13) MILITARY HYPOCRISY IN EAST ASIA

(The following article is from the May 16-30, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Sean Burton, from South Korea

There has been a lot of "fallout" from North Korea's satellite launch early in April, namely another round of condemnation towards the country. Of course, North Korea's enemies could not care less if it was a satellite or a missile, nor that the U.S. intelligence chief said it was most likely a satellite. Even Russia, which is far from being a socialist ally of North Korea, was content with the official statement from Pyongyang that a space vehicle was being launched.

     However, South Korea's media went on and on about the UN Security Council's prohibition of North Korean missile development and testing. Of course, South Korea, Japan, and the US are not held to the same standards. This hypocrisy is blatant when reading the news here. One editorial condemning the pending launch also claimed that North Korea's low quality technology would prevent a successful test. The following day, a new editorial read: "N. Korea Winning the Missile Race". So one day, North Korea's missiles are junk, and the next South Korea is falling behind? That is quite a disconnect.

     South Korea strives to present itself as the paragon of peace and justice in the region, so it's a little odd that a South Korean newspaper would come right out and say that there is indeed a "missile race", or that South Korea is doing something militarily to challenge North Korea. Even the large-scale war games involving the South Korean military and US forces are referred to as "training exercises", not as invasion practice. The editorial complained that the South's missiles cannot even reach North Korea's north, where the long-range missiles are launched from.

     But does South Korea even need such strike capability? Their annual military budget amounts to almost $30 billion, plus they are supported by Japan and especially by the US.

     That military power is all focused on a country that spends about $5 billion on defense and has no real allies to rely on. Most of the North's equipment is old, and it has limited resources to develop new equipment. One may justly ask, who is threatening whom?

     Then there is the matter of Japan and its relations with the two Koreas. Korea was brutally occupied and colonized by Japan for decades, from 1911 until 1945. By the 1930s Korean culture and language had been made illegal. There were many other abuses, including the notorious use of Korean women as sex slaves for the Japanese military. No self-respecting Korean would think highly of Japanese interference in their country, then or now. In North Korea, the post-war leadership was made up of people who had fought the Japanese in guerrilla warfare throughout the 1930s. They were also communists, so the country they founded was based on strong anti-imperialist principles. Those who had worked with the Japanese were expunged.

     Matters were quite different in the South. Whereas the Soviet administration of post-war North Korea worked to integrate locally established "people's governments" into the framework of an upcoming North Korean state, such organizations in South Korea were crushed. Instead of relying on local populist leaders, the US administration basically imported Americanized Koreans like Syngman Rhee. The developing South Korean state was to be based on principles of anti-communism. South Korean and U.S. leaders employed former Japanese collaborators in the government and military, causing enormous resentment among the people.

     The most poignant example can be seen in the Jeju Uprising of 1948-1953. Jeju is Korea's largest island, located just off its south coast. On April 3, 1948, a demonstration was held there commemorating the anti-Japanese struggle. Police fired shots into the crowd, and in retaliation the citizens attacked about a dozen police stations, as well as polling stations for the upcoming elections. Over one hundred people and police officers were killed. The Rhee government dispatched over 3,000 soldiers and an anti-communist paramilitary youth organization to Jeju, that harassed women and stole land. The island was soon in outright rebellion, forming a ragtag militia which by October of 1948 was flying North Korean flags. Most of the fighting was over by the following spring, but not the misery. When war began with North Korea in 1950, thousands of supposed leftists were "preemptively apprehended" and sent to Jeju, where many were shot by firing squads. The exact number of people massacred in the Jeju Uprising is thought to be anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000, and about 70% of the villages were burned to the ground. Until the mid-1990s, to even mention the Jeju Uprising was a crime punishable by torture and prison.

     Apparently South Korea's government sees no problem with Japan's current military plans. Indeed, the newspapers seem to be encouraging close cooperation between the two countries with regards to North Korea in particular. In recent years, Japan has been trying to find ways to expand its military role in the world, including attempts to amend its constitution which bars its forces from deployment abroad.

     Not surprisingly, Japan likes to use North Korea as an excuse for expanding its military. A North Korean launch in 1998 prompted Japan to pursue a missile defense system, and the latest launch is leading to a massive increase in the military budget, which presently stands at almost $50 billion.

     In a twist of irony, Japan is planning to put up its own satellites. Unlike North Korea's simplistic broadcasting devices, these will be military-purpose satellites intended to detect missile launches. The plan is to launch thirty-four such devices over 2009-2013, each costing nearly $5 billion - almost as much money as North Korea spends on its entire military for a year. The $30 million that North Korea is estimated to have spent on its latest rocket is chump change. Japan is rapidly militarizing, and that should not be applauded by anyone, not least South Koreans who would do well to remember a little history and beware the dangers of imperialism.