Do
Not Turn Korean Peninsula Into Waste Land
By Vladimir Tikhonov
25 April, 2003
When the National
Assembly approved the dispatch of troops to Iraq I could only think
of the title of a famous newspaper column, written about a century ago
by Chang Ji-yeon, about the Japanese takeover of diplomatic priorities.
A country that was once colonized
by Japanese imperialism, and that suffered numerous civilian massacres
during the Korea War, is now complicit with U.S. imperialism's indiscriminate
carnage against the Iraqi people. Sending troops to Iraq will reduce
South Korea to a hired hand of the aggressor, decimating the historical
legitimacy of the country. Whatever government apologia, April 2nd,
2003, the day the National Assembly passed the approval, will go down
in history as a day of national humiliation. What will history teachers
across the nation be able to teach their students when their soldiers
begin to aid the aggressor? I feel the pulse of history is beginning
to cease. The pro-war administration of Roh Moo Hyun likely refrains
it from using the false pretexts promoted by Bush & Co.: the threats
of "weapons of mass destruction", or the "elimination
of the Hussein Dictatorship." Probably, government officials tacitly
admit that there is no legitimate case for this war. What they attempt
to sell once and again is national interest, and a peaceful solution
to the North Korean nuclear crisis.
To translate their diplomatic
rhetoric into layman's terms, if we line up with Bush & Co. in its
invasion of the Middle East and its diplomatic standoff with Europe
and China, Bush will not attack North Korea, and spare our lives. In
more blunt terms, we have capitulated to the intimations by Mr. Bush,
the mob Don who said, "The conflict with North Korea will spill
over into war, wiping the Korean peninsula off the map, unless you help
us in Iraq." I understand well why they bowed to the pressure.
However, what matters is that our submission to Washington's honcho
will not guarantee that his henchmen would not level our streets. On
the contrary, if we say no to his threats, this would not be a cue for
territorial war in our backyard.
What is the nature of the
North Korean nuclear crisis? Like in the war in Iraq, weapons of mass
destruction themselves are not an issue. The government in Washington
knows all too well that North Korea cannot attack the U.S., even if
it has several nuclear warheads, and that it really wants to talk with
Washington. Washington's plans are aimed at pressing potential military
rivals, China and Russia, by occupying North Korea or through launching
a "preemptive strike" on China that has yet to implement military
modernization, by provoking it into conflict. Mr. Bush couldn't care
less about hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and millions of
Korean civilians who would be killed in the process. For wealthy racists
in Washington and on Wall Street, the "second class" races
outside the West and members of the U.S. underclass who are offering
their bodies to the military are no more than expendable.
Will Mr. Bush shelve war
plans for North Korea -- which would turn out to be a second Korean
War by turning the peninsula into wasteland -- if South Korea supports
the U.S. against Iraq? He never will. As long as the U.S. sees China's
rise as the second largest superpower of the world as a threat, the
high possibility of U.S. war using the North Korean nuclear issue as
a pretext is here to stay. If there is anyone who believes that our
efforts to build trust with the U.S. with a docile attitude would stop
the war of aggression, he or she should take a fresh look at the last
decade of Iraq. Look at how much energy Mr. Hussein has put into reconciling
with the U.S. Could he stop the invasion?
I don't believe that the
second Korean War is inevitable. If two U.S. bulwarks in the Far East,
South Korea and Japan, begin to revamp their U.S.-related security issues
in toto, if South Korea and Japan emphatically say no to the U.S.'s
war of aggression, its war drive will run into severe difficulties.
Would the U.S. invasion of Iraq take place with such ease if Kuwait,
following the lead taken by Turkey, did not allow the U.S. military
to use its bases? The problem at a deeper level is that rulers of South
Korea and Japan, who have internalized their submission to the U.S.,
consider any independent action heretical. Particularly, the fact that
Korean policymakers cannot think outside the terms set by the U.S. leads
me to weep bitterly.
Vladimir Tikhonov, a naturalized
Korean of Russian origin also known as Pak Noja in South Korea, teaches
Korea studies at the University of Oslo in Norway.
Originally published in the
April 7 issue of Jugan Jinbo Jeongchi [Progressive Politics Weekly],
a publication published by the Korean Democratic Labor Party (web address:
www.kdlp.org)
Translated and edited by
Kap Su Seol