In March 1993, the CIA decided that the 30 megawatt reactor at Yongbyon was capable of producing enough plutonium for one nuclear warhead a year. What convinced the US that Kim Il-Sung was the next third world dictator to threaten the post-cold war peace process was North Korea’s decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea had joined the 154 signatory pact in 1985 on the insistence of the Soviet Union, and was now the first country to withdraw.
What further upset the US was when North Korea cocked the proverbial snook at the US by forbidding inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out inspections at two sites and by further ignoring a 31 March deadline for the admittance of the IAEA.
The following month the US wanted to push for an enforcement of economic sanctions through the UN Security Council. Such sanctions would have had little impact. North Korea has been isolated internationally for some years and has enjoyed pariah status since the end of the cold war. Again, China, still on speaking terms with the Pyongyang regime, and being a permanent member of the UN Security Council with the right to veto, would have scuppered any embargo.
In July 1993, President Clinton was comforting US troops stationed in South Korea, reassuring them that "it would be pointless for them (the North Koreans) to develop nuclear weapons . . . if they ever used them it would be the end of their country".
By November, Clinton was still impressing his friends with his fighting talk, promising them that "any attack on South Korea would be an attack on the US" (Guardian, 8 November). His reason this time was that North Korea had amassed 70 percent of its forces on the 38th Parallel. North Korea was responding to threatened economic sanctions, warning that any attempt "to force it to comply with UN rules would be regarded as an aggressive act to which it would respond in kind" (Independent, 8 November).
A week later, probably in an attempt to intimidate North Korea, the US and South Korea began ten days of joint military manoeuvres. Not that the military brass in South Korea feared an invasion or took North Korean threats seriously. The Economist (12-18 February) reported how "South Korea generals angrily dismiss the idea that the vast but ill-equipped North Korean army could sweep into the South. They speak of the superiority of the American and South Korean air forces . . . Ordinary soldiers at the front joke about the North's tanks running out of fuel before they even make it across the border."
In early January this year, North Korea agreed to allow IAEA inspectors access to seven nuclear facilities. The inspectors later discovered that monitoring equipment they had installed had been tampered with, thus giving the US further cause to believe North Korea had something to hide.
During bilateral talks in March, the North Korean representatives stormed out, threatening to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire". The South Korean government responded by permitting the US to begin installing a Patriot missile system. North Korea hit back by threatening to attack Japan if joint US/North Korean hostilities broke out.
Later in March, Russia stepped into the arena proposing an international conference to defuse the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear programme. This was followed by a UN attempt to impose a resolution urging North Korea to allow the IAEA experts to complete inspection at North Korea’s nuclear facilities. China, however, as anticipated, obstructed the move.
Sanctions are looking increasingly more difficult to impose, let alone enforce. The Japanese Socialist Party (state capitalist and no relation to us), the largest party in the governing coalition there, has strong affiliations with the "communists" in North Korea and would more than likely object to the enforcement of sanctions. Iran, a key oil supplier to North Korea, and financer of Pyongyang’s long-range ballistic missile programme, would jump at the chance at flouting a US-led embargo.
The Wisconsin Project, a Washington-based "think tank", recently warned that North Korea could soon be exporting finished nuclear bombs to Iran, thus increasing pressure on the IAEA to pursue their objectives in North Korea to their end.
There are some in South Korea who believe that such excessive Western pressure upon the Pyongyang regime to open the doors of its nuclear industry will spark a last-ditch, cornered-rat syndrome that will turn Kim U-Sung on the offensive.
The US currently have 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea, and North Koreans believe that the nuclear weapons that were allegedly removed from South Korean soil in 1991 are still there.
North Korea has bitter memories of past US threats to nuke them. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower in 1951 and 1952, both reminded North Korea of what happened to Japan when it failed to comply with US wishes.
Simon Tisdall, writing in the Guardian, believes North Korean fears are not unfounded and not based solely on a fear of the US:
"Set adrift by the collapse of a global security system built around US-Soviet confrontations. North Korea's neighbours are now engaged in an arms race every bit as frantic as the contest between the old superpowers" (12 April 1993)
Tisdall went on to argue that future flashpoints are to be found in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Gulf of Tonkin, Cambodia, the Phillipines and Burma.
In 1991, when politicians were harping on about the "Peace Dividend", East Asia accounted for 34 percent of all purchases in major weapons sales. A year later, January 1992, Thailand placed a $540 million order for a squadron of F-16s, and Taiwan topped that by ordering 150 US fighters worth $6 billion. Exactly one year later, Indonesia bought half of former East Germany’s navy for the knock-down price of $30 million. That same month, Japan submitted a defence budget of $37 billion. And in recent years China has raised its defence budget by 50 percent, estimated to be worth $24 billion annually. With neighbours like these who needs enemies?
Considering the US has more nuclear warheads than any other nation on earth and has a proven track record of using them against oriental people, and bearing in mind the experience of Saddam when he tangled with the US, threatening their interests in the Middle East, is it any wonder Kim Il-Sung is feeling intimidated?
East Asia and Pacific countries accounted for 58 percent of US exports last year. Obviously the best way to protect these markets is to have a military presence there and a constant threat that justifies that presence. Even the pro-capitalist Economist has spotted the hidden agenda:
"Many Koreans suspect America of exaggerating the threat from the north for their own purposes: to justify the continued presence of 36,000 troops in one of the cheapest training grounds in the world; to prevent defence cuts from biting too deeply; and to help sell the South Koreans weapons it can scarcely afford” (12-18 February).
If South Korea is buying weapons it can ill afford, then what must be the situation in the North where there have been widespread food riots? North Korea hardly has the money to buy the type of weaponry its neighbours are shelling out for. North Korea is in fact an impoverished country. In 1990 its GNP declined by almost 4 percent. Its estimated GNP that year (per head of population) was one fifth that of South Korea. In 1992 its income fell by 7.6 percent.
Kim Il-Sung’s threats had little impact on the South Korean economy. While he was threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire", the Seoul stock markets were bounding upwards by 37 percent, thus widening the financial gulf between north and south.
Kim Il-Sung’s "seven-year plan", which came to an end in 1993, was short on all targets. During the past four years of the plan the state-capitalist command economy shrunk by an average four percent annually.
There has been civil unrest and food riots in North Korea for over a year and many experts believe that Kim Il-Sung in in danger of being ousted. The only logical conclusion one can draw is that the stand-off with the IAEA and the slanging match with the US are Kim Il-Sung’s deliberate distractions from domestic troubles.
The US, of course, are aware of all this, just as they are aware that North Korea poses no real threat to world peace, but they go through the actions of being displeased with Pyongyang, stirring up unfounded fears in Asia in the process, as a means of securing markets for US arms manufacturers.
John Bissett
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