For Kim and North Korea, a sign of
mortality By David Scofield
SEOUL - Disaster of enormous but
still unknown proportions struck North Korea nine hours
after Kim Jong-il's heavily guarded train re-entered the
Hermit Kingdom and passed through Ryongchon station, 20
kilometers south of the Chinese border. The Dear Leader
had returned from "secret" talks with China on defusing
the Pyongyang nuclear crisis, gradually giving up his
weapons of mass
destruction in exchange
for massive economic and food
aid, clean energy and a better life for his people.
The outcome of the talks was not known.
Then, it
happened: Two trains (some say a train and a truck)
laden with fuel, oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)
collided
and exploded. First reports said as many as 3,000 people were
killed or injured in the densely populated town. The
Red Cross later said at least 54 were killed
and more than 1,200 injured - the full scope of the disaster
was yet to emerge. As of Friday afternoon, North
Korean officials had not acknowledged the tragedy, and
international phone services had been cut, making it difficult to
gather information.
Speculation abounds, but none has been verified. Some
suggest the explosions were intended to kill Kim but
were badly timed - South Korean experts dismiss that
speculation. Some say one of the trains involved in the
collision contained LPG as a gift from the Chinese after
Kim's Beijing visit. Still others say there was a
routing problem as trains were held up at the station to
allow Kim's train to pass, causing problems that led
later to a collision.
Kim's heavily fortified
and armored train was returning from his heavily
publicized "secret" meetings in Beijing at the
invitation of Chinese President Hu Jintao; Kim arrived
shortly after US Vice President Dick Cheney left China,
and it was not known whether he had been informed that
Kim was on the way.
From April 10-16, Cheney
traveled through China, South Korea and Japan,
discussing issues of common concern, including the "war
on terror", Seoul's troop dispatch to Iraq, and, of
course, North Korea's nuclear-weapons program. During
his stay in China, the smiles at photo sessions and
declarations of solid, pragmatic relations may have
masked tougher talk behind closed doors.
US
seeking more Chinese pressure on N Korea Cheney
made it clear that the United States is pursuing all
options in an effort to end the North Korean nuclear
impasse, and China - as the linchpin in any program to
rid the region of the nuclear threat - needs to be far
more proactive in ending the Pyongyang problem than it
has so far demonstrated, according to reports.
Of course, China's role in North Korea's
stability and the regime's survival has been discussed
extensively. China supplies Pyongyang with an estimated
million tons of oil a year, providing some energy needed
for the devastated economy to limp along and for the
military, the key to the regime's survival, to function.
China has restricted energy exports to North Korea in
the past. Last spring, in response to North Korean
missile tests in the Sea of Japan (known in Korea as the
East Sea), China reportedly closed its last remaining
pipeline into North Korea. China said the pipeline was
closed for maintenance, and it was reopened three days
later.
The message was clear: Energy supplies
can and will be used to force North Korea's compliance
and accepted standards of international behavior. North
Korea agreed soon afterward to six-party summit talks
held in Beijing the following August. The talks involved
both Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia; a second
round in late February was inconclusive, but further
talks are expected before July.
Shortly after
Cheney left China on April 16, the Chinese invited Kim
Jong-il to visit Beijing post haste for high-level talks
with Hu Jintao. The "secret" meeting was one of the most
heavily monitored events ever involving the Northern
Kim. South Korea's national broadcaster KBS broke the
story of Kim's train passing into China late Sunday.
Reportedly witnesses on the ground said the train passed
into China's Jilin province, the home of tens of
thousands of North Korean refugees.
After he
arrived in Beijing, there were reports, mostly South
Korean, of his accommodations at the Diaoyutai State
Guest House, pictures of the new Audi limousines that
conveyed him around, and even an out-of-focus shot of
the Dear Leader himself leaving a famous Peking-duck
restaurant, reportedly his favorite. Pyongyang's
official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim
had indeed visited China, shortly after his train had
returned to North Korea, and shortly before the
cataclysmic explosion.
