The Moral Cost Of Engagement
By Shim Jae Hoon/Seoul
Far East Economic Review
Issue cover-dated Dec. 28, 2000 - Jan. 4, 2001South Korea is paying a price for reconciliation with the North: Any criticism that could spark anger in Pyongyang is actively discouraged
LEE YOUNG HWA is one of Pyongyang's leading enemies. A Korean resident of Japan and former Marxist, Lee was transformed by a visit to North Korea in 1991 into a top critic of its leader, Kim Jong Il.
Lee, who teaches economics at Kansai University in Osaka, heads a group called Rescue the North Korean People. It's best known for secretly shot films of the suffering of hungry children in North Korea and for protests against human-rights violations by Pyongyang.
Now, however, Lee may have a second enemy. Paradoxically, this one is the government of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung--an opposition leader for four decades and himself a champion of human rights. Lee says he was told by a South Korean consular official in Japan in November to forget about visiting Seoul for an international meeting on human rights in North Korea. "It wouldn't be a good thing for me to attend," Lee says he was told. He took that to mean the consulate wouldn't issue him with the travel papers needed by Korean residents in Japan.
"It was clearly intended to stop my going," Lee says. "The official in question never gave an official reason, but he appeared worried that my presence will hurt President Kim's Sunshine Policy." On December 10, that policy, which espouses reconciliation with North Korea, brought accolades for President Kim. To great fanfare, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo for his lifelong campaign for democracy, human rights and peace with the North.
The quiet word with Lee is in line with an unannounced but clear policy in South Korea of discouraging criticism of Pyongyang. For decades, attacking North Korea was almost a requirement for politicians and journalists in the anti-communist South. But under the Sunshine Policy, Seoul has shifted to accommodation--crowned by a summit between the two Koreas in June. Now, though, President Kim is under fire from opposition politicians and others who say he has become too soft on Pyongyang.
Episodes such as Lee's prompt opponents to charge that President Kim panders to a dictatorship that has let millions of people die from hunger since 1995. Worst of all, they argue, a champion of human rights is using repression at home to avoid annoying the North, which has a poor human-rights record and is sensitive to anything but worship of Kim Jong Il. South Korea's opposition Grand National Party is focusing on the president's North Korea policy as a key issue for attack in the run-up to the 2002 presidential election.
Of course, the irony is that isolation failed to change North Korea. So foreign leaders, diplomats and aid officials now hold their tongues, promoting engagement in the hope that opening up the country will eventually lead to a better life for its 22 million people. It's a big gamble. Asked by reporters whether the South is kowtowing to the North, President Kim counsels patience. But critics say it's going too far to allow freedoms to be infringed in pursuit of what engagement's proponents argue is the greater good.
The turnaround is especially galling for North Korean defectors. In November, the highest-ranking Pyongyang official to defect to the South was almost evicted from a safe house by Seoul's National Intelligence Service. Hwang Jang Yop, 77, and aide Kim Dok Hong accused the NIS of stopping them from speaking out against Pyongyang. The agency denied restricting Hwang's freedom of speech but said it did ask him to limit criticism that would harm relations. Both Hwang and Kim lost their jobs as NIS analysts. "Our eviction from the safe house means our certain death by North Korean agents," Kim told a national-assembly committee. Only after toning down their complaints were they allowed to remain.
The need to avoid conflict even undermines South Korea's negotiators. Early this month, North Korea threatened to boycott any activities involving South Korean Red Cross Committee Chairman Chang Chung Sik and demanded his resignation. The reason: A magazine article had quoted him as saying the South was much better off and describing the North as "poor, lacking freedom and controlled." When Pyongyang demanded an apology, according to local media reports, the Ministry of National Unification composed and sent a letter in Chang's name expressing his regrets.
Increasingly, opponents say the South is the North's junior partner. For the December reunions, Seoul agreed to Pyongyang's demand to limit to $500 the value of gifts South Koreans took to northern relatives. Officials in the North, while vocal about the need for foreign food aid, apparently fear larger gifts might underscore their country's economic ruin.
Sensitivity toward Pyongyang has also curbed media freedom. On December 2, Pyongyang briefly detained a visiting correspondent from South Korea's conservative Chosun Ilbo paper, blaming him for an article that claimed North Koreans soured relations by spouting propaganda glorifying Kim Jong Il. The South didn't officially protest at the detention.
As if taking a cue from the government, some newspapers and television stations now limit coverage of the North to emotional appeals for reunification and the theme that Koreans are one people, at last reunited. Hard-hitting analysis of the North, once common, has largely vanished.
SOUTH KOREAN MEDIA BOWED
Key information is sometimes withheld. When the two Koreas' defence ministers met in September, the media didn't mention that the North's Kim Il Chol had called on America to withdraw its 37,000 troops from the South. That would have contradicted President Kim's assertion in June that Kim Jong Il accepts their presence. Local reporters say South Korean officials failed to brief them on the demand. It came to light only months later.
Media commentators say that although President Kim fought for press freedom before his election he has failed to support it while in power. Two of the country's three television stations are run by his supporters and the brother of his first wife runs Taehan Maeil Shinmun, a government-owned daily. Another close supporter manages the Yonhap news agency, which is indirectly government-controlled. Industry analysts say some privately owned dailies depend on loans from government-controlled banks, so may find it risky to assert their editorial independence.
A recent survey of retired journalists by the conservative Monthly Chosun magazine found that 74% blamed local media for tear-jerk journalism about the North at the expense of balanced, in-depth reports. "A kind of reverse McCarthyism is now sweeping over our media," says Nam Si Uk, a journalism professor at Korea University and former editor of the leading Dong-A Ilbo newspaper. Government officials almost routinely dismiss articles critical of the North as reflecting a "Cold War mentality." Another indicator: On October 19, some newspapers and television stations ignored the anniversary of the 1984 bombing by North Korean agents in Rangoon that killed 17 senior South Korean officials. The media previously had marked every anniversary.
Some analysts say President Kim will soon become a lame-duck president and needs to allow more outspokenness. Others say the Nobel prize will embolden him. A third possibility is that economic problems and labour unrest may force him to moderate his overtures to the North. Quips former Prime Minister Ro Jai Bong: "The power of medicine of the Nobel Peace Prize is slowly thinning."