From JMcDona@fcref.org
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 09:19:08 -0400
From: Jamie McDonald 
To: "'moogoonghwa@UCSD.EDU'" ,
    'Bill Harms' 
Subject: RE: Another Set back to N-S relations


>----------
>From: 	Bill Harms[SMTP:wharms@soback.kornet.nm.kr]
>Sent: 	sábado 21 de septiembre de 1996 15:25
>To: 	moogoonghwa@UCSD.EDU
>Subject: 	Another Set back to N-S relations
>
>        2. It appears that the South Government will be taking a harder
>stance towards the north.
>
>        3. President Kim YS is quoted as saying that "...the armed
>provocation by the North was clear proof that North Korea was still
>attempting to ``Sovietize the South through military means.'' President
>Kim
>(also) advised the public to clear any illusions about the North,
>saying,
>``The nation should now correctly recognize the true nature of the
>regime in
>the North.'' " (From the Korea Times 20 September in an article
>entitled
>Pres. Kim to Refer NK Infiltration Issue to UN Security Council)
>
>        4. Some politicians will likely seriously review the entire
>unification issue.

This is something that intrigues me.  Never having lived in Korea (yet),
I'm not surrounded by the information you have -- although I have been
following the Korea Herald and Reuters coverage.  But it seems to me
that while reunification is favored by a significant percentage of the
electorate in the ROK, President Kim Young Sam seems to be giving it
only lip service (justly so, in my opinion).  Is this an accurate
perception?

You refer to the "alleged" submarine incident, which also brings up
interesting possibilities.  Are you suggesting that the ROK invented the
incident?  I cannot see the advantages the South would gain in doing so.
 This endangers the continuation of heavy-oil shipments that a reluctant
U.S. Congress must approve, the investment area in northeastern PDRK,
and the shipment of free food from Japan, ROK, and the US.  None of
these seem in the ROK's best interest in light of supposed reunification
attempts, but more importantly from an economic standpoint -- the South
is trying to get into the PDRK to invest and the collapse of the current
government isn't going to be conducive to such a thing.

>    





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