The south Korean military and "government" kicked off military drills obviously targeted against the DPRK and openly committed reckless acts of hurting the dignity of its supreme leadership, going beyond the bounds of provocation, the statement said, and went on:

This is an intolerable insult to the Korean people in the period of mourning the loss of leader Kim Jong Il and a provocative act of posing a threat to the stability and peace in the region.

The statement urged those responsible for the provocations to stop them, though belatedly, and make efforts to defuse the tension prevailing owing to those acts.

The Mfumalanga Provincial Committee of the South African Communist Party and the South African Association of Friendship and Solidarity with Korean People in a joint statement on March 14 said that the Lee Myung Bak group is a heinous group of traitors that has no room to stay in this part of the world as it malignantly defamed the great leaders of the Korean people and progressive humankind.

The Lee group should apologize for its crimes to the Korean people and the world progressives and step down at once, the statement noted, and went on:

The Group for the Study of the Progressive Ideas of South Africa in a statement on March 13 branded Lee Myung Bak as enemy of the Korean nation and the root cause of war as he drove the inter-Korean relations into the worst phase and refused all forms of dialogue and negotiations, seeking the escalated tension only.