may be. He should be listed on the information box as the president. --Ce garcon 19:25, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Jog on. 86.7.153.81 20:41, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. If the North Korean government see him as the president of NK forever then he should be in the infobox.--Scott3 16:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Me too. But there's already someone there, and I'm not sure how to change it without screwing things up.--Planetary 06:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

This is really inaccurate, in the DPRK's new constitution after Kim Il Sung died, Kim Il Sung is refered poetically to as "the eternal president of the republic", in the preamble to the constitution, not in the body of the constitution itself. The preamble has no legal status, niether Kim Il Sung, the office of "president" or "eternal president" or any variation of it are referenced in the body of the text, so in fact he has no legal standing and the office does not exist. It seems that some westerners got a little carried away in over reporting the significance of an, admittedly rather cultish line, but not one that suggests what is being claimed. NoJoyInMudville 17:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

about the 'official' dprk website

I'm pretty sure it's bogus. Why? A simple whois turned up the following:

domain: korea-dpr.com status: lock owner: Alejandro Cao de Benos de Les email: vientian@hotmail.com address: Valencia, 555, 3, 3 city: Barcelona state: Barcelona postal-code: 08026 country: ES admin-c: vientian@hotmail.com#0 tech-c: salva@digival.es#80 billing-c: salva@digival.es#0 reseller-1: Visite: www.digival.es reseller-2: Dominios com, net, org, biz. info. y .es reseller-3: 1a Empresa Espanola del sector certificado AENOR reseller-4: Rapido y economico. Visitenos nserver: a.ns.joker.com 194.176.0.2 nserver: b.ns.joker.com 194.245.101.19 nserver: c.ns.joker.com 194.245.50.1 registrar: JORE-1 created: 2000-08-08 03:51:24 UTC core modified: 2004-07-08 09:47:36 UTC JORE-1 expires: 2006-08-08 03:51:24 UTC source: joker.com

db-updated: 2005-04-06 02:15:18 UTC

A spanish guy and joker.com ... doesn't seem very dprk-ish...

This is infact the Official Webpage of the DPRK, and yes, it is made by a Spanish person known as Alejandro Cao de Benos, who is appointed by the DPRK Government as Special Delegate of the DPRK government. The DNS host provider does not help to convince people that it is an official webpage, but other evidence will prove that it is. The evidence is clear, do a google for "korea-dpr.com" and see the BBC links. Click on "webpages that link to korea-dpr.com". About Cao de Benos, see among other this link from NKZONE http://nkzone.typepad.com/nkzone/2004/04/honolulu_pyongy.html where multiple news organizations (Like Yonhap) are referring to his webpage and news of the signing of the "Friendship City" between Honolulu and Pyongyang, See also the Slate article http://slate.msn.com/id/2076686/ about DearLeader.com - Kim Jong-il's fanboy home page. This should settle the status of www.korea-dpr.com and I am adding it back on the page if its missing. Let this stand for future reference. --Bjornar 13:53, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

For those who are curious, www.korea-dpr.com has now changed its DNS servers. --Bjornar 09:44, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If the webpage were official it would be based inside the DPRK and run by North Korean citizens. However, korea-dpr.com is run by mere fans and supporters of the North Korean government and is simply a fanpage. Generously-speaking, one might refer to it as the official North Korean fansite. 220.126.38.85 15:01, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The previous comment is incorrect. North Korean citizens do not have access to the internet. The country has its own domestic intranet which features North Korean pages only and is not connected with or accessable from the Internet. For this reason, all official N.K. websites on the Internet are based in other countries. Examples include the KCNA site (based in Japan) and Naenara (based in Germany). --Winword10 11:31, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The website being refered to as the "official website of the DPRK" is actually just the website for the Korean Friendship Association, an international group that tries to promote the DPRK's interests, apparently by making poorly designed propagandistic websites, it is not a government or political organization of the DPRK. NoJoyInMudville

That's Right. I was a member there for a while. Joined out of curiosity, but what a bunch of wierdo's. The term Korean Friendship is misleading. Basically, to participate you must accept the DPRK's angle on all things. You are not allowed to question anything, no matter how well constructed your argument may be. (Hence why I am not allowed there anymore). Even moderate opinions are frowned upon. Nothing you get from that website can be considered NPOV.

small point

Within the article it says:

>and in practice almost no-one is refused entry by North Korea

However in referenced article "Fancy a round, Dear leader?" (Independent), it says:

>The local proverb "seeing is believing" goes some way to explaining why the
>DPRK bothers granting any of its meagre 1,500 tourist visas issued annually
>to Western travellers

I can't see how they don't refuse entry when they only allow 1500 tourist visas.

I have changed it, but find the whole section on culture to be lacking. --32.97.110.142 18:44, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The small number is due to the lack of people who want to enter North Korea, not because North Korea refuses entry. The many web sites I've seen by people who visited North Korea convinces me that this paragraph about no one being refused entry into North Korea is true. I am putting the information you deleted back into the article. -- KittySaturn 07:47, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)

"But 1,500 Western tourists still visit every year, together with thousands more from Asia, and according to Mr Willoughby the country's isolation is the very reason they go." - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3113352.stm - might help answer this --86.8.33.224 04:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Recent edit is more balanced

The edit performed by me today is a more fair distribution of facts from each opposing side, which roughly breaks down to this:

1) The official western viewpoint: The DPRK is a hellish regime like 1984 where half the people are always starving and the other half is inside a consentration camp. Millions of reports are inside the media, often lacking real evidence since many of the news are fabricated from a few set of sources, but widely circulated and repeated again and again in the western media.

