North Korea: A Belligerent Rabbit

Why North is not East?

In the 1980’s, Moscow’s Pushkin Institute of Russian Language offered me lessons in geography that no textbook had ever managed to.  Since USSR was communist and wished to propagate communism to others, all communist and capitalist countries; including the two Germanys, and the two Koreas; were represented at Pushkin Institute.

I knew I was in Eastern Europe. I knew what the West or Western democracies meant.  In 1987, I visited both Germanys myself. East Berlin was a breath-holding adventure. The GDR [German Democratic Republic; communist dictatorships often call themselves either democratic or ‘people’s’] authorities controlled my every movement. I felt relieved when I returned to West Germany. West Germany was the affluent, free, healthy, clean place shining with electronic billboards; East its poor, authoritarian, paranoid, gloomy counterpart. I think around then the question about Koreas sprang to my mind the first time: why when Germany is divided – so logically – in East and West; Korea gets split in North and South? If the places were unintentional guinea pigs to test the battle of the West vs East; why wasn’t Korea divided vertically like Germany was? 

I found the answer in the 1990’s when I visited Khabarovsk, a town in the Russian Far East.  When studying its map, I was jolted by a geopolitical epiphany. 

Germany was divided into East and West because the USSR was to the East of Germany. Korea was divided into North and South because the USSR was to the North of Korea!

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The blue suits

Pushkin Institute had at least forty North Korean students, all male and all fairly short.  One thing was visibly unusual. They were dressed formally all the time, in blue suits – with a lapel pin on chest displaying a photograph. Throughout the year, they attended classes wearing suits. One of them lived on my floor. He gave his name as Lee. I asked him why they couldn’t wear normal student clothes – like we did. Lee said he was representing North Korea. The Group Leader (a North Korean spy who accompanied them to Moscow and lived in the same hostel) had prescribed blue suits as a uniform even before leaving Pyongyang.

“And whose picture are you advertising here?” I pointed to his lapel pin.

“Don’t you know?” Lee asked, thinking I was joking. “You really don’t know? The whole world knows him. He is the “Great Leader” – Kim II Sung.”

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The North Korean president

Kim II Sung (born 1912) was the president of North Korea then – in 1987. He is the president of North Korea today. And unless international community does something about it, he will still be the president fifty years from now. Surprised?

In the 1930’s; Kim, a communist guerrilla, fought in northern China against Japan. He rose in ranks and became a commander in 1941, before the Japanese drove guerrillas away from China. Kim escaped to the abovementioned Khabarovsk (USSR) and served in the Soviet Red Army until the end of World War II. Stalin rewarded him by making him the head of North Korea. 

In the fifty years since the WWII, Kim II Sung managed to become an absolute dictator, a supreme and brutal repressor. He ran the country in the best Stalinist traditions, killing free market and free speech. A self-proclaimed god, he converted North Korea into a private empire by introducing dynastic rule.  (Reminds one of Saudi Arabia, or even Iraq. If not killed, one of Saddam’s sons would have succeeded him. We see dynasties in Muslim dictatorships, sometimes even in constitutional democracies (Kennedy, Bush, Nehru-Gandhi); but North Korea is the only communist country ever to establish a dynastic rule). 

In 1994, Kim II sung died – in the sense generally understood. His son Kim Jong-il announced official mourning for three years. Not showing grief became a punishable crime. The junior Kim replaced the Gregorian calendar with a Korean calendar that begins with the birth of Kim II Sung. Not surprisingly, Kim’s body was embalmed and a mausoleum built, but Kim Jong-il went a step further in showing creativity. Lenin’s mummy had remained a spiritual force for the USSR after his death.

Kim Jong-il defied death. He announced his father was, is and will remain the president of North Korea. For ever.

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A Matter of Chance

Our lives are a matter of pure geopolitical chance. If you are born on the wrong side of the border, your life takes a very different course.

Until 1945, Korea was one. One of the oldest civilisations, the Korean peninsula was annexed for most of its existence by the Chinese or the Japanese.

In 1895, the Japanese killed the Korean empress Myeongseong as part of a strategy to capture Korea, then under Chinese influence. Japan fought two wars: with China (1894-95) and Russia (1904-1905), and obtained control over Korea. In 1910, Korea became an official Japanese colony to be brutally exploited and shamelessly looted for the next thirty years. In 1945, the Japanese were defeated in the WWII and the Koreans thought they would be free. They were wrong.

