>From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Status:
>
>
>Los Angeles Times
>Friday, September 8, 2000
>Does the U.S. Really Want Peace in Korea?
>
>
>By CHALMERS JOHNSON
>
>
>
>
>
> Since peace started to break out in Korea last
>June, the United States has responded only with bitter
>carping. The U.S. does everything it can to produce a
>peace treaty--any treaty--between the Israelis and the
>Palestinians, but it downplays steps toward
>reconciliation between North and South Korea.
> The United States still keeps 37,000 combat
>troops in South Korea. The South Korean people have
>become so irritated with the continued American
>presence in their country that the U.S. 8th Army has
>ordered U.S. troops and their dependents to use the
>"buddy system" when leaving their bases in order to
>prevent assaults on them.
> North Korea is the United States' dream
>boogeyman, its justification for bases in South Korea
>and Japan and the most frequently cited reason why we
>need a national missile defense system. Rep.
>Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) has said that if the
>Republicans are elected, there would be an end to the
>offered rapprochement with the North. This would
>preserve the huge vested interests of the Pentagon and
>defense industry in keeping the Cold War alive in East
>Asia.
> On Tuesday at Frankfurt Airport in Germany, a
>15-member delegation from North Korea was en route to
>the United Nations Millennium Summit. The delegates
>had completed departure procedures and were about to
>board an American Airlines flight to New York when
>people the North Koreans referred to as "U.S. air
>security agents" stopped them. The Koreans said that
>after searching the delegates' baggage, the agents
>searched "every sensitive part of the body." When they
>came to the head of the North Korean delegation, Kim
>Yong Nam, who is also head of North Korea's Assembly,
>the North Koreans balked. The Koreans say the agents
>canceled their reservations to prevent them from
>departing. The delegation then canceled its trip and
>returned to North Korea.
> The U.S. later offered as an explanation that
>North Korea was one of eight "rogue nations" (now
>called "states of concern") designated by the U.S.
>State Department and that the delegates had to undergo
>U.S.-defined search procedures to board a U.S. flag
>carrier.
> North Korea is a member of the United Nations,
>and the delegation held visas to enter the U.S. as
>well as invitations to a reception hosted by President
>Clinton. It was expected that Kim Yong Nam would meet
>with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in New York.
>It would have been the highest-level meeting between
>the two Koreas since Kim's journey to North Korea last
>June, which opened a peace process that has both sides
>declaring that "the threat of war on the Korean
>peninsula is over."
> After the hassle at the airport, the North Korean
>deputy foreign minister, Choe Su Hon, said the airport
>incident was intended to derail the meeting between
>the two Korean leaders and frustrate the Korean
>peoples' desire to reunify their country.
> In Pyongyang, North Korea asserted that "the U.S.
>will come to know what a dear price it will have to
>pay for having hurt our people's dignity" and that the
>United States' "hostile policy toward the DPRK [North
>Korea] has not changed even a bit." In Seoul, even the
>conservative English-language daily, Korea Times,
>demanded that Washington apologize and rejected its
>explanation that this was an "innocent mistake."
> The Clinton administration waffled. White House
>spokesman Joe Lockhart said, "It was a combination of
>unfamiliarity with our procedures [presumably on the
>part of the North Koreans] and I think some
>unfamiliarity on the part there [in Germany] with the
>delegation coming through." The State Department's
>spokesman claimed that "this incident did not occur at
>the instigation or with the knowledge of anybody in
>the United States government." However, he added that,
>while diplomats accredited to the United States or the
>United Nations are exempt from searches, "this
>delegation did not qualify for that exemption."
> This incident in Germany appears to be the
>diplomatic equivalent of the U.S. bombing of the
>Chinese Embassy in Belgrade--an outrageous act
>explained by the flimsiest of excuses.
>
>- - -
>
>Chalmers Johnson's Latest Book Is "Blowback: the Costs
>and Consequences of American Empire" (Metropolitan
>Books, 2000)
>
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