The cause, the
causalities probably never known It is hard to be
sure of anything in North Korea, given the extreme
secrecy and absolute control held by government
authorities, so the cause of the rail explosion and
total number of victims will probably never be clear,
though reports will leak out. But what is clear is the
explosion, whether intended or not, will serve as a shot
across the bow for Kim Jong-il. Within a regime as
inherently paranoid as his, this sort of "accident" will
no doubt put the man on alert. Indeed, at the time of
writing, North Korea has disconnected all international
phone services, in essence sealing the Hermit Kingdom off
even further.
Of course, in North Korea where
industrial maintenance standards have fallen to below
acceptable, even substandard levels, industrial
accidents are commonplace as workers attempt to
function, producing goods in dilapidated factories using
dangerous malfunctioning equipment in the "worker's
paradise" without even the most basic security
equipment. That two trains, fully loaded with oil and
gas, could collide and explode in a busy train station
is most certainly possible, though for a country with
such wrenching energy shortages, and where the nature of
the government and the system dictate that military,
police and paramilitary services must be maintained at
all costs, the concentration of this much fuel in one
place suggests a strategic lapse.
Putting aside the horrendous loss of life, no
doubt worsened by the lack of health services in the
country - yet more casualties from a system that has
been complicit in the starvation and death of more than a
million of its own citizens - speculation about what
could have happened had the explosion taken place a few
hours earlier is tempting.
For those who study North
Korea and consider the nation in an honest, balanced
fashion, unhindered by political policy, it is obvious
that change is impossible within the present form of
government. The regime finds legitimacy in perpetuating
a siege mentality within the nation. Nothing draws
Koreans, from either side of the Demilitarized Zone
(DMZ), closer than the perception of threat from
outside, and Kim carefully maintains the illusion that
the United States and others, stationed only a few
kilometers away on its southern frontier, are preparing
to attack and destroy the people's paradise in the
north.
Time for the myth to be shattered by
truth The absolute control of resources and
information has allowed this myth to continue for more
than half a century, as the despots around Kim divert
the nation's scant resources for their own gain and use
what's left to sustain the military power they need to
ensure their position and the people's allegiance. The
nation, meanwhile, continues to atrophy and die.
The removal of Kim and his ruling clique would
usher in the possibility of change and peace on the
peninsula. Of course, with a system such as that of
North Korea, a viable opposition is simply impossible,
and there are no political groups waiting in the wings
to take the reins and move the country forward for the
betterment of all. But there is a military structure,
the best-functioning bureaucracy in the country, which
could, as has happened elsewhere, accept responsibility
for managing the nation in a post-Kim environment.
Of course it would be naive to suggest that
individuals exist within North Korea's military who
would immediately become progressive architects of a new
nation. The removal of all vestiges of the Kims would
not ensure this. What it would ensure is the end to the
dynasty and the end to unquestioned rule. With the Kims
gone, no other individual or group would be able to rule
with the sort of impunity the world has seen the
country's inception 50 years ago. The message would be
clear: if the Kims can go, anyone is vulnerable, anyone
can go, and if the next group does not move the country
away from the abyss, to cash in on the dividends of
peace and stability, then it will eventually find itself
out of the picture. Change brings the possibility of
continued change.
The fuel explosion
in North Korea was probably an accident. There is
nothing to suggest - nor should one expect anything to
emerge that would suggest - anything but fatal human error.
But for those who hope for a better future for the
North, this was a sign - a signal from multiple parties to
Kim that he can be gotten to, and now is the time for
him to go.
David Scofield, former
lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies,
Kyung Hee University, is currently conducting
post-graduate research at the School of East Asian
Studies, University of Sheffield.
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2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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destruction in exchange
for massive economic and food
aid, clean energy and a better life for his people.
The outcome of the talks was not known.
