Asia Times: The Koreas


	May 16, 2002	atimes.com

The Koreas

PYONGYANG WATCH
North Korea: Dam nuisance
By Aidan Foster-Carter

So much for optimism. In thinking North Korea might just be serious this time about talking to the South, our last column let hope triumph over experience. True, we finally had a fourth round of family reunions: no longer in Seoul and Pyongyang, let alone people's homes or hometowns, butat the North's Mount Kumgang resort - whose lack of medical facilities alarmed the Southern Red Cross.

While better than nothing (just), to limit these all too brief one-off meetings to a tiny proportion of a (literally) dying population is a gross cruelty. Why not many more and bigger meetings? Why can't they keep in touch by letter or phone afterward?

But at least this happened, unlike the economic meetings that were due to follow. In a drearily familiar pattern, Pyongyang cancelled these at the last minute on a trumped-up excuse. This time the fall guy was Seoul's Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong. Last month, on a trip to Washington, Choi reportedly applied a Chinese proverb - "speak softly, but carry a big stick" - to allied policy towards North Korea. For this, the party paper Rodong Sinmun dubbed him a "sycophantic traitor" and Pyongyang demanded that he be "eliminated at once" - that being how they do things there, presumably - and his remarks repudiated.

This slur is undeserved. Choi, a former ambassador in London, is a strong supporter of the "Sunshine" policy and in this comment he was doubtless trying to find common ground between current South Korean and US approaches: no easy task. For the North to take umbrage, thus, is a specious excuse. In the past Seoul has, rather cravenly, replaced a Red Cross head and a unification minister who got up Pyongyang's nose. Let's hope that this time they stand their ground.

But the North has another grouch too. In recent years it has built a big dam in the Mt Kumgang area, just north of the DMZ on the Han river - which flows south across the border, and then turns west to Seoul. Satellite photos suggest this is developing worrying cracks. South Korea voiced its concern, thinking the economic talks would be a good place to raise this and offer help. But again Pyongyang got on its high horse, claiming its construction was perfect and accusing the South of spoiling the mood for dialogue.

Depressing, you may think, that the North is - or purports to be - so sensitive that it won't cooperate even on such a straightforward matter of mutual interest. Well, not quite. In fact, the dam issue goes way back, and has long been heavily politicized by both sides. In 1986, when building began, South Korea's then dictator Chun Doo-hwan claimed it was a dastardly plot to flood Seoul. Collections were made - in those days, you didn't say no - for a "peace dam" downriver to counter this; it was half-built when Chun left office in 1988. Later revelations of Chun's corruption led most Southerners to conclude that the peace dam was a scam, and to accept the North's claim that Kumgang was built simply to generate electricity.

True? It's hard to know. Said to be North Korea's biggest construction project since the Nampo barrage - itself designed to control flooding on the Taedong river, which flows through Pyongyang - the Kumgang dam (also called Imnam) was begun in 1986, suspended in 1987, resumed in 1995, and only completed in 1999. The complex includes a tunnel 45 kilometers long, diverting the river's flow eastward to a new power station. Lee Hy-sang, a Wisconsin professor and authority on the DPRK economy, reckons this is indeed a bold attempt to solve power shortages. Then again, some defectors claim it did have a military aim too. They also confirm that construction was slapdash for the usual reasons: materials short or of poor quality, plus pressure to get this prestige project - seen as a memorial to the late Kim Il-sung - up and running.

Whatever the North's intentions, the South is already feeling the results. Flows in the Bukhan (north Han) river have dropped by two meters, halving the power generated by Southern turbines further downstream at Hwachon; losses are put at more than US$200 million. Or if it is not too little, it is too much: since January 2001, 350 million tons of muddy water have leaked from Kumgang's cracks, filling the peace dam's reservoir 10 kilometers away. Similarly, across the peninsula on the Imjin river north of Seoul, new Northern dams have cut the flow to waterworks south of the border - or again, conversely, may have caused floods last October. These were attributed to torrential rain, but some reckon the North either opened sluice gates or a dam burst.

As this suggests, the whole issue has become politicized within South Korea too: hawks accuse the government of downplaying these threats until recently, for fear of upsetting Pyongyang. Politics aside, Southern experts disagree both on how serious the risks are and the remedies, that is, whether the peace dam is up to the job.

All very confusing to the layperson. So let's conclude with a metaphor. In a sense, this whole argument parallels wider debates about North Korea overall. Is this a structure built deliberately for aggression? Even if not, is the system now so shaky that cracks are appearing in the fabric, presaging a collapse? No way, shrieks Pyongyang: we are indestructible.

They would say that, of course. But maybe their rough and ready ways will prove strong enough after all to survive, as hitherto. For those living downstream, such questions are far from academic. Anyone who suggested destroying the North's dams and opening the floodgates would be mighty irresponsible, no? Some people should think about that. Metaphorically.

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