[KS] Roman Catholic Perspectives on the Current situation in North Korea

[Peter Corbishley]

BAKS readers may be interested in the following from 'the Tablet' the English UK RC Weekly Journal 14th October
Church opposes North Korea sanctions Ellen Teague and Tim Lavin 14 October 2006 Tablet
Despite shock and concern at North Korea's testing of a nuclear bomb on Monday, South Korea's Catholic bishops immediately stepped up their programme of aid to North Korea after news of the test. On Tuesday, the director of the Korean branch of the Catholic relief agency Caritas travelled to North Korea to evaluate the impact of the crisis on Church projects. 

Fr Paul Han Jung-kwan, executive secretary of the Committee for the Reconciliation of Korean People of the Bishops' Conference, spoke of the need to establish a long-term plan to help the North Koreans. He said he now expected them to become more isolated and to suffer from a lack of food and basic services. 

Worn down by the disastrous agricultural policies of the regime of Kim Jong-il, many of North Korea's 23 million people already suffer from chronic hunger. Even China, North Korea's largest provider of food aid and traditionally a close ally, is clearly angry with Pyongyang and may countenance economic sanctions that it has not supported in the past. 

Asked about North Korea's nuclear test this week, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said: "It is clear that the Holy See is in favour, not of weapons, but of disarmament and peace," adding that the "Holy See will continue to work for what advances peace".

His words were echoed by a statement made by the Pontifical Council on Justice and Peace which expressed its "full support" to a proposal to set up a working group within the United Nations that would prepare a treaty to limit conventional weapons trade.

South Korea's President had threatened to block economic aid if North Korea went ahead with nuclear testing. The North's announcement of an experiment threatened to throw the "sunshine" policy of South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun into crisis. The President had sought to involve Pyongyang in dialogue by offering economic and food aid. In Seoul, people took to the streets to call for the deposition of President Kim Jong-il of North Korea, while opposition parties asked: "why must we keep helping North Korea". 

Last week, before the test, a Vatican representative at the United Nations warned that the world faced a crisis on nuclear disarmament, saying that the international community seemed to be "sleepwalking" towards a world increasingly dominated by the threat of nuclear terrorism. 

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, head of the Holy See's delegation to the UN, said that UN member nations were facing stark choices on nuclear matters. He said: "One path can take us to a world in which the proliferation of nuclear weapons is restricted and reversed through trust, dialogue and negotiated agreement. The other path leads to a world in which rapidly growing numbers of states feel obliged to arm themselves with nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear terrorism grows."

"The international community seems almost to be sleepwalking down the latter path," he said, "not by conscious choice but rather through miscalculation, sterile debate and the paralysis of multilateral mechanisms for confidence-building and conflict resolution."



The Korean mouse that roared

Michael Byers 14 October 2006

North Korea's announcement this week that it has carried out a nuclear test has shocked the world, arousing universal condemnation. It has also exposed the frailty of international diplomacy in the face of intransigence. Could this be the start of a new arms race?

In Leonard Wibberley's novel The Mouse that Roared (1955), a tiny impoverished country declares war on the United States in the hope of being rapidly defeated, occupied and reconstructed. The plan goes awry when the flyweight belligerent inadvertently acquires the world's most powerful weapon, and thus the ability to defend itself. 

Wibberley's tale was made into a Peter Sellers movie that Kim Jong-Il, as a film buff, has undoubtedly seen. After the 2003 Iraq War, the North Korean dictator speculated that George W. Bush would not have attacked had Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons. This past Monday, Mr Kim apparently ordered the detonation of a small nuclear bomb, sending political shock waves around the world (although some, including France's Defence Minister, say it may have been a fake, or failed). 

If it did indeed happen, as most nations believe, the test was a blow to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), under which more than 180 states forswore nuclear weapons. In return, the so-called "declared nuclear weapon states" - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - promised to share nuclear technology for peaceful energy production and work towards "general disarmament". 

The NPT has been remarkably successful. Over the course of nearly four decades, only three countries have developed nuclear arms; and each of the three - Israel, India and Pakistan - exercised its sovereign right to stay out of the treaty. Around 30 other countries have chosen not to develop nuclear weapons despite having the technological capacity to do so. 

North Korea is the ugly exception. In January 2003, it withdrew from the NPT. It renounced a 1994 "framework agreement" with the United States under which, in return for economic aid, it had shut down its single reactor and stopped reprocessing spent uranium fuel rods into plutonium for nuclear weapons. And it expelled weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency which had been monitoring its compliance. 

Following this week's test, it is possible that other countries in the region will seek to acquire nuclear weapons. Japan, which on Tuesday announced sanctions against North Korea, is the most likely to do so, despite its vehement denials of any such intent. In any event, Tokyo will almost certainly accelerate work on a missile defence system that can only make matters worse by prompting Pyongyang to build more bombs and missiles so as to maintain an ability to overwhelm the Japanese system, thus ensuring a continuing deterrent. 

