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http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asia/nor...zi-acts-n32121
What are our (the our is ambiguous; the UN, people of conscience, the U.S, Britain) options? Still nothing? I don't have enough breadth of background to know but is it a situation unparalleled today? I would love to look at that report, at least a summary.
Can't really do anything unless countries want to cross the 38th Parallel.
On the one hand I don't think that anyone doubt the cruelty of the government in North Korea, on the other hand the attempt by Michael Kirby, who chaired the enquiry set up the by the UN Commission on Human Rights in North Korea, to compare North Korea to Nazi Germany is an insult to our intelligence. Consider:
"Kirby said other nations could not say of North Korea, as happened with the Nazis, that they did not know the extent of the crimes: "Now the international community does know. There will be no excusing a failure of action because we didn't know. It's too long now. The suffering and the tears of the people of North Korea demand action.""
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...united-nations
First of all, 'we' or 'some of us' did know what was happening in Nazi Germany -there were no secrets about the Nazi Party's intentions toward the Jews and the Slavs; and 'we' also found out about the death camps before the end of the war. In many cases it is true people didn't believe what was happening, because it seemed so incomprehensible at the time. But from 1942 British Intelligence intercepts monitored the reports from the camps "which included daily prisoner returns and death, for ten concentration camps, including Auschwitz..."-
Auschwitz bombing debate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The point of insult is that rather than compare North Korea to Nazi Germany, Kirby could have offered an entirely Korean perspective on the problem -but to do that he would have to admit that the US invaded Korea in September 1945 as part of its anti-Japanese campaign, but almost immediately began to plan the destruction of the Korean Communist Party in what is now South Korea, and created the imaginary boundary between North and South at the 38th Parallel which has since become the de facto, but not the de jure boundary. Dean Rusk was the author of this fiction, which then became useful when the US claimed the 'North' had 'invaded' the 'south' which is complete nonsense. The US became involved in what was, like Vietnam after it, a civil war across Korea, and when you ask why did 600,000 Americans die you can't find a rational answer, unless you think defeating Communism was worth it -in which case the war, which has not ended, was a failure.
The abuse of human rights which took place when the US Air Force bombed the north into the stone age, used napalm in violation of international law, and committed the usual litany of abuse of prisoners -as indeed did the 'North' Koreans on American POW's- suggest that for the UN to complain about violations of Human Rights in North Korea he might want to change the date from which they began.
Today, North Korea's clique of rich, spoiled and often western-educated leaders, needs the border, just as it needs the state of war and the American military presence in the south to remain -to use it as a reminder to the people of the North that they are the target of American and Japanese aggression, that in time they will lose their free health care, their free education, their free housing. The Americans have shown no real interest in calling for a peace treaty between North and South and an end to the war -nor for that matter, does China want to see an enlarged and pro-American Korea on its eastern flank, while in reality many southern Koreans have no idea how the north could ever be integrated into a single state -this isn't East and West Germany.
Obama has not acted on Cuba, he has not acted on ending the war in Korea. The nervousness with which the US and its allies view the transition from dictatorship to democracy is understandable in the Middle East and North Africa, but also applies to Korea -there are solutions, but they are painful, and long term.
Bruce Cummings produces interesting -if challenged in the US- material on Korea, as here:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=e...0korea&f=false
Starvos,Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
There is too much misinformation in your post. The Soviet Union invaded Korea in August 1945. Yes, the Soviet Union had a military presence in Korea a full month before the United States landed at Incheon in September 1945. Your post ignores the role of the Soviet Union in shaping Korea following the defeat of Imperial Japan. For example, Kim Il-Sung served in the Soviet Army during World War 2. North Korea did invade South Korea. There were cross border raids conducted by both sides; however, the North Korean had the means to conduct an invasion. The United States didn't give the South Koreans the means to conduct an invasion of North Korea. Who supplied the North Koreans with the means to invade South Korea. Who gave them the okay to invade South Korea with those means?
Where did you get 600,000 Americans die? Are you talking about the American Civil War? Napalm isn't banned under international law. Usage of napalm against civilian population wasn't banned until 1980.
I am going to stop because there is just too much misinformation. I believe Cummings is an revisionist.
Notdrunk I did say Cummings is often challenged.
My mistake on the casualty figures -600,000 relates to South Korean deaths not US armed forces.
The point about the foreign troops is an interesting one. The question would be why the occupation of the Red Army in Germany and Austria at the end of the war in 1945 did not launch another/extend the war -the Russians were in Austria until 1955 and their presence was not only not welcome by the locals, the zones under their control were plundered, and women subjected to chronic sexual violence.
The Red Army was also in occupation of the northern province of Azerbaijan in Iran until agreeing to leave in 1946, and here they sponsored the creation of two 'People's Republics', in Azerbaijan (and this was the second attempt an earlier version shortly after the Russian Revolution) and a Kurdish 'Republic of Mahabad'. There wasn't much real commitment on the part of the USSR, and the Russians agreed to leave in 1946, but the incidents not only maintained the long-established fear of Russian ambitions in Iran/Persia dating back to the 19th century, they played a role in the USA's involvement in the coup against Mohamed Musadeq in 1953. Possibly too, the fact that the British were based in the south of Iran and the British government owned most of the shares in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company played a factor -outside the northern provinces, Iran was not a contested space as Korea became.
