Spy furor clouds South Korea Kim's sunshine policy

Spy furor clouds South Korea Kim's sunshine policy

By Bill Tarrant

SEOUL (Reuters): North Korea almost certainly did not want to see one of its agents washed up on a South Korean beach in a frogman's outfit, with an automatic weapon, underwater camera, radio and maps scattered nearby.

But the discovery of the body, the second such infiltration in three weeks, has managed to cast dark clouds over the south's new "sunshine policy", a policy which analysts say some in the, the Stalinist north may see as a long-term threat.

The policy seeks to improve ties with Pyongyang through stepped up economic and cultural contacts and putting off the issue of reunification to the distant future.

The latest intrusion, which Washington and Seoul have declared a "provocation", has raised questions about whether starving North Korea is biting the hand that is trying to feed it.

"I don't think this was an intentional operation on the part of North Korea to scuttle the sunshine policy," said Park Young- ho of the Korea Institute of National Unification.

"I think the two intrusions were discovered accidentally."

Just three weeks ago, a North Korean midget submarine was found half submerged, entangled in fishing nets, in the same part of the northeast coast where the diver washed ashore.

Nine bodies were found inside. South Korean defense officials said three commandos shot dead the six crew members before turning their guns on themselves.

The sunshine policy began only in February when Kim Dae-jung -- who for years was painted by South Korea's former military rulers as soft on communism -- was inaugurated as president.

But North Korea has been sending infiltration teams to the south from its 100,000-strong commando and espionage force since the Korea War ended in an uneasy truce in 1953.

South Korea's Unification Ministry counts some 20 incidents since 1968 in which teams of infiltrators have been discovered, most swimming to the long coastlines of the Korean peninsula, dotted with small islands.

Almost all of those who were discovered were either shot dead or committed suicide to avoid capture. Intelligence officials assume this happens all the time and that many more infiltration teams successfully complete their missions.

Almost nobody tries to enter the south across the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula between North and South. It's strewn with land mines and more than a million heavily armed troops face each other across the Cold War's last frontier.

North Korea, one of the world's most isolated and least developed countries, does not have access to spy satellites. And any reconnaissance plane would no doubt be shot down by a U.S. or South Korean fighter jet.

That leaves the humble frogman of a bygone era, with his portable spy paraphernalia, weapons, food powder and chocolates. A Diver's Propulsion Vehicle -- which looks like a torpedo with a propeller and a handle for divers to clutch -- was also found near the dead North Korean infiltrator on Sunday, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of the DMZ.

Defense Ministry officials speculate he and possibly two others were either swimming from a sub that had dropped them off or were on their way back after completing their mission.

"Satellites are great, electronic gizmos are great, but the best intelligence asset is the man on the ground," one military analyst in Seoul said.

Some officials in the South Korean Defense Ministry and the Agency for National Security Planning have linked the infiltrations to the expected accession to the presidency of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il.

They believe Kim, who became general-secretary of the ruling Workers Party last October, will be named president at the party's 50th anniversary celebration on Sept. 9.

"There are five or six bodies in North Korea that do covert activities," said one South Korean intelligence official. "They don't communicate very well with each other and they may all be competing to show how bold and brave they are to Kim Jong- il before he becomes president," he said.

North Korea watchers in Seoul say the North is also in two minds about letting in a little sunshine, even though President Kim recently called for the easing of U.S. trade sanctions on North Korea -- something Pyongyang has long been pressing for. North Korea's military elite see a Cold War thaw as a long term threat to its privileged position, one top South Korean intelligence official say.

But moderate elements in Pyongyang see more trade and investment with the south as essential to avert the collapse of a famine-struck country, whose economy is now in the eighth year of a severe depression.