Ridicule for Lee's reunification rhetoric
By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - Kim Dae-jung would have loved it. On the first anniversary of the late
South Korean' president's death on August 18, North Korea was denouncing the
plan of the present, conservative, incumbent, Lee Myung-bak, for reunifying
North and South as ''ridiculous rhetoric''.
The North Korean blast coincided with observances here, and in Kim's birthplace
off the southwestern coast, memorializing a life best remembered for crusading
as president for his "Sunshine" policy of reconciliation with North Korea for
which he received the Nobel Peace prize in 2000.
Now the Sunshine policy is in tatters, South Korean and American forces are
staging military exercises, and North Korea
is threatening "all-out war" while denying anything to do with the sinking of
the South Korean warship Cheonan in March.
Kim Dae-jung's closest associates, on the plaza in front of Seoul City Hall, at
the national cemetery here and at a newly opened museum beside his boyhood home
on Haui Island, a three-hour boat ride from the port of Mokpo, recalled his
crusade for peace while accusing Lee of undoing all that he had accomplished.
It was actually difficult to tell who was more strident in castigating Lee for
his peace proposal, North Korea's rhetoricians or just about anyone you were
likely to meet on the streets of Seoul. ''Ridiculous'' was an oft-repeated word
on both sides of the North-South line - especially in the South where no one,
it seemed, is going to subscribe to Lee's proposal a ''unification tax'' to
defray the enormous costs of reunification.
Koreans who might otherwise look with the greatest distrust on North Korea's
leader, Kim Jong-il, seemed to distrust Lee even more for mooting the idea
Sunday on the 65th anniversary of ''liberation'' from 35 years of Japanese
rule. ''It's really ridiculous,'' said office worker Oh Sung-guk, asking what
would happen to the money. Surely, he said, ''they'll keep some for
themselves.''
While a Lee spokesperson sought to minimize concerns, saying the government
"does not intend to impose the tax right now", North Korea saw Lee's scheme for
reunification as a plot ''to force'' the North ''to disarm itself'' with ''the
ambition of invading together with the US".
Embroidering on this theme, the North's Committee for Peaceful Reunification
said Lee's remarks were "tantamount to a declaration of an all-out
confrontation to bring down the system". The whole point of Lee's "very
unsavory" idea, said the statement, was to try to sew turmoil inside North
Korea.
If Lee's proposal seemed basically to have died a quick death before taking its
first deep breaths, the Sunshine policy of reconciliation with North Korea
lived on among Kim Dae-jung's undying fans and constituents.
On huge screens on the covered scaffolding behind which a new Seoul city hall
is under construction, images of Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il reminded the
faithful of the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000. There was DJ, as he is
still widely known here, walking down the red carpet after arriving in
Pyongyang, and there he was, smiling and embracing North Korea's Dear Leader.
In the gathering gloom of evening, Kim Dae-jung's widow, Lee Hee-ho, garbed in
black, sat in a wheelchair guarded by a row of plain-clothed police agents. In
front of her, seated cross-legged on the lawn, were some of DJ's highest
one-time aides, including Park Jie-won, a National Assembly member from DJ's
South Cholla Province, who helped engineer the payoffs that went into North
Korean coffers before Kim Jong-il agreed to the summit.
Kim Dae-jung "is still
alive in the minds of people in Korea and the
world," said Park, who was jailed for taking
bribes during the payoff scandal but now leads the
opposition Democratic Party in the assembly. "We
should bear his philosophy and ideology in mind
and develop them further."
Kim Dae-jung
"is still alive in the minds of people in
Korea
and the world,” said Park, who was jailed for
taking bribes during the payoff scandal but now
leads the opposition Democratic Party in the
assembly. “We should bear his philosophy and
ideology in mind and develop them
further.”
Kim Dae-jung "is still alive in the minds of people in Korea and the world,"
said Park, who was jailed for taking bribes during the payoff scandal but now
leads the opposition Democratic Party in the assembly. "We should bear his
philosophy and ideology in mind and develop them further."
A few thousand people on the lawn cheered and sang along with choristers and
soloists on a broad stage, including a female dwarf who played the piano and
sang a rousing rendition of Bridge Over Troubled Waters. On the
sidelines, booths displayed copies of books of Kim Dae-jung's speeches and
brochures on the hopes engendered by his Sunshine policy during the five years
in which was president, from 1998 to 2003, and the next five years of the
presidency of Roh Moo-hyun, who committed suicide in May 2009, nearly three
months before DJ's death.
The sentimental outpouring for Kim Dae-jung revealed the reservoir of support
for a president whose Sunshine policy was seen by conservatives as mainly a
giveaway to North Korea in the form of concessions and agreements that were
never fulfilled. The policy basically broke down in 2007 when North Korea
failed to begin to shut down its nuclear program as agreed on that year after
the North conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006.
South Koreans showed their disillusionment in December 2007 by overwhelmingly
electing Lee Myung-bak, a former Hyundai Construction tycoon, over a
left-leaning candidate strongly backed by both Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.
Kim Dae-jung's undying adherents, who see him as a hero of almost god-like
proportions, blame the death of Sunshine on Lee's conservative turnaround -
and, of course, his revival of frayed the US-Korean alliance that had fallen in
serious disrepair during Roh's presidency.
''It's almost unimaginable that North Korea will return to six-party talks when
North Korea experienced this power confrontation,'' said Paik Hak-soon,
director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute
think-tank that had strong ties to DJ's government. ''The US has used a
military security card in dealing with North Korea and China."
Paik accused the US of "intentionally linking the Cheonan case" - that
is, the sinking of the Korean navy corvette the Cheonan with a loss of
46 lives - to six-party talks by saying North Korea first had to admit its role
and apologize before talks could resume.
North Korea has refused to attend six-party talks since December 2008 but said
after the sinking of the Cheonan that it was willing to return to the
table providing it had ''an equal footing'' with the other participants,
including China, Russia and Japan as well as the US and South Korea. That turn
of phrase is generally seen as meaning North Korea needs to be recognized as a
nuclear power - and that the UN Security Council has to do away with sanctions
imposed after its second nuclear test in May 2009.
Paik called ''the apparent
use of the military-security card'' by the US ''an
equivalent to a preventive war'' that was
''targeted at curbing the rise of China and
simultaneously making south Korea and Japan
dependent on US cooperation.'' The result, he
said, was ''our hope for denuclearizing North
Korea was practically lost - a disaster in our
effort to achieve a nuclear-free Korean
Peninsula.''
That view collides with growing acceptance among Koreans of the results of a
South Korea investigation, including experts from the US, the UK, Australia and
Sweden, who found North Korea responsible for ordering a midget submarine to
sink the Cheonan with a single torpedo.
In the face of leftist charges of inconsistencies and deletions from summaries
of the report, South Korea's defense ministry is due to release a full version
next week. President Lee, however, still faces widespread opposition to a
military response if North Korea stages another surprise attack.
''We should immediately give a strong message to North Korea, 'Please do not do
that again','' said Kim Tae-woo, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute
for Defense Analyses. He excoriated South Korean leftists calling for renewed
aid and trade with the North. ''By strengthening North Korea," he said, "how
can we expect them to give up their weapons.''
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