The countdown has begun on the demise of Kim Jong-il’s regime in North Korea, opening up the prospect of a time of dangerous uncertainty.
The commanding general of US forces in South Korea sounded the most ominous warning heard in recent months when he told Congress last week that the US and South Korea must “be mindful of the potential for instability in North Korea” if Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s dictator, dies or is thrown out.
“Combined with the country’s disastrous centralized economy, dilapidated industrial sector, insufficient agricultural base, malnourished military and populace, and developing nuclear programs, the possibility of a sudden leadership change in the North could be destabilizing and unpredictable,” General Walter Sharp testified.
Evidence leaking out of secretive Pyongyang and analyses done outside of North Korea suggest that a sort of Gotterdammerung, a concept drawn from Germanic mythology meaning “the twilight of the gods,” is underway in North Korea. The term conjures up a turbulent end to a regime and the collapse of a society into catastrophic violence.
Gotterdammerung seems particularly appropriate for the Kim dynasty since Kim Jong-il, like his father, Kim Il-sung, has assumed an almost divine status at the center of a cult. In turn, Kim Jong-il has been grooming his 27-year-old son, Kim Jong-un, to be his successor. That, however, appears to have generated little enthusiasm in Pyongyang beyond propaganda pronouncements.
A vexing question: Why should anyone outside of North Korea care about what happens to the repressive and corrupt regime of Kim Jong-il? At least four consequences come to mind:
Loose nukes: No one knows exactly how many nuclear bombs North Korea has nor where they are nor what sort of lock and key they are under. The crumbling of the Kim regime could set off a race among the South Koreans, Americans and Chinese — and possibly the Russians — to secure those devices before they fall into the hands of a warlord or terrorist.
Flying missiles: A desperate Kim could fire off a salvo of missiles and cause many deaths and much destruction, including to the US and foreign community in Seoul and other cities, before South Korean and US forces could eliminate the North Korean arsenal of missiles with explosive, chemical and biological warheads.
Streaming refugees: The breakdown of order in North Korea, coupled with starvation and disease, could send streams of refugees north across the Yalu River into China, east across the Sea of Japan to Japan and south to South Korea across the demilitarized zone that divides the peninsula. Would North Korean guerrillas or terrorists be among them?
Skyrocketing cost: Serious assessments and wild guesses put the cost of restoring order in North Korea, rehabilitating the broken economy and integrating the two halves of the peninsula far beyond that of putting East and West Germany back together, at US$2 trillion to US$3 trillion. Who pays?
The surging speculation about the fall of the Kim dynasty grows out of repeated reports that Kim Jong-il is in failing health and may have only three years to live. Rising crime rates, spurred by spreading starvation, adds to the speculation. The execution of Park Nam-il, a finance official, as an apparent scapegoat for a ruinous reform of the currency, provides still another clue.
A study of resistance found North Koreans becoming defiant with “everyday forms of resistance,” such as engaging in forbidden marketing. A South Korean newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, reported repression has become so harsh North Koreans are nostalgic for Kim Il-sung.
If North Koreans long for the dictator who led them into the Korean War, in which 1 million North Korean civilians and 520,000 soldiers were killed, things today must really be horrendous.
Richard Halloran is a freelance writer in Hawaii.
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