North Korea: Chronology of Provocations, 1950-2003

Publication Date: March 2003

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: International relations

Type:

Coverage: Korea (North)

Abstract:

This chronology provides information on selective instances of North Korean provocations between June 1950 and 2003. The purpose of this report is to place current provocations in the context of past actions in order to better judge their significance and to determine changes in trends. The term "provocation" is defined to include: armed invasion, border violations, infiltration of armed saboteurs and spies, hijacking, kidnaping, terrorism (including assassination and bombing), threats/intimidation against political leaders, media personnel, and institutions, and incitement aimed at the overthrow of the South Korean government. Information is taken from South Korean and Western sources and typically is denied by the North Korean government.

The most intense phase of the provocations was in the latter half of the 1960s, when North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- DPRK) staged a series of limited armed actions against South Korean and U.S. security interests. Infiltration of armed agents into South Korea was the most frequently mentioned type of provocation, followed by kidnaping and terrorism (actual and threatened). From 1954 to 1992, North Korea is reported to have infiltrated a total of 3,693 armed agents into South Korea, with 1967 and 1968 accounting for 20 percent of the total. Instances of terrorism were far fewer in number, but they seemed to have had a continuing negative impact on relations between the two Koreas. Not counting North Korea's invasion of South Korea that triggered the Korean War (1950-1953), North Korea's major terrorist involvement includes: attempted assassinations of President Park Chung Hee in 1968 and 1974; a 1983 attempt on President Chun Doo Hwan's life in a bombing incident in Rangoon, Burma (Myanmar); and a mid-air sabotage bombing of a South Korean Boeing 707 passenger plane in 1987. Provocations have continued intermittently in recent years, in the form of armed incursions, kidnapings, and occasional threats to turn the South Korean capital of Seoul into "a sea of fire" and to silence or tame South Korean critics of North Korea.

For information on current U.S. policy and relations with North Korea, see CRS Issue Brief IB98045, Korea: U.S.-Korean Relations -- Issues for Congress, by Larry Niksch; CRS Issue Brief IB91141, North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program, by Larry Niksch; CRS Report RS21391, North Korea's Nuclear Weapons: How Soon an Arsenal?, by Sharon Squassoni; or CRS Report RL31696, North Korea: Economic Sanctions, by Dianne Rennack. This report will be updated as circumstances warrant.