Posted on 02/18/2005 5:14:52 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Rights out of focus as science blinds
By David Scofield
Kim Jong-il leaps from the nuclear closet and the world reacts with rapt attention. Even United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's personal envoy to North Korea, former Canadian diplomat Maurice Strong, has indicated that Pyongyang's withdrawal from the six-party talks and declared nuclear arsenal is "a very real bump in the road" - a departure from last spring when he optimistically declared that Kim Jong-il wants "a nuclear-weapon-free Korean Peninsula".
As has been repeated by foreign ministers and editorial writers the world over, this sort of portentous tactic is not new for Kim and crew. Before previous meetings, North Korea's negotiators invariably create or exacerbate an issue of obvious intractability, making demands they know are untenable. This is followed by a flurry of political rhetoric concerning the nefarious designs of the imperialists (the United States, Japan and, depending on the mood of the day, South Korea), often with some reference to nuclear perdition ("sea of fire" being a perennial favorite). Then with much hand-wringing the North Korean side "acquiesces", stepping back from the demand, lobbing the ball back in its opponent's court. A concession is offered (South Korea is on the verge of shipping a record 500,000 tons of fertilizer to North Korea, despite US objections) and the talks are back on - a well-worn script. The parties to the talks are North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US.
Pyongyang's nuclear acknowledgment last week was, true to form, followed by a demand by North Korean Deputy Ambassador Han Sung Ryol for bilateral negotiations with the United States, declaring the six-party talks "no more". That has been softened, the six-party talks again "possible" if the US agrees to withdraw its troops from South Korea, a recurrent demand. However, elevating the nuclear issue serves another, perhaps more important function for Kim's clique. It serves as a distraction to shunt issues of gross human-rights violations, the real threat to Kim's grip on power, further down the agenda.
The nuclear issue is divisive since there is nothing close to regional consensus on how best to tackle it, and Kim knows this. A January 25 editorial in the Taipei Times includes a reference to a Chinese Communist Party press directive from last September in which President Hu Jintao stated, "When managing ideology, we have to learn from Cuba and North Korea. Although North Korea has encountered temporary economic problems, its policies are consistently correct."
During a talk before an audience at the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles en route to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting last November, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun stated, "North Korea professes that nuclear capabilities are a deterrent for defending itself from external aggression ... It is true and undeniable that there is a considerable element of rationality in North Korea's claim," while "North"-leaning academics in the United States and elsewhere talk of "narrowing" the nuclear issue, advocating a more myopic approach addressing only the most salient elements of the nuclear program: the Yongbyon nuclear complex and what remains of 8,000 spent fuel rods.
Greater global attention to myriad human-rights atrocities comprises the thinnest edge of a wedge that could pry Kim from the helm of power. But that is unlikely as long as he keeps the world's attention focused squarely on his nuclear program. That his nukes exist is not news; that he's chosen now, in the immediate "pre-talk" period, to declare them is true to form. Last week's meeting between Michael Green, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, and Chinese President Hu in Beijing concerning North Korea's export of uranium hexafluoride to Libya strongly suggested North Korea's imminent "willingness" to resume the six-way talks Pyongyang has refused to attend since last September.
Fueling the nuclear crisis will give support to those in the region and Washington who believe that the nuclear issue must be the only agenda item in future talks, a position that guarantees a prolonged series of discussions, continued and expanded aid packages, with countless concessions and incentives eagerly proffered at any hint of progress. It also assures that the world's worst single violator of human rights will continue his stranglehold on the country, as eager appeasers trumpet progress in disassembling inconsequential facets of Kim Jong-il's bifurcated nuclear program.
Now that Kim has shouted what only the most willfully naive or the grossly uniformed would be surprised to hear, calls for increased engagement and a package of inducements, including a non-aggression pact and fuller diplomatic recognition, will be sure to follow, as was likely calculated.
Elevating the nuclear issue creates a convenient distraction from the leadership's depraved indifference to the suffering and death and its citizens. Ongoing human atrocities will likely receive less attention as the world and region play along with Kim's choreographed nuclear crisis. Compelling regional and global will to address Kim's entire nuclear program firmly will always be a hard sell. In pushing for transparent, verifiable agreements to end North Korea's nuclear programs, the United States is largely alone, which is exactly why Kim has refocused the nuclear issue so acutely. Nukes can be "negotiated" away, at least in theory, but the senseless starvation of as many as 3 million people, the torture and summary execution of hundreds of thousands, and other atrocities by this most dysfunctional of systems are far harder to negotiate away, presenting a far greater threat to the Kim dynasty than the nuclear program.
The Seoul-based Commission to Help North Korean Refugees reported that according to recent refugee testimony, 70 defectors freshly repatriated by Chinese authorities were publicly executed as a warning to others who might seek to flee Kim's "worker's paradise". Last week, Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense Forum Foundation in Washington, issued an English translation of a hand-written fax sent to the South Korea's largest daily, the Chosun Ilbo, by an anonymous North Korean official in Beijing. The letter details the corruption and cronyism that are growing within Kim's tortuous system: "As a hopelessly corrupted country, North Korea is accelerating toward its final destruction," the letter states. "Kim Jong-il's cruelty has worsened in desperation to preserve his power. Torture and executions became more and more common ..."
This comes at a time of more and more stories of nascent opposition within North Korea, including smuggled video evidence documenting anti-Kim graffiti in the country's impoverished northern cities.
Such reports and other evidence are always impossible to verify independently. But the sheer volume of reports is certainly unprecedented, suggesting far greater underground activity and the potential for increased instability within the regime.
Of course, these embryonic movements are unlikely to develop as long as Kim remains firmly in control of the nation's institutions, most specifically the military (see Ruling North Korea means ruling its army). The efficacy of Kim's rule and the strength of his regime rest on his ability to secure the resources necessary not only to satisfy the appetites of the military, but also to ensure that all channels of trade, legal and otherwise, remain open, ensuring the nation's highest strata of elite continue to profit. "Progress" in the nuclear talks and South Korea's willingness to reward such advances lavishly, regardless of how ephemeral, ensures Kim's position and fortifies his draconian rule; a renewed international focus on the nation's human-rights situation likely to have the opposite effect.
North Korea is a top-down problem. Only when the human impediment to peace is removed will the peninsula and the region be able to take the first steps toward verifiable nuclear disarmament and the emancipation of the northern half of the Korean Peninsula.
David Scofield, former lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, is currently conducting post-graduate research at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.
Ping!
ping
It was said the whole building was under extreme high security.
As you can imagine, the Short, Fat Little One and his guards must be very concerned that somebody is going to step forward in the near future, from the ranks of the masses, and "plug" him for good.
Thanks for the ping AIT
I see Little Kim hiding behind his bodyguard he must be feeling very romaey today LOL!!
If a rogue regime's nuclear arsenal is just a bump in the road, and if the UN didn't even rubberneck it a bit for Darfur, what's it gonna take to stop this car?
And the answer of course is Godzilla. Yea, you may think the UN serves no purpose now, but what about when the lizard king eats Tokyo, and then poops it back out onto Chicago? You'll be crying for your little "worthless organization" then, won't you?
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