Category: Inter-Korean Issues

A recent article from McClatchy Newspapers in regards to the upcoming Inter-Korean summit offered little of any real new analysis of the meeting, but it did have a few good quotes in it worth sharing:

"That was his campaign promise. He’s a one-term president. Why should he transfer (the summit) to the next president? If he can have a summit, why not do it?" said Moon Chung -in, a political scientist at Yonsei University who advises Roh and will be attending the summit with him.

Judging by this statement it appears this summit is more about what good it will do for Roh than what good it will do for the country.  I can’t say I’m surprised by that. 

"A peace treaty for Roh Moo-hyun is very important," said Park Syung Je , a military analyst with the Asia Strategy Institute in Seoul . He added that the 61-year-old president wants to return from Pyongyang telling his countrymen: "We don’t need such a large army anymore, and we can spend that money on social issues."

That money will not be spent on social issues, it will spent on giving it right back to Kim Jong-il as well as raising taxes to give him yet even more money:

In a memo, the ministry detailed several possible ways to raise funds, saying that the government may need to come up with more financial resources if the summit brings about a number of large-scale economic cooperation projects between the two Koreas.

It also said the government may consider diverting part of the defense budget to finance inter-Korean projects.
About 26.7 trillion won was allocated for the defense budget next year, up 9 percent from this year, despite eased geopolitical risks associated with North Korea.  […]

Also, the memo indicated that the government may contemplate creating new taxes, which could be dubbed as either a “peace tax” or “unification tax,” as well as issuing lotteries and bonds to raise funds for inter-Korean economic cooperation.

What is so unbelievable about this is that South Korea has to increase their defense spending to buy the new technology that USFK once provided for them when they take over operational control on the peninsula and US forces continue to withdraw from Korea. 

Anyway here is the final quote from the McClatchy article I found of interest:

"The summit is going to turn out to be a stage where they can create a false image of peace that they can take to younger voters," said Lee Dong -bok, a Korea specialist in Seoul with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a veteran negotiator with North Korea . "They may not prevail."

I cannot see the South Korean public being duped yet again with the "image of peace" tactic by the Korean left.  What has the "image of peace" gained the average Korean?  Absolutely nothing.  Kim Jong-il has more forces deployed on the DMZ than ever, shootings on the DMZ still occur, six South Korean sailors were murdered in 2002 by the North Koreans, ballistic missile testing has increased, and they even have a nuclear bomb.  Than to top it off Kim Jong-il may have been caught proliferating nuclear technology to Syria, human rights violations in North Korea are as bad as ever, and he has not returned the thousands of kidnapped South Koreans and Korean War POWs to South Korea. 

What exactly has the Korean taxpayer’s won actually gained South Korea?  A few reunions, an overpriced tour trip to Kumgangsan, and a tax payer funded slave labor operation at Kaesong.  But hey it is all in the "image of peace". 

It appears the Roh administration is trying find every way possible to send every last Korean tax payer won to North Korea before they leave office:

While the Ministry of Unification plans to incorporate the power supply cost for North Korea’s Gaesong Industrial Complex into South Korea’s electricity fee system, the Ministry of Justice reportedly released its official opinion on the plan yesterday, saying, “There are no legal grounds for it.”

The Unification Ministry has been seeking ways to subsidize KEPCO, South Korea’s only electricity distributor, in the amount of two billion won, which corresponds to the annual losses incurred by supplying power to Gaesong. The losses have been compensated by government funds for inter-Korean cooperation, but the Unification Ministry was seeking to offset future costs by incorporating the power bill into South Korea’s fee system. [Donga]

So the Ministry of Justice says it is illegal, who cares we are going to do it any way appears to be the attitude of the Roh administration. 

These words were uttered by none other than anti-Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung:

According to the testimony of North Korean defectors, one side of the May Day Stadium where the performance takes place often smells of urine. That’s because students are not allowed to leave their positions while practicing the flash card performance. So they simply urinate while sitting down in their seats. Many children are said to end up getting bladder infections. One wrong move and children are clubbed and punished in groups. Kim Hyun-sik, former professor at Kim Hyung Jik College of Education, said the Arirang performance was “soaked with the blood and tears of the North Korean people.”

