Spectator's Journal: The D.J. of Seoul
Schwartz, Stephen
SPECTATOR'S J OU AL by Stephen Schwartz The D.J. of Seoul Seoul 0 n June 3, five days after meeting with Serbian dissidents better left unidentified, at a place in the Balkans better left...
...The talks ended with a floor show and singing of "Oh, Susannah...
...We are afraid of a loss of conscience and the death of our human sensibility should we turn away from this ongoing tragedy and try to ignore millions of future victims...
...Some left-wing Korean intellectuals refer to that conflict as "the Korean civil war," analogous to that in Spain in 193639...
...supporter as head of the Korea America Friendship society, commented bitterly, after a day circulating the petitions...
...Admiral Lee was relaxed, charming, and discreet...
...The North Koreans who have crossed into China are mainly fleeing the torment of starvation, which is little alleviated by food aid dispatched to their rulers by Clinton...
...But fighting ended in Spain 6o years ago this year, while the two halves of Kim Due Jung's South Korea is doing just fine...
...He spent most of our dinner commenting on Chongchungnamdo's tourist possibilities, including a ginseng festival scheduled for September in nearby Kumsan...
...Officially, it was said that Taejon, which hosted a world exposition of technology in 1993, was more attuned to scientific navigation issues...
...in power...
...Even better would be a visit to Kwangju by President Clinton...
...But the former defense secretary spent 15 hours promising that Clinton would end sanctions against the northern regime if the Communists would stop testing and selling missiles and extend their alleged freeze on nuclear research...
...The U.S...
...A few days later, the Clinton administration certified that no overtly dangerous activity was taking place at the North Korean government's nuclear development site, which appeared to be no more than a gigantic tunnel...
...of Seoul Seoul 0 n June 3, five days after meeting with Serbian dissidents better left unidentified, at a place in the Balkans better left undisclosed, I stood on a gorgeous, unoccupied beach in South Korea, staring westward across the Yellow Sea...
...In that year, while Smilin' Jimmy occupied the White House, elite Republic of Korea troops "conquered" and killed between 200 and 2,000 citizens in Kwangju, a city that defied General Chun Doo Hwan, freshly in power thanks to a coup...
...60 August 1999 • The American Spectator Korea remain officially at war...
...Meeting places had to be changed frequently and interviews were sometimes delayed for days...
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...president notably soft on North Korea...
...On the other hand, Koreans are naturally sentimental about our role in the Korean War: Criticism of General Douglas MacArthur is seldom well received...
...military authorities in the country share responsibility for the Kwangju events, which are recalled with bitterness even by the local business class...
...In Spain's case it was socialist Felipe Gonzalez...
...It's all pulverized seashells," he said...
...was committed to defend, in a speech at the end of 1949...
...by the Communists, along with a few revolutionary anthems...
...The Republic of Korea Navy, I was told, had moved its headquarters to Taejon, capital of the province, and a couple of hours' drive from the Yellow Sea...
...But Koreans aren't holding their breath for that...
...But Koreans have their own concerns about China...
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...Arrival in a refugee camp allowed the Kosovars some measure of safety, but the situation of the North Koreans is eloquently summarized in a document circulated by Buddhists: North Korean escapees flee to the border areas as economic refugees seeking food to live on but later become political refugees when they are tracked down and threatened with death by the authorities...
...Officially, the Yellow Sea clash had to do with a poorly-defined border and the right to fish for crab...
...Daylight throughout that part of the world has a flat, gray quality that makes one seem to inhabit a World War Thera, black-and-white newsreel...
...authorities have yet to release files that would clarify the Carter administration's role in Kwangju...
...During my visit, Korean Christian volunteers fanned out in Seoul to collect signatures on a petition demanding the United Nations assist North Korean refugees in Manchuria, who face deportation back to the starvation and repression inflicted on them by the Communist regime in Pyongyang...
...Like many other such processes, the transition to democracy in Korea has undergone severe tests, exemplified by the Kwangju massacre of 1980...
...The North Korean refugees face a sit-'The world talks about Kosovo, but ignores the fate of the 300,000 Korean refugees in Manchuria.' uation even worse than that undergone by the Kosovars...
...It is extremely difficult to find and interview such escapees since they are constantly on the run and full of fear...
...Great for bathers, but terrible for the country, because you cannot use it to make concrete...
...U.S...
...Reminders are ubiquitous, including regular emergency drills and the constant presence of young, motivated men in uniform...
