Bush's Korean crisis
JUST WHEN George Bush and Tony Blair have been experiencing
considerable difficulty proving that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the
North Korean regime openly declared that it is developing its nuclear weapons
capability! The Pentagon has not ruled out a pre-emptive strike, even against
nuclear installations in the North. It has repositioned long-range bombers in
the region and has approached the government of Thailand to set up a new base
there.
Many in South Korea live in terror of a US attack on the
North and believe their fears are being confirmed. Washington has announced the
relocation further south of tens of thousands of US troops who have been
patrolling the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) at the ‘38th parallel’ for more than 50
years. The move is aimed at enabling ‘tactical strikes’ to be launched as part
of the Pentagon’s new military doctrine and will cost the US $11bn.
US Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, has insisted
that Seoul should match the sum being spent by the US – to modernise its own
700,000 strong army and take up the duties at the DMZ. The South Korean defence
minister has asked for a 28% ($18bn) increase in the armed forces budget.
Critics of the US within South Korea understandably suspect
that withdrawal from the DMZ is aimed at letting Korean soldiers and civilians
take the brunt of any attack from the North provoked by US economic sanctions or
military threats – perceived or real.
Some US officials hoped that the tough US line in Iraq would
have a ‘demonstration effect’. But the North Korean regime may be drawing the
conclusion that nuclear weapons are its only defence. Kim Jong-il, the head of
state in the North, has declared that economic sanctions would be considered an
‘act of war’. Now, Washington’s attempt to rally support for a virtual naval
blockade is being seen in the same light.
While China and South Korea remain nervous about such a
policy, Australia and Japan have already carried out ‘selective interdictions’.
The Japanese authorities arranged for 2,000 inspectors of various kinds to await
the arrival from North Korea of the only ferry that plies between the two
countries – the Mangbongyong 92. It is believed to carry large amounts of
narcotics from the world’s third-largest opium producer and to bring back up to
90% of the parts North Korea needs for its nuclear weapons programme. Pyongyang
immediately withdrew the ferry from service.
Under increasing pressure, Pyongyang has threatened to
unleash ‘unimaginable disaster’. With an army of more than one million, even a
conventional attack would inflict enormous damage. Pentagon studies suggest that
it could cause thousands if not millions of casualties in the South’s capital,
Seoul, which is within range of 11,000 North Korean artillery pieces. The use of
nuclear weapons as a desperate last stand by North Korea’s totalitarian regime
cannot be ruled out. The Taepo-Dong 1 rocket, test-fired over Japan in 1998, is
said to be able to reach any target in Japan or South Korea. And the American
CIA says an up-graded version could soon be able to hit the US mainland.
The dictator-president of the North, Kim Jong-il, claims
that he needs to develop nuclear weapons to reduce the huge state expenditure on
maintaining the massive army. But with the North’s economy in tatters, there
would be no jobs for the redundant and, until now, relatively well-fed soldiers.
With the ‘hawks’ dominant in the US regime, it seems that a cataclysmic collapse
of North Korea’s economy and regime is their desired aim, rather than the idea
of a gradual abandonment of the distorted planned and state-owned economy and
‘assimilation’ into the capitalist South.
The recently-elected president of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun,
was not the favoured candidate of the US and his relationship with the White
House is extremely strained. Big demonstrations demanding the total withdrawal
of US troops from South Korea were organised in the run-up to his election and
smaller ones continue almost daily on the DMZ borderline. His predecessor, Kim
Dae-jung, refused US requests to send ‘combat support’ to Afghanistan. The
eventual approval by the South Korean parliament to send 500 non-combat
engineers and 100 medical staff to Iraq saw mass protests again on the streets
of the capital.
Nonetheless, Roh fears the complete withdrawal of the 37,000
US troops from the peninsula, viewed as affording a limited deterrent against
attack from the North. The ‘sunshine policy’ of reunification, initiated by the
previous government, is also stalling, mainly because of the conflicting
interests of the conglomerate-dominated capitalist South and the distorted,
Stalinist planned economy in the North.
It has been further discredited by two court cases. One in
China involves a Dutch-Chinese businessman, Yang Bin, until recently the
second-richest of its citizens. He had been chosen by Pyongyang to head a
market-oriented Free Trade Zone close to the border with China. Now he is on
trial for major fraud and bribery which could see him imprisoned for life. In
the ‘cash for summit’ trial in South Korea, a former deputy director of the
National Intelligence Service, Kim Bo-hyun, has been accused of handing over to
the North huge sums of money to guarantee talks between Kim Dae-jung and Kim
Jong-il. The case involves one of the South’s biggest companies, the ‘chaebol’
conglomerate Hyundai, which sent money North to get special treatment for
establishing factories to exploit the appallingly cheap labour of that state.
Roh’s popularity has quickly slumped to below 50%,
criticised from both sides – for being ‘too close’ to US imperialism and ‘too
soft’ on the regime in the North. He is seen in business circles as a dangerous
populist from humble origins who has made a number of attempts to halt
corruption and fraud within the giant family-owned ‘chaebol’ conglomerates. Roh
was recently accused of considering allowing the existence of a communist party
in South Korea. He was forced to reassure South Korea’s capitalists by denying
it. (Socialism is also still technically outlawed.)
Roh is walking a tightrope. The economy’s growth rate has
slumped from 6.3% to a projected 2.9% this year with the first two quarters
showing a negative figure, according to the Korea Economic Research Institute.
Another survey shows that nearly 60% of graduates cannot get jobs. A prolonged
downturn in the US will batter the economy further.
Trade unions are still embattled over privatisation,
‘flexibility’, wages and jobs. In the first half of this year there have been
big strikes involving truck drivers, subway (underground) workers, teachers,
electricity workers, taxi drivers, engineers, bank-workers and pension agents.
Roh himself was instrumental in the release earlier this year of a number of
jailed trade unionists, including Dan Byung-ho, president of the biggest trade
union federation, KCTU, after 20 months in prison.
As a human rights lawyer, Roh earned a reputation for
fighting repression. However, it is now anticipated that he wants to tighten
South Korea’s labour laws in the interests of the bosses and retain the hated
security laws used so often against the labour movement. Even these could be an
inadequate defence in the face of a united and determined working class, whose
traditions of combativity are legendary. A mass walk-out and demonstrations was
called by the KCTU for June 25 as a warning against attempts by Roh’s government
to return to hard-line anti-labour policies.
Another pending nightmare is an implosion of the North
Korean regime. There would be a flood of refugees and a massive demand on the
resources of the South to come to the rescue of the Northern economy.
On the basis of capitalism and Stalinism, there is no hope
of a harmonious reunification of the tragically divided peninsula. Socialists
defend the state ownership and planning basis of the North. But the whole
economy should be under the control of the workers through democratically
elected committees and councils. This would require the removal of Kim Jong-il
and the parasitic clique around him – a far-reaching political revolution. In
the South, the still growing labour movement has the power to get rid of the
stranglehold of the mighty chaebol and the big banks. This would only be
possible by taking into public ownership their assets and running them on the
basis of democratic workers’ control and management. Parties adopting such
programmes – North and South – would have to include a sensitive demand for the
reunification of Korea on the basis of a voluntary union or federation of equal
and genuinely socialist states.
Elizabeth Clarke
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