[NYTr] S Koreans Want Treaty with North, US Troops Out

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Sep 20, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/korea-0920


A peace treaty with Korea?

Why Bush won’t talk about it

By Deirdre Griswold

It has been quite clear for some time now that the people living in the
southern half of Korea, which is still occupied by 37,000 U.S. troops
more than five decades after the Korean War, want those troops out and
want an end to the official state of war that still exists between the
U.S. and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north.

Yet, in the fictional world created by Washington, its troops remain to
“protect” the people of South Korea from the north.

Furthermore, no politician from the south is supposed to say anything
in public contradicting this fiction.

So when Roh Moo-Hyun, the president of South Korea, violated this
unwritten rule recently, it was a major “diplomatic incident.”

Roh met with George W. Bush at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
Business Summit, held in Australia during the first week of September.

At a photo op after their private meeting, Roh asked Bush to state
publicly his position on signing a peace treaty with the DPRK. A
visibly miffed Bush answered that an end to the Korean War—which is
still officially in force—would come after “Kim Jong Il verifiably gets
rid of his weapons programs and his weapons.” Then, as Roh pressed him
to be “clearer,” Bush snapped that the session was over.

A number of media, including the U.S. business news service Bloomberg,
viewed Roh’s audacity as due to the fact that he faces an election soon
and was playing to the audience at home—which was a tacit admission
that most people in South Korea want the U.S. to sign a peace treaty
and get out. Roh has also faced strong opposition at home for going
along with the Bush administration and sending South Korean troops to
Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush’s logic—that what is holding up a treaty is the north’s
development of nuclear weapons—doesn’t make a bit of sense. Washington
has had 54 years to sign an agreement to end the war. During all but
the last couple of years, the DPRK had no nuclear weapons and no
program to make any. It was constantly being threatened with attack by
the most powerful nuclear power on earth.

A couple of years ago, the DPRK announced that its scientists had been
able to produce a small number of bombs. The U.S., by contrast, has
some 10,000 nuclear warheads on ships, submarines, planes and bases all
over the world.

Furthermore, the DPRK has every reason to need a strong defense. It is
the aggrieved party—it was invaded by the U.S. in 1950 and for three
years the Pentagon bombed the DPRK mercilessly to try to break the
country. But its leaders stood firm.

Yet, according to Bush, the country that was invaded, divided and
occupied must dismantle its defenses, while the invader continues to
wage wars anywhere it wants. Such an argument comes from the height of
imperialist arrogance.

In fact, shortly before Bush spoke the DPRK had officially invited
Washington to send observers to inspect its nuclear facilities and see
that it is indeed dismantling its weapons program, in accord with an
agreement made in February at six-party talks.

Some Asian media—especially in South Korea and China—are interpreting
what happened at the APEC forum as confirmation that in fact Washington
has shifted its position to one of being ready to talk about a peace
treaty. But Bush doesn’t want to say publicly what his negotiators say
privately.

As much as Bush wants to make it appear that the ball is in Pyongyang’s
court, the opposite is true and the world knows it. What is holding up
a change on the Korean peninsula that would allow the people of the
north and south to collaborate amicably and move toward reuniting all
the families torn apart for at least two generations is the U.S.
government’s refusal to give up its imperial ambitions. 

Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without
royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww at workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe at workersworld.net