PYONGYANG RUNS AMOK

The Korean Peninsula remains an epicentre of international tension. Pyongyang’s launch of three Scud ballistic missiles with a range of 1,000 km, two rockets with a range of 500 km and two Nodon rockets with a range of 1,300 km, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, has aggravated the “Korean” situation even further. Threats in word and deed The latest escalation of tension began at the end of May after North Korea held a series of nuclear tests and also launched several short- and medium-range rockets. At the same time Pyongyang announced its withdrawal from the 1953 cease-fire which put an end to the Korean War. In response the UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on Pyongyang, including a ban on the export of weapons from the DPRK. The international community called on North Korea to stop its nuclear programme and return to the negotiating table, but Pyongyang is continuing to show its unwavering determination, describing the sanctions as the scheming of the West and its South Korean puppets. Meanwhile, straight after North Korea’s last launch of ballistic missiles the USA declared its readiness to maintain pressure on the DPRK. US Vice-President Joe Biden described Pyongyang’s actions as “predictable” and intended to attract international attention. But this assessment puts no end to the ongoing diplomatic battles in which the participating sides launch all manner of threats. Based on its own analysis and information from American spy satellites, the Japanese Defence Ministry warned that Pyongyang is preparing to launch a longer-range ballistic missile towards the USA’s Hawaiian Islands, which emphasizes Pyongyang’s increasing capacity to cause direct harm to the USA. The United States reacted promptly to the threat: Pentagon chief Robert Gates ordered the installation of a radar-tracking system and a land-based mobile missile interception system on Hawaii. He also announced that US air defences were ready to bring down any missile launched by the DPRK towards America. Gates’ statement was strongly backed by US President Barack Obama, who confirmed American forces’ readiness to resist any rocket launch by North Korea and promised to defend South Korea from a nuclear strike. For its part, the DPRK considers statements of this type to be aggressive. The DPRK’s deputy minister for the People’s Armed Forces, Pak Jae Gyong, said that, “in the current situation, when the People’s Armed Forces of Korea (PAFK) are practically in a state of war with American imperialism and the cease-fire agreement has lost its legal force, the PAFK reserve the right to a preventive strike in response to the slightest provocation”. “Washington’s proposal to take South Korea under its ‘nuclear umbrella’ gives the DPRK the full right to develop its own nuclear programme,” says an article published in North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun, the main print organ of the North Korean Workers’ Party. “Agreements on ‘expanding deterrence’ only justify our efforts to have a nuclear deterrent and, if anything should happen, a pitiless situation would arise in which our nuclear deterrence would rain down fire on South Korea,” the newspaper writes, describing the nuclear defence agreement between Washington and Seoul as “a repulsive kiss from a master to his lackey”. Pyongyang’s verbal demarche is accompanied by specific belligerent plans. These include military exercises in the Sea of Japan from 25 June to 10 July 2009. In this connection Pyongyang has closed the coastal zone around the port of Wonsan to shipping. American strategists earlier thought that by closing its part of the Sea of Japan North Korea is planning to carry out new rocket tests under the cover of the military exercises. The DPRK authorities introduced a similar ban in mid-May and then launched short-range rockets over the Sea of Japan. However, military threats are not the only means of pressure in this heated geopolitical struggle, which Pyongyang on one side and Washingon and its allies on the other have unleashed against one another. Barack Obama used his emergency powers as head of the American state to prolong the application of some trade sanctions on North Korea. Last year the then US president, George Bush, excluded the DPRK from the list of countries assisting terrorism and lifted all economic sanctions against it with the exception of property deals. The period of these sanctions ran out on 26 June and the current White House incumbent decided to extend it for one more year. Japan expanded its sanctions on the DPRK too. It imposed sanctions on North Korea for the first time after the nuclear tests of 2006. Bans on imports from the DPRK and on North Korean vessels entering Japanese ports were in place in Japan and restrictions were in place on financial transfers to the DPRK. This April Tokyo prolonged unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang. Now the Japanese government has imposed additional sanctions envisaging a complete halt to all foreign trade operations with North Korea. The