Asia Times: PYONGYANG WATCH


	November 30, 2001	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH
Shots across the DMZ: Should we worry?
By Aidan Foster-Carter

Recently this column has delved into some of the murky history of inter-Korean espionage and special operations - in both directions, not just North against South. As readers may guess, pieces of this sort, not directly pegged to current news, mean that your Pyongyang-watcher has been away from his desk and out on the road. Over the past month I've been fortunate to attend two conferences on North Korea, both highly stimulating, in Macau and Japan. More on these another time - Chatham House rules permitting. Now safely back in my Yorkshire eyrie, it's time to return our attention to the immediacy of events.

Two events, to be precise, on one day. Words and deeds, neither very encouraging. On November 26, George W Bush singled out two nations, Iraq and North Korea, for warnings against continuing to produce and export weapons of mass destruction (WMD) while refusing international inspections. His speech was widely interpreted as hinting where the US war against terrorism might go next, after Afghanistan.

A few hours earlier, but only reported a day later on November 27, there was a brief exchange of gunfire across the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Three Northern automatic rounds shattered a window in a Southern guardpost, and the South fired 15 rounds back. It was all over in an instant, and no one was hurt. But this sufficed to spook the Nikkei, which ended Tuesday down 1 percent. Reuters quoted a Japanese equity analyst as saying: "With memories of the September attacks still vivid in our mind, investors had few options but to sell." South Korean stock pickers, though far closer to the action - near Paju, 40 kilometers northeast of Seoul - are made of sterner stuff. The Kospi lost 0.6 percent on Tuesday on its recent bull run, but no one was blaming North Korea much.

Personally, I'm more worried about words in Washington than shots in Korea. Brief border shootouts are far from unprecedented. There have been at least eight in the past decade, including one at the very same spot in June 1998. Indeed, as mentioned in a previous column, in the past rogue ROK agents have even allegedly paid Pyongyang to stage the odd provocation, to scare people into voting conservative. In any case, despite the lack of a dedicated military hotline, in practice both Koreas are wisely careful not to let such incidents escalate out of control. June 1999's bloody but brief naval battle is a case in point.

Still, it's depressing that North Korea is reverting to taking pointless potshots. But at least the South has stopped covering up for them. Contrary to an ROK defense ministry statement that this was the first such incident this year, in September Southern troops fired warning shots two days running at Korean People's Army (KPA) soldiers who crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), the midpoint of the DMZ. Seoul tried to hush up this incident, for fear of derailing inter-Korean talks that were then just resuming after half a year's hiatus.

Even now, with the "Sunshine" policy in tatters, Kim Dae-jung's government is still trying to be nice to a North that shows no sign of reciprocating. Its latest gesture is to drop publication of this year's defense white paper, whose annual designation of North Korea as "principal enemy" always sends Pyongyang into paroxysms of disingenuous rage. Most countries that issue defense white papers don't name a main enemy, and South Korea has only done so since 1995. But the ROK military and conservatives oppose dropping the phrase; so postponing the white paper - ostensibly a cost-saving shift to biennial publication - until next May is the best compromise that Seoul's increasingly beleaguered peace party can manage.

They're also disturbed by the latest rhetoric from the White House. "Hawkish Bush darkens S-N ties" was how the Korea Times headlined its report on Bush's latest warning, while its editorial starkly asked: "Is North Korea next target?" Other Seoul media were less alarmist, and the Times ended up answering its own rhetorical question in the negative. Let's hope they're right. Future columns will review the issue of whether Pyongyang could be in the US firing line, especially over its suspected bioweapons capacity.

One might also take issue with the Korea Times' other headline. Sure, not for the first time a comment from George W is hardly helpful. But what's to darken, at this point? Inter-Korean ties are already about as low as they can go. After all the hopes raise by September's resumption of dialogue, and Pyongyang's long and serious-seeming agenda, the next round of talks collapsed in acrimony. North Korea perversely and speciously chooses to interpret the South's heightened security alert since September 11 (shared with many countries across the globe) as a hostile act, and also as rendering Seoul an unsafe place for further meetings - including what had been an eagerly awaited fourth round of reunions of separated families.

Still bending over backward, South Korea agreed to the latest sixth round of ministerial talks being held at Kumgangsan, despite the Northern resort's inconveniences (there was a lengthy power cut at one point) and lack of the facilities available in Seoul or Pyongyang. But both at the meeting and since, the South's newish Unification Minister Hong Soon-young has taken a tougher stance, to more Northern synthetic fury. Hong's subsequent statement that he had "got the feeling that North Korea did not want to continue dialogue at all" brought condemnation from Pyongyang of his "confrontational" stance. But frankly, most everyone shares that impression currently. And bullets across the DMZ are hardly calculated to change it.

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