N.Korea blasts `reunification jar` fundraising campaign

A North Korean propaganda website on Monday blasted a South Korean fundraising campaign, called "reunification jar," for the first year of an envisioned reunification of the Korean Peninsula.

“The reunification jar (a reunification fund initiated by South Korea’s Unification Ministry) is a mutant of the ‘unification tax’ buried in the waste dump of history. It is a purse for unification through absorption,” the website said, adding, “(The fund) provokes confrontation and a war-like situation.”

“(South Korean President) Lee Myung-bak is creating a tragicomedy by saying he will put money into the reunification jar to encourage inter-Korean confrontation, hiding his real rebellious identity.”

President Lee on April 28 pledged his entire salary for May to the reunification jar at a finance strategy meeting.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of North Korean ruling Workers` Party, said, “The essence of Lee’s confrontational policy is reunification through absorption,” adding, “Being obsessed with reunification through absorption, he makes such a fuss about the unification tax and a revival plan (emergency plan for a sudden change in the North).”

South Korean Unification Minister Ryu Woo-ik will have a reunification jar made by a ceramic maker Saturday in Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang Province. The reunification jar is a fundraising campaign urging individuals and groups to raise money for the hypothetical first year of reunification two decades later, which is estimated at being at least 5.5 trillion won (4.84 billion dollars).

The fundraising campaign is being delayed, however, as the South Korean parliament failed to revise a relevant law on time.