Last week the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) tested several missiles, including
a long-range missile capable of reaching the United States. Prior to the test
the U.S. and Japan
warned of dire consequences if the DPRK proceeded with the missile launch,
claiming that it was tantamount to an act of aggression. Meanwhile, both the U.S. and Japan have extensive arsenals of
long-range missiles which they claim to be for defensive purposes. Furthermore,
both countries are guilty of committing acts of aggression against the Korean
people, while the DPRK has never committed aggression against another country.
Relations
between the U.S. and the
DPRK have deteriorated to the point that the DPRK considers it necessary to
develop intercontinental ballistic missiles for deterrence and retaliation
against an apprehended attack by the US. This is a symptom of the
tensions that have existed on the Korean peninsula for more than half a century.
However, despite the constant media barrage that places the blame for this
tension at the feet of the DPRK, in reality it is the U.S. alone
which is responsible. It is the U.S.
which interfered to partition the Korean peninsula at the end of the Second
World War and to prevent the holding of democratic elections which would have
reunified the country. It is the U.S. which launched an aggression
against the DPRK in 1950 leading to the outbreak of the Korean War.
Furthermore, it is the U.S.
which has refused to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK and which consistently
intervenes to sabotage any progress made by the DPRK and the Republic of Korea
(ROK) to normalize relations between the two regimes and create conditions for
the peaceful reunification of the country.
The Western media
claims that the decision of the DPRK to develop long-range missile technology
is a reflection of irrationality and paranoia and an example of North Korean
brinkmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the early 1990s, when
the DPRK was undergoing an economic crisis brought on by the collapse of the
Soviet bloc and massive flooding of its coal mines, the U.S. Clinton
administration sought to bring down the North Korean government by threatening
to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the DPRK. The excuse for this
threat was a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that
several grams of fissionable material from the DPRK’s
heavy water nuclear reactors were missing. (The same year the IAEA reported that
several kilograms of fissionable material were missing from Japan’s nuclear
energy program, but this did not provoke an American response.)
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter intervened to save
the Clinton
administration from its brinkmanship and brokered an agreement in which the
DPRK agreed to immediately shut down its Soviet-made heavy water reactors and
allow extensive IAEA monitoring of all of its nuclear facilities in exchange
for new U.S.-made light water nuclear reactors. Those reactors were never
built. Furthermore, every attempt by the DPRK to reduce its economic
difficulties by developing closer trade relations with the ROK was
systematically sabotaged by the Clinton
administration. When the Bush administration came to power in the U.S., even the
pretense of implementing this agreement was dropped. George W. Bush labelled the DPRK as part of an “axis of evil” and adopted
an open policy of pre-emptive nuclear strikes against North Korea.
Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq
in 2003 the DPRK asked the U.S.
to sign a pledge of non-aggression against the DPRK, but the Bush administration
adamantly refused to do so. In these circumstances the government of the DPRK
apparently concluded that the only way to deter a U.S.
invasion of North Korea
was to develop its own nuclear weapons and long-range missile technology. It
therefore withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, expelled the IAEA from
the country and announced that it was actively developing nuclear weapons. It has
now announced its intention to develop the ability to hit the U.S. with such weapons if the U.S. launches a
nuclear first strike against the DPRK. From this it can be seen that it is the
brinkmanship of successive U.S.
administrations that has prevented the reduction of tensions on the Korean
peninsula.
The government
of the DPRK has repeatedly offered to end its nuclear weapons program and its
development of long-range missiles in return for a guarantee of non-aggression
by the United States and the
fulfillment of the Clinton
administration’s promise to build light water nuclear reactors. If the U.S. were
really interested in defusing the volatile situation on the Korean peninsula,
it would agree to these reasonable demands. It would also put an end to its
constant military exercises around the DPRK and facilitate, rather than block,
talks between the DPRK and the ROK on the peaceful reunification of their
country. The fact that it refuses to do these things shows that the U.S. still harbours hostile intentions towards the Korean people.