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World

politics in Korea

As all of the athletes, reporters and officials head for home following
the games of the 27th Olympiad in Seoul, the Korea they are leaving
‘behind is set to explode under the pent-up tensions of a decades-old
Contradiction. Ending the forced division of the Korean peninsula into two
hostile societies, long regarded as an immutable fact of the modern
World, has suddenly and unavoidably become the primary political
preoccupation in both the north and the south.

or hundreds of years
Korea was an inde-
pendent, unified
state which stubborn-
ly resisted repeated
attempts to subdue
it by Mongols, Chi-
nese and Japanese.
i Korea’s national
humiliation began in this century, when the

4panese empire annexed it in 1910 and
Hedeeted it to 35 years of ruthless exploita-

n.

Liberation ought to have come in 1945,
When the Japanese were ousted. The Soviet
atmy marched into the north, and the long-
Standing leader of the anti-Japanese resist-
ance, Kim Il Sung, took power in

Ongyang.

P OWever, according to the Yalta and
_olsdam agreements, Korea was to be
‘emporarily” divided into two occupation
Zones. The United States took over Korea
South of the 39th parallel, and it became
Part of what has been described as the “‘pri-
vate empire” of Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
© Americans took over the Japanese
Machinery of control, and installed a
"cious military dictatorship to rule over the
nruly Koreans.” Some things have
Changed little over four decades: south
Orea is still in the iron grip of a general
Who made his reputation by slaughtering
1S Own people, and the Darth Vader-
helmeted riot troops seen on TV screens
: attering radical students before and during
<1¢ Olympic Games are members of the
national police, set up many decades ago by
€ Japanese.
ae 1950, U.S. troops backed up by those
intent! allies — including Canada —
_ Atervened massively in what was essentially
-Orean civil war of reunification. In three
Years of holocaust, both Seoul and Pyon-
BY ang were reduced to rubble, and the div-
'on of Korea was sealed in blood and fire.
Oday the two Koreas are widely diver-
Sent states, with very different economic,
tlitical and social systems. Yet the image
On eed around the world from the
ec: Games, spotlighting an “eco-

Mic miracle” in the south, portraying the

eae as an economically backward “terror-
. Slate,” and presenting Korean national
‘Vision as an irreversible condition, is
Ong on every count.
“outh Korea, an economic basket-case as
ently as the 1960s, has certainly expe-
“Need stunning growth over the past. two
yrades. The image projected from the
 Mpics is that of an aggressive new comer
in the world market, a leader in shipbuild-
8; electronics and automobiles. The Seoul
* Saw on TV is a city of glittering office

Wers and ultra modern tourist hotels.
South behind the facade lies a brutal reality:
at th Korea’s industrial success, obtained
fore: ost of a staggering $60-billion (U.S.)
Palko debt and a rate of worker exploita-

"the Japanese colonialists would have

Te

balked at, is entirely at the mercy of the
capricious winds of the international capital
market.

The International Labour Organization
(ILO) says that south Korea’s workers
suffer the worst conditions in the world.

The average working week is 57 hours
and — incredibly — itis rising. The rate of
industrial accidents is the highest in the
world: in 1986, some 1,660 workers were
killed and 142,088 injured on the job. Inde-
pendent trade unions are strictly banned.

Cheap, super-exploited labour is the key
to south Korea’s economic miracle. Figures
produced by the ILO show that the hourly

‘rate for an auto assembly worker is three

U.S. dollars in south Korea, compared with
$18 in Japan and $24 in the U.S. Similarly, a
ton of steel can be produced in south Korea
ata cost of $23 U.S., dramatically below the
Japanese cost of $130 or the U.S. cost of
$164.

Therefore, although south Korea’s GNP
was reputed to be almost six times larger
than that of north Korea last year, this tells
us virtually nothing about relative living

standards for the people.
Asouth Korean worker may make about

‘ ge ®

TOP: A 1972 meeting between North and South Korea on reunification. Its agree-

| a on

ment was scuttled by the U.S. ABOVE: Textile workers in South Korea where the

work week is 57 hours.

ings. Unlike the south there is no
ostentatious wealth on display, but also
unlike the south there is no glaring poverty
peeking around the corners. From the high
mountaintops around Pyongyang it would
be impossible to hide such a thing as a slum,
if there were one. There isn’t.

