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Encouraged leadership change in
Pyongyang
By David Scofield
SEOUL - Last month's Beijing meetings made it
abundantly clear that the present regional approach to
North Korea is unlikely to yield positive results.
Regional strategies should move beyond the present
bipolar model of appeasement versus punishment, and
embrace wider options to ensure a peaceful conclusion to
this protracted problem.
Recognition, aid and
security guarantees will ultimately prevail, it is
argued, and represent the only collection of options
that does not involve a second Korean War, regional
instability and a colossal death toll. But attempts at
regime reform, while maintaining the tense status quo in
the very short term, could lead to open, violent
conflict down the road, as they ignore certain
fundamental realities - not the least of which being
North Korea's oft-stated primary agenda of system
(regime) stability and potency at any cost - and will
ensure more "to the brink" style negotiating sessions,
and the potential for miscalculation and unnecessary
loss of life in the future.
How much aid would
have to be committed for the North Korean leadership to
feel secure and the elite placated? How many billions of
dollars would have to pour in before any amount trickles
down to the majority of the nation's malnourished,
desperate citizens who are considered untrustworthy and
potential enemies of their own state? The reality,
proved by South Korea's overly generous financial
overtures to and investments in the North's leaders, is
that the more they are given, the more they will devote
to military programs and internal mechanisms of control;
the country's most vulnerable will continue to suffer,
while the state's ability to oppress internally and
threaten externally will grow.
The regime-reform
approach hinges on the assumption that the most senior
levels of the North Korean system have become
sufficiently weakened to make radical internal reform
possible. It presupposes that the Dear Leader, upon
being sufficiently validated, secured and bribed, will
embrace change and guide his country toward a more peace
and stable future. But as should be obvious by now,
reform is incongruent with the structure of the present
Kim Jong-il government. Reform implies transparency, a
necessary prerequisite in the formation of regional
trust. This is not possible in a system that relies on
seclusion and isolation to maintain its power and
legitimacy. Further, reform would threaten the siege
existence that has been the leadership's justification
for shortages, and the extreme hardship felt by so many
of the people.
The present leadership has just
too much blood on its hands, and it seems very unlikely
that more aid and recognition will prompt a change in
course. The Kim Jong-il government allowed an estimated
2 million of its own citizens to starve to death while
the leadership squandered staggering amounts of aid and
cash, much of it from South Korea, on a
nuclear-development program. This same leadership
continues to imprison an estimated 200,000 in
Soviet-style gulags, while allowing the majority of the
population to live with severe malnutrition, a situation
that has already caused the physical stunting of many,
and is feared to have severely inhibited the mental
development of many more, prompting aid workers to speak
of a "lost generation" in North Korea. The North Korean
leader's blind pursuit of ego has destroyed all vestiges
of humanity in the North. More treats and favors will
not bring the Dear Leader around.
Given the
depraved nature of the leadership in North Korea,
abrupt, complete regime change is fully justifiable. But
this scenario should not be the primary option, as it
implies the complete destruction of the system through
outside military intervention. This approach would
undoubtedly cause far more bloodshed and regional
anguish than is easily contemplated. An externally led
assault is consistent with Pyongyang's siege psychology
that has been a staple of its political ideology since
the founding of the North Korean state almost 55 years
ago.
This is not to say that this approach
should be scrapped; indeed, the invasion option must be
maintained, for without this very real and imminent
threat, the more peaceful, regionally palatable response
will not gain ground, and if the alternative is to allow
North Korea to continue to create and proliferate
weapons of mass destruction (WMD), further enslaving its
own people in the process, then the option, no matter
how objectionable, must be open.
The third
approach is far less chaotic, and is dependent on
exploiting cleavages within the leadership and its power
base, the military. There is evidence that rifts exist
and seem likely to deepen, a situation well illustrated
in recent state literature. Dr B R Meyers, a visiting
professor of North Korean studies at Korea University,
has noted that North Korea has begun acknowledging the
shortages and hardships in the nation, something never
seen before.
It is also telling that Kim
Jong-il, while knowing of the problems, bears no fault
himself, but rather others in government who have lost
their revolutionary zeal are blamed in a bid to protect
Kim's leadership. North Korea's senior officials and
elite cadres will no doubt have noticed this shift, and
the potential effects it could have on them personally,
generating more paranoia and mistrust throughout the
leadership structure. This bodes well for encouraged
leadership change, as the very paranoia and fear that
maintains the present despotic system can be used as
leverage to expedite its downfall.
The
leadership-change option advocates the removal of the
most nefarious elements of the regime, while leaving the
system, and the military, generally intact. The North
Korean military is vastly under-resourced, but its bulk,
the 1.3 million soldiers, could be instrumental in the
distribution of resources and maintenance of order
during the crucial first few weeks of leadership change,
helping to mitigate further suffering of the North
Korean people.
When speaking of alternative
leadership structures in North Korea, it is not my
intention to suppose that there is an abundance of
altruistic individuals holding senior leadership
positions waiting to leap up and set the North free.
Instead, I assume there are groups of pampered elites,
both within the military and beyond, who, when presented
with the reality that Kim Jong-il can no longer be
counted upon to ensure their security and the protection
of their vested interests, and may actually be lining
them up to accept responsibility for decades of gross
national mismanagement, can be counted upon to act
purely to ensure their own survival.
The chance
of a unified opposition being found within the
substructures of Kim Jong-il's regime, however, is also
unlikely and if this contingency is not properly
factored, by all the region's actors, then things could
become unnecessarily bloody. That regional cleavages
will play a dominant role in military loyalties seems
obvious, but without sufficient resources, the military
will lack the ability to wage large-scale sustained
conflict. The inflow of resources will determine the
country's ability to fight internally, and this can be
regulated if the region's five primary actors
acknowledge the necessity of a peaceful, non-nuclear
Korean Peninsula.
This option also ensures the
integrity of the North Korean state, and the indigenous
nature of its government. Kim Il-sung (nine years
deceased) will remain the head of state in the short
term, a vitally important point as any scenario
involving non-Korean leadership of North Korea could
potentially elicit broader conflict.
Encouraged
leadership change will bring an end to the world's most
vicious regime and create the foundation for a new era
of peace and stability for East Asia. Further, once the
present leadership is removed, the precedent will be
set, leaving the door open for future democratic systems
to take hold, and the eventual full inclusion of North
Korea in the East Asian political-economic sphere.
David Scofield is a lecturer at the
Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee
University, Seoul.
(Copyright 2003 David
Scofield.)
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