...Defense Secretary William Perry, who visited Pyongyang, bearing greetings from Boy Clinton, two weeks before the outbreak...
...STEPHEN SCHWARTZ is writing a book on the battle for Kosovo...
...Yang, held out a handful of sand...
...And they remember with affection the CIA's rescue of D.J...
...But Admiral Lee's crews were fully prepared for action, and a week and a half later they efficiently blew away the North Koreans, bent on occupying a disputed area of offshore waters...
...That evening, I attended a dinner hosted by the provincial authorities of Chongchungnamdo province, and was introduced to Admiral Lee Soo Yong, the country's chief of naval operations...
...According to South Koreans, these displays of American affability were interpreted by Kim Jong II and his cohorts as signs of weakness...
...and his concept of humanistic capitalism—in which prosperity serves to maintain social harmony, and vice versa—fit very well with Korean traditional values, which stress group responsibility, mutual aid, and consensus...
...Perry was unable to get an audience with supermandarin Kim Jong Il, North Korea's Communist dictator...
...Our investigators, too, experienced repeated, invisible physical threats...
...Even while being interviewed, they were continually on the look-out, frightened of a possible break-in, anxious to keep moving for the sake of safety...
...Six months later, the Korean Communists invaded the South...
...send (postage & copy cost donation) $10 to: NO-TAX ACADEMY 1624 Savannah Road AS Lewes, Delaware 19958-9999 www.peoples-rights.com DEREKCRANE.COM "BEST NEWS SUPPLEMENT ON THE WEB" The American Spectator • August 1999 61...
...One of my companions, a Chinese-born architect, Y.C...
...Like Spain, South Korea has marvelously overcome the legacy of the past, creating a society of notable plenty and stability...
...He is known as "D.J.," in a country where about a fifth of the population has the family name Kim...
...The world talks about Kosovo, but ignores the fate of the 300,000 Korean refugees in Manchuria," former Seoul mayor Kim Sang-chul, a staunch U.S...
...And Chongchungnamdo is anxious to find foreign investors to develop its tourist and other industries...
...Kim Dae Jung and his supporters have declared Kwangju the "Holy City of Korean Democracy...
...Venerable Pomnyun, a Buddhist leader, has commented, "Stifling our tears, we are continuing to compile data from refugees who put their lives at risk to feed themselves and their families in the Chinese-North Korean border areas...
...I walked a mile down the beachside road, with dozens of novelty and food stands on the shore side, and picturesque fishing boats, piled high with crab pots, on the other...
...from dictator Park Chung Hee's kidnappers in 1973, and its later efforts to protect him...
...North Pacific haze covered the sky, so that one had little view of the Yellow Sea horizon...
...Conditions in the North are truly miserable...
...inconsistency aside, South Koreans have other reasons to resent the global dictates of the great powers...
...Many documents have been published in Korea about the incident, but the record contains a major hole...
...Both transitions to democracy seem to have required a former leftist converted to privatization and similar civic values as its shepherd...
...Opening such archives, whatever is so revealed, would constitute a major step toward reinforcing Korea's image of America as a land of honesty and democratic commitment...
...But the U.S., especially ex-President Jimmy Carter, has a large unpaid debt with the Koreans, and it is especially well-remembered with D.J...
...There was little enthusiasm for the Kosovo operation led by a U.S...
...This colloquy took place at a Korean resort, empty during the off-season...
...has led an alliance of native investors, Confucian reformers, and former radicals in a transition unhindered by the need to dismantle a large welfare state, which Korea has never had...
...Korean leftists claim the U.S...
...Maybe the U.S...
...Koreans have never forgotten the unwise words of then-Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who perhaps inadvertently dropped Korea from a roster of countries the U.S...
...T wo weeks before Perry's Pyongyang visit, the NATO bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade touched off a wave of condemnation throughout Asia...
...The International Monetary Fund is a particular target, because of the strict terms imposed in return for the $58 billion bailout—the largest in the IMF's history—arranged in South Korea late in 1997...
...But Koreans tend to blame this latest confrontation between the northern and southern regimes on former U.S...
...Whatever the inner feelings of the North Koreans, they understood how to disarm their guests, even if the Americans were unwilling to consider forceful measures to disarm them...
...In South Korea's it's the current president, former dissident Kim Dae Jung...
...the province is famous for the quality of its ginseng...
...But South Koreans knew something was out there...
...wouldn't have attacked Yugoslavia if it was bigger and better-armed," Michael Hwang, a successful Korean-American investor, told me...
Vol. 32 • August 1999 • No. 8
