South Korea as hostage

By Jason Lim

Imagine that you are on a highjacked bus. A suicide bomber with a powerful bomb strapped to his body has you in a vice-lock from behind with a knife pointed at your jugular. By the tone of his voice and coiled readiness of his body, you can tell that he is ready to either plunge the knife into your neck or detonate the bomb. Outside, you hear sirens and police yelling at the suicide bomber to surrender peacefully and come out, or else. There are sure to be sharpshooters all around the bus.

Now imagine that the suicide bomber is your blood brother.

That is roughly the situation facing Northeast Asia right now. The main hostage with a knife at his neck is South Korea. The suicide bomber and hostage taker is North Korea. The police and the sharpshooters are the U.S. with perhaps a contingent of Chinese troops waiting in the background to pick up the pieces if everything blows up. Then there are the Japanese who want this suicide bomber to blow himself to smithereens as long as Japan is not touched, lest she becomes the second hostage. What are the options?

In such a situation, saving the hostage must be of paramount importance. And the only way to save the hostage is to calm the suicide bomber and get him to voluntarily put down his knife and disarm himself. It’s a dicey situation all around. Both the hostage and the police must work hand in hand with an almost telepathic empathy in order to get out of the situation without blowing up the bus.

South Korea, as the primary hostage, feels the prick of the knife point at its jugular. However, South Korea, being a blood brother of the suicide bomber, also has the deepest sympathy for the wayward sibling who has managed to ruin his life and is now playing such a dangerous and futile gamble.

Therefore, South Korea, whispering in gentle tones, tries to engage North Korea in a conversation, trying to get its guard down. South Korea plays upon their common childhood and past memories in order to get through to North Korea’s schizophrenic and intransigent mind.

Finding out that North Korea is starving, the South takes some biscuits out of its pocket to share. As North Korea is hungrily devouring the biscuit, the knife relaxes a bit. However, it’s not easy trying to talk with a paranoid schizophrenic. The slightest gesture could be seen as threatening and trigger horrible consequences.

Meanwhile, the police, knowing that South Korea has the ultimate motivation to open dialogue with North Korea, must wait to see if the hostage can bring North Korea out into the open safely disarmed. This has been the situation on the Korean Peninsula ever since North Korea tested its first nuclear device in October 2006.

The U.S. administration, in order to resolve this "hostage incident” peacefully, must understand its role as the police, whose primary job is to first secure the situation and see how it plays out, no matter how frustrating it may be to wait. This is why any remarks that threaten or insult North Korea, which is more than willing to be threatened and insulted, are counterproductive.

Predictably, during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, the police and the hostage were not working together. The police were using a megaphone to blast ear-shattering warnings at the suicide bomber that unless he repents his past crimes and comes out with his hands up, he will be riddled with bullets. South Korea, frantic with fear, was whispering furiously to North Korea that the police don’t really mean what they are saying and that everything will be alright as long as North Korea puts down the knife and let go of the detonator.

Ironically, this was somewhat reversed during the Lee Myung-bak administration. Now it was the hostage scornfully telling the suicide bomber that he was an idiot and almost daring him to pull the pin while it was the police trying to pull back on the vitriol. As could be expected, this made the situation worse, with the knife digging deeper into South Korea’s neck and the thumb on the detonator twitching dangerously.

Just as you can’t argue morality with a paranoid schizophrenic with a bomb and a knife, you won’t gain anything by openly threatening North Korea right now with regime change, especially when you suspect that it has nuclear weapons. This is no time for venting moral outrage. This is a time for securing the situation and getting the suspect in custody. Then we can make sure that the suicide bomber pays the full price for his actions.

This can only be done if the police and the hostage work together. Otherwise, the consequences will be unbearable.

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C., based expert on innovation, engagement and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook/jasonlim2000 and @jasonlim2012.