NORTH KOREA: US agrees to fund power and heating (Bush sends 95 million to member of Axis of Evil!!)

Radio Australia ^ | 03.04.02 | Radio Australia

[Registered]

NORTH KOREA: US agrees to fund power and heating
03/04/2002 20:50:42 | Asia Pacific Programs

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Relations between the United States and North Korea appear to be thawing, just a few months after President George W. Bush labelled Pyongyang as part of the 'Axis of Evil', along with Iran and Iraq. Mr Bush today agreed to release 95 million dollars to be spent on power and heating in North Korea, despite his earlier tough talk criticising North Korea's appalling human rights record and its programme of building weapons of mass destruction. And on another front, a South Korean envoy has arrived in Pyongyang as part of a last attempt by the outgoing president, Kim Dae Jung, to persuade the north to revive their stalled peace talks.

Transcript:

WERDEN: Relations between the two Koreas has never been smooth since the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945 and subsequent Korean war five years later.

North Korea's relationship with the West is also, almost non-existent. But in 1994 in an attempt to bring peace to the region, an international consortium made up of the United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to construct two " so called safer" light water - nuclear reactors, in return for Pyongyang's undertaking to freeze its nuclear weapons program.

The reactors were to have been built by next year but so far not even the concrete has been poured. Both sides are blaming each other.

CLARK: "The reactors being built are behind schedule but one has to look at why they are behind schedule, you have labour problems in North Korea, I mean that's almost an oxymoron."

WERDEN: Ambassador William Clark, former United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific. He says North Korea has failed to live up to its end of the bargain which was to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure Pyongyang had in fact halted its nuclear weapons program.

CLARK: "I think the North's playing games with us and I am not terribly sympathetic to the view that the United States has fallen behind in fact I think we have bent over backwards. This is a bankrupt regime that is acting as if it were the leader on the peninsula. It isn't."

WERDEN; "Well what's in it for them why are they refusing to allow the inspections?

CLARK: "Because the regime in North Korea is basically so fragile, that if you ever allowed sunlight in it would wither like a mushroom. It is the last of the ideological regimes based on a father figure and the father figure is dead and you've got the son now and he is still running around in an Eisenhower jacket."

WERDEN: For its part North Korea has accused the consortium particularly the United States of wanting to withdraw from the agreement and claims Washington wants the inspections so it can find a reason to stop work on the reactors.

It's threatened to abandon the agreement and resume work on the older soviet built nuclear plants which it had earlier agreed to dismantle.

CHANG: "That's rhetoric of course, there have been consistent rhetorical threats to back away from the project but its not easy to for them to do so."

WERDEN: Chang Sun Sun, South Korea's ambassador to the project.

CHANG: "Apart from the rhetoric I think the North Koreans, we have an indication that North Koreans are really observing or complying with this agreement so far. Again my point is that it's not easy for anyone to run away from this project."

WERDEN: While the inspections are a key part of the agreement which states they must be completed before any key components of the twin reactors are delivered, the United States has moved to ease the stalemate.

In an unsual move, the US has waivered the inspection requirement and agreed to another part of the bargain and released 95 million dollars funding for heavy fuel oil to make up for the loss of power from Soviet built reactors Pyongyang shut down as part of the 94 agreement.

Chang Sun Sun, says this shows the US committment to the project.

CHANG: "They are appropriating the funds for the heavy fuel and if just simply they can't certify North Korea are complying which doesn't mean to say they are not complying at all. So that's the difference between the two points."

WERDEN: Washington has described its decision to waive the inspection requirement for this year only, as vital to its national security interests, in so doing it's giving North Korea another chance at making the agreement work.

CHANG: "Abandoning this project might cause very considerable impact on the overall security situation in South Korean peninsula which is not easy to anybody to deal with. So peace and stability is at stake so abandoning this project immediately causes will bring about tension and possibly confrontation between the two sides."