The test also raises the stakes with regard to Iran, which has been defying the will of the UN Security Council by refusing to shut down a uranium enrichment programme. Iran, which has the second-largest oil and gas reserves in the Middle East, claims that the programme is strictly for peaceful energy production. If North Korea benefits rather than suffers as a result of acquiring nuclear weapons, Iran will be encouraged to continue its efforts. 

Finally, the test poses a serious challenge to the United Nations. Three months ago, the Security Council ordered North Korea to stop producing ballistic missiles. Earlier this month, it expressed "deep concern" at the prospect of a North Korean nuclear test, which it said "would jeopardise peace, stability and security in the region and beyond".  

As Archbishop Celestino Migliore, head of the Holy See's delegation to the UN, has pointed out, UN member states are facing stark choices on nuclear matters, with the international community sleepwalking to nuclear proliferation through "miscalculation, sterile debate and the paralysis of multilateral mechanisms for confidence-building and conflict resolution". 

At the same time, the situation does provide an opportunity for the UN by offering new space for Chinese leadership. China, which is North Korea's primary source of food and oil, has used its status as a permanent member of the Security Council to protect Pyongyang in the past. But earlier this week, it condemned the nuclear test as a "flagrant and brazen" violation of international opinion. Although Beijing is justifiably concerned about creating a situation where more of North Korea's 22 million oppressed and impoverished people might flee into China, it also, almost desperately, wants to expand its role in international affairs beyond the economic domain. 

Chinese leadership would be especially helpful now that a South Korean, Ban Ki-moon, has been selected as the new UN secretary-general. Mr Ban will have difficulty being seen as objective and even-handed with regard to matters so close to home. 

At the moment, there is no concern about North Korea using its new weapons, despite aggressive comments from the country's foreign ministry that, should the United States maintain its hostile policy, it would conduct more nuclear tests. Apart from the certainty of a devastating retaliatory strike, it is a big step from having a nuclear bomb to having one that is small enough to mount on a missile. Instead, the worry is that North Korea might sell nuclear materials or technology to other countries or even terrorist groups.  

For this reason, the Security Council will probably authorise the United States and other countries to board and search vessels leaving North Korea for nuclear weapons or missile components. There is already a precedent for this: in 1966, the Council authorised the United Kingdom to interdict oil shipments destined for white-ruled Southern Rhodesia. Such a move would deprive the North Korean Government, which has previously sold missiles to Iran, Yemen, Pakistan and Syria, of a key source of hard currency. Then there is the possibility of sanctions, ideally targeted at the governing elite rather than ordinary North Koreans, many of whom already suffer from chronic hunger. 

It is also necessary that the United States talk directly with North Korea. When he was president, Bill Clinton made real progress by allowing his diplomats to engage in bilateral negotiations. This led to the 1994 framework agreement and, in 2000, a summit meeting between Kim Jong-Il and South Korea's then-president, Kim Dae-jung. Shortly before Clinton left office, American diplomats were so close to achieving an agreement on ballistic missiles that he seriously considered a trip to Pyongyang. 

George W. Bush arrived in the White House determined to reject everything his predecessor had done. When, in early 2001, Colin Powell said that he favoured continuing Clinton's approach on North Korea, the Secretary of State was publicly rebuked by the President. Mr Bush, overlooking a fundamental principle of diplomacy - that opponents must be treated as equals - insisted that North Korea's regional neighbours be involved in any negotiations. He also labelled North Korea part of an "axis of evil", called the diminutive Mr Kim "disgusting" and "a pygmy", and declared that the United States would never tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea. At the same time, Mr Bush was flouting the United States' own NPT obligation - to work towards general disarmament - by supporting the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons. 

A senior American naval officer once told me that the Pentagon's "nightmare scenario" involved North Korea rushing its forces into Seoul - which is only 30 miles from the demilitarised zone - and then announcing that the soldiers had taken a nuclear bomb along. Such a bomb, if detonated in the heart of that large city, could kill millions of South Koreans as well as tens of thousands of American soldiers and expatriates. Undetonated, it would constitute a powerful bargaining chip.

This week's test and the impossibility of strikes on North Korea now have forced President Bush to retreat to a new position. Any transfer by North Korea of nuclear weapons or material to another state or group will be considered "a grave threat to the United States" for which North Korea will be held "fully accountable". 

But Monday's test, by further exposing President Bush's flawed foreign policies, could soon join the debacle in Iraq as a Republican liability in the mid-term congressional elections on 7 November. If this happens, Mr Bush may feel the need to "wag the dog" elsewhere: there are already indications that the American-led flotilla in the Arabian Sea is being strengthened to support a possible air campaign against Iranian nuclear facilities.

This is how many armed conflicts begin, with a cascade of easily avoidable mistakes exacerbated by unforeseen, extraneous circumstances. Handled badly, even a mouse can trigger a war.

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is the author of War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict (Atlantic Books, 2005).
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