North Korea: The Land Americans Aren't Permitted to Know.

Bells rang out around the world in March 1999 as an international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines went into effect. Most of the world celebrated the treaty--first signed in Ottawa, Canada, in December 1997--aimed at eliminating tens of millions of the weapons scattered in more than sixty countries and estimated to kill or injure 25,000 people a year, mostly civilians.

In the United States, however, the bells were a call to join the more than 130 signatories and sixty-five nations that had ratified the treaty so far. Although President Clinton has endorsed banning the mines and recently committed funds for disposing of those uncovered by mudslides in Central America in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, he insists that the United States cannot sign the treaty because it still needs the weapons on the Korean peninsula to deter North Korea from invading South Korea. If an alternative to mines can be found, the Pentagon will phase out their use by 2006 and has requested $4.7 million in fiscal 1999 for the search.

But why is North Korea a higher priority for the United States than the international campaign that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 19977 Because the United States is waging a misguided campaign of its own--one that seemingly provides direct and immediate benefits at home but, in the long run, only perpetuates an outdated Cold War mentality that has shackled the peace process.

Leading this misguided campaign is the Pentagon, which needs to portray North Korea as an unpredictable and dangerous regional enemy in the Pacific as a way to scare Americans into maintaining and increasing its huge military budget. To accomplish this portrayal, the United States government has enforced a more complete embargo on news about and communication with North Korea than for any other country, including Cuba. Even major U.S. newspapers like the New York Times are subjected to an intermediary for their information. The CIA and related agencies have become the main sources of data about North Korea, serving "to keep their budgets at hefty Cold War levels," according to Korea expert Professor Bruce Cumings in the January/February 1997 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The Pentagon also needs North Korea as an enemy to justify what it calls a "two-war strategy," the other war area being the Middle East. However, this strategy was rejected as unlikely by a national defense panel created by Congress in 1996 to examine future military policy. According to the December 2, 1997, New York Times, the panel--made up of four retired generals and admirals and five civilian experts--said the strategy is "a means of justifying the current force structure--especially those searching for the certainties of the Cold War era." The panel recommended diplomacy, not military might, as "the most effective tool" for solving regional conflicts overseas. According to the panel, "The current approach to addressing national security engages the Department of Defense and armed services too often and too quickly."

Without North Korea as an enemy, the Pentagon could not justify continued military and economic control of South Korea. When the new president of South Korea, Kim Dae Jung, came to the United States in June 1998 to win what the New York Times reported as

   a more flexible stance [in dealing with North Korea], he made the same
   argument the Clinton administration has made about China: that the best way
   [to change North Korea] is not to isolate it and punish it with sanctions
   but, rather, to build economic and diplomatic ties that draw it out into
   the international playing field.

Kim's proposal, however, was met with a cool reception not only from the Pentagon but from Congress.

The Defense Monitor, published by the Center for Defense Information, which is headed by retired military and naval officers, has long held a view similar to Kim. In January 1994 it concluded:

   The best system is to offer to withdraw U.S. military forces from South
   Korea in exchange for North Korean abandonment of any nuclear weapons
   development and agreement to permit unimpeded international inspection to
   verify the agreement.... Establishing diplomatic and economic ties would
   also encourage a reduction in Cold War hostility.

If it wanted to, the United States could make peace, establish diplomatic relations, and permit hands-on news reporting at any time. Little known is the fact that the United States violated the armistice agreement of July 27, 1953, that ended the Korean War. The armistice provides that

   within three months after the Agreement is signed and effective, a
   political conference of a higher level of both sides be held by
   representatives appointed respectively to settle through negotiations the
   questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful
   settlement of the Korean question.

That agreement, signed by U.S. Army General Mark W. Clark for the United Nations and the United States, is still in force, since the United States has never been willing to end the armistice with a peace treaty. As recently as April 28, 1994, North Korea called on the United States to "replace the Korean Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty" instead of continuing the military confrontation. The armistice also states that the respective military commanders shall

   cease introduction into Korea of reinforcing combat aircraft, armored
   vehicles, weapons and ammunition; provided however that combat aircraft,
   armored vehicles, weapons and ammunition which are destroyed, damaged, worn
   out or used up during the period of the armistice may be replaced on the
   basis piece for piece of the same effectiveness and the same type.

The United States clearly violated that agreement with the introduction of Patriot missiles into South Korea by presidential order on March 21, 1994, and quite likely led North Korea to develop missiles of its own. North Korea also claims there have been many other violations, including the introduction of nuclear weapons years ago, the introduction of a squadron of Apache helicopters, and the "U.S. naval forces which have clustered" around North Korea.

An imposed state of hostility toward North Korea is in fact evident in a series of military and economic treaties between the United States and South Korea. The Mutual Defense Treaty of October 1, 1953, was designed to provide the United States with an indefinite base for military operations in the north Pacific and to perpetuate a state of war between North Korea and U.S.-occupied South Korea.

Signed immediately after the Korean War, the treaty states that "an armed attack in the Pacific area on either of the Parties in territories now under their respective administrative control" requires that both "act to meet the common danger." Article IV continues: "The Republic of [South] Korea grants and the United States of America accepts, the right to dispose United States land, air and sea forces in and about the territory of the Republic of Korea as determined by mutual agreement." And the countries' fate is sealed in Article VI: "This treaty shall remain in force indefinitely." There must be a one-year notice of any termination.

