Korean storm clouds gathering?
United Nations Ñ A half century ago, the formal fighting in Korea ended with a truce on the war shattered peninsula. The bloody conflict which started with the North Korean invasion of the South on 25 June 1950, slogged on until the cease-fire three years later. But the war never formally ended, and today the divided Korean peninsula is still scarred by the DMZ separating South and North Korea and more ominously shadowed by the gathering stormclouds from North KoreaÕs reckless nuclear proliferation threatening peace throughout East Asia.
Recent commemorations of the 1953 armistice focused on the unalloyed bravery and sacrifice of American and allied combatants in what is often called the Forgotten War. U.S. forces as well as the units from sixteen other countries among them Britain, Canada, Ethiopia, France, South Africa, and Turkey participated in the enforcement operation. The deployment Ñ under the mandate of the UN and the command of General Douglas Mac Arthur, reversed he initial communist gains after a bitter sanguinary see saw struggle.
The human cost is found in the military cemeteries at Pusan; nearly 50,000 Americans were killed in action. The U.S. remains treaty bound to defend South Korea.
TodayÕs challenge for diplomats is to defuse the widening nuclear crisis which threatens peace on the peninsula. Still Bush Administration efforts to bring North Korea before the UN Security Council are fraught with peril; most especially, would PeopleÕs China side with the U.S. to censure its erstwhile comrades in the Democratic PeoplesÕ Republic of Korea?
Perhaps understandably, Seoul has rejected calls for a UN role in the North Korean crisis. SeoulÕs Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan told the Financial Times that intervention could disrupt efforts to resolve the nuclear dispute, ÒI think it is better for us to resolve this outside the UN framework.Ó
But look at the glaring socio/political comparison between the two states of the divided Korean nation. South KoreaÑthe Republic of KoreaÑhas emerged as a meteoric success story since the 1960Õs and especially since the 1980Õs. North Korea Ñ the Democratic PeopleÕs Republic of KoreaÑturned the originally more prosperous part of the peninsula into a genuine basket case where a full blown humanitarian crisis and starvation are a unique byproduct of the moribund socialist system.
Yet the bizarre Marxist regime of Kim Jong Il who rules the DPRK has a remarkable instinct for survival through a combination of cozying up to the successful cousins balanced by nuclear threats. ItÕs the old Chinese communist dictum of ÒFight, fight, talk, talk.Ó In other words, talk to play for time when you are weak, while also saber rattling to create the impression you are crazy as a fox.
The South Koreans bought into this ruse, especially through former President Kim Dae- JungÕs Sunshine Policy. The intra Korean dŽtente, while welcome, was premised on the fact that the Pyongyang communists could somehow been drawn away from their dictatorship and into the realm of reality and reason. Given the reckless North Korean nuclear brinksmanship, this hardly seems the case.
After the fanfare of the Sunshine Summit in 2000 and the ensuing economic incentives to North Korea, the communists tempered their rhetoric but not their long-term aims of reuniting the peninsula under PyongyangÕs banner. Correspondingly Seoul, recalibrated its security policies reflecting wishful thinking and presuming the DPRK communists had succumbed to charm. Hardly.
Probably as a result of South Korea being a vibrant democracy since the late 1980Õs, the entire security relationship between Washington and Seoul has shifted politically and oft unpredictably so. The rocky ties between Seoul and Washington has not helped matters, and the North Koreans have cleverly played this as a wedge between the two allies.
Now South KoreaÕs government faces the music of having to pay the piper in Pyongyang to keep a fragile peace, but more especially has mortgaged its fundamental security relationship with Washington for the chimera of dŽtente with Kim Jong-il. The Bush team has redoubled its efforts to solve the crisis.
Apparently now the DPRK communists have agreed to negotiate the nuclear issue in multilateral talks with concerned powers Ñ two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, PeopleÕs China, and Russia Ñ all of whom have a stake in the outcome. Pyongyang is likely playing for more time.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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