The Soviet Union and the United States agreed to occupy Korea, only temporarily, as trustees. Kim II-Sung, nominated by the soviets, began implementing the Soviet model in the North. The Americans wished to see a capitalist, democratic, united Korea in due course.  Kim began rapid militarization and in 1950 Stalin approved invasion of the south. In the war that happened between the North and the South (1950-1953); USSR and later China supported the communist North; USA and allies supported the South. The Civil war stopped after 2.5 million Koreans were killed. In 1953, two nations were officially endorsed.

For Koreans, particularly those close to the middle of the country, it was a 50:50 chance they would be part of the northern or the southern state. Until 1945, people on both sides had lived similar lifestyles, followed the same customs, spoke one language. Their history was common.

Today, in 2006; no matter where we live, our homes are likely to have things made in South Korea – maybe Samsung, LG, Daewoo or Hyundai. South Korea is now a democracy practising free market economy.  It’s one of the elite 15 countries whose GDP exceeds one trillion USD (North Korea GDP: 40 billion USD). 35% of South Korea’s economy is made up of exports, mainly electronic goods, cars, steel, ships and semi-conductors.

North Korea, on the other hand, is a highly secretive and isolated state that spends one third of its GDP on military. Every fourth North Korean serves in some military capacity. Satellite pictures show surreally empty roads. Since 1990, hunger has killed 3 million people. Availability of electricity and water is sporadic. Torture, public executions, slave labour, forced abortions and infanticides in prison are common. North Korea reportedly has 200,000 political prisoners. Radio and TV sets are pre-tuned to listen to the state propaganda. Media and press sing daily eulogies dedicated to the legendary father and son. Reporting of famine or hardships is prohibited.

In 2005, the World Food programme reported that an average 7-year old boy in North Korea weighs 20 pounds less and is 8 inches shorter than his counterpart in the South.

Before the collapse of the Soviet union, North Korea relied on the two communist giants for sponsorship and forced barter trade. Since 1990, China, the only big brother left, is confused and occasionally reluctant. Collapse of the USSR was a key reason why 3 million North Koreans have died of starvation since.

What are the ways in which North Korea currently makes money?

(a) Aid, some humanitarian. This is procured mainly by threatening to go nuclear. Now that they have gone nuclear, the threat will change its format.

(b) Illicit arms dealing: North Korea has no qualms about supplying to any state sensitive weapons and technology, including delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons. Pakistan and Iran are interested partners. Reportedly, the Ghauri missile which Pakistan successfully test-fired in 1998 was made in North Korea.

(c) Counterfeiting: During my tobacco days, I had seen quality samples of counterfeit cigarettes (meaning packs, not cigarettes – the product was awful) coming out of North Korea. A more lucrative business is printing of 100$ notes, technically called “Supernotes (or Superdollars)”. The counterfeiting specialists acknowledge their almost identical nature. North Korean diplomats and Europe’s underworld were used for distribution of superdollars. Since 2004, the USA has launched attack on the operations and closed at least one bank (Banco Delta Asia, Macao) engaged in money laundering. The United States have threatened sanctions irrespective of the nuclear scenario. Nuclear threat is a potential threat. Superdollars are a real menace.

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Dear Leader

Sixty years after the Second World War, half of the Korean Peninsula is thus blessed with a modern concentration camp that boasts of more than 20 million starving prisoners ruled over by their own Hitler and their own Nazis.

Kim Jong-il (born 1941), the ruling son of the eternal president, is described as a reclusive playboy with bouffant hair. Embarrassed with height of 5’3’’, he walks on platform shoes. Hennessy VSOP cognac claims he is their number one customer in the world. Vain, paranoid and a hypochondriac; Kim Jong-il fears air travel. During his train travel of thousands of miles between Moscow and Pyongyang, he had live lobsters and roasted donkey air-lifted to the train every day, and he ate them with silver chopsticks. (Apparently silver makes it easy to detect poisonous materials). In the train, he had surrounded himself with a bunch of beautiful female companions. Indeed, he has established “pleasure brigades” of teenage schoolgirls whose job is to help him and his officers relax.

