			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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COUNTDOWN IN KOREA
by
Eric Margolis
17 Feb 1997



If North Korea didn't exist, Hollywood would have to invent
it for Steve Seagal.  Last week, the world's most bizarre
and  dangerous nation produced yet more weird tales from the
dark side.

Japan was abuzz over reports that a long-missing young girl
had actually been kidnapped on a coastal road by North
Korean agents and spirited away aboard a submarine. She was
forced to give Japanese lessons to North Korean spies, and
is being kept in a mental asylum. 

Adding to the `Manchurian Candidate' atmosphere, more
reports surfaced of extensive brainwashing experiments
conducted on US POW's by North Koreans and Soviets during
the Korean War.  

Strangest of all, however, was the defection last Wednesday of
Hwang Jang Yop, one of the most senior North Korean leaders,
The 72-year old Hwang was the Mikhail Suslov of North Korea
- the party's chief theoretician and Stalinist high priest. 
Twentieth in party hierarchy, Hwang developed the nutty
ideology of `juche' which called for North Korea to be
totally self-reliant and isolated from corrupting outside
influences. His wife and four children are almost certain to
be thrown into concentration camp.

North Korea also sent a message to Hwang. On Saturday, North
Korean agents shot and gravely wounded a prominent defector
living in Seoul.  This act of terror caused South Korea to go on
partial military alert, and sent jitters throughout North Asia. 

Hwang's defection was a major blow to North Korea's mysterious
leadership, whose military and civilian factions are locked
in a prolonged power struggle.  The putative party boss, 
Kim Jong Il - lately promoted from `Dear Leader' to `Great
Leader' - apparently has not yet fully consolidated the
position he inherited from his father, `Glorious Leader,'
Kim Il Sung.

As flood-ravaged North Korea teeters ever closer to famine
and economic meltdown,  its leadership has adopted a policy
of bluff and brinkmanship to stave off collapse.  In the
process, North Korea's Stalinists have picked up some very
curious allies.

The North's strategy is to alternate threats of war with
limited political concessions.  This, Pyongyang hopes, will
scare the US, Japan and South Korea into providing it with
no-strings-attached oil, food and economic aid. In other
words, the thuggish northerners are saying, `if you don't
feed our people and keep us in power, we will unleash a sea
of fire against South Korea and maybe even Japan.'  .  

The North has backed up these threats by steadily moving
combat forces towards the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)
separating the two Koreas. Since December, Pyongyang has
deployed 100 MiG fighter-bombers to hardened air bases 20-30
km north of the DMZ.  These aircraft can reach South Korea's
capitol, Seoul six minutes after takeoff, and are clearly
positioned for surprise attack.

North Korea has also been beefing up its ground forces  near 
the DMZ. Late last year, it created a new mechanized corp
tasked with striking down South Korea's east coast.  New
170mm self-propelled guns have been deployed just north of
the DMZ, from where they can hit Seoul.   Equally alarming,
the north continues to add new  AN-2 transport aircraft to
its current fleet of 300. Each of these fabric-body planes,
almost invisible to radar, carry 13 commandos whose mission
is to deliver surprise,  suicide assaults on South Korean
and US airbases. North Korea has 88,000 - 100,000 commandos,
the world's largest special warfare corps. 

South Korean intelligence reports the North has at least two 
plutonium nuclear weapons and is close to deploying new
Rodong-1 missiles, capable of delivering nuclear, chemical
and biological warheads to South Korea, Okinawa, and western
Japan.

Much of the food aid recently delivered to North Korea by
the US, South Korea, Japan and international organizations
has been diverted to the North Korean military, which
continues to build vast warstocks of food, fuel and
munitions.  As often in Asia, soldiers eat while peasants
starve.

Curiously, the Clinton Administration loudly threatens attacks
against real or imaginary nuclear or chemical targets in
Libya, Iraq and Iran, though none of these currently threaten US
forces. By contrast, the Administration has desperately tried to
avoid a confrontation with North Korea  by attempting to buy off
Pyongyang, even to the point of delivering free oil.  Each
time the North rattles sabres, or threatens to assail the 37,000
US troops in the South,  Washington opens its checkbook.

Japan discreetly aids North Korea by facilitating covert
trade through China. More important, Tokyo permits $100
million annually to be channelled to North Korea by ethnic
Korean gangsters who control Japan's pachinko gambling
industry.  Tokyo prefers to ignore threats by North Korea to
attack Japan in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula.    

South Korea is a fierce industrial competitor of Japan.
Tokyo has no desire to see a united Korea of  70 million
people.  Neither does China, which is equally nervous about
a nuclear-armed, military powerful, united Korea on its
northern flank.  Tokyo and Beijing are quite happy with the
status quo.

South Korea can't decide what it wants.  Passionately
patriotic Koreans crave national reunification. But many
quail at the estimated $150-200 billion cost of rebuilding
the north, which would bleed dry the south's already
staggering economy.  The example of rebuilding East Germany,
which continues to consume untold billions of marks, is
pretty scary. An even bigger nightmare is `unexpected
reunification'  - an immediate, total collapse of the North
producing 24 million starving refugees.

So Seoul keeps sending driblets of aid northward, hoping
North Korea won't implode, but somehow evolve into a kinder,
gentler place.  That's, of course, provided North Korea 
doesn't threaten to nuke Tokyo, or unleash its huge army
across the DMZ in a desperate gamble to jump ship from
sinking north.     


copyright  eric margolis 1997

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