Asia Times: PYONGYANG WATCH


	September 19, 2001	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH
No, it wasn't North Korea
By Aidan Foster-Carter

I hardly have to remind you what the headlines were around the world on September 12. But not quite everywhere. The top story for Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea's official news bureau, was this: "Joint Seminar of Russian Juche idea study groups held". Yup, that was the really big news that day. The DPRK was praised for achieving "one great success after another in the international arena despite the vicious "maneuvers of the United States-led imperialists".

Having thus established priorities, the attack that changed the world was story no 2, headed: "US in Great Panic". This was a brief and not wholly accurate report, including the sentence - later removed from KCNA's website - "Meanwhile, one plane crashed into the US presidential retreat at Camp David that day". There followed an even briefer item giving Pyongyang's official stance: "The very regretful and tragic incident reminds it [sic] once again of the gravity of terrorism. As a UN member the DPRK is opposed to all forms of terrorism and whatever support to it and this stance will remain unchanged."

That was it. End of story. The rest of that day's KCNA was business as usual, North Korean style. A newly discovered waterfall, a national folk music contest (star item, a ditty called "Dear General, Where Are You?" - inspecting KPA units 821 and 367, that's where, not forgetting "goat and rabbit farms of KPA unit 757"). The final headline was "US invariable design to stifle DPRK slammed", with all the usual boilerplate: "It is the firm will of the people's army and people of Korea to mercilessly wipe out the aggressors." If they provoke a new Korean war, "they will not be able to escape death." So tactful.

To be fair, other comment - for example by the North's delegate to the recent inter-Korean talks - was kinder. But as this column forecast, they wouldn't make a joint anti-terrorism declaration with the South. The DPRK doesn't dance to other people's tunes. Besides, South Korea's opposition Grand National Party weighed in against Kim Dae-jung's idea, saying it would be meaningless unless North Korea apologized for its own past terrorism: such as blowing up half the ROK cabinet in Rangoon in 1983, and downing KAL 858 in 1987, killing all 115 on board - mainly ordinary workers coming home from construction sites in Libya.

Pyongyang has never owned up to either atrocity, even though in both cases the perpetrators were caught red-handed. ("Virgin bomber" Kim Hyon-hui fluttered her eyelashes, said she was ever so sorry, wrote a best-seller, and is now a millionaire in Seoul. That's one lucky mass murderer.) But this time? Norbert Vollertsen, the German doctor expelled by North Korea for speaking out about conditions there, in his newsletter makes much of that curious sentence on KCNA about Camp David: "Misinformation, wishful thinking, or ... plan?" He adds: "There are many foreigners in North Korean 'training camps'."

Really? Valuable as Dr Vollertsen's reports on his time in North Korea were, he's spoiled his credibility since by a tendency to melodrama: like getting arrested at the DMZ trying to cross back into the North. Given the mood in America since September 11, this is no time to be hurling wild accusations. Or if he has hard evidence, he should present it. No one else at all has pointed a finger at Pyongyang on this one. Indeed, all evidence suggests that whatever else the DPRK gets up to these days, it isn't terrorism. True, the US State Department still lists it as a terrorist state. Yet that listing, all seven lines of it, refers mainly to Pyongyang's sheltering a few ageing Japanese hijackers since back in 1970. It also alleges arms sales to Moro separatists in the Philippines. But if that were true, would Manila have opened diplomatic ties last year?

A much more comprehensive charge-sheet of North Korea's many and various sins was a 1999 report by Republicans in the US Congress. That really throws the book at them. Nukes, chemical/biological weapons, missiles, debts, drugs, counterfeiting: it's all there, chapter and verse. But not terrorism. Infiltration of agents into South Korea and Japan, sure. But that's regular spy stuff - and no doubt mutual. Terrorism it ain't.

So there's no shred of evidence. And the a prioris don't add up, either. For almost a decade, North Korea has been seeking better relations with the US. True, it goes about it in a peculiar and hair-raising way. But that's their game plan. As for all the nukes and other nasties: hands up who really thinks the DPRK is bent on world conquest? Call Kim Jong-il what you will, but neither "fanatical" nor "suicidal" are words that spring to mind. On the contrary, his aim is to survive. All that monstrous and dangerous arsenal, though it does indeed threaten others - the neighbors, more than a distant US - is mainly there to make darned sure that what was done to Iraq and Serbia, let alone what looks about to be visited upon the poor people of Afghanistan, will not be done to North Korea - as it was half a century ago, when US bombers pounded the North till they were grounded because there were literally no more targets left standing.

So let's keep our heads, especially now. Innocent till proven guilty remains the only safe principle. This column never hesitates to point the finger at Pyongyang, when appropriate. Not this time. They didn't do it, period. Yet I fear they may suffer for it, nonetheless. Why? To be continued ...

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