KOREA: Rice Aid Brings Hopes of Thaw in North-South Ties

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jun 27 1995 (IPS) - South Korea’s shipment of rice aid to the communist North this week has raised hopes of a rapprochement more than four decades after the Korean War divided the peninsula.

Korea watchers say the 2,000-tonne shipment — the first under a deal signed in Beijing last week for 150,000 tonnes of food aid to the grain-starved North — is a positive sign that bitter rivalry between the two Koreas may be about to end.

Prof Masao Okonogi of Keio University says the rice aid agreement indicates Pyongyang has accepted the painful fact that it needs the South’s help in easing its food shortage.

“It is the first time North Korea has admitted its much-touted ‘juche’ or self-reliance policy has failed, while South Korea has recovered from the ruins of war and emerged rich and influential,” says Okonogi.

The shipment left South Korea Sunday, coinciding with the anniversary of the North’s invasion of the South in 1950 at the start of the three-year Korean War. The rice aid was due to reach North Korea on Monday.

South Korean President Kim Young Sam is optimistic the food aid would lead to warmer ties with the North. He described the rice deal as “a historical turning point on the road to unification”.

“With the provision of rice as a momentum, I expect North Korea to engage in productive dialogue and enter a new chapter of exchanges and cooperation,” he told reporters in Seoul last week.

Kim even hinted at a possible summit between the two Koreas after the first death anniversary next month of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.

The Cold War rivals remained bitter enemies in the 1960s and 1970s. In the past two decades, however, bilateral ties took a new path under the mediation of the United States which favoured a less confrontational approach in dealing with Pyongyang.

The latest breakthrough in efforts to open up the isolated regime came early this month when North Korean and U.S. negotiators struck a nuclear agreement in Kuala Lumpur.

North Korea agreed to accept South Korean light-water nuclear reactors after months of adamantly refusing them, paving the way for a new era of detente in the peninsula, say analysts.

“South Koreans observe the anniversary of the Korean War with a clear wish for unification,” said Pyong Jin Il, a Tokyo-based South Korean journalist.

“This is a very emotional time for us,” Pyong added. “The desire to help our starving people in the North is strong but at the same time it is difficult to erase the memories of suffering caused by the North when it invaded us.”

Indeed despite the dramatic turn of events in recent months, many South Koreans remain suspicious of North Korea.

The Korea Herald, an English-language South Korean daily, has criticised Pyongyang’s demands that rice shipments from the South should not carry labels showing the place of origin.

“The insistence of Pyongyang on dropping the identification of commodity from the South reflects the acute inferiority complex of the Northerners… That is the height of hypocrisy…. What a fantastic and one-sided deal,” the newspaper commented.

The South Korean media also point out that Kim and his ruling Democratic Liberal Party are facing the toughest challenge yet in this week’s local elections.

The Korea Herald quoted analysts as saying Kim’s swift move to offer such a large rice package to the North may have been motivated by the generally favourable public reaction to the Beijing agreement.

Kim said his government decided to grant 150,000 tonnes of rice for free “purely out of compassion for our brethren in the North”.

But Korea experts say Kim may have gone a step too far. They point out that the promised rice aid puts great pressure on South Korean farmers who are opposed to rice imports.

Official figures in June show South Korea has a rice reserve of about one million tonnes but it is under foreign contract to import 51,000 tonnes of rice this year.

There is also the perception that North Korea is working harder to win closer ties with Washington than with Seoul, causing great concern in South Korea.

Another setback in efforts to mend North-South relations was Pyongyang’s announcement last week that it would mark the Korean War anniversary by quitting the armistice that ended the conflict. North Korea wants the armistice replaced by a full-scale peace treaty with the United States that would exclude the South.

South Koreans regard the armistice, under which the United States provides troops to protect their nation, as a pillar of their defence against the North.

United Nations officials monitoring the armistice noted that Pyongyang has made many unilateral attempts in the past to destroy the armistice but stressed that any change in the agreement would require the consent of all parties.