It could hardly have escaped anyone’s attention that North Korea is planning to launch a rocket. Some countries suspect the rocket might carry a missile, rather than the announced satellite. But the story goes deeper then that. Let’s have a look at the history of the Korea’s to get the full picture.

1945. World War II has ended and with that, the Japanese occupancy of Korea. The UK, the US and Russia can’t reach an agreement about the future of the country, so they ‘temporarily’ divide it by half: the birth of the two Korea’s. Russia is in control of the North, which becomes communist under leader Kim Il Sung; the US is in control of the South, which sees its first president in Syngman Rhee, a US-backed anti-communist.

In the early 50′s, the North invades the South and the following war leaves both economies destroyed, 4 million dead and a heavily armed frontier which is still there today. The Cold War in the 60′s came very close to causing another war.

After this, both countries had internal problems to solve. With President Rhee’s forced retirement, the South saw several military regimes, coupes and student riots. The early 90′s leave the North with less food aid from China & Russia, floods followed by drought and a crisis killing millions of people by starvation.

In part II of this post, we’ll explore the current situation.

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Originally posted 2009-03-13 22:03:22. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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