FBIS Daily Report: Pyongyang commentary calls the 1983 Rangoon bombing a 'drama self-made by the puppets'

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

IV. 10 Oct 86 D 9 NORTH KOREA
As for the bomb blast in Rangoon, Burma 3 years ago, it was a drama self-made by the puppets themselves, as has already been made clear. To extricate himself from a power crisis and to aggravate North-South confrontation, traitor Chon Tu-hwan fabricated this shocking incident, using the Agency for National Security Planning. Besides slandering us by mentioning this incident-evidence of their crime-he recklessly shifted into us the blame for the recent bombing at Kimpo airport. This is an outrageous slander.
Nearly a month has passed since the bombing at Kimpo airport, but the truth is still unclear. The puppets themselves have confessed that the investigation is shrouded in mystery for lack of clear material evidence or witnesses. Nevertheless, they insist that it was committed by the North, without giving good reason. This is really a shameless slander.
The bombing occurred amid an extraordinary alert in which they mobilized approximately 100,000 policemen and puppet army special forces units prior to the Asian Games, including at the tightly guarded airport. The bombing occurred in broad daylight, in the airport lobby, amid a warlike atmosphere in which everyone's movement was watched and controlled and in which anyone who looked suspicious was randomly arrested. This means that it was committed by the puppets themselves.
It is worth noting that a Japanese military commentator noted that the bombing was a self-made drama by the Chon Tu-hwan clique. The puppet prime minister's remarks that the incident should be made an opportunity for a misfortune to turn into a blessing is counterevidence which proves this as the puppets conducted a frenzied anticommunist, anti-republic slander campaign and further stepped up a suppression offensive against the patriotic democratic forces as soon as the incident occurred, as though they had been waiting for it.
The puppets' slanderous tactic that they stage an incident and pursue an impure political purpose, abusurdly shifting the blame for it onto someone else, has been so well known to the world that it is no longer workable. the puppets' slanderous propaganda is the manifestation of their anticommunist confrontation frenzy which has completely taken hold of them.
They are purposefully attempting to inspire North-South confrontation, to aggravate North-South relations, to aggravate tension, and to block the road to peaceful reunification. What is ridiculous is that the puppets are bent on confrontation with us, while they babble about the resumption of dialogue. The puppets held a so-called ceremony on 8 October to mark the first anniversary of the exchange visits of the North-South Red Cross art troupes and home-visiting groups, and raved about the resumption of dialogue. Needless to say, that was a farce to mislead public opinion an[d] relieve themselves of the responsibility for having suspended dialogue and shift the blame to us. Who would believe such hypocritical propaganda by those who made dialogue impossible by dialogue-denying confrontation and jingoism while turning away from our reasonable proposals to solve the problem of easing tension -- the most acute and urgent problem for the resumption of dialogue -- and who are engaging i[n] [illegible]ean anticommunist slander rackets? The more the puppets engage in the commotion of anticommunist slander, the more they reveal their treacherous nature of not desiring dialogue and frenziedly engaging in confrontation.
The puppets should not commit the foolish act of slapping their own face. If the puppets really have an interest in dialogue, they should stop the dialogue-denying confrontation and war maneuvers and respond to our peace initiatives for easing tension.

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

The page is itself an FBIS English translation of a Korean-language Pyongyang Domestic Service commentary (Korean Central Broadcasting, 9 October 1986); no further translation is needed. The Korean original is not on the page.

Read against the page image, with OCR as an aid. 'abusurdly' is as printed. Scan damage hides the end of 'and' and the words around 'i[n] [illegible]ean'; bracketed letters are supplied by the transcriber. The page heading 'D 9' is spaced on the scan.