NUCLEAR STANDOFF
In search of a middle-ground
TOPE ORIOLA STAFF
As has been the norm in recent years, the world is watching as North Korea continues to be embroiled in a fatal macabre dance with the U.S.. North Korea returned to the headlines after launching seven Taepodong-2 missiles into the Sea of Japan earlier this month.
For observers of international relations, Pyongyang poses a peculiar problem. Here is a country whose government considers the repression of its people and their fundamental freedoms as a matter of state policy. Rather than channel resources toward the basic prerequisites of human existence for its citizens, North Korea is now a confirmed, albeit often-denied nuclear power. The price for this “achievement” can be seen on the faces of the masses in North Korea making utter nonsense its philosophy of juche or “self-reliance.”
Between North Korea and South Korea, historical and geographical twins, there has never been such a marked contrast. South Korea is relatively affluent and has become a household name in automobiles and electronics, keeping its technology on the “ground” thereby benefiting a vast number of its people. In contrast, North Korea would rather aim for “the skies,” and operates what has been universally declared a “personality cult” — a euphemism for totalitarianism and absolute curtailing of any form of dissent or opposition. Kim Jong-il has consistently proven to be the true son of his father. He more than approximates Machiavelli’s “Prince.”
In the State of the Union address in 2002, President Bush declared that North Korea, Iran and Iraq constituted “an axis of evil.” The label hastily attached to North Korea by the U.S. served as an impetus for Jong-il to violate every conceivable international law. Such a metaphor is unheard of in the annals of international relations, where diplomacy was thought to be the rule. The events of the past few weeks have proven Bush’s comments to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The motive for the launch of the missiles by Pyongyang is still the subject of worldwide guesses.
However, the concern here is that the world’s sole superpower needs to help in brokering peace through tact, negotiation and sophisticated diplomacy rather than generating more conflicts by treating heads of sovereign states like pupils in an elementary school. The current nuclear face-off is a fruitless exercise rooted in thirst for power and recognition, nursed by executive pomposity and watered by vainglory. Both sides must be held responsible for this ugly state of affairs.
American calls for sanctions and isolation on one hand, while at the same time seeking multilateral negotiations, smacks of arrogance and unseriousness. Perhaps a radical master plan is in the offing. News reports also indicate that Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill has clearly indicated the White House’s unwillingness to enter into any bilateral discussions with North Korea. Neither has Pyongyang been co-operative as it described the missile launch as “routine military exercises.”
America’s position of global leadership is not in dispute. What is in contention is the strategy of applying premium motor spirit to a raging inferno. Both the protagonist and antagonist of this sordid duel need to be reminded that nobody ever truly wins in war. The cost in terms of human lives on both sides of every war in memory shows, as put by General Yakubu Gowon, erstwhile military president during the brutal civil war which claimed over one million lives in Nigeria, that there is “no victor, no vanquished.” If Vietnam was a blunder and Iraq a misconception, what might we call North Korea — an error of judgment or a judgment of error?
Pyongyang has indeed become a persistent source of worry to all those who love peace. It is hoped that Jong-il will not be smoked out of a hole like a rodent. How long 22.9 million people can be held at the jugular remains to be seen. As the maxim goes, those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. A nation that gets the flu when an individual sneezes is not developing but regressing, regardless of all the nuclear weapons in its arsenal.
As the world continues to be awed by the unfolding scenario, it is hoped that the poor, which the system favours least on both sides, will not be called upon to fight a war that is not their own. Here’s hoping that the world will not be thrown into another televised show of tears and blood, that the statistical figures for the fatherless and the unwilling heroes will not increase. Let us end this orgy of madness.
