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From POBox95@aol.com Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 20:27:36 -0400 From: POBox95@aol.com To: moogoonghwa@UCSD.EDU Subject: Another Setback..... Bill Harms (?) said: 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? __________________________________________ The government of S Korea has been giving lip service for some time. For decades and still today, while poisoning the climate with a National Security Law that makes it illegal to even make a non-negative statement about the north (students who demonstrate for reunification are jailed; a student who merely accessed a Canadian website with north Korean info on it was arrested/censured (?); students can't meet at the JSA with northern students, travel to the north is restricted, etc etc.), the south claims to want friendly relations. The south capitalizes only on high-visibility opportunities to look like the friendlier of the two sides by making big media events out of rice shipments to the north and the such. Kim Young Sam's government goes to great lengths to ensure it is included in any initiatives with the north--they bristle at any US attempt to unilaterally deal with the north; they brutally oppress any person or group within South Korea who attempts any sort of contact with the north. Kim YS, very effectively, keeps a tight fist of control of all initiative with the North. Unfortunately, he only squanders his mandate to effect change (reunification) in Korea. Apparently, the task of saying/doing/being something to appeal to the north is too great without foreign leadership (sadaesasang (flunkeyism) comes to mind), which he's against as well. Instead, Kim fatalistically waits to see what will happen up north--hoping that starvation will cause implosion rather than explosion. Either way, the results will be disastrous--and shameful--for an unprepared south. ------------------- A good saying which I hope will prove to be UNtrue - "Even a rat, when cornered by a dog, will strike" Mark Walters POBox95@aol.com Kim Il Sung (who is, rightly or wrongly, like a god to the northern people) is vilified . While the south uses such incidents as the sub to point out the "true" intent and nature of the north, the south continues to hold