Regarding questions as to whether the South Korean president should attend such a performance marred by allegations of child abuse, South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung retorted whether the lengthy training of South Korean children for a play or sports event could be viewed as abuse was uncertain. Regarding North Korea’s human rights violations, Lee pretended not to know, saying human rights issues should be interpreted according to the unique circumstances of a particular society. He added that there was no concrete evidence of human rights violations in the North.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Absolutely and utterly unbelievable.  This is on par with denying the Jewish Holocaust of World War II, but he is denying the North Korean Holocaust instead.  If letting hundreds of thousands to millions of your population to starve to death while you expand your military is not a human rights violation than I don’t know what is.  Has Lee ever read anything from Kang Chol-hwan or any of the other North Korean defectors? 

How does Lee explain the gulags?:

I would love to see Lee Jae-joung tell this woman there are no human rights violations in North Korea:

Few things have pissed me off more than what this morally corrupt North Korean apologist has stated.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the South Korean government believes no human rights violations are occurring inside North Korea when these are the same people who could care less about the current mass sexual slavery of North Korean women in China and has allowed the North Koreans to kidnap and keep hundreds to thousands of South Koreans.  The rescue of these South Korean citizens are left to average people such as this 66 year old grandma to undertake while the Korean government obstructs her. 

I’m willing to bet if you ask Lee Jae-joung he would be willing to condemn Japan for human rights violations committed on the Korean peninsula by the Imperial Japanese 60 years ago, but he is not willing to condemn far worse human rights violations being committed against Korean people now.  These comments are the greatest indication yet of the Moral Bankruptcy of the Korean government.  I guess it is only fitting these people will be watching a bunch of abused children perform for them next month in Pyongyang.  I hope they enjoy the smell of urine. 

So this is what the six South Korean sailors murdered by North Korea in 2002 died for, so their government could surrender the sovereign South Korean territory they defended to the people that murdered them:

But United New Democratic Party lawmaker Choi Sung raised the question again. "What is the government’s official stance on the NLL issue?" he asked. Moon said there could be "some points on the agenda that we want to discuss and others that Pyongyang is expected to bring up, whether we want it or not." He added, "We expect that Pyongyang will likely bring the NLL issue up, whether we want it or not. In case it does, we are planning to deal with it just as lawmakers Lee Hwa-young and Chang Young-dal said a few minutes ago."

Earlier, Lee Hwa-young had proposed resolving the question by creating a “marine peace park” in the West Sea, [Chosun Ilbo]

The Defense Ministry was furious about this, but it seems like the Roh Moo-hyun administration is committed to giving Kim Jong-il as much as possible before the government leaves office in December.   

President Roh has made plenty of headlines in Korea in the last 24 hours.  First of all North Korea released an official message thanking various world leaders for providing flood relief in the aftermath of the floods that hit North Korea this summer.  Guess who they failed mention?:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has extended thanks to the leaders of 11 countries for their help in flood relief efforts, the North’s state media reported Tuesday, but the name of President Roh Moo-hyun was not included.

"He expressed deep appreciation for their sincere sympathy and warm-hearted comfort," the Korean Central Broadcasting Station said. [Yonhap]

Yes that is right, Roh Moo-hyun who is the world’s largest North Korea apologizer and aid provider couldn’t even get a message of thanks from Kim Jong-il.

Next Roh was making headlines because he says he won’t raise the nuclear issue with Kim Jong-il during the upcoming inter-Korean summit:

President Roh Moo-hyun said Tuesday that a Korean Peninsula peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War will be the most important agenda item at his summit summit talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il slated for Oct. 2-4 in Pyongyang. […]

In a hastily arranged news conference at Cheong Wa Dae, Roh, meanwhile, said he won’t raise the issue of the North’s denuclearization seriously at the upcoming inter-Korean summit, noting the nuclear issue has already been in the process of rapid settlement at the six-party talks which also involve the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. [Yonhap]

It is pretty clear now why Roh was so pissed off at President Bush during the APEC meeting because he wanted to center his legacy around being the Korean leader that officially ended the Korean War.  This may be why the inter-Korean summit was delayed so Roh could try and pressure Bush during the APEC meeting to sign a peace treaty with North Korea before they denuclearize.  There is no way Bush or any American president is going to sign a peace treaty with North Korea before denuclearization.  It would be political suicide.  The end of Roh Moo-hyun can not come any sooner for Korea because he needs to go before he causes irrepairable damage to the US-ROK relationship. 