CLARK: "This is a regime that has a long history if you go back of assassinations, bombings and nuclear development. And it would almost criminal to say that we're just going to overlook all of that and assume that they are good guys, on the other hand we need to try and work with them."

Transcripts from programs "AM", "The World Today", "PM", the "7:30 Report" and "Lateline" are created by an independent transcription service. The ABC does not warrant the accuracy of the transcripts. ABC Online users are advised to listen to the audio provided on this page to verify the accuracy of the transcripts.

03/04/2002 20:50:42 | Asia Pacific Programs

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NOTEPAD:

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Related
FreeRepublic Threads:

• I thought they were evil?
• US grants N Korea nuclear funds.
• US grants N Korea nuclear funds-President George W Bush waived the Framework's

[Registered]

btw, I listed additional links that lead to the BBC article in the notepad section up top.

[ArneFufkin]

The bottom of the article looks like it attributes the interview to abcradio.com

[Registered]

janette, that sounds nice and all, but frankly I don't want to see any of my tax dollars being sent around the world when I see so much here that they could be used for...like additional cruise missiles ;-)

Time and time again, our government comes to us and says, Dies ist zollpflichtig but we see nothing or we see waste.

[Registered]

That's Australian not American.

[Registered]

!!! So let us not critizise money given to North-Korea, these people eat dirt, to have something in their stomage

BTW, while these people eat dirt, their leaders live like the rich while spending money on military and nuclear weapons technology. Giving money to criminals is not a good thing.

[Registered]

meiner Meinung nach ;-)

[janette]

OK, I absolutely understand your point of vieuw, I ment, the entire "rich-world" has to help, like a union to bring education into these countries. It's easier to learn without hunger, no sorrows, than they might be able to choose with better knowledge a better government or leader! OK, I'm getting my words out in a very naive way, If things would be so easy, It would have been done since a long time. But bottom line, it's the poverty and the lack of education, what brings people and with it together entire regions intoo threadful situations. Another reason is Religion. Almost every war, fought in history, was fought about religious believes. I'm mad about that!! Very interested in history, I see, that the most powerful wars were driven by Religion. I have hard times, to believe, that that's what us humans where given from God. I think, we humans are a very violent type of species on this Earth, Religion should keep us in our moral bounderies, but we know always, how to escape and do our violent acts. Nowhere in the Animal-world, we will find such kind of behaviour!!!!

[piasa]

NOt at all. What I was trying to do is find additional sources for information to figure out where this came from. Personally, I think US policy with regard to N. Korea sucks.

I dislike the stupid "trade them aid in exchange for them NOT doing something" approach which, unfortunately, the US has followed since 1994 even up to the present day. It is the same principle, IMHO, that has fouled up US agriculture. We pay farmers NOT to grow things. So we turned farmers into welfare recipients when they should have been exploring new ways to exploit markets. Worse, North Korea is as belligerent as ever, and I believe our giving them aid prolongs the misery of their people. It's not the first time the US has done exaclty that. It seems the government bureaucrats are afraid N. Korea might collapse and if it did we'd have on this nuclear material floating about on the world market. Maybe so, but maybe not. If N. Korea collapsed, those folks might get their butts right in gear and prove us all wrong. I would prefer our knowitall government employees would not prolong the regime, and would prefer that this administration not follow the policy of making it linger. It was, after al, the same mentality which led to our leaving Hussein in power, for fear of someone worse or for fear of Iran filling the void. I think we could have prevented Iran from injecting itself if we had a desire to do so. Letting Hussein kill more people and fund more terrorist activities doesn't look so smart to me.

I've learned a bit more on digging though this junk.

Here's an overview report from a conference via the CIA which gives the various chain of thoughts our bureaucrats have in mind, some conflicting:

[piasa]

Yikes, try that again:

here it is

[texlok]

Incredible..unbelievable...what else do we say??

That Bush is Clinton reborn?

[piasa]

Yes, the consortium is called KEDO.

