Pushing North Korea to the sea

Last July 27 the 60th anniversary of the Korean War was observed in Seoul, South Korea (Republic of Korea), “to memorialize” the war. The Philippines, together with some other countries, joined the United States in that conflict, in defense of  “democracy.” However, the question of whether we fought on the right side of history still lingers.

In the early 1990s North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) was accused of trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Concerned countries, like the United States, Russia and China, have urged North Korea to enter into nuclear talks with them. North Korea has rarely obliged them, and recently it went “saber-rattling” again. It threatened South Korea and Japan. It was reportedly about to strike the United States with nuclear missiles. The Inquirer diagnosed its misbehavior as “paranoia.” Indeed, with aggressive posturing among the parties, “the risk of miscalculation is frightening.”

Columnist Randy David bemoaned the continuing tragedy of that divided land. Reminiscent of the rape of Nanking, the atrocities committed for 40 years by the Japanese in Korea were meant to destroy Korean identity and soul. Like hyenas, Russia and the United States tore Korea into two during the Cold War. With the fervor of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-sung tried to reunify his nation; it was denied him by the United States and other countries, through the United Nations, during the Korean War.

Put in the shoes of North Korea, any other country would have behaved similarly. A militant group was categorical: “Korean crisis is made in USA,” it said, noting some 30,000 US soldiers still stationed in South Korea for the past 60 years, South Korea’s demand that the North lay down its arms, and intelligence reports of US-Sokor planning to invade North Korea.

At the end of the Cold War, Russia withdrew its financial support of the North; China warmed up to the West. Surely, North Korea now feels alone and desperate.

But who is really paranoid? Not too long ago, the United States maintained military bases worldwide to contain communism and isolate

socialist countries in Europe, like the USSR and Yugoslavia, behind the Iron Curtain, and those of Asia, like China, Vietnam and North Korea, behind the Bamboo Curtain. Even with the collapse of communism in Europe, America has remained in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, but leaving a devastated Iraq. Doggedly, it holds on to Guantanamo and other foreign secret, coercive centers to tolerate torture, as reported by US writer Naomi Wolf. Former Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia observed that America was “paranoid of Asian bearded men.”

Our 1987 Constitution proclaims an independent foreign policy and friendship with all nations. Manila has maintained anemic bilateral relations with Pyongyang for years now; Erlinda Basilio, our ambassador to Beijing, presented her credentials as concurrent, nonresident envoy to DPRK three days before the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. But of course, the Philippines still follows “in the wake of America.” Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, alter ego of President Aquino, has offered our former military bases to the United States, in case war breaks out in the region—an unconstitutional, “suicidal notion” that can trigger the impeachment of a popular president.

There have been diplomatic interactions in the UN between the Philippines and North Korea. Both are members of the Asian Group which coordinates with the Group of 77. Of course, the situation in the UN is not less oppressive for North Korea. At the International Atomic Energy Agency board in Vienna, we discussed alleged violations by North Korea of the safeguards agreement on its nuclear program. But while the IAEA statute allows exhaustion of procedural remedies, including appeal to the International Court of Justice, the board itself, dominated by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China, and designated regional members, will insist on the immediate referral of the issue to the UN Security Council for possible sanction.

And on the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the nuclear club, holding the IAEA on a leash, will generally not allow other states to possess nuclear weapons or devices. The astounding unfairness of the proposition—that only the present nuclear states can be trusted with humankind’s civilization—was frowned upon by many, which prefer a previously approved UN General Assembly resolution on “general and complete” disarmament.

Luckily, during his first term, US President Barack Obama announced a tectonic “Obama Doctrine” to denuclearize the planet. It was almost a dream, to end the nuclear stalemate between America and Russia that was not totally solved by the end of the Cold War. The world awaits the resurrection of the doctrine, and Obama’s passion to pursue it.

In the current drama on the Korean peninsula, only national interest will count. If it is to the best interest of the DPRK to launch missiles tipped with nuclear devices (if it has them), then it will do so. And if it is to the interest of America to nuke the DPRK, as it did Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II, and almost did it to China during the Korean War, it will do so—with or without casus belli.

Remember the “Gulf of Tonkin incident”? It never occurred in history. As exposed by Washington Post editor Benjamin Bradlee, the United States invented the lie to justify the massive bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Of course, the napalm-bombing of North Vietnam did not prevent its hordes from overrunning the US embassy in Saigon.

So America can blot Pyongyang out of the map. But then China will react, as it did in the Korean War.

Nelson D. Laviña, a retired ambassador, was permanent representative to the UN and IAEA in Vienna in 1986-1991.