In further inter-Korean summit news, Roh Moo-hyun will not bring up human rights for North Koreans either:

The National Human Rights Commission held a meeting on Monday of all 11 members and vetoed the idea of recommending that President Roh Moo-hyun includes North Korea’s human rights violations on the agenda of the summit with the communist country set for next month. [Chosun Ilbo]

But get this, the NHRC was against the Zaytun deployment to Iraq because they felt it would violate the human rights of Iraqis.  I guess building toilets for Kurds is more of a human right violation than holding hundreds of thousands of people in slave labor gulags. 

Finally Roh made headlines with the removal of his policy planning secretary Byeon Yang-kyoon due to a "close relationship" between him and the disgraced Dongguk University assistant professor Shin Jeong-ah who was exposed as using fraudulent degrees to earn her position:

The prosecution said they have found e-mails that showed Byeon and Shin were personally close, but refused to disclose the content. “We do not disclose private matters which are not directly related to a crime,” they added.  Cheong Wa Dae, which accepted Byeon’s resignation, said Byeon had “close ties” with Shin.  A prosecutor said the two exchanged about “100 love letters,” some of which contained “explicit lines.” [Kim Rahn, Korea Times]

It has not been a good week Roh Moo-hyun, but his upcoming World’s Most Expensive Photo Op should make him feel better as "peace and prosperity" is just around the corner according to Roh. 

Well it looks like the military has been able to prevent President Roh from at least giving up Korean territory during the summit:

The government has decided to leave discussion of the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border with North Korea in the West Sea, off the agenda when President Roh Moo-hyun meets North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in October. If North Korea, which wants the NLL redrawn, raises the issue as expected, the government will propose that the two sides’ defense ministers discuss it as part of talks on easing tensions in other border areas like the Demilitarized Zone. [Chosun Ilbo]

Just the fact that the Roh Administration was willing to give up sovereign Korean territory before the military stepped in just goes to show how desperate this government is to appease Kim Jong-il at this up coming summit.  The prize of this summit for the South Korean tax payer is going to be huge. 

The Korean Defense Ministry is obviously furious at the anti-Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung’s comments about redrawing the Northern Limit Line with North Korea:

“In light of the upcoming inter-Korean summit, it is not desirable that the Defense Ministry and Unification Ministry should show signs of friction,” said Kim Hyung-gi, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman, yesterday. “The debate [on the sea border] should stop.”
There has been tension between the two ministries ever since Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung’s recent comment that the Northern Limit Line, the border drawn at the end of the Korean War to separate the two countries in the Yellow Sea, is not considered “territory.”
Lee also said the South needed to “reconsider” the reason that a 2002 sea battle was fought after a North Korean patrol boat crossed the line into South Korean waters.
Sources said that Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo on Tuesday told the National Assembly’s Defense Committee that the military would “not give up the Northern Limit Line.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]

This is what the Unification Ministry said in response:

Hong Ik-pyo, a policy adviser to the unification minister, said yesterday that he “could not agree that even a slight change in the Northern Limit Line would cause a serious threat to national security.”
He posted his comments on a message board of the Government Information Agency, arguing that there was nothing wrong with discussing the matter with the North. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

This is how the Defense Ministry responded after this statement:

A senior Defense Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military is outraged. “Granted, he [the unification minister] is a civilian and may not know the significance of what he said from a military standpoint. Still, it’s something he should not have said. It was unacceptable.”
Kim Dong-jin, a defense minister in the late 90s and a member of the Korean Retired Generals and Admirals Association, didn’t hide his disgust. “I am speechless. What he said is not even worth commenting on,” said Kim. “It’s just not worth it.”
The issue is growing into a major talking point in political circles. GNP lawmaker Chung Hyung-kun argued yesterday that the summit “was delayed because they failed to agree on the NLL issue as an agenda in the talks, not because of severe flood damage.” The party’s spokeswoman Na Kyung-won said yesterday, “Concession to North Korea over the NLL is tantamount to an act of treachery, like giving away Dokdo to Japan.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]

I would love to hear if the Unification Ministry would be willing to give Dokdo to North Korea if they demanded it.  That would solve the whole stupid Dokdo controversy at least. 

