By Alexei Summers (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: March 28, 2012
North Korea is slated to launch a new Kwangmyongsong satellite into space following a March 16 announcement by the Korean Central News Agency. The launch will be held on April 15, 2012, to commemorate the 100th birthday of the nation’s founder and eternal President Kim Il-Sung, father of the late Kim Jong-Il and grandfather of the current President, “beloved leader” Kim Jung-Eun.
If successful, this will be the first satellite North Korea has successfully entered into orbit.
International response was at first slow, and even initially positive. However, now other nations—even North Korea’s allies—seem to have taken a strong opposing stance to the launch, and have expressed deep concern. Many nations claim this will further North Korea’s ballistic missile capabilities, and have criticized the launch coinciding with the birthday of Kim Il-Sung to be a smokescreen for circumventing UN Security Council Resolutions regarding North Korea’s nuclear program.
North Korean authorities have attempted to make it clear to their neighbours that this flight is a peaceful one, and that the satellite has nothing to do with its nuclear program or espionage of any kind. North Korean official state sources claim that the satellite’s purpose is only to commemorate Kim Il-Sung’s genesis and birth, and that the satellite’s only functions are to broadcast the song “Happy Birthday to You,” and to further North Korean space research.
North Korea has further gone on to criticize international reactions with strong condemnation of what it sees as a monopoly of outer space.
“The peaceful development and use of space is a universally recognized legitimate right of a sovereign state,” claims the Korean Central News Agency. “The satellite launch for scientific researches into the peaceful development and use of space and economic development can by no means be a monopoly of specified countries.”
North Korea has also pointed out that it has given due notice to other nations that this launch would take place, and has also invited foreign journalists and experts to observe the space launch firsthand – not typical behaviour of North Korea, which called “The Hermit Kingdom” because of its usual policy of not allowing anyone in or out of its borders. It certainly never allows anyone to come inspect it or its industry and developments.
The small communist regime has further insisted that this flight will be a safe one, and that it has been better planned than the two previous Kwangmyongsong satellite launches, which allegedly failed and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. (North Korea insists that at least one of the satellites made it into orbit, despite the rest of the international community being unable to locate it anywhere.) North Korea insists that this launch has taken all its neighbours into consideration; should something go wrong, and debris fall from the sky, it will not land in one of its neighbouring nations, but rather into the ocean.
North Korea is internationally renowned as a terrible liar when it comes to matters such as nuclear programs. For example, in September of 2004, when a large explosion was detected in the Ryanggang province of North Korea followed by what appeared to be a mushroom cloud, the North denied any explosion had taken place at all. It invited diplomats to come inspect the area where the explosion was reported to have taken place. When brought to the suspected explosion site, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, and they went home satisfied. Later on, South Korean intelligence realized that the diplomats had been taken to a place 100 km away from the suspected explosion site.
Because North Korea has made no efforts to cover up its tracks, as far as anyone knows, it’s highly probable that this launch is exactly as the North Korean state claims – a peaceful launch of a satellite, which will broadcast patriotic songs and be used for space research. Usually, when confronted about its actions by the international community, North Korea exhibits signs of nervousness, just as a person would – it becomes evasive, and tries to explain its actions with threadbare excuses.
In this case, however, it has invited the international community to come together with them to celebrate the 100th birthday of the nation’s founder Kim Il-Sung, and because of the openness of this event, I believe that North Korea has absolutely nothing up its sleeve. Crafty as ever, and trying to convince itself of its own sneakiness, North Korea, if you ask me, is throwing a perfectly harmless event just to prove it can – hoping that, in the future, we might not turn such a careful eye to what it’s launching into space.
