Yoshie's Options: USA or North Korea

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Sat Dec 8 16:59:39 PST 2001


Thomas writes:


> > You mean Stalinists = those who dare to point out
>> Kim Jong Il, etc.
>> are the lesser of two evils for humanity when
>> compared to US
>> imperialism.
>
>Here we go with the binary thinking again...I am left
>to choose between an imperialist superpower and a
>stalinist disctatorship...Your choice is like asking
>me if I want to die by hanging or die by the electric
>chair....In either case, I choose NEITHER. I dont
>have to support either the US or North Korea...and by
>presenting the choice in that way, you certainly do
>little to encourage to take up the fight against
>capitalism....Right, we are supposed to be moved to
>fight for revolution when the object is to become like
>fucking North Korea...With choices like that, no
>wonder so many young people turn to doing "crack".

Political choices we in the USA and Japan -- the imperial powers that have caused the most grief to Koreans, North or South -- confront do not include whether or not to become like North Korea. The question is how to respond to long-standing & still ongoing attacks by the US & Japanese governments on North Korea, Koreans in South Korea who oppose the US military presence in the Korean peninsula, and Koreans in Japan who support North Korea.

***** The New York Times December 1, 2001, Saturday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section A; Page 8; Column 1; Foreign Desk HEADLINE: Raid Exposes North Korean Support Network in Japan BYLINE: By JAMES BROOKE DATELINE: TOKYO, Nov. 30

Long murky, the flow of money from Japan to North Korea has suddenly burst into the daylight, becoming as visible as battered riot police vans, bloodied heads and protesters chanting in Japanese: "Stop the unfair investigation!"

Overcoming hundreds of protesters, Tokyo police investigators on Thursday carried out their first raid ever on the largest of the country's Korean associations that have openly supported North Korea's Communist government. Indeed, the target of the raid, the General Association of Korean Residents, or Chongryon, has served for nearly half a century as North Korea's de facto embassy in Japan.

Japanese officials said that the action was taken to retrieve documents for an investigation into a multimillion-dollar embezzlement case. But the raid reverberated with political overtones and was seen as further chilling the already frosty relations between Japan and North Korea.

"This financial investigation is just a pretext for the Japanese police to investigate what is a virtual embassy," said Kim Myong Chul, an author and journalist here whose views often reflect those of North Korea's government. "The Japanese police quite obviously want to disband the organization."

Japan conducted the raid as the United States, the essential guarantor of its security, is also taking a harder line against North Korea in the Bush administration's widening war against terrorism.

While there was no indication that American officials had directly encouraged the Japanese action, the United States already maintains sanctions against the North, which it considers a terrorist state, and is clearly eager to cut off any funding that the Communist government might use to develop and export missile technology or to build nuclear or biological weapons. Just this week, warning of unspecified "countermeasures," North Korea rejected an America demand for weapons inspections.

Although Japan and North Korea maintain a low level of trade, it has been more than a year since the last meeting of their envoys. Formal relations remain blocked.

North Korea demands that Japan pay billions of dollars in reparations for its occupation of the Korean peninsula for much of the first half of the 20th century. Japan demands that North Korea account for several children that disappeared from western Japanese beaches. Family members say the children were kidnapped by North Koreans teams operating out of submarines or boats.

Taku Yamasaki, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said that the site of raid, the Chongryon, "had been functioning as a constant diplomatic channel to North Korea, until now." With the raid, he added, "this function will be significantly hampered."

The police search of the building in central Tokyo followed arrests earlier in the week of seven long-term residents of Korean origin, including Kang Young Kwan, who had worked in the finance department of the group for the last 40 years.

Before his arrest, The Asahi Shimbun newspaper asked Mr. Kang if the Chongryon sent large amounts of money to support the North Korean government, an allegation made by a former association official. Mr. Kang, a member of the group's central committee, replied: "I ignore such matters. Such things could never happen."

But Japanese bank investigators are trying to determine how a network of credit unions that was always clear in its sympathy for the North Korean government lost as much as $8 billion during the 1990's.

Over the last decade, half of those small banks failed, forcing the Japanese government to pay $4.2 billion to protect depositors.

Today's Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's leading business newspaper, estimates that it will ultimately cost the government $8 billion to protect depositors.

"As long as the whole picture of the irregularities remains to be clarified, it will be difficult for such use of public funds to win public understanding," The Yomiuri Shimbun, a conservative newspaper, warned in an editorial.

Critics of these banks charge that much of the money was funneled to North Korea, which was starved for aid after losing its primary supporter, the Soviet Union.

Defenders of the banks say the credit unions were pulled down by the major financial downdraft that now threatens the entire Japanese banking sector. Just this month, Japan's four largest banks set aside billions of dollars to cover bad loans.

The arrests could worsen Japan's relations with North Korea, Ha Su Gwang, another Chongryon official warned. *****

The above and like situations are what leftists in Japan & the USA must respond to politically. -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Anti-War Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



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