KEDO is composed of the US, EU, Japan, and South Korea, with Japan and South Korea providing the bulk of the funding. KEDO has been constructing the light water reactors to replace reactors the North was using which could produce nuclear waste material since its formation in the mid 90s. The North was supposed to turn over spent rods from its old reactors. Because of lack of cooperation with the verification requirement, KEDO has consistantly refused to complete construction. Just funding KEDO will not neccessarily mean that no verification will be required, since KEDO has been requiring verification all along and since KEDO has essentially been funded all along by Japan and South Korea.

(If we have lifted verification requirements then someone should certainly be in trouble. Ol' Congressman Hyde might be ticked too. Hyde's offices might be able to confirm the accuracy of these reports and provide information not filtered through the press on any wacko policy changes. With the administration's recent statements regarding Korea, I have to wonder what it up here too.)

Source for Hyde's comments below

Remarks of Chairman Henry J. Hyde
To the American Enterprise Institute
Conference On North Korea
March 13, 2001

... So long as the North Koreans view verification as a problem, as something to be resisted, we can only suspect that there has been no break with the past, and no commitment to genuine cooperation in the future. And if there has been no break with the past, President Bush's insistence on verification will make it very unlikely that the nuclear reactors will ever be completed in North Korea.

This is because, under the terms of the Agreed Framework, the reactors are not to be completed until North Korea and the IAEA resolve the dispute that gave rise to the crisis in the first place. Either the IAEA must be persuaded that its measurements were wrong, or North Korea has to admit that it has been misleading the world for years and reveal the full extent of its nuclear weapons program. If neither of these things happens, and we continue to insist on verification, then under the terms of the Agreed Framework the reactors should not be completed.

Indeed, I would go so far as to predict that if the Administration continues to insist on strict verification -- as I expect it will -- we will not have to ask the North Koreans to substitute conventional power plants for the nuclear plants, because eventually they will ask us to make this change.

I have two additional concerns about any missile agreement with North Korea that should be taken into account. To the degree any such deal involves the launching of satellites for North Korea, we need to make sure there is no technology transfer. The purpose of any such agreement would be to terminate North Korea's missile program, not to run a seminar for them on how to build missiles and launch payloads into space. But if such an agreement were not structured properly, it could easily become a seminar for them, just as our space launch activities in China helped upgrade Beijing's missile capability.

In addition, I worry a great deal about the compensation that North Korea is demanding in connection with an agreement on missile proliferation. Reportedly they have said we need to pay them $1 billion per year to stop proliferating.

I understand that this may just be an opening position in a negotiation, and it is unclear what the source of such funds would be. Additionally, North Korea has demanded reparations from Japan as a precondition to normalizing diplomatic relations. Such reparations could ultimately total in the billions of dollars. Also, there is the prospect of lending from international financial institutions.

Access to any of these sources of money could effectively guarantee the survival of the North Korean regime. We need to carefully consider the implications of allowing the West to become the principal prop holding up the North Korean regime.

-Hyde

[janette]

Bush is not going the way ...CLINTON........!!!!!!!! Bush is not the smartest guy, but he is down earth, has(that's the most importand topic) the most impressive helpers in the back-ground

[Captainpaintball]

"If you are not with us...you are with the terrorists. And if you are with the terrorists, then you are... with the terrorists. Except if you want to give extremely large sums of money to the terrorists. Then it's OK. Trust me. It's complicated. You wouldn't understand. I don't think I understand either, but my handlers tell me it's the right thing to do..."

--Excerpt from the ORIGINAL DRAFT of George W. Bush's State of The Union Address September 20, 2001

[piasa]

It is not neccessarily 'poverty and lack of education which brings people into these dreadful situations,' as you say.

Were that true, American Indian cultures would have all been as nasty and abusive as these regimes. (Some were, most were not.) Yet by and large the lifestyle of the Cherokee and certain other tribes was so attractive that many people, preferring more freedom, left white civilization to join them. Ultimately societies fused, with people from one culture adopting what they saw as best in the other culture and adding it to their own ways. In terms of material wealth, they all had less than do some members of societies like the palestinian people, the Chinese, even the Afghans under the Taliban. Bushmen in Africa practicing traditional lifestyles have less material wealth than many of these modern regimes, but do not have the misery we find in modern regimes, if left alone.