Kim Jong-il has written six operas (Hitler was a prolific painter) and a book on films. He reportedly loves films. In 1978, he kidnapped a famous South Korean film director and his actress girlfriend, and forced them to make films for North Korea. Kidnapping is not his only hobby. In 1986, he arranged the bombing of the South Korean Jet in which 115 people were killed.

He was born in Siberia, while his father was in exile. But now his birthplace (on top of Korea’s highest mountain Paektu) and year (1942, being more auspicious) are fabricated to make him a legend. “Dear Leader” is the title by which the North Korean population calls him – several times daily as prescribed. He and his father are omnipresent – in portraits, monuments, bridges, lapel pins. There are two or three candidates from among his army of sons, legitimate and others, groomed to succeed him.

The Dear Leader, like the country he rules, is secretive. His voice has never been broadcast since 1992.

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Axis of Evil

Now that this madman has conducted a nuclear test what should the international community (read USA) do?

After the dissolution of Soviet Union, Koreas should have been united just like Germanys were. The incompetence and inhuman-ness of Soviet system did not require any further proofs.  Unfortunately, China happened to be North Korea’s key neighbour. Communist-imperialist States traditionally like buffer states around them. That ensures own security and also stops citizens from fleeing the country easily. China, the surviving big brother, is now confused because it doesn’t understand how to handle its irritating sibling. Russia and South Korea, the other neighbours, are keen to avoid war in the neighbourhood. Japan is close enough to feel threatened. The Japanese remember the brutalities perpetrated by their ancestors on Koreans in the first half of the 20^th century.

[In one of the rare accounts of a personal visit to Pyongyang http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/09/13/nkorea.dougherty.notebook/index.html

Jill Dougherty, a CNN managing editor, narrates how her guide explained Korea to her. “Korea is like a rabbit. Its face is toward China. Its back is toward United States. Its ass is toward Japan. Its mouth is toward Russia.”]

The rhetoric used after every nuclear test is as hypocritical as the “Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.” Nations owning and building warehouses of nuclear toys condemn the country acquiring its first toy. India and Pakistan were condemned, economic sanctions imposed on them. Now it’s all forgiven. The USA may sign a civilian nuclear deal with India soon. The nuclear powers have no moral right to condemn or impose sanctions. (Technically: India and Pakistan did not sign the treaty, so they were all right. North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003. So there is no breach).  

Having said that, the world has changed since 11 September 2001. The threat is not of North Korea possessing nuclear weapons. The threat is little of North Korea attacking South Korea or Japan. The greatest threat is the money-starved nation and its egomaniacal despot selling nuclear weapons to terrorists. There is some evidence of North Korea supplying arms such as rocket propelled grenade launchers to terrorist organisations in Burma and Sri Lanka. Al Qaida may offer more money.  

Nuclear arms work as deterrent; only when they are owned by tangible, visible, bombardable states. Pakistan knows if they wipe out Mumbai, India could wipe out Pakistan in retaliation. So neither party is likely to take the first step. This is not the case with faceless, landless, faithless terrorists. One doesn’t know whom to bomb in retaliation. Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists are not for deterrence. They serve either to terrorise or blackmail.

In Russian, there is a proverb: Having said “a”, you must say “b”. In January, 2002 George Bush announced North Korea was part of the Axis of Evil along with Iraq and Iran.  In Iraq; the USA failed to find weapons, but succeeded in throwing out Saddam and killing his two sons. Iraq was attacked based on a mere suspicion of possessing weapons of mass destruction. With North Korea it is no longer a suspicion, it is actuality. Logic dictates if Iraq was attacked, North Korea must be attacked and denuclearised. Currently USA is stretched, so they will need to play the time-buying game. Before South Korea and Japan insist on owning nuclear weapons, as they must to protect themselves, USA will have to consider the military option. The objective will be three-fold: (a) denuclearisation (b) regime change (c) absorbing it in South Korea. Unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, there is a capable government ready to take over the running of North Korea.

The alternative is to risk New York in the long run. The prospect of North Korea selling a nuclear bomb to Al Qaida, and Al Qaida blowing it on Manhattan to flatten it, is technically unrealistic today, but not impossible a few years from now. A century after Hiroshima, the impact of New York perishing is bound to be more spectacular. Unlike on 9/11, this time CNN cameras may not be able to capture all action live.

Ravi