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It is almost exactly a year and one week since I last wrote about North Korea - a country that has interested me for a very long time. I have never been there and don't know if I ever will, but I would certainly welcome an opportunity to go there. I like to see what is what for myself.
The last time I wrote on this subject I mentioned Kim - not his real name - a North Korean soldier, who was stationed at a border crossing between North Korea and China. Kim had contacted me via an internet chat programme which he was occasionally able to use through the kind offices of a Chinese soldier, when Kim had to go across the border on business and no one was around. Sometimes I wouldn't hear from him for weeks but I always checked in to see if he had written to me. He made it plain that if ever he was caught communicating with me - even to just say "hello" - then he would be accused of treason and shot. One time Kim mentioned that Kim Jung Il the previous Dear Leader would be going to where he was because they had just received forty new jet fighters at the nearby air base and the Dear Leader was coming to inspect them but it was all top secret. I was not to mention anything about anything he said when I wrote just in case someone read it even though he was sending from China. He said he felt getting these new jet fighters was very frightening. It was never mentioned again, but exactly four weeks later, the White House in Washington announced they had just been informed that North Korea had acquired forty new fighter jets!
Kim told me many things which were released in general information weeks later. He was always afraid that one day he would be arrested, and one day wrote and said goodbye, that he was being sent "to the front" with South Korea and would no longer be able to communicate. I never heard from him again.
As everyone knows, North Korea has been doing and saying some crazy things these days. I have been following things very closely, because whatever the outcome, it will affect South East Asia.
There is no doubt that North Korea is acting totally on its own in every respect. Little is said in the western media except that some heavy talk has come from Washington but that some of what has been said is now being toned down. When you look at media from other parts of the world, you find that it isn't only the U.S. and western countries that are concerned and telling North Korea to "cool it".
It has not been generally reported that the official Chinese news wire - Xinhua - published a report from its Pyongyang-based reporter which said life in the city of Pyongyang is "business as usual". According to the report 100,000 Pyongyang residents are preparing for North Korea's most important holiday - Kim Il-Sung's birthday - on April 15th by planting trees throughout the city. It also said that in the mountainous Chinese region of Kaundian County that borders North Korea, local residents there are accustomed to an influx of troops any time tensions flare up on the Korean Peninsular just in case things spin out of control. However, this time there are so many soldiers and equipment there the media reports even the most hardened villagers are nervous. The news agency also reports the Chinese authorities using much tougher language against the North Korean regime than has been reported in the west.
Mr. Fidel Castro is not a person much beloved by many in the west so many may be surprised by a letter he wrote in Cuban State Media this week. I certainly haven't seen it reported on any of the main western media channels or papers. Mr. Castro wrote that North Korea had shown the world its technical prowess and now it is time to remember its duty to others. Words that will surprise many I am sure.
"Now that it has demonstrated its technical and scientific advances," Mr. Castro wrote, "we remind it of its duty to other countries who have been great friends and that it would not be just to forget that such a war would affect 70-per cent of the world's population". Mr. Castro called the present situation on the Korean Peninsular "incredible and absurd", but said "it has to do with one of the gravest risks of nuclear war since the (Cuban Missile) crisis 50 years ago."
Now that I have seen and read comments by and from countries like China and Cuba who everyone knows have been allies if not supporters of North Korea, it makes me realize even more the total isolation that country must feel. When I realize that - then my mind starts working and wondering - although I know some will not agree with what I think.
Until now North Korea has relied for support on its very few allies - such as China and Cuba. Now one can see that even they are "turning off" and not being nearly as supportive as they have been. The North feels "caged in", and so is getting desperate. That is what is so dangerous. If you "cage in" anyone or any animal or bird to the point it feels it is totally trapped, then it will use whatever it has at its disposal to get out of that cage.
I love Korea and Koreans and I go to South Korea a lot - I will be there next month again. I was interested this week when some of my friends there were a little dismayed by the fact that the U.S. made a very public point of telling the world it had deployed F2 stealth fighters to South Korea, and that it had also flown B-22 bombers and stealth bombers over the peninsular to show what power it had. My friends in Seoul said this upset them as they feared that was "pushing the button" too far.
I suppose I am a pacifist - I have seen and been in too much fighting around the world. Tough talk is not having any effect now with North Korea - nor are sanctions other than annoying them. Maybe that is why the Pentagon CNN correspondent Barbara Starr said yesterday that Washington was "dialing down" its rhetoric.
I am all for talk, talk, talk. I was told that was the best way many years ago by that great Irish Prime Minister Mr. Sean Lemass. Why not try that seriously this time? Mr. Jimmy Carter, Mr. Wen Jaibao, Mr. Bill Clinton and also Mrs. Hilary Clinton and Mrs. Madeleine Albright are all known to be much respected by the leaders of North Korea. Why not ask them to go to Pyongyang and meet with the leaders there. I am sure they would get a much better response than flying B-22's around does. I maybe naive but I am sure a delegation of any combination of any of above would be well worth while.
