Reasonable solution for regional conflicts

Reasonable solution for regional conflicts

By Kwon Yule-jung

SEOUL: The Philippines is still embroiled in internal disputes over the legitimacy of the succeeding president, Arroyo, after her predecessor, Estrada, was stripped of power due to corruption scandals. Indonesia has a similar problem with the incumbent president's alleged involvement in multimillion dollar corruption.

Our country is no exception in corruption cases. In this article, I want to refer to regional antagonism as one of the most discriminatory and unfair patterns of corruption.

The worsening regional rivalry issue has the potential to explode at any time. Unlike labor disputes and conflicts between conservatives and progressives over the engagement policy with Communist North Korea, the thorny issue of regionalism has been bordering on a crisis for a long time.

Regional animosity as encountered in Korea does not have an appropriate expression to describe it either in English or Japanese. In that sense, it is very unique to Korea. The political circles that are primarily responsible for the problem are not divided into ruling and opposition parties, but two political parties based on regions representing their partisan strongholds.

The National Assembly is for most of the year a forum for petty squabbling, rather than a chamber for productive discussions. Many of the former dissidents and activists -- who regard themselves as democratic fighters -- are factionalized by regions. This vicious trait even dominates religion and lifestyles as well as political and social ideology. The failure of many reform policies is attributable to this negative regional rivalry.

When President Kim Dae-jung was inaugurated three years ago, I hoped that the extreme regional antagonism could be lessened to a degree, even if not leading to a complete solution. Unfortunately, it has remained the same as in the past and at times seems worse than ever.

I would like to put forward some proposals on resolving this sensitive issue:

In general, the problem has been exacerbated by the escalating effect of emotional judgments rather than reasonable or scientific approach.

There are two major factors on problems of regional differences.

Firstly, human resources management like personnel positions and promotions should not be used as compensation for some past disadvantages. The primary reason why regional conflicts are aggravated may be ascribed to such distortion of the fair management of human resources by regional favoritism.

Secondly, the imbalances in development of certain regions in the past still remains a major stumbling block to further development. It is also important to consider the stark differences between metropolitan areas and non-metropolitan regions as well as regional differences.

Most of the national budget has been poured into the metropolitan areas, leading to overcrowding of the major cities. A simple solution would be to allocate a larger portion of the national budget to rural regions for more balanced development and natural migration.

To solve these thorny issues, a provisional commission on nationwide settlement of regional conflicts, composed of either government officials or joint members of public and civic groups, should be formed as soon as possible.

The commission should be impartial and transparent in dealing with every matter concerning regional problems and enjoy the trust of the community. Members should be selected based on regions by proportion of population and this neutral organization should be free from external intervention -- even by the president.

The scourge of regional conflicts should not be lightly taken but be dealt with as an urgent matter hindering the steadfast progress of national development.

Therefore, the committee should present its first recommendations within half a year, so that the distorted management of personnel issues can be immediately redressed and the imbalance of regional development should be corrected by the national budget revised for the next fiscal year.

Politicians should accept unconditionally the recommendations offered by the commission and make efforts to carry out the resolutions.

Regional problems have made all the people, whether they come from the region of the ruling class or not, think of themselves as victims not as beneficiaries.

As fatal diseases for patients need precise diagnoses which lead to speedy treatments, Korea's regional conflicts require scientific and systematic analyses of problems and fair solutions which are acceptable to every reasonable citizen.

The writer is director of Iksan Patriots and Veterans Office in North Cholla Province.

-- The Korea Herald/Asia News Network