01/09/2003
North Korea
North Korea and Kim Jong-Il certainly have been in the news a lot recently, for all the wrong reasons. They restarted a nuclear reactor that yields plutonium, booted out UN inspectors, and now threaten to remove fuel rods that could then be used to make nuclear bombs in a very short period of time. It’s a given they have one or two crude nukes right now and by summer they could have at least five more, with little effort.
So who is this nut job that runs the country, the one whom former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright labeled “practical”?
Despite what Madame Secretary, she of the lovely stickpins, said, Kim Jong-Il is a toxic figure. He has kidnapped Japanese citizens to serve as translators and seems startled that Japan actually cares about this. He kidnapped two actors from South Korea so that they could entertain him. [They were able to escape, which is how we learned of this one.] He has burned his enemies alive, according to U.S. intelligence, and Kim was clearly responsible for two huge terrorist acts in the 1980s – the 1983 bombing of a South Korean delegation in Burma and the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner, which killed 115. Other than that, he’s quite a guy, as Albright would probably say.
Kim Jong-Il is also known to like fast cars, beautiful blondes and cognac. He once bought 200 $100,000 Mercedes, or a full 20% of the aid he was to get from the UN that particular year. And he also loves the Internet, often giving his orders by e-mail.
So now he’s enjoying the spotlight, skillfully playing, I’ll give him, the “We’re nuts and what are you going to do about it” game. Will North Korea begin test-firing missiles over Japan? Will they just prepare for the tests, knowing that our satellites will pick that up? Will they put their ground forces on high alert, thereby further ratcheting up the tension?
North Korea, unlike Iraq, does have a real army. Sure, because the nation is destitute and low on resources of all kinds, save Mercedes, much of their equipment is growing obsolete or in disrepair, but they still have 600-750 missiles capable of hitting South Korea and Japan, thousands of artillery pieces that can reach Seoul – and heaven knows what they’d be loaded with – and Kim’s military still has enough fighter jets more than capable of attacking Seoul from the air.
Kim recognizes what Iran now knows, the only way to prevent a preemptive attack is to have the nuclear weapons in hand. That gives him leverage in dealing with the U.S. and his neighbors. For its part, the Bush Administration says Kim reneged on a 1994 agreement under which the North agreed not to build nukes and it can’t be trusted, so the White House won’t negotiate until Kim has abandoned his nuclear weapons program. Thus we have this giant game of chicken.
Back on February 26 of 2002, Nicholas Kristoff wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times, wherein he quoted Kim Myong Chol, an unofficial spokesman for Kim’s regime.
“North Korea cannot kill the heavyweight champion, the U.S. But it can maim one of his limbs, and so the heavyweight champion will not want to fight. That is the North Korean logic.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. has the 37,000 troops in the South, serving as a trip-wire, which have been in place since the mutual defense treaty was signed with South Korea following the 1950-53 Korean War. And it’s important to note that the war ended in an armed truce, not a peace treaty, the latter being something Kim Jong-Il keeps calling for, along with a non-aggression pact. As to the latter, the U.S. claims it has already given Kim this in a 1991 broad ranging agreement.
In South Korea, the youth, with no memory of the Korean War and the brutality of it all, want reconciliation with the North and U.S. troops out, while the elderly in the nation have long memories and will never trust Pyongyang.
And so it goes, around and around, as we all hope the little devil with the shades doesn’t cross the line.
Following is a timeline of important events.
March 1993: North Korea withdraws from the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty as US satellite pictures suggest weapons-grade plutonium is being processed at North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor.
June 1994: Former US president Jimmy Carter flies to North Korea on a peace mission as tensions between Washington and Pyongyang threaten to escalate into war.
August 1994: US and North Korea step back from the brink, striking a deal, the Agreed Framework, which commits Pyongyang to freeze weapons development in return for the US and its allies building a nuclear power station for the energy- starved country.
August 1998: North Korea test fires its 2,000 km-range Taepo Dong 1 missile over Japan, proving an ability to strike any point in the region. Work continues on the Taepo Dong 2 missile, capable of hitting the U.S.
May 1999: US inspectors visit a nuclear facility at Kumchang-ni amid suspicions that North Korea had resumed plutonium production – but no evidence was found they had ample time to move it.
October 2000: Madeleine Albright makes her trip.
January 2002: President Bush names North Korea in his ‘axis of evil’ speech.
October 2002: US assistant secretary of state James Kelly visits Pyongyang and secures an admission that North Korea has an active uranium enrichment program, and things really begin to heat up.
One last little item that I think sums up just how destitute, and desperate, North Korea is. They have 31,000 kilometers of highway, but 29,000 of this is unpaved.
Sources: Financial Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Weekly Standard, AP, Reuters.
Hott Spotts returns next week.
Brian Trumbore
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