Animating the politics of both north and
south — in very different ways — is the
popular conviction that the nation has been
mutilated by its forced division and will

$200 per month, but must contend with
astronomical rents and a price structure for
food and commodities that is comparable
to the most developed countries. His/her
north Korean counterpart makes about $60
a month, but receives his/her apartment at
a nominal rent, plus free education, health
care and other social services. The price of
rice in Pyongyang grocery shops Is fixed at
five cents a kilo. :

Though north Korean industrial growth
has been more modest than that of the
south, it has been carried out in a planned
and comprehensive fashion, with the aim of
creating an independent and self-sufficient
economic infrastructure. With aid from
other socialist countries, north Korea has
largely succeeded in industrializing itself
without the crushing debt burden that
could — and probably will — plunge the
south into economic disaster.

And if visitors to the Seoul Olympics
were wowed by the city’s futuristic appear-
ance, participants in next summer s World
Festival of Youth and Students in Pyon-
gyang will be no less impressed by the scale
of construction there. The capital of north
Korea has become a City of broad boule-
vards and tall, attractive and modern build-

never achieve its full potential until it is
reunified.

Most of the political will for reunification
has, in fact, come from the north. This can
be seen in Pyongyang’s independent stance
in economic development, as well as on the
global stage; where it is active in the non-
aligned movement. This contrasts sharply
with south Korea’s economic dependence
and its political subservience to the
U.S. — literally incarnated in the form of
the continued occupation of south Korea
by 42,000 nuclear-armed American troops.

Pyongyang’s political agenda for reunifi-
cation — for a unified confederal republic
that would allow each side to retain its eco-
nomic and political autonomy — is widely
recognized as the only feasible framework
within which to begin such a process.

But it can be seen most of all in the public
politics of the country. Last month’s cele-
brations of the 40th anniversary of the
founding of the DPRK, in which more than
one million workers and students marched
through the centre of Pyongyang, was
nothing so much as a massive demonstra-
tion of the popular will to reunify the
nation. In the north, officials and ordinary
citizens alike see the issue of reunification as

the major piece of unfinished historical bus-
iness facing the Korean people.

Perhaps linked to this in some way is the
extraordinary cult of the leadership of north
Korean president Kim II Sung, which both
baffles ‘and disturbs visitors. The legendary
old guerrilla leader, who led his party in the
long struggle against the Japanese, guided
the country through the agonizing trauma
of the Korean war and presided over an
economic transformation that changed the
face of the nation within a single generation,
is venerated to an amazing degree. His
image is everywhere, places he visits
instantly become shrines, objects he touches
become icons. As far as one can see, this
feeling is genuine, springing from honest
respect as well as from the Confucian and
patriarchal traditions of Korean culture.

An official of the north Korean Worker’s
Party, speaking frankly about this, told me:
“We are faced with the task of achieving
reunification of our country, and we must
therefore observe the principle of absolute
unity among ourselves. We realize that out-
siders do not always understand our choi-
ces, but we will do things our way.”

The Seoul Olympics and the 13th World
Festival of Youth and Students — which
will see some 20,000 young foreigners des-
cend on Pyongyang next summer — are

events that are bringing with them an.

unprecedented international focus on the
passions and politics of the divided Korean
peninsula. And, indeed, it would seem high
time that the stereotypes were swept away
and the true depth and complexity of life on
both sides of the 38th parallel revealed. Also
the extent to which outside interference —
particularly that of the U.S. — has stifled
and distorted Korea’s development over the
past four decades.

Today there are many signs that both
Koreas are edging toward the understand-
ing that each is the most natural partner of
the other, both in economics and world
affairs, and that this is the most profound
wish of 60 million Koreans. That single real-
ity is the key to understanding both the
troubled history of divided Korea, and its
near future. :

Pacific Tribune, October 10, 1988 « 9

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