sanctions also include a ban on foreign citizens entering Japan who have broken the rules on trade and financial operations with the DPRK and a ban on foreigners who reside permanently in Japan on returning to the country if they have visited North Korea. Hunger no obstacle to the atom The sanctions imposed on North Korea both unilaterally and at the international level exacerbate even further the social and economic situation in the country. Foodstuffs have long been rationed in the DPRK. Ten years ago famine struck the country and, according to various estimates, claimed between several hundred thousand and millions of lives. Since the start of 2009 the authorities of North Korea have taken a number of additional measures to reinforce the ration system to distribute produce, including the introduction of tougher restrictions on the operation of markets. According to UN experts, the overall volume of basic agricultural output in the DPRK will be 4.12 million tonnes between November 2008 and November 2009, leaving a deficit of 800,000 tonnes of grain. Meanwhile, a lack of funds has forced the UN’s World Food Organization to slash the number of DPRK residents receiving its assistance. Their number is being cut from six to two million people because the programme has managed to raise only 15% of the necessary 500 million dollars since October last year. Last December the WFP called on donor countries to increase urgent food aid to Pyongyang, saying that in 2009 5.9 million people, almost one-quarter of the country’s population, will be in dire straits. However, according to estimates by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, more than one-third of the DPRK’s population, 8.7 million people, need emergency food aid. This applies mostly to children, mothers who are breastfeeding and older people. As a result of the increase in sanctions on North Korea, the volume of assistance received by the WFP to meet the country’s needs has fallen by 4,500 tonnes of food per month. It used to be around 50,000 tonnes per month. In this regard the WFP has again appealed to the programme’s donor countries to continue cooperation with North Korea in full. The WFP’s work in the DPRK is made more difficult by measures taken against it by the North Korean leadership. Pyongyang keeps issuing new rules which significantly restrict the opportunities to provide aid to those in need. The rules include, amongst others, a ban on hiring people who speak Korean and the compulsory agreement of trips across the country a week in advance and not 24 hours as used to be the case. Although the economic situation in the DPRK continues to deteriorate, its authorities have spent some 700 million dollars since the start of the year on nuclear and missile tests. Pyongyang is showing in any way it can its unflinching determination to join the nuclear powers’ club which it thinks is the only way to guarantee North Korea’s protection from a possible US missile strike. Kim Jong Il’s regime is ready to sacrifice a great deal for this, even the full bellies of its citizens. Events during George Bush’s US presidency finally pushed the regime in this direction, as the US unleashed not just one war in order to punish “the enemies of America”. Pyongyang is certainly not alone amongst the “pariah states” in its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. The peace-loving rhetoric of the new American administration, which is trying to improve the super power’s image on the world stage, is not able to turn them from the course they have taken. Any statements by countries and international organizations condemning violations of nuclear non-proliferation have little effect. Moreover, powers considered the violators’ traditional friends also advise them to stop before it’s too late, as can be seen with the example of the DPRK. Russia has not ignored the DPRK’s launch of missiles. “It is a source of deep regret that a state that is a UN member is clearly flouting UN Security Council Resolution 1874 and resolutely refusing to listen to the international community, including to states that have traditionally good relations with the DPRK,” the official spokesman of the Russian Federation Foreign Ministry, Andrey Nesterenko, said. The Russian side again called on its “partners from the DPRK” “not to carry out any new action that might exacerbate the already difficult situation in the region and to return to the negotiating table”. The general position of the international community was expressed in a new statement by the UN Security Council condemning the DPRK’s rocket launches and demanding that Pyongyang stop actions that contravene UN Security Council resolutions. North Korea’s nuclear tests and rocket launches came in for harsh criticism at the summit of the leaders of the major countries in L’Aquila in Italy too. But these calls and condemnations are unlikely to have any effect. Pyongyang has run amok and the international community will have to devise miracles of political inventiveness to bring about a halt to the DPRK’s nuclear programme when triumph is in sight.