The Koreas on the globe. Credit: TUBS/ Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

By Ahn Mi Young
SEOUL, Feb 18 2015 (IPS)

The two Koreas are an odd match – both are talking about possible dialogue but both have different ideas of the conditions, and that difference comes from the 62-year-old division following the 1950-53 Korean War.

During this time, North Korea has become a nuclear threat – estimated to possess up to ten nuclear weapons out of the 16,300 worldwide (compared with Russia’s 8,000 and the 7,300 in the United States) according to the Ploughshares Fund’s report on world nuclear stockpiles – and South Korea has become the world’s major economic success story.

In a national broadcast on Jan. 16, South Korean president Park Geun Hye presented her vision for reunification by using the Korean word ‘daebak‘ (meaning ‘great success’ or ‘jackpot’). “If the two Koreas are united, the reunited Korea will be a daebak not only for Korea but also for the whole world,” she said.North Korea has become a nuclear threat – estimated to possess up to ten nuclear weapons out of the 16,300 worldwide – and South Korea has become the world's major economic success story

Since she became leader of the South Korea’s conservative ruling party in 2013, Park has been referring to a new world that would come from a unified Korea. Her argument has been that if the two Koreas are reunited, the world could be politically less dangerous – free from the North Korea’s nuclear threat – and a united Korea could be economically more prosperous by combining the South’s economic and cultural power and the North’s natural resources and discipline.

Denuclearisation has been set as a key condition for daebak to come about. At a Feb. 9 forum with high-ranking South Korean officials, President Park said that “North Korea should show sincerity in denuclearisation efforts if it is to successfully lead its on-going economic projects. No matter how good are the programmes we may have in order to help North Korea, we cannot do so as long as North Korea does not give up its nuclear programme.”

However, observers have said North Korea has no reason to give up its nuclear weapons as long as it depends on its nuclear capability as a bargaining chip for political survival.  “Nuclear capabilities are the North’s only military leverage to maintain its regime as it confronts the South’s economic power,” said Moon Sung Muk of the Korea Research Institute of Strategies (KRIS).

In fact, there are few signs of changes. North Korea has conducted a series of rocket launches, as well as three nuclear tests – all in defiance of the U.S. sanctions that are partially drying up channels for North Korea’s weapons trade.

Amid recent escalating tension between Washington and Pyeongyang over additional sanctions, activities at the 5-megawatt Yongbyon reactor in North Korea which produces nuclear bomb fuel are being closely watched to monitor whether the North may restart the reactor.

In the meantime, South Korea has been denying the official supply of food and fertilisers to North Korea under the South Korean conservative regimes that started in 2008.

During the liberal regime of 2004-2007, South Korea was the biggest donor of food and fertilisers to North Korea.

Then there appeared to be a glimmer of hope when North Korea’s enigmatic young leader Kim Jong Un presented a rare gesture of reconciliation towards South Korea in his 2015 New Year’s speech broadcast on Korean Central Television on Jan. 1.

“North and South should no longer waste time and efforts in (trying to resolve) meaningless disputes and insignificant problems,” he said. “Instead, we both should write a new history of both Koreas … There should be dialogue between two Koreas so that we can re-bridge the bond that was cut off and bring about breakthrough changes.”

In his speech, the North Korean leader even went as far as suggesting a ‘highest-level meeting’ with the South Korean president. “If the South is in a position to improve inter-Korean relations through dialogue, we can resume high-level contacts. Also, depending on some circumstances and atmospheres, there is no reason we cannot have the highest-level meeting (with the South).”

In South Korea, hopes for possible inter-Korean talks have been subdued. “What North Korea wants from dialogue with the South is not to talk about nuclear or human rights, but to have the South resume economic aid,” said Lee Yun Gol, director of the state-run North Korea Strategic Information Centre (NKSIS).

The government in Seoul remains cautious about Pyongyang’s peace initiatives. “We are seeing little hope for any rosy future in inter-Korean relationships in the near future, although we are working on how to prepare for the vision of ‘daebak‘,” said Ryu Gil Jae, South Korean reunification minister, in a Feb. 4 press conference.