There are many reports; most of them are factual based on refugees' testimonies. What would you suggest as evidence? The DPRK never allowed access for independent human rights observers. And no one would ever expect the DPRK government to admit any human rights violation or any other failure. - Luglio 21 September 19:18 (UTC)

2) The official policy of the DPR Korea government: The DPRK is a socialist country recovering from the "arduous march" and almost totally independant now of foreign aid, with the economy back on track, and an independant nuclear power plant producing more power to the people and with an emerging tourist industry and with more exports and trade with countries like the United States.

This viewpoint is only shared by a handful of people outside the DPRK. - Luglio 21 September 19:18 (UTC)

I should think that my editing will not last long, as human rights advocates surely will litter the page again with 100's of links to Amnesty or MSNBC, however since Wikipedia must always have a balanced perspective, as anyone can see from the history, my edit is precisely balanced between these two lines, even mentioning the preposterous idea of a "gas chamber" although the remnants of Auswitch can be seen on any satelite image, the so-called massive consentration camps that are supposed to exist cannot be seen on satelite even though they claim that millions of people live there. Everyone knows that the US has the technology to zoom in and read the clock of your hand or the license plate of a car, so with 10 million people supossedly in concentration camps, why are there no pictures?

--Bjornar 3 July 2005 13:21 (UTC)

Shouting at human rights activists does not make you appear credible. Amnesty International e. g. is neutral and independent and I believe them more than any official DPRK statement. You publish only the government point of view. To deny everything you dislike (as the DPRK news agency does) is not considered NPOV. By the way, satellite pictures of the concentration camps could be found at this link [3]. - Luglio 21 September 19:18 (UTC)

NPOV does not mean presenting each side as if they are equally accurate when they are not. J. Parker Stone 5 July 2005 02:10 (UTC)

I know, but who is to say what is accurate and what is not accurate? It all depends on your point of view (POV) doesn't it? So if you want to employ a Neutral Point of View (NPOV), of course you cannot even choose sides. So who decides what the balance will be between two opposing, mutually cancelling views? The only alternative would be to include them both, and to remove all kind of speculation for which there is no evidence, and all kinds of lousy arguments like "some people say.." or cite unverified sources. As for the article about the DPRK I am amazed on how common it is to brandmark the DPRK in defiance of the Wikipedia's guidelines on NPOV. --Bjornar 6 July 2005 20:12 (UTC)

And I suppose the fact that they call themselves the DPRK when they've nothing even resembling democracy is NPOV?--68.95.228.67 03:18, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

For human rights violations and concentration camps in the DPRK there is much evidence. In fact there is no reason to doubt it (simple official denial is no evidence). Do you really think in the DPRK no one dares to criticize the "dear leader", because everyone likes him? Or isn't it much more likely everyone fears torture in case of disobidience? If you perceive a "common brand mark" did you ever think you could be wrong instead of all the others? - Luglio 21 September 19:18 (UTC)

Additionally, there are sattelite pictures of concentration camps available and, more recently, even video along with a huge amount of refugees with consistent stories describing such camps. --The Way 06:43, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

There are sattelite pictures of nondescript little buildings that some people have alleged to be "concentration camps" but from the sattelite photos they look like they could be *basically anything* so that is hardly meaningful evidence. You can take a sattelite photo of any group of industrial or military or even comercial buildings and draw little arrows to different parts that say "concentration camp" or "death chamber" or "Shrine to Kim Jong Il" or whatever, but that doesn't provide any evidence of what actually goes on there, what they're actually used for. If you recall Colin Powell showed a series of sattilite photos in iraq with very specific captions explaining how these buildings [4] were different parts of "Chemical Weapons factories", but of course, in reality, the little captions on the photos had nothing to do wiht what the buildings actually were, the sattilite photos were meaningless, they weren't chemical weapons plants at all.

NoJoyInMudville

A "multi-party constitutional democracy"?

That's what the official website of the DPRK (maintained by a third-party organization, though) says:

"13. Is North Korea a dictatorship?

No, the DPRK is a multi-party constitutional democracy guaranteeing freedom of speech and assembly to all citizens. DPRK citizens play an active role in their nation's political life at the local, regional and national levels, through their trade unions or as members of one of the nation's three political parties, which include the Workers' Party of Korea, the Chondoist Chongu Party and the Korean Social Democratic Party."

http://www.korea-dpr.com/faq.htm

Bayerischermann 22:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The viewpoint of a site claiming that 'the Leaders are the sun of the nation and mankind' is being considered at all here? Joffeloff 20:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Of cource there just lying. They may say that there a "multi-party constitutional democracy" but do they fit the defintion? No.

ow wow. --Streaky 04:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Just because the website that Bayerischermann linked to happens to be increadibly propagandistic, does not mean that they were "just lying", the information is correct, there are in fact three parties in the Supreme People's Assembly that compete for votes.

This Finnish anthropologist's blog:

http://hunjang.blogspot.com/2005/08/dlp-and-the-korean-social-democratic.html

"To remind those who have been erroneously thinking that DPRK is a one-party state, the representatives of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) of Republic of Korea are at the moment visiting DPRK on the invitation by the Social Democratic Party of Korea "

The south Korean Website of the Democratic Labor Party of the RoK (South Korea) here:

http://news.khan.co.kr/kh_news/khan_art_view.html?artid=200508221824481&code=910303

Explains their delegations travels to the DPRK to meet with the opposition Korean Social Democrats (which competes against the Workers Party for votes but is not a subversive organization trying to overthrow the government, it is a legal party in a multi-party state).

It is obvious that the South Korean political parties believe North Korea to be a multi-party state, so the one party state claim, which is totally unsourced, except in the fact that its a frequently repeated unsupported claim, has no basis in fact. NoJoyInMudville 21:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)