Forgotten conflict: North and South Korea

Are you informed about the conflict in North Korea? Do you feel concerned by it? Do you think that increasing the visibility of and knowledge on the conflict can contribute to bringing it to an end? Or is it a political contest of power between big states, against which ordinary people have no means of action anyway?

The situation in North Korea has to be in the top five under-reported events. Due to the information barrier, which is only disrupted by the reports of refugees, what happens inside the country seems somewhat unreal. Geographically distant from Europe, North Korea is often forgotten, unless, like earlier this year, North Korea makes negative headlines due to its potential nuclear and military power. On 5 April, North Korea sent the Taepodong II rocket over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. This demonstrated that the country, who spends nearly one third of its GDP on its military, has successfully built a long-range rocket – and that it doesn’t care about third parties who, by means of diplomacy and sanctions, tried to prevent this from happening.

Background

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) was established in 1949 following three years of post-World War II occupation by the Soviet Union, while South Korea was under American occupation. In 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea in attempt to reunify the peninsula under Communist rule. The ensuing three-year conflict, which drew in China and the US as well, killed at least 2.5 million people. Until today, no more than a ceasefire could be achieved. Both North and South Korea continue to officially claim sovereignty over the entire peninsula.

Externally, North Korea is one of the most isolated states in the world. Despite devastating problems of famine, in 2005, it stopped accepting humanitarian aid from third countries. In 2003, the country officially pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program, the ‘Six-party talks’ were established to find a peaceful solution to the growing unrest between the two Korean governments, the Russian Federation, China, Japan, and the US.

Internally, North Korea is a one-party state. The country’s government lead by Kim Jong-il controls all aspects of its citizens’ lives. Although the constitution provides for freedom of speech and the press, in practice they are nonexistent. Internet access is restricted; all foreign websites are blocked by the state. Kim Jong-il’s father Kim Il-sung has established a Stalinist personality cult that is being maintained to date. All North Koreans are subject to intense political and ideological indoctrination.

With a GDP per capita similar to that of Chad and Cambodia, the people are extremely poor, especially in the countryside. Today, most North Koreans live on less than 1700 calories a day. This puts the population at severe risk of malnutrition and infection and perilously close to starvation in some areas.

	North Korea	South Korea
Political system	Communist state one-man dictatorship	Republic
Population	22,665,345	48,508,972
GDP per capita	$1,700 (2008 est.)	$26,000 (2008 est.)
Literacy	99%	97.9 %
Infant mortality rate	51.34 deaths / 1000 live births	4.26 deaths / 1000 live births

Breaking the information barrier

Whereas students all over the world can increasingly participate in exchanges and travel anywhere they like, most people in North Korea do not even have viable means of transportation within their own country. Emigration is illegal and punished severely. However, exit visas are sometimes issued to trusted businessmen, artists, athletes, scholars and religious figures. The life of young people circles around school or university, and complementary social activities are supervised by the state.

Life is so different in North Korea that few people can actually imagine it – even in neighbouring countries, such as South Korea. Patrick Daihui Cheh, one of the producers of ‘Crossing’, a feature film telling the story of a refugee from North Korea, wants to raise awareness of the situation in the North. ‘The younger generation of South Koreans don’t have a good understanding of what life is like in the North’, says Cheh. ‘They know, but they don’t really know.’

So what is your view on this?

Are you informed about the conflict in North Korea? Do you feel concerned by it? Do you think that increasing the visibility of and knowledge on the conflict can contribute to bringing it to an end? Or is it a political contest of power between big states, against which ordinary people have no means of action anyway?

Backgroud Reading

• North Korea’s Tragedy as Movie Drama, The Wallstreet Journal
• ‘Schindler’s list’ for North Korea, Your Volatile World
• North Korea, Time
• Despite Warnings, North Korea Launches Rocket, Time
• CIA World Fact Book
• Starvation Nation, The American