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