Student Corner Filipino View on NK Nuke Crisis

By Erwin Soriano Fernandez

Since I’ve been in Kwangju for only three weeks, the news about the nuke crisis is making me a little nervous. North Korea is always portrayed in the Western press in a bad light.

Whether Kim Jongil, commonly portrayed as a communist dictator, is responsible for the suffering of millions of North Koreans is not for me to judge, or for anyone else, any government or any nation, to judge either.

North Korea publicly declared that it had conducted its first nuclear test in October, provoking a storm of protests and denunciations from all corners of the globe.

Everyone seems to be looking for someone to blame. Kim Dae-jung, a former South Korean president, in a special lecture at Chonnam National University, the host of the Asia Culture Academy Youth Workshop, singled out the United States’ “hostile” foreign policy as having precipitated the crisis.

Some people called for punitive actions against North Korea. The United Nations Security Council and Japan put in place economic sanctions.

Conservatives in Korea issued a declaration supporting the latter’s move and even challenged members of the Roh Moo-hyun government to resign from office to take responsibility for the current critical situation.

The crisis, however, demands closer examination. North Korea has every right to develop a nuclear program for its defense as long as other nations continue to have their nuclear capabilities undisturbed and unmitigated.

The Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons has been in existence for many years now, but the nuclear arms race is not over.

The treaty paved the way for the rise of new nuclear powers such as China, India and Pakistan. These countries, beneficiaries of leaked technology from Russia or the U.S., supposedly built their nuclear arsenals to deter military attacks.

The same holds true for North Korea, if one believes Ri Jong-hyok, a member of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, in his address to European parliamentarians in Brussels.

The right to defend itself from external aggression is important for national survival not only for North Korea, but also for other besieged governments.

For the past 60 years, the U.S., according to Ri, directed “severe sanctions and threats” toward his country.

Four days after the denuclearization agreement in Beijing was signed on Sept. 19, 2005, the United States Treasury Department cut off North Korea’s financial access to international money-lending and credit institutions, affecting even legitimate business transactions.

Few years before this, the U.S. invaded Iraq under the pretext that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction.

It arrested Saddam Hussein and effected “regime change.”

It was a tactical move on the part of the Kim regime to pursue a nuclear program to stave off an invasion from the U.S.

Although the warmongering George W. Bush administration has denied having such an intention, it was known to be mulling this not-so-remote possibility.

Seoul’s engagement policy toward Pyongyang became a convenient scapegoat amid the clamor for policy change and moves to strengthen the military alliance with the U.S.

The rush to punish Pyongyang rather than to find a solution is contributing to the already volatile environment. The struggle for a united Korea is a continuing project to escape from the imperialist game.