North Korean observers have said that economic difficulties have been pushing the North Korean government to relax its tight state control over farm private ownership. North Korean farmers can now sell some of their products in markets nationwide, in a gradual shift towards privatised markets.

Further, according to Chinese diplomatic academic publication ‘Segye Jisik’ (세계 지식), quoted by the South Korean news agency Yonhap News, the North Korean economy has improved since its new leader took office in 2012. From a 1.08 million ton deficit in stocks to feed the 20 million North Koreans in 2011, the deficit now stands at 340,000 tons.

According to observers, this report, if true, could send the signal that if North Korea is economically better off, it may be politically willing to reduce its dependence on the nuclear card in any bargaining process with South Korea.

U.S. sanctions have been used in the attempt to force North Korea to denuclearise, thus restricting North Korea’s trade, and the U.S. government levied new sanctions against North Korea on Jan. 2 this year in response to a cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment. The FBI accused North Korea of the attack in apparent retaliation for the film, The Interview, a comedy about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

But, while sanctions may work in troubling ordinary North Koreans concerned with meeting basic food needs, they have little impact on the North Korean government. “North Korea’s trade with China has become more prosperous and most of North Korea’s deals with foreign partners are behind-the-scene deals,” said Hong Hyun Ik, senior researcher at the Sejong Research Institute.

And, in response to the threat that it may be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC), on the basis of U.N. findings on human rights, Kim Jong Un reiterated: “Our thought and regime will never be shaken.”

South Korea may now stand as the only hope for North Korea, as the United States and the United Nations gather to turn tough against the country over the human rights issue, and South Korea may find itself faced with a ‘two-track’ diplomacy between the hard-liner United States and its sympathy for the North Korean people.

In past decades, North Korea has usually played out a game with the United States and South Korea. “In recent year, the United States has been using ‘stick diplomacy’ against the North Korea, while South Korea may want to shift to ‘carrot diplomacy’,” said Moon Sung Muk of the Korea Research Institute of Strategies (KRIS).

“The Seoul government knows that the pace of getting closer to the North should be constrained by U.N. or U.S. moves,” Moon added.

Edited by Phil Harris    

By Christine Ahn and Suzy Kim
HONOLULU, Dec 2 2014 (IPS)

On Nov. 18, a committee of the United Nations General Assembly voted 111 to 19, with 55 abstentions, in favour of drafting a non-binding resolution referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Christine Ahn

While there is overwhelming evidence that economic and political conditions in North Korea must improve, missing from debates in U.N. corridors is the fact that the unresolved Korean War (1950-1953) underlies North Korea’s human rights crisis."While there is overwhelming evidence that economic and political conditions in North Korea must improve, missing from debates in U.N. corridors is the fact that the unresolved Korean War (1950-1953) underlies North Korea's human rights crisis"

After claiming up to four million lives with at least one member of every family in North Korea killed by the war, the Korean War was halted by an armistice agreement signed by North Korea, China and the United States representing the United Nations Command.

Suzy Kim

As James Laney, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea during the 1990s explains, “one of the things that have bedevilled all talks until now is the unresolved status of the Korean War” and he prescribes the “establishment of a peace treaty to replace the truce.”

What does the past have to do with the present state of human rights in North Korea?

The continued state of war affects the human rights of North Korean people today in at least two ways. Domestically, the North Korean government prioritises military defence and national security over human security and political freedoms. Internationally, North Koreans suffer due to political isolation and economic sanctions.

The fact that the Korean War ended with a temporary ceasefire rather than a permanent peace treaty gives the North Korean government justification – whether we like it or not – to invest heavily in the country’s militarisation.

According to the South Korean government’s Institute of Defense Analyses, North Korea invests approximately 8.7 billion dollars – or one-third of its GDP – on defence.

Pyongyang even acknowledged last year how the un-ended war has forced it “to divert large human and material resources to bolstering up the armed forces though they should have been directed to the economic development and improvement of people’s living standards.”