The Mutual Defense Treaty was followed by the Agreed Minutes of November 17, 1954, which specifically obligate South Korea to place its "forces under the operational control of the United Nations Command." This is a euphemism for U.S. control, since there are no other U.N. forces in Korea. In effect, the United States commands not only the 37,000 U.S. troops occupying South Korea but South Korea's own army, navy, air force, and reserves.

Another of the Agreed Minutes supplements U.S. military control with economic control. "Measures for an Effective Economic Program" sets the value of the Korean hwan at 180 to the dollar and states that any imports "not furnished by the United States ... will be procured wherever in non-communist countries goods of the required quality can be obtained at the best price." This provision assures no trade with North Korea, China, or Cuba. The setting of the rate of 180 hwan to a dollar in effect got Korea-stationed U.S. armed forces a substantial subsidy in buying Korean goods, including coal and fertilizer.

On December 13, 1991, North and South Korea signed a nonaggression agreement in which both stated they "shall not interfere in the internal affairs of the other" and "shall refrain from all acts aimed at destroying and overthrowing the other side." They agreed to "discontinue confrontations and competition" and to cooperate in "joint development of resources."

A month later, North Korea signed an agreement permitting the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities. Between May 1992 and January 26, 1993, there were six such inspections.

In spite of this thaw in North-South relations, however, the Pentagon conducted Team Spirit 1993, one of a series of Team Spirit war exercises that have been used over the years to steadily harass North Korea. Team Spirit 1993 lasted more than a month and involved B-1 bombers and warships capable of nuclear strikes as well as more than 200,000 soldiers who practiced an invasion.

As a result of this obvious combined U.S. and South Korean hostility, North Korea announced its decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and rejected IAEA inspections of its military sites. According to the November 20, 1993, People Korea--a Tokyo-based journal edited by Koreans living in Japan and the chief source of official and unofficial news from and about North Korea--North Korea asked to inspect U.S. nuclear weapons and bases in South Korea, saying:

   If we submissively accept an unjust inspection by the IAEA it would be to
   legitimize the espionage of the United States, a belligerent party
   vis-a-vis the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, and lead to the
   beginning of the full exposure of all our military installations.

Korean sources--including People's Korea, which is recognized worldwide as a reliable source--reported that, throughout the negotiations between the United States and North Korea, the Pentagon staged a number of war exercises with South Korea either to intimidate or to practice actual war against North Korea. Even though I have published this information elsewhere, the Pentagon has never denied nor refuted the occurrence of the exercises described:

* August 17, 1993: the United States staged the world's largest super-high-tech simulated nuclear war.

* August 23, 1993: the U.S. aircraft carrier Independence staged intensive surprise bombings on strategic offshore areas of North Korea.

* September 23-24, 1993: a formation of U.S. overseas KC-135 tankers refueled some forty fighter-bombers and staged a night air-refueling exercise. Tank groups and artillery units fired hundreds of shells toward areas adjacent to the Demilitarized Zone.

* September 29, 1993: the U.S. Air Force and Navy joined Japan in military exercises directed against North Korea.

* November 15-25, 1993: the United States and South Korea staged a large-scale joint military exercise called Foal Eagle '93, involving 36,000 U.S. troops, 650,000 South Korean troops, and about 1,500 U.S. soldiers from overseas bases.

* December 1-10, 1993: the United States and South Korea staged aerial war exercises involving more than 750 warplanes and refueling tankers with tank groups and artillery units firing shells adjacent to the Demilitarized Zone.

* January 12-14, 1994, and continuing well into 1998: South Korea and the United States, and later the United States alone, staged provocative war exercises preparing to make surprise attacks against the northern half of North Korea using 350 warplanes and armed ground units.

The American press did not report any of these exercises, leaving the impression that North Korea simply would not cooperate with the international community. Instead of reporting this information, some columnists and newspapers even accused the Clinton administration of "being soft on Korea" if it negotiated with, instead of intimidated, the country.

This naivete is what results from a successful yet misguided campaign by the U.S. government to shroud its history of military and economic imperialism. Thousands of South Korean students from twenty-one universities and colleges across that country have demonstrated against this imperialism. Korean American political scientist Harold Sunoo acknowledges it in his 1994 book 20th Century Korea:

   The South Korean economy is completely dominated by foreign capital. All
   the major Korean firms were built either with foreign loans or joint
   investments with foreign capitalists [chiefly U.S. and Japanese].... Wages
   of the Korean workers have remained at the bottom of all Asian countries at
   a starvation level.... Generally speaking, the average Korean worker's wage
   is about one-fifth that of their Japanese counterparts and one-sixteenth
   that of American counterparts.

When I visited North Korea in 1994 and again in 1995, I saw the faces of ordinary people as well as government leaders. North Koreans are not demons to be destroyed but human beings to be respected as any others. And if Americans were not captive to one-sided reporting, they would seek change in U.S. policy toward North Koreans. Unfortunately, the U.S. government will never seriously explore peace as long as it benefits more from war.

John M. Swomley has a Ph.D. in political science and international affairs from the University of Colorado, is professor emeritus of social ethics at St. Paul School of Theology in Missouri, and is executive director of the American Committee on Korea.