KOREA: Unswayed by U.S., Seoul Remains Reluctant to Aid Pyongyang

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jan 25 1996 (IPS) - U.S. efforts to convince South Korea and Japan that North Korea is indeed facing a food crisis and needs urgent assistance, may fall flat, according to reports from Seoul which point to a continued reluctance to resume aid to Pyongyang.

Two-days of talks which are scheduled to end Thursday in Hawaii between Japan, South Korea and the United States, are unlikely to persuade Seoul to change its position, the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement Wednesday, adding that any aid resumption would be conditional.

And this was backed up Thursday by a South Korean embassy official in Tokyo, who told IPS that Seoul never regarded the Hawaii talks as a decision-making forum.

“The meeting in Hawaii was an occasion to spell out South Korea’s stance on food aid to North Korea. We are not against helping North Koreans who are the same flesh and blood as we are. But it must be done with the aim of improving bilateral relations,” explained the embassy official.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says several million people are at risk of starvation in North Korea, including 2.5 million women and children as a consequence of serious food shortages after severe flooding in rice-producing parts of the country last August.

In a rare appeal for outside aid, North Korea, which remains a communist bastion in the post Cold War era, subsequently pleaded for international assistance — the appeal in itself was seen by observers as an indication of the severity of the situation.

Before now, the United States, Japan and South Korea have come to the assistance of North Korea — all hoping their efforts would help to ease tension along the Korean peninsula.

Since the signing of an accord in October 1994 to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear programme, the United States has dispatched oil and corn to Pyongyang; Japan pledged 300,000 tonnes of rice — 200,000 tonnes of which has already been sent; and South Korea supplied 150,000 tonnes of rice at no cost last year.

But the South Korean shipment, which raised hopes of a possible improvement in relation, was fraught with typical hostility. Among other things, Seoul was stung by Pyongyang’s insistence that the rice aid would only be accepted if its carrier bore the North Korean flag. South Korea complied.

But since then, tension has if anything heightened along the peninsula amid reports of a North Korean troop build-up near the border and from now on, Seoul is adamant in its demands that the international community attach conditions to emergency aid.

High-up on Seoul’s priority list is that Pyongyang resume a dialogue with South Korea towards unification, the embassy official in Tokyo said.

“In addition, we would like the North Korean regime to ensure the food aid it receives will be used to feed the starving people. We are almost certain that the food is going to the military which is backbone of the totalitarian government,” the official added.

Deep-rooted suspicion has divided the two nations since the Korean War split the peninsula in 1953.

And even though Seoul is happy with the 1994 nuclear accord in which North Korea agreed to suspend its nuclear programme, South Korea is not happy with the way Pyongyang chooses only to deal with the United States in its negotiations. It worries that the North is trying to undermine the South’s international position.

“The communist regime is not normal…when you deal with a bunch of unpredictable, if not mad, people, you have to try and protect your own sanity,” political analyst Se-hyon Cho, wrote in Tuesday’s edition of the ‘The Korea Herald’ daily.

High-level politicians and observers in South Korea believe the North is exaggerating the severity of the food shortage to attract international aid that will be diverted to the army.

“North Korean reports of rice shortages do not take into account what is cultivated on private farms. Our intelligence indicates floods have only damaged certain areas,” said a spokesman from the Tokyo-based Mindan, an official South Korean organisation that promotes Seoul’s interests.

And further doubts that Seoul will be swayed by Washington are linked to upcoming election in South Korea where President Kim Young Sam, saddled with a growing domestic political corruption scandal, is likely to play the nationalist card.

The current hardline position will remain till at least April when the nation goes to the polls for a general election, says Kazuhiro Araki of the Modern Korea Institute, a research organisation in Tokyo.

Japan may also be hardening its stance. “We don’t think this is the time to consider additional aid (to North Korea),” Japanese Foreign Minister Yukihido Ikido told reporters in Tokyo Tuesday. One reason the timing was bad, he explained, was because Japan had no surplus rice to donate.

“Japanese public opinion is growing cooler towards North Korea,” said Araki. He however expects Japan would still resume aid to North Korea only because it fears the nuclear accord might be become unraveled if Pyongyang feels it is being boxed in.

In the end, analysts say Washington which is reported to be considering a package of some two million dollars for North Korea to be channeled through international organisations, may seek a compromise whereby private enterprise and NGOs in South Korea will be the ones to aid North Korea.