Since military intervention is not an option, the Barack Obama administration has used sanctions to pressure North Korea to denuclearise. Instead, North Korea has since conducted three nuclear tests, calling sanctions “an act of war”.

That is because sanctions have had deleterious effects on the day-to-day lives of ordinary North Korean people. “In almost any case when there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer least,” said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his last visit to North Korea.

International sanctions have made it extremely difficult for North Koreans to access basic necessities, such as food, seeds, medicine and technology. Felix Abt, a Swiss entrepreneur who has conducted business in North Korea for over a decade says that it is “the most heavily sanctioned nation in the world, and no other people have had to deal with the massive quarantines that Western and Asian powers have enclosed around its economy.” 

Whether in Pyongyang, Seoul or Washington, the threat of war or terrorism has been used to justify government repression and overreach, such as warrantless surveillance, imprisonment and torture (“enhanced interrogation techniques”) in the name of preserving national security.

In South Korea, one of the liberal opposition parties, the Unified Progressive Party, is currently on trial in the Constitutional Court on charges made by the Park Geun-hye government that its members conspired with North Korea to overthrow the South Korean government.

Amnesty International says that this case “has seriously damaged the human rights improvement of South Korean society which has struggled and fought for freedom of thoughts and conscience and freedom of expression.”

In the coming days, the U.N. General Assembly will vote on whether the U.N. Security Council should refer North Korea to the ICC, although it is likely to be vetoed by China and Russia. The United Nations vote, while lofty in principle, actually serves to further isolate Pyongyang, which will likely retreat even further behind its iron curtain.

“We’ve said from day one that if North Korea wants to rejoin the community of nations, it knows how to do it,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said, referring to the precondition of denuclearisation for talks.

Instead of relying on the failed Washington policy of “strategic patience” it is time for a bold move that will truly bring North Korea into the community of nations, leaving no excuse to delay addressing human rights – sign a peace treaty to end the state of war. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

In the weeks since the South Korean ferry Sewol sank—taking with it the lives of over 300 passengers, the vast majority of them high school students — the country continues to be wracked by a palpable mix of grief, guilt, and outrage.

The aftermath of the sinking has exposed a uniquely Korean sense of collective guilt and personalisation of disaster. In a comment that typified the national mood over the past weeks, one man told the Los Angeles Times, “I feel embarrassed as a Korean. We failed our children.”

Across all sectors of the country, and in ways difficult for international audiences to comprehend, people feel personally responsible for creating a society in which such a tragedy would be allowed to occur.

This combination of culpability and helplessness has turned to anger, and not just at the unforgivable actions of the captain and crew, who abandoned ship while leaving hundreds of students trapped in their cabins. In what could prove to be a major problem for President Park Geun-hye, it is the South Korean government that is now bearing the brunt of the public’s wrath.

“A Government Mafia”

The Park administration has come under heavy criticism from relatives of victims, who have protested in front of the Blue House and charged that the government did not act quickly or decisively enough in the immediate aftermath of the sinking.

These criticisms have been repeated throughout the web and in Korean media outlets, with even the reliably conservative Joongang Daily claiming that the disaster “underscored that [the government] lacked ability in times of crisis.”

A lack of cooperation among the agencies in charge of emergency response, combined with shifting and often contradictory messages about the progress of the rescue, has painted a picture of institutional incompetence and damaged the public’s trust in its leaders. The resignation of Prime Minister Chung Hong-won over the government’s response to the accident has served to validate much of this criticism.

The catastrophe has also shined a light on the cosy relationship between industry and governmental regulators. The Sewol had been the subject of a number of safety concerns, including a finding earlier this year by the Korea Register of Shipping (KRS) that the ship had become top-heavy and less stable after additional passenger cabins were constructed on the upper decks.

Adding to this, the owner of the ferry, Chonghaejin Marine, had been accused by a former employee of overloading ships, covering up accidents, and mistreating its workforce. Despite these troubles, the Korean Shipping Association (KSA), a trade group responsible for certifying cargo safety, gave the ship a green light to carry out its ill-fated voyage.

