Читать книгу The Crucible - Joaquin De Torres - Страница 5

“Standing amidst a forest of banners and placards of anti-American sentiments, Pyongyang University students are staging one of the most gruesome protests in their nation’s history.” The young female reporter looked around nervously as she spoke into the camera.

“Outside the ransacked and gutted remains of the American Embassy, students are burning American flags and effigies protesting America's disciplinary actions against their country. But something else is burning here--something horrible and morbid.” The camera panned behind the reporter to a large smoldering pyre. “What you are looking at are the bodies of dead students burning in the pyre.” The camera zoomed in as crying students swung corpses onto the large burning stack. All in sight wore bandanas covering their noses and mouths.

“Families of university students who have died of disease or starvation are offering their bodies in front of dozens of international camera crews in a blatant protest of America’s deadly food and medicine blockade, codenamed Operation Iron Clad.

“For almost seven months, this blockade which keeps food, medical supplies and fuel sources out of North Korea by military means, has killed more than 528,000 citizens--over half a million people. It is the harshest form of punishment ever devised in the history of international diplomacy. This was the U.S. response to President Kang’s letter to the U.N. threatening nuclear holocaust if their bomb-making factories and reactors are attacked.

“The world has heard these threats in the past, but despite harsh rhetoric on both sides, not much has been done to punish North Korea for their incessant threats of South Korean attack and invasion. They’ve also threatened Japan with annihilation through biological weapons, and increased their practice missile firings over that country.

“Operation Iron Clad was designed to wrap all the past threats of punishment into one convenient and lethal package. The results have been nothing less than devastating. Hospitals around the capital are 150 percent full with little or no medical supplies or technical advances. Morgues are simply burning bodies in open ditches while family members mourn.

“There is outrage and there is terror. The numbers of dead nationwide are ghastly. In several hospitals for the terminally ill and the elderly, up to 3,000 patients countrywide have been euthanized because there is no medication to treat them. Deaths by starvation have reached 45,000 in the poorest villages and towns. Deaths by suicide have reached 20,000. The government continues to divert food reserves to the military, rather than sharing it with the populace as they prepare for an impending war against South Korea.

"Politically, the situation is grim. Even North Korea’s strongest allies, Russia and China, have refused to ship food and supplies in. In fact, there is speculation, especially within government and Internet circles worldwide, that the Whitehouse has secretly made deals with both countries not to interfere in exchange for a variety of economic favors, an accusation that the White House emphatically denies.

“But one thing that cannot be denied is that concerning the tragic and horrific state North Korea is in as a result of Iron Clad, it is just a matter of time before something, or someone, takes it upon himself to exact some kind of vengeful act on a massive scale. Reporting live from Pyongyang University for CNN, I’m Marla Reese.”