In all these cases, the Cold War was the trigger for conflict -but where it was political in Europe and Iran, it became violent in Korea. Again, the dual occupation of USSR and US troops meant that when the UN planned to create a 'Trusteeship Territory' in Korea it used the 38th Parallel as a dividing line, consolidating an artificial division in Korea created by the presence of foreign troops -Cummings sees the US as being the main player in the creation of this division, and I daresay it suits his interests if his main point is that the Korean people were denied the chance to make their own decisions about their future. A similar problem with partition at that time was also felt in India, and of course, in 1948 when the Mandate for Palestine ended and the UN's partition plan was rendered useless by the creation of Israel and the war that followed.
Napalm for some is classed as a chemical or biological weapon and thus is illegal under the Geneva Protocol of 1925 which to some also means that nuclear weapons have always been illegal. It is a controversial and contested point, I accept that. There is no denying the effects of napalm -I guess it is a matter for medicine to argue over if the burns and damage to the human body is 'biological' or not.
Conflict in Europe means instant World War 3. Plus, following the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union forces were exhausted in mainland Europe for the time being. Additionally, Stalin got his buffer zone from the West. I agree that the United States had a role in diving Korea. However, the main players in the Northern part of Korea were influenced by the Soviet Union. The Korea situation wasn't solely caused by the United States. You ever heard of Terenti Shtykov?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
On balance I agree that the USSR saw Korea as an opportunity to consolidate a presence in the defeated East, much as they did in the defeated West. In addition, the Communist movement was quite strong across East and South-East Asia, to a great extent in Indonesia, a lesser extent in Japan, and I think therefore that the initial victories of the USSR/Korean/Chinese forces prompted a fear by the US that they were going to lose their strategic advantage in the region to Communist movements with 'fraternal' relations with Moscow. The breakdown of French rule in Vietnam, and the insurgency in Malaya in the 1950s were further examples of this Cold War confrontation. The alternative which seemed to work was to pour money into Japan, and then Korea, and finance the alternative economic model that worked, although South Korea was in effect a military dictatorship until the 1980s.
The curious thing, looking at it again on the even of the centenary of the First World War, is how Stalin -persuaded by men like Terenti Shtykov believed a short, sharp military campaign would settle matters, discounting-like Saddam Hussein in 1990- an American military response -although the Korean War was authorised by the UN under the 'Uniting for Peace' resolution and not a specifically US operation. And it isn't over yet. It is still one of those controversial wars but what I cant get a grip on is why such an excessive cult of personality developed in North Korea that even Mao and Ho Chi Minh couldn't achieve.
North Korea is a hermit kingdom ruled by a single family for three generations. Mao and Ho Chi Minh simply died. China and Vietnam moved on with different leaders.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
My original response to the OP was to ask why North Korea was being compared to Nazi Germany when it has its own historical references -Korea has not had the chance to be a truly independent country since it fell victim to Japanese imperialism in the early 20th century, how Korea would have developed as a country without the Japanese annexation, the wars, and the current division we cannot know, but it has clearly played a role in the development of a siege mentality in the North that has preserved a ruthless clique in power. The Party still rules in China, Vietnam and Cuba yet even in the cases of Mao and Fidel, the personality cult is perceived to matter less there than it does in North Korea. Warrants further investigation.
Because the system is built around the Kim family in North Korea. Kim il-Sung came up with the idea of Juche and the Ten Great Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System. Is there something similiar to Juche and the Ten Great Principles in China, Vietnam, and Cuba? No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
It is warped royalty in North Korea.
Great posts guys ,thanks.
Several interesting issues raised that I think go right to the heart of the problem, but warrant further investigation.
One that particularly interests me is the one just mentioned by notdrunk . What is holding this crazy puzzle together?
We have just witnessed the amazing turn around with Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, that came out of left field ,and is progressing more rapidly than any of us could have imagined
Can we hope for anything to untangle the mess in North Korea?
I'm going to investigate the Juche and Ten Great Principles and Bruce Cummings, fascinating stuff.
It would be too crude to translate Juche as 'self-reliance' which is its core idea, cobbled together from Confucian ideas, but mostly a perversion of Stalin's version of 'Marxism-Leninism' justifying central planning and the guiding role of the party, the army and the leader. It is a bit more complex, and confusing too -on one level it sounds like Stalin's absurd 'Socialism in One Country', which Kim Il-Sung once called 'Socialism in our own Style'; on another level it borrowed from Mao/Maoism before references to Mao were expunged from the record as happens a lot in North Korea. There are two interesting discussions of Juche and the Ten Great Principles in the links. I think it is clear that the centrally planned economy doesn't work, but this simple fact has not yet had its desired impact on North Korea.Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
1. Paul French, North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula: A Modern History (2007, 2nd Edition)
scroll down to page 30 for the chapter on Juche.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=e...0korea&f=false
2. Article from Asian Perspectives Vol 24, no 1 (2000)
http://www2.law.columbia.edu/course_...105-Cheong.pdf
Many thanks for the great links. There seems to be precious little good reading about North Korea available for someone an outside of diplomatic / academic circles.
I subscribe to the New Yorker and about 3 years ago there was an excellent article about the privation of day- to- day life in NK.
Never forget the descriptions of people starving and dying in the streets . Children being fed' mud cookies' to slake their hunger pangs. Shared the article with two SK colleagues , even they were amazed. I'll try to find it.
"The Good Cook" by Barbara Demick , The New Yorker ,Nov 2, 2009
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...fa_fact_demick
Juche. Ever notice that whenever a country is named The Democratic Republic of ...
its usually a good idea to run like hell!
Juche - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia