North Korean despot threatens to shoot down 100ft ‘Christmas tree’ erected near border by enemy South

By Richard Shears
Last updated at 9:49 PM on 11th December 2011

Atheist North Korea has threatened to shoot out the lights of a giant Christmas tree-shaped tower that South Korea plans to illuminate near the tense border.

The Communist North warned its southern enemy of ‘unexpected consequences’ if it went ahead to turn on the lights, saying Seoul would bear the ‘entire responsibilities’.

South Korea plans to illuminate about 100,000 lights on the 100ft-tall steel tower in the shape of a Christmas tree at the top of Aegibong Hill, located some two miles from the border with North Korea.

Celebration or propaganda? South Korean Christians pictured singing a hymn in front of the Christmas tree tower at Aegibong last year (File photo)

Officials in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, say that switching on the Christmas lights is an act of propaganda because they will be visible with the naked eye from the major northern border city of Kaesong.

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It is thought that North Korea is concerned the lights will be regarded as a sign of the affluence of the South and will weaken the regime’s ideological control of its hungry people.

The North Korean website Uriminjokkiri has denounced the Christmas lights plan, saying it is aimed at provoking the North and stepping up anti-North Korea psychological warfare.

It is the second year in a row that the lights will be illuminated. The North threatened last year that it would fire artillery at the tower but nothing happened.

However this year the North has stepped up its warnings.

The Christmas tower used to be an annual event until 2003, after which it was suspended as part of a 2004 agreement not to spread propaganda near the demilitarised zone during a period of relative calm between the two nations.

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But in the wake of the North’s sinking of a warship in 2010 and the shelling of a border island - attacks that killed 50 South Koreans - the South resumed the border tree lighting.

When the tower was illuminated last year South Korean troops were put on high alert at the demilitarised zone and fire trucks and ambulance were parked nearby.

The North’s official Rodong Sinnum newspaper denounced the South by declaring: ‘The psychological warfare activities of the puppet regime have entered full swing’

Mr Tak Sejin, chairman of a church group which is organising the tree lighting said: ‘This is a ceremony for peace on the Korean peninsula and national unity.
‘
It is being held with our desire for harmony among our fellow men and between North and South Korea
‘
We are doing this with the expectation that someday our people can become one.’

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