In part due to the DPRK’s continued missile and nuclear tests, several governments have recently expelled North Korean ambassadors and diplomats from their countries. 

This is not a new phenomenon. North Korean diplomats have a long history of being thrown out of their host countries, with one of the most egregious examples of DPRK diplomacy taking place on the small South Asian island nation of Ceylon, now known as Sri Lanka, in 1971.

In early April that year, a radical insurrection swept across Ceylon. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), translated as People’s Liberation Front, sought to establish a “pure socialist