South Korea joins the 'axis of independence'

Atimes. | 2/26/03 | John Feffer

[Enemy Of The State]

South Korea joins the 'axis of independence' By John Feffer (Republished with permission from Foreign Policy In Focus)

Roh Moo-hyun, the incoming South Korean president, is part of a trend that raises the hackles of the administration of US President George W Bush. The United States now has another outspoken and uncowed "ally". Roh joins an axis of independence that includes France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder. With friends like these, the Bush team laments, who needs an axis of evil? What's bad for Bush, however, is a boon for the rest of the world and particularly for the Korean Peninsula. Roh Moo-hyun is the world's best hope for avoiding war in East Asia.

Roh Moo-hyun is a true outsider, a lawyer who never went to college or law school and passed the fiendishly difficult bar exam through his own efforts. He defended students and labor leaders, the key organizers of South Korea's democratization movement, and went on to serve in the legislature. Considerably younger than outgoing president Kim Dae-jung, Roh is a spokesman for the influential generation that graduated from college in the 1980s and is fed up with the Cold War that lingers on the peninsula.

Many Koreans hope that Roh's independence will enable him to sweep away South Korea's endemic corruption and put economic reform on a more solid foundation. The big corporations have already shown signs of early capitulation by dropping their opposition to class-action suits in the financial world - a much-needed step in the direction of greater transparency.

But it is foreign policy where Roh will make his mark. The new president is even more committed than the previous administration to a policy of engaging North Korea. He favors moving forward with North-South reconciliation even before the current nuclear crisis is resolved.

Roh's inauguration on Tuesday came at a crucial time. The Bush administration has so far refused to negotiate with Pyongyang and has developed military plans to accomplish the regime change that malign neglect has so far failed to accomplish. Though it still adheres marginally to a peace constitution, Japan has announced that it too would launch a preemptive attack if it thought North Korea were about to strike first. And North Korea, apparently moving forward with its nuclear program, has made repeated threats of its own, including withdrawal from the 1953 Armistice agreement that ended the Korean War.

Trigger fingers are getting itchy in East Asia, and only Roh Moo-hyun clings tenaciously to an olive branch. A US "military strike against North Korea is an extremely serious matter that could lead to a war on the peninsula", he has said. "So I oppose even a review of such a possibility." Roh knows that war would bring untold death and destruction to South Korea. And North Korea's collapse would burden his country with refugees and economic and political challenges that dwarf what West Germany faced more than a decade ago.

US war plans have traditionally relied on South Korea to provide military support and to establish political control in the event of a North Korean collapse. As such, Roh's pacifist tendencies put more than a speed bump between the United States and full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.

But that's not all. Roh wants Uncle Sam to stop treating his country like an untrustworthy teenager. The Status of Forces Agreement between the two countries (which establishes the conditions for US military presence in South Korea) is woefully lopsided when compared with similar US agreements with other countries such as Germany. In the recent demonstrations around the accidental killing of two Korean schoolgirls by US soldiers, tens of thousands of South Koreans gave vent to years of pent-up frustration and anger.

Neither Roh, nor the majority of the demonstrators in South Korea, are anti-American. They, like anti-war protesters in New York and London, oppose specific US policies. They are part of a worldwide reaction to the unilateralism of the Bush administration. If the current administration continues along its current path, the axis of independence may expand to include all US allies.

Roh is no stranger to uphill battles. He pulled off a stunning upset victory in the December elections. Now, facing even longer odds in the international arena, he is simultaneously trying to establish peace with North Korea and negotiate a more just relationship with the United States. Kim Dae-jung's Nobel Peace Prize is a tough act to follow. If Roh pulls off these two foreign-policy feats, he will set the stage for a more profound prize: a peaceful, unified Korea.

John Feffer is the author of Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions and the editor of the forthcoming Power Trip: US Foreign Policy After September 11 (Seven Stories, 2003). He has recently returned from three years based in Tokyo working on East Asian issues. Feffer is also an advisory committee member of Foreign Policy in Focus , a joint program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. This article is republished with permission.

[ArGee]

So we're hell bent on war in East Asia and only Roh can stop us? I'll bet Saddam Hussein is glad to hear that he is no longer the target.

What DO they teach them in these schools?

Shalom.

[johniegrad]

Why in the world would South Korea want to consider rapproachment with the North? Outside of reducing their need for defense spending how could they possibly benefit form taking on all of the North's problems? And, who in their right mind believes the North would want the same?

[r9etb]

But it is foreign policy where Roh will make his mark. The new president is even more committed than the previous administration to a policy of engaging North Korea. He favors moving forward with North-South reconciliation even before the current nuclear crisis is resolved.

Neville Chamberlain was committed to a similar policy. Moo-hyun (what a name!) has forgotten, just as France and Germany have forgotten, that their present security is guaranteed by us.

North Korea, at least, understands this perfectly well -- which is why the present nuke controversy is between us and NK, and not NK and South Korea. Once NK can get us out of the picture, they know that the South can be picked off easily.

France and Germany have coasted on NATO alms for decades now, and they're in no position to give that up, even if they've forgotten the fact.

[KC_Conspirator]

What kind of paper is this? It sounds like South Korean leftist lies and propaganda, like from that "60 Minutes" piece from weeks ago?

[El Gato]

Axis of left wing idiots and fellow travelers is more like it. South Korea and the US have been good friends for decades. And still can be, other than the left wing element, which is also present in Japan and some other countries, such as Germany, Italy and most especially France. In Japan and Italy the left wingers aren't in control, in Germany and especially France they are. Why the good people in those countries chose now to elect the left wingers, who have been around for a long time, is probably more related to the world economy than anything directly to do with America, it's foreign policy or it's President.

