Just When You Thought Kim il-Junk Had Started Taking His Meds Again

North Korea demands billions over POWs, outrages South Korea

SEOUL (AFP) -Stalinist North Korea is demanding billions of dollars in compensation for alleged atrocities against its prisoners of war and spies formerly held in South Korea, a demand which has sparked outrage among politicians in Seoul.[snip]

The complaint insisted Seoul compensate former North Korean long-term prisoners for their time in "nightmarish prisons" run by former authoritarian governments in the South.

"The physical damage, except mental damage done to them, stands at one billion US dollars even according to a preliminary estimate made by specialists of the DPRK (North Korea) in line with international practice," the agency said on Saturday.

"It would come to several billions of US dollars ... if the damage done to all those unconverted long-term prisoners killed in prisons is put together."

But the North Korean demand backfired across the border.

The ruling Uri Party, which usually takes a conciliatory line with North Korea, denounced the complaint as "totally against common sense".

And the common sense it was against was North Korea's current extremely sad Human Rights records that the Uri Party pointed to and said "you might fix that", where as, if I was South Korea or even a rep of the US there, I would ask them to pay trillions for the torture and damage to our own citizens.

But, maybe they were just too shocked to make the connection?