It is unbelievable that the Unification Ministry is willing to give up sovereign Korean territory that ROK military personnel have lost their lives defending and the Unification Ministry didn’t even bother consulting the military about what the national security consequences of such actions would be.  Than again these are the same people who treat these dead ROK military personnel as if they are criminals for defending their home land.  If the Unification Ministry pushes on with changing the NLL, USFK may need to get involved because the DMZ and the NLL were established by the UN at the conclusion of the Korean War.  It will be interesting to see if USFK will be willing to approve of such a change that would have national security consequences on the peninsula, especially when the ROK military does not agree with it. 

I think Nomad is on to something with the fact that the North Korean Arirang Mass Games are going to continue despite the flooding, but the Second Inter-Korea Summit has been delayed.  Someone else who is on to something is OFK who finds the damage statistics from the flooding very suspicious:

Beyond that, things are less certain.  North Korea officially claims that the floods killed 300 people and left 300,000 homeless.  Those figures don’t jibe with each other.  In a mountainous and underdeveloped country, any disaster large enough to make more than a quarter of a million people homeless — the size of a small city — would have claimed more lives. 

OFK also links to this Bloomberg report that offers plenty dubious statistics as well:

The UN said today that 58,000 homes were damaged in the flooding, 50 percent of the country’s health clinics were destroyed, and as much as 70 percent of arable land was under water. More than 800 public buildings, 540 bridges, 70 sections of railway and 500 high-voltage power towers also were destroyed, according to the UN.  [Bloomberg]

It doesn’t make sense that the Arirang Mass Games would continue if these statistics that represent a nation wide mass disaster are true.  That is because these statistics are probably not true and the flooding is being used as a convenient excuse to delay the summit  to October so it has maximum impact on the South Korean presidential election, allow NK to have more time to make demands, ask for increased international aid that will not be monitored, as well as exact maximum propaganda value from the summit:

Moreover, October is a month for a series of celebrations in the North. October 8 marks the 10th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s inauguration as the Secretary General of the Korean Workers’ Party (KWP), while the 9th marks the first anniversary of the country’s nuclear test, and the 10th is the 62nd anniversary of the foundation of the KWP. If the South Korean president’s visit to Pyongyang coincides with these dates, North Korean propagandists could likely attempt to make the most of it. [Donga Ilbo]

Finally the biggest reason for playing up the flooding damage is that President Roh can use it as cover when he locks South Korea into an extended bribery yearly humanitarian aid package to North Korea.  He can claim it is the "North Korean Marshall Plan" to rebuild the country after the flooding.  Talk about a well time flood.  I bet Roh and Kim were both jumping at the chance to delay the summit when the rain started falling.

Choe Sang-hun has written an interesting article today about the Peace Dam in Hwacheon: 

For two decades now, the erratic fortunes of the massive Peace Dam here near the demilitarized zone have mirrored the tortuous relationship between North and South. As the two sides’ leaders prepare for their summit meeting in early October, a review of its curious history suggests the barriers they must overcome in the quest for reconciliation.

The story goes back to 1986, when, as South Korea was busy preparing for its biggest-ever international event, the 1988 Summer Olympics, North Korean soldiers broke ground on a gigantic dam project just above the DMZ.

As South Koreans wondered what their unpredictable Communist neighbor was up to this time, the military dictator of the South, Chun Doo Hwan, offered his own terrifying scenario: a killer flood. [International Herald Tribune]

You can read the rest here.  I drove from Chuncheon to Paro Lake via the Peace Dam before and the scenery up north of the Samyeong mountains is quite beautiful.  It is actually hard to believe you are in a possible war zone, but the occasional army outpost tends to remind you.   

OFK has two excellent postings I recommend everyone check out.  The first posting is about the apparent death of the US-ROK FTA.  Joshua as well as Brendon Carr provide some excellent insight into why this agreement is finally dead.  The second posting is about the agenda of the Second Inter-Korean Summit.  As I expected human rights, the closing of forced labor camps, and the freeing of South Korean hostages in North Korea is no where on the agenda.