12/12(화)-Will ‘Evil’ Suffer for Luxury Goods Embargo?

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12/12(화)-

Will ‘Evil’ Suffer for Luxury Goods Embargo? By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter North Korean leader Kim Jong-il It may be useful to emulate William Safire, a New York Times columnist, and ``channel'' North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, since there is no way of getting his comments on the U.N. Security Council's Oct. 14 resolution condemning his nuclear test. Let's begin by imagining Kim's opening remarks at a meeting in his palace with his ranking comrades on Nov. 15, a day after the Japanese government announced an embargo on 24 luxury items including caviar, tuna fillets, beef, cigarettes, liquor, perfume and motorcycles. It's good to see you, my loyal comrades. Unfortunately, there is bad news coming from Tokyo. The Japanese government announced that it would not export to us what I favor, such as caviar, tuna fillets and other things. They are so mean. How can they ban food? Kenji Fujimoto, the Japanese chef who fled my palace in 2001 even though I treated him extremely well, betrayed me and reported my favorite goods and foods to the Japanese Cabinet so they could put everything I like on the embargo list. I'm sorry, but I think I won't be able to give you presents like wristwatches and cognacs anymore. They are all on the embargo list. The cowardly Japanese regime has joined hands with the United States to blockade us from the outside. As you might know, it is what the Japanese call a follow-up measure to the resolution adopted by the U.S.-led Security Council that took issue with our successful nuclear test. I totally reject this unjustifiable resolution. It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted this coercive resolution, while neglecting the U.S. nuclear threat, moves for sanctions and pressure. This clearly demonstrates that the Security Council has completely lost its impartiality and that it applies double standards. I still feel irritated because the United States called me evil. Vice President Dick Cheney even said, ``We don't negotiate with evil, we defeat it.'' This makes me absolutely sure they don't want to negotiate with us. The Bush administration thinks I am a bandit squeezing my people for my own well-being. They want to remove me, you and my government. My comrades, we have to ready ourselves for both dialogue and confrontation, and if the United States and Japan persistently increase pressure on us, we have to take physical countermeasures. Such pressure is a declaration of war. This imaginary reaction from Kim Jong-il could be what Japanese officials expected to come from Pyongyang before they adopted the embargo, which they officially said was aimed at ranking officials in the North, not the impoverished general public. Resolution 1718 prohibits the provision of luxury items without specifying what they are, so the Japanese government had to specify the 24 items. In 2005 Japan's luxury exports to North Korea were worth about $9.27 million, about 16 percent of its total exports to North Korea, according to Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki. Countries such as France, Switzerland and Germany are also preparing their own lists of luxury goods subject to the export ban, according to the United Press International, a wire news service in the United States. But will the pressure work? Adrian Hong, executive director of Liberty in North Korea, a human rights group in the United States, said in a recent e-mail interview that the communist leaders are already under heavy pressure from the U.N. resolution. ``Our informants in North Korea have told us that the new sanctions have almost surgically hit North Korea's old guard ruling elites,'' he said. ``It is important to remember that the people of North Korea are not responsible for the actions of their leadership.'' Aside from a ban on the sale of luxury goods, the sanctions include an embargo on hardware for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and asset freezes for businesses that assist the North's nuclear and ballistic weapons programs. But on the prospect of the luxury goods embargo, experts interviewed by The Korea Times, including David Straub, a former senior U.S. Foreign Service officer with extensive experience in Japan and South Korea, said the outlook wasn't good. Straub said he believes it would have been ``tactically smarter'' for the U.N. Security Council members not to have included the luxury goods in the resolution, even though he strongly believes that, ``morally'' Kim Jong-il should not purchase luxury goods for himself or his supporters when most ordinary North Koreans are suffering. He said the Security Council's focus should stay on the nuclear and missile issues that pose a threat to regional and global security, rather than distracting the focus by including the luxury items. ``I believe the ironic result of the luxury sanctions may be to increase elite support for Kim in North Korea, since the measure will be taken as proof by the North Korean elite of the United States' intention to stifle North Korea with sanctions,'' he said. Straub also said he cannot imagine that most of the participants in the six-party denuclearization talks will attempt to seriously ban luxury goods. Tong Kim, a former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a research professor at Korea University in Seoul, echoed Straub. ``The Japanese seem to send more than a strong message,'' he said. ``Besides, it is debatable whether tuna and beef should be regarded as luxury items.'' Kim, who visited Pyongyang 17 times as an interpreter for ranking U.S. officials, said he does not think Japan's latest measure will hurt Kim Jong-il and his generals as much as it will anger them and the North Koreans will manage to find a new source of supply for these items. ``I know Kim Jong-il stopped drinking cognac before 2000, and he drinks only wine on the advice of his physician,'' he said. ``The net effect of this luxury embargo will be the aggravation of mutual animosity between North Korea and Japan, and I am concerned that this could have a negative impact on the prospective progress of the six-party talks, from which North Korea has already said it wanted to exclude Japan.'' Paik Hak-soon, director of the North Korean studies program at Sejong Institute in Seoul, said he thinks the idea of a luxury goods embargo stems from the George W. Bush administration's attempt to drive out ``kleptocracies'' _ governments characterized by rampant greed and corruption. ``It is tantamount to define Kim Jong-il as a bandit who extorts money from the poor,'' Paik said. Over past years, U.S. leaders have described the North Korean regime as an axis of evil, an outpost of tyranny, an outlaw regime, and most recently a kleptocracy. Bush released a statement on it on Aug. 10 that said it was a U.S. objective to muster international cooperation to defeat kleptocracies. His statement did not pinpoint North Korean leaders as the target of this new maneuver, but his undersecretary for economics, business and agricultural affairs, Josette Sheeran Shiner, told reporters in Washington, D.C., on the same day that the Stalinist state is ``something very central'' in Bush's new scheme. ``It means the United States has no willingness to negotiate with Kim Jong-il, because Washington thinks he is not a leader to talk with but a bandit who should be expelled,'' Paik said. ``So the United States and Japan are joining forces to use all kinds of measures to pressure the Kim Jong-il regime.'' Paik, a strong proponent of Seoul's ``sunshine policy'' of economic engagement with Pyongyang, underlined that it is necessary to talk even with evil for peace. He said he thinks international pressures, including the luxury goods ban, will not be able to deal a hard enough blow to the Kim Jong-il regime for progress to result.