South Korea will mark the 44th anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising on Saturday, commemorating the thousands of lives lost in the military junta’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in the southwestern city.

But Koreans on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone won’t be the only ones remembering the tragedy.

For more than four decades, the 1980 Gwangju Uprising has been the gift that keeps on giving to North Korean propagandists. 

Pyongyang wastes no time dredging up the atrocities whenever civil unrest erupts in the South, leveraging anti-government sentiment for propaganda targeting ROK citizens. Like pulling a reliable weapon from