So what then was is the problem ?

For the most part, you don't have to look much further than Marx for the answer.

You see, these allegedly more primitive societies still have things that a marxist society does not. For one, they have more individual liberty, even if some of that is limited by tradition. You were free to walk away from the tribe or nation at your own risk. Marxist or theocratic extremist regimes, on the other hand, have this thing against letting people leave or letting some people be different.

Another thing is that marxism exaggerates the differences between classes; it does so in order to create class warfare, which is neccessary to ultimately eliminate the upper classes and the chronically poor to establish what they hope will be a classless society full of community spirit. But instead, it creates jealousy and conflict and selfishness. Free cultures, even primitive ones, tend to inspire in people a sense of generosity, and people not exposed to marxism are more likely to blame themselves for their failures and setbacks than to blame someone else's success. That means it is possible to be happy even in poverty because you always have a reason to believe you can improve your lot. And you can, because you can change your conditions if you just get out there and start doing it.

Marxist societies further try to deny people religion, considering it an opiate that stands in the way of socialist revolution. They are right in that religion- if it is of the sort which preaches self-responsibility- does stand in opposition to socialist revolution. But the socialists are wrong to call it an opiate. It was called an opiate because people who had religion and a spirit of self-responsibility didn't feel outraged at being poor or middle class while others had more. Marxists think of this as a sort of blissful ignorance. In reality, individuals are largely responsible for their behavior and their successes and failures, and the ones on drugs are the marxists who delude themselves about who is to blame for the failure of communism, who is to blame for poverty, etc.

Dealing with poverty without reestablishing the idea of individual responsibility won't work. Dealing with poverty without dealing with the root cause, the marxism, will if anything promote more poverty and create even more dependence. The marxists at the top have to be routed out or convinced to lay off of their propaganda to enable change back to a society of responsibility to take place; but they are not inclined to do so because they know their abused populations would like to have their head on a platter, and they know that if they just hand on they will be fat and happy like they never would if they stepped down. So your idea of education is great, but it is difficult to do in a closed society and reading labels on trade goods isn't enough. If the education is like what we see in palestine, then forget it... they can read arabic and do math, but their minds have been so twisted they are going to be huge problems for years to come. Good education in math and science took place under foul openly marxist regimes, but made them no freer. Literacy was in many cases high, but there wasn't anything to read. So the message of responsibility and opportunity for those who try doesn't get out.

Restraints must be dropped on the press. North Korea is unfortunately very closed off to external information and the heavy handed marxism snuffs out the hope of their people, which no doubt reduces their productivity and causes other societal problems. The sense that individuals cannot effect change reinforces the regime by preventing potential dissenters from spreading their ideas. People just quit trying, and things keep getting worse.

[Captainpaintball]

We deserve a detailed explanation for this, don't you think? I am one of the "Bush Bashers" on this website--and I'm proud of it!

But maybe, just maybe there is some reasonable explanation for this inexcusable behavior.

I guess we can't count on the mainstream media to break this story, how 'bout drudge? Call your favorite talk radio this weekend, or Monday...Get this story out there!

I want him to make an attempt at explaining himself on this one. If he can't, or won't (which is what I suspect will happen) He leaves me no choice but to abandon him for good. There can be no other alternative, can there?

Can we continue to support a man (and an administration) who is with the terrorists?

[brat]

Our tax dollars at work.............I'd like to believe I'm dreaming and will awaken to find Clinton is still in office.

[jungleboy]

Bush's ACTIONS are bottom of the barrell politics. He's ALL TALK.

[Registered]

Gee, no reporter even asked Bush about this during the Bush-Blair joint news conference, and the BBC were the first to report it...What gives?

[pocat]

Nothing surprises me anymore...