North Korean bylaws written on April 7, 2003, signed by Central Military Committee Chairman of the Workers’ Party Kim Jong-il. The bylaws were written in preparation for a possible war.

The original bylaws have been in the public domain for some time, but South Korean intelligence authorities were able to obtain and analyze the supplemented version in April marked "Top Secret."

The document is entitled, "Central Military Committee of the Workers' Party Order 002." As for who issued the directive, the document clearly states that it was North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who publicly officiates as the Central Military Committee Chairman of the Workers’ Party. This at least confirms that Kim Jong-il officially succeeded to the top post of the Central Military Committee after his father Kim Il-sung died in 1994.

The document calls for the party, military and citizens to fully mobilize for war within 24 hours after the start of hostilities, and for military mobilization headquarters to be established at provincial, city and county levels in order to secure troop strength.

Moreover, in order to supplement wartime manpower, besides calling up reserve forces, the directive also calls for the recruitment of South Koreans recommended by local "revolutionary organizations" (meaning resident spies and North Korean sympathizers) in the South should the southern half of the peninsula be "liberated."

It also demands the recruitment of fully recovered patients upon their release from medical facilities.

Some intelligence officials, however, are raising suspicions about the content of the document. One official said the bylaws only contained information that had been collected through various sources at a previous time. He explained that in a document such as this, the means by which the intelligence was collected and the process of adopting the document were usually included, but in this case, they were absent. He said it was possible that information concerning resident spies and intelligence gathering activities conducted within South Korea had been omitted.

Another intelligence official said that from North Korea's position, it was suspicious that the bylaws focused on defensive concepts and double-checking contingency plans premised on coming under attack from biological weapons. He said if this were a war contingency plan, North Korea would have also considered pre-emptive strikes, which it is capable of carrying out, but no such plans appeared in the document.

Choi Ju-hwal, a North Korean colonel who defected to the South in 1995, said that since the Korean War, North Korea has outlined bylaws that are primarily defensive in the case of civilians, but offensive regarding the Northern forces dotted along the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which are given invasion objectives south of the border.

He said that given the consideration that such content may have been intentionally omitted, the document may have been manufactured for propaganda purposes to demonstrate that Pyongyang could withstand U.S.-applied pressure.

(Kwon Kyeong-bok, kkb@chosun.com )