[CobaltBlue]

>>The Status of Forces Agreement between the two countries (which establishes the conditions for US military presence in South Korea) is woefully lopsided when compared with similar US agreements with other countries such as Germany.<<

I wonder what this means?

Do they want more money?

[L,TOWM]

No. They want our military troops subject to domestic law. The same way a trooper based in Deutschland can be tried and punished for criminal offenses committed off-base by German police and courts.

We do that for European Countries. We do not do that for troops based in the Far East. It has been a source (mostly unneeded) of tension in the RoK and Okinawa.

[CobaltBlue]

OK, I did a little research. Appears that the entire nation is pissed off about the accident when two girls were killed by being crushed to death by a military vehicle. They want US troops to be subject to South Korean criminal prosecution.

Someone remind me what benefit we derive from being there?

[CobaltBlue]

I don't know anything about the South Korean legal system. Would it be a good idea to allow our troops to be prosecuted in South Korean courts?

[Iwentsouth]

I do ntot want our soldiers tried in a country like south korea. Our troops have been dragged by mobs of people and beaten at Anti-American rallys there.

They would not get a fair trial there.

[L,TOWM]

No worse than a lot of nations in europe that operate under the Napoleanic Code (Guilty until PROVEN Innocent). The agreement with Germany, IIRC, is the trial is held in the German criminal system, and then the perp, if found guilty is sentenced under German Law. The US military than has the option of asking that the sentence be served in the US brig or a Federal Prison. This is done most of the time. 99% of the time, the Germans agree to have the sentenced served under US custody for the amount of time sentenced by the German court.

The real bone of contention is several rape charges in the last few years in which the Courts Martial in Okinawa or South Korea has handed down minimal sentences, while the "trial" is being conducted in English, on base, with a minimum of local witnesses and visitors.

[Jumper]

Mr. Roh doesn't want to reunite with the North? Strange from a South Korean, especially a politician.... When this news breaks on the Korean Populace, they will have his head. Especially since there are approximately 24-million North Koreans starving to death under stalanist rule.... An uncompasionate Leader, or a man of liberal upbringing who wants his own economic slice of the pie, rather than sacrific for the good of the entire population.

Koreans comprise, after China, India, Japan, and Russia, the 5th largest RACE population in the World.

[L,TOWM]

That has been recently, and several times is a form of protest for soldiers or a group of soldiers getting a year or two in the brig for gang raping and beating teenage girls. Note that the light sentence is handed down by a US court martial, on a US base, with US prosecutors and defense counsel, to a panel of US officers in a proceeding that is barred to the natives, except if they are witnesses.

If we had Canadian troops based in this country, and four of them gangraped and beat your 16 year old daughter, would'nt you expect that

a) You get to observe the trial.
b) The trial be held in english and not Quebecois French, and
c) That the sentence be close to what a local group of thugs would get for doing the same crime?

Not to even mention the aspect of your perception that the foreigners were taking care of each other, and to hell with your daughter. Some of those mobs of people were just as pi$$ed off as you would be in the circumstances, most likely.

[Enemy Of The State]

It is to our benefit that we continue to have troops there because it allows us to maintain a strong presense in the region as well as helping to maintain the balance of power. It is a HUGE benefit for us to be there and as much as I dont appreciate their anti-american sentiment, Id hate to see us leave. Not to mention that China really hates the fact that we are so close to their borders.

[jimt]

Why in the world would South Korea want to consider rapproachment with the North? Outside of reducing their need for defense spending how could they possibly benefit form taking on all of the North's problems? And, who in their right mind believes the North would want the same?

The Korean war separated many families with the DMZ. They haven't forgotten their relatives. This is true on both sides.

The Koreans were whipsawed between the Chinese and Japanese for many years, and thus have a shared common background of an oppressed group. They have a deep sense of national heritage and a history going back thousands of years.

That said, any rapprochement would need to be gradual. They couldn't just absorb the starving hordes in the North, but given their feelings, they'd do it quite quickly and with significant sacrifice.

It's interesting that at the time of the split, the North was the industrialized area with most of the resources. Now, economically, they're not a pimple on South Korea's rear end.

[johniegrad]

Any insight on why the Communist North might be motivated to do this? It would seem to be inconsistent with their modus operandi.

[Johnny Gage]

Screw 'em.

I say pull everyone out of Korea, and see how long it takes before ol' Kim Jong Il owns the whole peninsula.

France, Germany and So. Korea can rot in H3LL !

[L,TOWM]

Maybe it is time to grant the RoKs wish. Let them hold a national referendum on our remaining. If a majority of the RoK citizens want us gone, why should we be there? That would be the perfect time to bring the "Forgotten 2nd" and the USAF Rok contingent home. We then publicly declare that we have no problem with Japan modifying its constitution to allow the JSDF to build nukes and operate outside of Japanese territory.

When the DPRK moves south, and kills a whole bunch of people, put a whole lot of other people into re-education camps, and then starts threatening Japan, it will give the rest of the world a good look at what biting the hand that protects them leads to.

[jimt]

Any insight on why the Communist North might be motivated to do this? It would seem to be inconsistent with their modus operandi.

It's inconsistent with the North's government's modus operandi, unless all control passes to the "great leader", which of course would turn the south into a slum just like the north.

I would suggest the northern people yearn to be reunited with their families in the south, and for the prosperity and relative freedom found in the south.