Executive positions in both the KRS and KSA are filled by retired government officials, who are charged with lobbying their former colleagues on behalf of their new employers.

This system is prevalent throughout Korean industry, and has been cited by the president herself as a factor in fostering the lax safety standards that led to the disaster. In her public apology following the sinking, Park referred to this arrangement as a “government mafia” and called for an elimination of the practice.

Park’s Katrina?

In many ways, the Sewol tragedy mirrors one of the more famous examples of institutional breakdown: the U.S. government’s calamitous response to Hurricane Katrina.

In that case, failure to coordinate the relief effort between state and federal agencies compounded the initial impact of the hurricane, leaving New Orleans residents stranded without food, water, or shelter for several days after the storm hit.

As with the Sewol, accusations of political cronyism abounded in the aftermath of the incident, when it was revealed that three top officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, including director Michael Brown, were Republican political operatives with no experience in disaster relief management.

Americans viewed the ghastly scenes of post-Katrina New Orleans on nightly television, and wondered how their government could have so completely and utterly failed at protecting its own citizens.

As in South Korea during the aftermath of the Sewol disaster, where the finger of blame is being squarely pointed at the entire system rather than one political party, Americans initially assigned blame to both state and federal authorities.

While Park’s public support has slipped as a result of the sinking, she still enjoys a relatively robust 57 percent approval rating. Although Park, like then President George W. Bush in the early weeks following Hurricane Katrina, has largely been able to evade personal responsibility, she would be wise to take heed of his subsequent experience.

Reflecting in 2008 on the impact of the disaster, Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, noted that Hurricane Katrina “devastated President Bush.”

Through the mismanagement of the disaster, “his image as an incompetent president began to be reinforced and intensified.”

Bush’s approval ratings peaked at 45 percent in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina. But as the public perception of him began to change, he went from being seen as strong and decisive to looking bungling and inept, weighed down by Katrina as well as increasing public disillusionment with the Iraq War. His ratings plummeted, contributing to a landslide defeat of the Republican Party in the 2006 congressional elections.

Latent Outrage

Unlike Bush, Park may benefit from the shambolic state of the major opposition party, the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD). Founded in March through a merger of the establishment Democratic Party (DP) and the minor New Politics Party led by former independent presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo, the new coalition has steadily lost ground to Park’s centre-right Saenuri Party.

By throwing in his lot with the DP, Ahn has sacrificed his most valuable political currency: his image as an outsider who can rise above traditional politics. His standing was further damaged after a dispute with his new partners led him to reverse a key campaign pledge regarding the nominating process for local candidates.

Ahn had been one of the few politicians in the country capable of providing a credible alternative to Park, and his marginalisation has paved the way for Saenuri to consolidate its hold on power in the Jun. 4 legislative elections.

Gallup polling taken during the week of the sinking showed voter support for Saenuri at 59 percent, compared to the opposition’s paltry 25 percent. The ensuing public anger at the government has so far failed to translate into gains for the NPAD.

While it is unlikely that the NPAD will provide much trouble for Park in next month’s elections, the reverberations of the Sewol tragedy will echo throughout Korean politics for years to come.

Koreans are not shy about taking to the streets to vent their anger, but the degree of shock and grief in the country right now is unprecedented in recent history, and has left people unsure of how to proceed.

Regardless of the outcome of the elections, the psychological impacts of the tragedy will continue to linger in the national consciousness. If left to fester, they will remain a latent force that could undermine the president’s ability to govern.

Mitigating the national trauma will require leadership that balances a sense of empathy with an assumption of personal responsibility, and swift actions to overhaul a system in drastic need of reform.

For Park, who is by turns viewed as uncommunicative, callous, and ineffective, the Sewol sinking may prove to be, like Bush’s Katrina, the moment when a presidency began to crumble.

Geoffrey Fattig is a graduate student at UC San Diego’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. He lives outside Seoul and writes about Korea at www.jeollamite.com. This article originally appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus.