Insecurities keep Korea divided

Insecurities keep Korea divided

By John Gittings

SEOUL (JP): Korea is a peninsula encircled by uncertainty -
and not just in the North. We may be impressed by South Korea's
great "chaebol" manufacturing companies and its transition to
democracy. But the South is still a very insecure society, at
odds with Washington on how to handle negotiations with the North
and deeply ambivalent about relations with its former ruler,
Japan.

A new hardline policy by President Kim Young-sam also includes
a worrying proposal to give more power to the Korean CIA.

The Northern puzzle is so difficult that many South Koreans
prefer not to think about it. Western diplomats in Seoul complain
that Kim's government is refusing to focus on what may happen in
Pyongyang, where the food crisis worsens amid signs of tension
between the Communist Party and army elites under Kim Jong-il.

There is no clear strategy of how to influence events there.
Should South Korea seek to guide the North to a "soft landing"
with food aid and conciliatory offers, or plan for - perhaps even
encourage - an abrupt collapse?

Many Koreans as well as foreign observers believe President
Kim Young-sam is more concerned about his own soft landing after
he steps down at the end of 1997. He is accused of seeking to
improve the chances of a successor who will protect him by
keeping the powerful security apparatus and army on his side, and
taking a tough line against Pyongyang.

Friction between Washington and Seoul over how to handle the
North has continued despite the deal reached by the two
presidents at the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation)
conference in Manila. Kim insists on an apology from Pyongyang
for its submarine incursion in September: the United States is
more interested in getting talks between the two Koreas, itself
and China.

Participants on both sides acknowledge that the U.S.-Korea
relationship has changed. "South Korea continues to expect the
U.S. to behave the same way as in the cold war," said Kyong-won
Kim, the former ambassador to Washington.

Donald Gregg, his former U.S. counterpart who began by
training Southern agents for the CIA in the Korean war, has
called for a high-level American envoy to visit Seoul and "work
out the irritations of the past".

The official version of the North Korean submarine incident -
in which 26 agents landed on a Southern beach after their craft
went aground - provokes widespread disbelief. The defense
ministry has claimed the group were on a high-level sabotage
mission.

But most observers believe it was a routine act of espionage
which went wrong - a view belatedly confirmed when military
sources in Seoul said submarines from the North were believed "to
drop off infiltrators quite regularly".

The government has claimed that the mid-August student
demonstration at Yonsei University which ended in violence was
fomented by agitators on instrustions from Pyongyang. This is
also seen as far-fetched, even though most people criticize the
students for refusing to abandon militant traditions.

The rally, held on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation from
Japan, was banned by the government because it called for
peaceful reunification of North and South. The students had
attempted to leave the university quietly, but the security
forces blockaded the area and used considerable force to carry
out nearly 6,000 arrests. A dossier of human rights violations
has been recorded by Amnesty International.

Japan is still the source of extremely complicated emotions.
The former headquarters of its colonial government - which housed
Korea's national museum - has been torn down with such speed that
the museum is currently without a home. The status of one of
Seoul's ancient gates - the Namdaemun - as "National Treasure No.
1" is now being reconsidered - merely because it was first
classified as such during the Japanese occupation.

Yet a recent survey of Korean attitudes towards Japan, carried
out for a conference at Yonsei University on mutual perceptions
between Koreans, Japanese and Americans, showed a deep sense of
Korean inferiority towards Japan.

Some Koreans privately argue that their country has never
managed to shake off feelings of dependence, first towards China,
then Japan, and since the second world war towards the U.S.

The real nightmare scenario today is neither that the North
will collapse nor that it will slowly and painfully disintegrate.
It is that both will happen together: a partial collapse will be
resisted by elements in the party and army, still loyal to the
Kim Il-sung tradition and determined not to sell out to the
"flunkeyism" of the South. This would leave Seoul with a complex
civil war just across the 38th parallel.

Many Koreans prefer to turn their backs on this prospect: for
them the future lies in President Kim Young-sam's policy of
"globalising" the economy, and they believe the cost of
reunification would cripple that strategy. Others fear that Korea
remains incomplete, psychologically as well as geographically, so
long as it is divided. Events in Pyongyang may force the South,
against its will, to make the choice.

-- The Guardian