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North Korean Women Declare War On The US

Women wearing traditional clothes react as they march past the stand with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a military parade marking the 105th birth anniversary of the country's founding father, Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, April 15, 2017.

North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun published an article Friday showing hundreds of women in the country wearing colorful dresses and marching in central Pyongyang, promising revenge against the U.S. for being an “imperial aggressor.”

With their fists held high in what was described as the traditional Communist salute, the women called for “class education” to be intensified to spread the message of the U.S. being the “principal enemy” of North Korea, Newsweek reported, citing the Rodong Sinmun.

According to the newspaper’s article, officials and members of the women’s union gathered at Pyongyang’s Sincheon Museum on Thursday and called for “anti-U.S. class consciousness” to be embedded in women’s minds.

Read: North Korean Media Labels US President Donald Trump A 'Lunatic'

The march principally vowed retribution against the U.S. for massacring over 35,000 North Koreans in 1950 during the American occupation of Sincheon County. South Korean forces allegedly carried out the Sincheon Massacre during the Korean War, with U.S. backing.

The anti-U.S. march by North Korean women came just ahead of June 25, which is recognized by North Korea as the “day of struggle against U.S. imperialism.”

The country, also known as the Hermit Kingdom, has a history of producing femme fatales trained to hurt countries it considers its enemy. A North Korean defector revealed the country’s “seed bearing program” in 2014 where attractive women were taken from universities and even high schools to be trained in the art of spying and sex.

Jang Jin Sung was a poet laureate in North Korea before defecting to South Korea in 2004. He said the isolated country had been grooming women as spies and killers for half a century to hurt enemies of the state.

A number of politicians, journalists and businessmen had been successful targets of women sent by Pyongyang to get sensitive information out of them. It even involved bearing their children and using the fact for blackmail, News.com.au reported.

The program was the brainchild of North Korea’s former leader Kim Jong Il because his previous plan of kidnapping businessmen from Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Romania and Lebanon and getting them to spy for him had failed. The businessmen had reportedly proved resistant to brainwashing.

That was when the “Dear Leader” who is the father of the current North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had the idea of female spies targeting high-ranking visitors while posing as translators, tour guides, and even as some “gifted” to them as prostitutes.

“The regime mainly targets foreigners who go to Pyongyang and, over time, build up a friendship with the woman who has been assigned to them as a translator or assistant ... but these women are in reality agents of the regime,” Jang wrote in his book Dear Leader.

Read: Washington Could Agree With North Korean Demands In Order To Prevent War

North Korean women did not just spy on foreigners inside the country though. They have been known to carry out international missions, even deadly ones.

Kim Hyun Hui blew up a South Korean airliner in 1987 under orders from Pyongyang, killing 115 people onboard. Kim Jong Il’s father, Kim Il Sung was the North Korean leader at the time and they both wanted to create enough chaos and confusion in South Korea to stop the 1988 Seoul Olympics from going ahead, the BBC reported.

Kim Hyun Hui was later caught and sentenced to death by a South Korean court in 1989 before being pardoned by the then-South Korean President Roh Tae-woo.

Read: British Security Experts Link North Korea To WannaCry Ransomware Cyber Attack

Kim was not the only North Korean high-profile female spy apprehended. In 2008, the South Korean government warned military personnel and businessmen of a “honey trap” after Won Jeong Hwa was arrested.

South Korean defense minister at the time, Lee Sang-hee said Won was trained and sent by Pyongyang to get confidential information from a 26-year old army captain.

Won was said to have fled the North herself, to China but then returned and became a spy in 1998. One of her first assignments was believed to be identifying and sending back other North Koreans who had fled the country to China and were trying to defect to South Korea.

She was sentenced to five years in prison and now lives in South Korea. After her release, she told TV talk shows she disobeyed orders from Pyongyang to kill two South Korean army intelligence officers, the Guardian reported.

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