Seoul to scrap Cold War relic, anti-North
law By David Scofield
South
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's ambitious
capital-relocation plan has been scuttled by the
Constitutional Court. The nation's pre-eminent judicial
body ruled, rightly most argue, that it is beyond the
president's franchise arbitrarily to redesignate the
nation's capital, especially as Seoul has been so
designated for more than 600 years. The court also
declared that any such change would have to come about
through the consensus of the nation (read: referendum)
and subsequent constitutional revision.
Roh has
conceded defeat. The capital, at least for now, will
stay where it is. This is probably for the best, as
Roh's Uri Party has its collective hands full pushing
through a legislative repeal of its own.
The Uri
Party's National Assembly majority has presented the
progressives with a rare opportunity to remove the
decades-old National Security Law (initially enacted in
1948 and revised seven times, most recently in 1988),
clearing away unhelpful legislative flotsam, a relic of
the Cold War. That the National Security Law (NSL) is an
anachronism despite Roh's unflinching policies of
constructive engagement is obvious. The law prescribes
strict judicial punishment - ranging from one year to
life imprisonment or even death, depending on the
severity of the violation - for "anti-state" activities.
North Korea is defined as an "anti-state entity", and
forming a pro-North group (Article 3), accepting money
from a pro-North group (Article 5), praising or
sympathizing with North Korea (Article 7), or meeting
with anti-state (North Korean) groups (Article 8), among
other infractions, all potentially carry prison
sentences.
These vaguely defined articles in
essence make illegal all those activities that the
government seeks to encourage through policies of
engagement. The NSL also allows for intrusive
clandestine monitoring of those suspected of being
involved in such activities. The state's use of
enforcement provisions within the NSL to intrude
covertly into citizens' lives by wiretapping and other
forms of electronic eavesdropping is well documented. Jo
Seong-nae, a Uri Party member of the National Assembly's
Committee on Government Administration and Home Affairs,
recently made public a National Police Agency report
indicating that from January 2001 to June of this year,
1,730 warrants for electronic surveillance were issued.
Of course where "anti-state" activities end and where
"anti-incumbent administration" activities begin is
difficult to pin down, the law's loose definitions
encouraging legislative mission creep.
There are
citizens, primarily those within South Korea's
conservative political circles, who view the National
Security Law as one of the few remaining defenses
against the communist threat. Without a hint of irony,
conservatives have promised they will spare no measure
in defense of the law and its sweeping powers since,
they argue, a repeal of the legislation will leave the
North free to infiltrate, disrupt and undermine the
democratic ideals South Korea has struggled to develop -
democratic principles that many older conservatives were
themselves instrumental in denying the country decades
earlier.
For many, though, the risk of removing
the NSL is found within the North Korean unification
rhetoric that has been one of the few constants of
North-South dialogue from the July 4, 1972, South-North
Joint Communique to the June 15, 2000, South-North Joint
Declaration. Simply put, unification should be achieved
peacefully, independent of foreign influence;
reconciliation and unification should be achieved
peacefully, independent of foreign influence, a
reflection of national unity. However, under which
system of government, for example, an eventual
federation would be placed is open to speculation.
Kim Il-sung, the titular head and ideological
founder of North Korea, was known to support
confederation as it would give the North time to
reintroduce South Koreans to North Korea's obvious claim
to "nationalistic leadership". Further, North Korea's
formula for a Democratic Confederate Republic of Koryo
unveiled in October, 1980, emphasizes that the repeal of
South Korea's NSL and the withdrawal of US forces in
South Korea are necessary prerequisites for peace and
"federation". Of course, titles can be a bit misleading.
North Korea is the "Democratic" People's Republic of
Korea after all, and the state's vision of a Korean
"confederation" may not mirror South Korea's vision of
peaceful co-existence.
But North Korea's
aspirations aside, South Korea with a gross domestic
product orders of magnitude larger than North Korea's
and its "absolute dominance over the North", as Uri
Party chairman Lee Bu-young put it, has little to fear
from North Korean attempts to indoctrinate South
Koreans. When Kim Il-sung made his pronouncements about
strategic opportunities for North Korea inherent in a
confederation sans the National Security Law, the
economy of North Korea was a strong rival of the South
and the North enjoyed the full backing of the Chinese
and Soviet militaries of the time.
Today, the
ability of North Korea to seek and win over ideological
converts among those South Koreans so blinded by
pan-Korean chauvinism that the desperate privations of
the North don't resonate is actually enhanced by the
law's existence. South Korea's somewhat unbalanced
approach to unification, predicated as it is on
insulating South Koreans from many of the daily horrors
related by an increasingly steady stream of North Korean
refugees, has fed ignorance and naivete, especially
among those too young to have any recollection of the
Korean War or the dire poverty that followed. The
removal of the NSL may well spur pro-Pyongyang groups in
South Korea to become more vocal and strident, but this
could be a positive development for South Korean
democracy.
South Korea's democrats should
encourage the proponents of Kim Jong-il's North Korea to
debate openly the attributes of Pyongyang's philosophy
of juche (self-reliance) and its impact on the
well-being of the people and the development of the
North. South Korea's democracy is strong enough to
withstand the tests of comparison. Indeed, maintaining
the NSL fuels the perception of a dissident movement;
those whose half-baked ideas of unification under the
despotic leadership of Kim Jong-il become, by virtue of
their illegality under the NSL, accepted as progressive
activism. Lifting the legislative veil on pro-North
activities and rhetoric is the surest method to debunk
this etiology. Being no longer members of an edgy
underground movement, removal of legal restrictions and
encouraging the inclusion of North Korean proponents in
open dialogue - one that includes those from the North
who have experienced the deprivations first hand - will
quickly undermine the illogic of those who espouse the
virtues of the totalitarian system, encouraging a more
informed populace and a stronger democracy.
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, United Kingdom.
(Copyright
2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
