Tag: Peace

In the last plenary session of the UN General Assembly ( UNGA) in  October 2017 , President Donald J Trump of the United States threatened “fire and fury” on the “ little rocket man”  Of North Korea and his regime if he dared to attack either South Korea, Japan or Guam as Kim Jong un the young and apparently unpredictable chairman of the Communist Party and head of state of North Korea  had threatened to do . This was after several missile launches some across Japan frightening the proud people of that country  into running to hide in nuclear shelters. The climax of what appeared to be a policy of brinkmanship was when North Korea tested intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching continental United States and not just Guam,  that people in the USA began to panic.

Even if Korea were to be destroyed in retaliatory strike , because of long standing  American strategy of Second strike capability , meaning in a surprise attack America would still have enough nuclear arsenal to destroy its enemy, North Korea would have done a lot of damage to America. It was because of this realization that the Pentagon began to plan for preemptive strike to destroy North Korea. This was also deemed prudent on the grounds that North Korea may not yet have mastered the reentry mechanisms to make its ICBMS work perfectly. The auguries were not favorable for peace. In the case of war, whether conventional or nuclear, everybody will suffer. North Korea had artillery guns in place targeting Seoul the capital of South Korea with millions of people there and 35000 American troops stationed there. North Korea could also possibly hit Japan its former colonial master  and an American ally and hundreds of thousands  of American troops on the island of Okinawa. If Kim Jong un was not challenged the possibility of Japan developing its own nuclear weapons was clear  as even President Trump once suggested and some nationalist forces within Japan were toying with . Something has to give and President Trump’s saber rattling came in useful . On top of this the United Nations  imposed the stiffest sanctions ever , amounting to almost partial economic blockade on North Korea.

In the UN sanctions China was key to its effectiveness. Once China bought into it, it was only a matter of time before the effect was felt in already impoverished North Korea which was spending up to 80 % of its resources on Defence and the nuclear weapons program. To perceptive onlookers what the North Koreans were doing was designed for the preservation of their regime. In other words they learnt from American invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and NATO overthrow of Muamar Ghadafi in Libya and constant threat to Iran that the same treatment will be meted to North Korea  unless it had nuclear deterrence. It now seems they have perfected this and it’s delivery mechanism. This perhaps is why they are confident to talk from position of strength as a nuclear weapons state. The unpredictability Of President Trump of America also was a factor compelling North Korea to come to the negotiating table.

What does North Korea hope to get from talks with the United States? It apparently wants an end to the state of belligerency which still exists between north Korea and the USA and South Korea since there was no formal peace treaty after the Korean War in 1953 .

On June 25 1950 the Korean War began when some 75000 soldiers of the Korean people’s army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of South Korea to the south. The war ended inconclusively on July 27 1953 with an armistice signed by the warring parties without much change in the territories previously held by both sides. The war witnessed China intervening militarily by throwing in 300,000 troops while the Soviet Union supplied North Korea with weapons. On the side of South Korea the USA provided 90% of the troops  and at a time the officer commanding the  so called UN forces in the south the famous General Douglas MacArthur mooted the idea of striking China with nuclear weapons but was overruled by president  Harry Truman. The devastation on both sides was immense but due to American generosity and hard working South Koreans , South Korea has become an industrial giant and  a rich  country while the north remains poor and its former  industries have become moribund . This is the war Kim Jong Un wants to formally end.

If he succeeds in his talks with President Trump he would expect the UN sanctions to be lifted. Foreign investment will pour in as has been the case with China and Vietnam which were former communist enemies of the United States. kim also expects eventual removal of American troops from the peninsula and eventual unification obviously under the Northern regime’s leadership. In return he will be expected to completely disarm ,dismantle and destroy its nuclear arsenal , embrace the principle of freedom and fundamental human rights and peaceful relations with her neighbors and the international community . It will be expected to behave as a normal country and obey international norms of interstate relations .

. The first inclination that Kim Jong un was about to come out of his self- imposed cocoon was when he publicly stated in January 2018 that he would seek for peace on the Korean Peninsula. His southern counterpart that was hosting the Winter Olympics then extended invitation to the North Korean regime. This was against President Trump’s advice that the South Koreans should not be seen to be following a policy of appeasement. The North Korean government not only accepted but sent a large delegation including Kim’s sister, cheer leaders  as well as the ceremonial head of state of North Korea and quickly assembled athletes. Even though the latter did not do well, but just like the ping pong diplomacy between the USA and China in the Nixon years in the 1970s , the winter games provided a much needed opening to break the ice in north and South Koreas relations . Since then the two Koreas have met in the demilitarized Zone between the two countries with both leaders symbolically stepping on each other’s country across the DMZ.  This is the prelude to a much more important Kim Jong un-Donald J Trump talks .

The talks holding in three or four weeks’ time in yet unannounced city with Singapore being in contention for this historic meeting of Trump and Kim Jong un cannot possibly deal with all the issues . But the American president sitting with the  North Korean President amounts to formal recognition . This can be followed with signing  of a formal end to the Korean War . Ending the UN economic sanctions would follow good behavior such as ending nuclear and missile tests and beginning of nuclear disarmament perhaps at the same time of gradual withdrawal of American troops. The remaining issues will take time to negotiate but once there is a commitment to peaceful resolution of all issues the world will be able to breathe a sigh of relieve. But nothing can be taken for granted because this same commitment was reached with President Bill Clinton only for the untrustworthy regime to renege and back out . The auguries for peace are good . The regime has unilaterally changed its clock to the same time zone with Japan and South Korea. This may be a little gesture but it could be a sign of what to come. There may be no immediate breakthrough on all fronts but certainly we are further away from the belligerent and bellicose environment we were in just a year ago and as Winston Churchill once said, it is better to “jaw- jaw than to war-war”

It is now clear that the North Korean leader is not a mad man as previously thought. All he seems to want is survival of his extreme Stalinist regime in a world in which Russia has embraced some kind of capitalism and guided democracy and China though still a communist country, but only in name, but in actual fact  it is practicing some kind of capitalist gerontocracy . Kim Jong un wants economic development for his country but in a secure sovereign environment. He seems to feel secure enough to open up to the world since the country has become a nuclear weapons state feared and respected and  hopefully responsible like China and Russia in which orbit it would like to rotate . As long as the West is not expecting Kim Jong un to give  up everything his country has laboured to achieve under the totalitarian leadership of the three Kim’s including his  grand father , his father and himself a reasonable modus vivendi can be reached with him to guarantee international peace and security.