The south Korean authorities have desperately obstructed the cooperation and exchange between the north and the south, regarding them as a thorn in their flesh. Does the action mean they have changed their minds and are willing to swim with the trend of the times as members of the nation?

The cooperation and exchange between nations and regions are required by the times and they signify the trend in line with the aspiration and development of the nation.

The public at home and abroad paid attention to the action taken by the south Korean authorities to revise the law against this background. But it is infuriated by the quite different aim sought by the revision. This is proved by the contents of the proposal for amending the law.

The proposed revision includes provisions calling for increasing such pressure as imposing a heavy fine for those who visited the DPRK and those who committed various "violations," etc., cutting down the funds for cooperation and strengthening the interference and control over the cooperation projects.

As a matter of fact, the south Korean Ministry of Unification is contemplating revising the "law on exchange and cooperation between the south and the north" in such a way as to bar the non-governmental organizations from sending facsimile messages to the north.

The Council for the Solution of the Issue of the Volunteers' Corps in south Korea attempted to have communication with the north to discuss the joint declaration to be made public by the north-south women's organizations on the occasion of the 92nd anniversary of the March First Popular Uprising. But south Korea disallowed it under an absurd pretext.

It also turned down an application made by the Consultative Council of Non-governmental Organizations for Cooperation between the South and the North for its Pyongyang visit to discuss the cooperation with the relevant organization in the north under the pretext of the "May 24 step".

Facts go to clearly prove that the purpose of the law revision is to round off the legal and institutional mechanisms to bind the organizations for cooperation and exchange in south Korea hand and foot, intensify the suppression of the pro-reunification movement organizations and perpetuate the confrontation with fellow countrymen in the final analysis.

It is as foolish an act as precipitating their own self-destruction for the south Korean conservative forces to escalate the confrontation with fellow countrymen, going against the trend of the times.