January 14, 2003 By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
SEOUL, South Korea
The eeriest puzzle in the Hermit Kingdom just north of here is not where it hides its nukes, but where it hides its disabled people.
The only time I was allowed into North Korea, years ago, I couldn't find anyone in a wheelchair, on crutches or missing a hand. North Koreans kept insisting there were no disabled people in Pyongyang, the clean and lovely capital of which North Korea is justifiably proud.
"Any handicapped people have voluntarily moved to other parts of our country," one official said. Right. The darker explanation is that North Korea systematically exiles mentally retarded and disabled people from the capital, so as not to mar its beauty.
North Korea gets away with this because it is not only the most totalitarian nation in the world, but also the most isolated - and those characteristics offer a clue about how the U.S. should best respond to the North Korean nuclear challenge. Talk to North Korean defectors here in South Korea, and it is clear that isolation and ignorance sustain the Great Leader's rule. Even the most cynical defectors are awed when they arrive in South Korea and discover that traffic jams are not just Potemkin displays to impress foreigners, but a genuine capitalist problem.
The North Korean regime reacted typically to the 1990's famine, which killed some two million North Koreans, by putting propaganda into overdrive. A campaign urged the health benefits of dieting, and the national slogan became "Let's Eat Just Two Meals a Day!" There was even a television documentary focusing on a man who ate too much rice - and then supposedly exploded.
So how can we undermine North Korean propaganda and totalitarianism? By imposing sanctions and increasing its isolation? Or by engaging it and tying it to the global economy?
The answer should be obvious, for there is no greater subversive in a Communist country than an American factory manager. People will hear stories from his housemaid's third cousin's neighbor's friend about how he has five pairs of blue jeans (!), a beer belly (!), blows his nose on tissues that he then throws away (!), and reads a Bible (!) and Playboy magazine (!!). Many a Communist will immediately begin dreaming of capitalism.
Even more destabilizing will be the realization that North Korea is the laughingstock of the world. When I was in Pyongyang, North Korean officials were thrilled when I gleefully purchased a book with a stern photo of Kim Jong Il titled "The Great Teacher of Journalists." Officials were utterly deflated when they realized that I was buying the book not out of reverence but out of hilarity.
I've argued that our least bad option is to hold our noses and negotiate with North Korea - and President Bush, to his credit, is now ambling in that direction - but it's important to be clear-eyed about what this means. We would indeed be giving in to blackmail, and the administration is right to be nervous about rewarding bad behavior.
But as long as we're being clear-eyed, look carefully at what we'd be agreeing to. Granted, we would probably end up with a new agreement somewhat similar to, but more verifiable than, the failed 1994 Agreed Framework. North Korea would pledge to keep promises it broke last time (by secretly pursuing nukes) and we would pledge to keep promises we broke last time (to recognize North Korea and move toward normal trade). This may be better than war or allowing North Korea to become a plutonium factory, but it's not a deal to boast about.
Still, the beauty of succumbing to this kind of blackmail is that the Great Leader desperately wants what eventually will destroy him. If we exchange embassies and expand trade and other exchanges, the isolation and totalitarianism there will be unsustainable, and North Korea in time will either collapse or reform and open up as China did after the U.S. began to engage it in the 1970's.
If only President Clinton had instituted the 1994 agreement with gusto, flooding North Korea with diplomats, investors, traders and pot-bellied bankers who ostentatiously overeat - without exploding - then monuments to the Great Leader might already have been replaced by American-run Internet cafes. So let's agree to be blackmailed, so that North Korea gives up its nukes in exchange for Western trade and investment. I'm betting that soon Pyongyang would have a Starbucks - accessible to the disabled.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/14/opinion/14KRIS.html?ex=1043663574&ei=1&en=096c0b130f6bf2b8
-- Marta Russell Los Angeles, CA http://www.disweb.org