EdgeLeft: Diplomatic notes on North Korea
and Wikileaks
by David McReynolds
(EdgeLeft is an occasional column which can
be distributed and/or reprinted without permission)
Wikileaks indicated that China
has expressed some reservations about the Democratic Peoples
Republic of North
Korea (DPRK), even contemplating its possible unification with South Korea.
(It isn't much of a
secret that China is worried that, in the event of the collapse of the DPRK,
China might be overwhelmed by refugees). It is my assumption that the DPRK had already
wanted to broaden its openings to the world, and not be so heavily dependent on China as its only
ally.
(In a piece I sent out earlier this week I had
noted the visit by two delegates from the DPRK to
a conference in Norway of the International Peace
Bureau, and the odd visit of three North
Korean trade unionists in 1997 looking for contact
with the "U.S. Labor Party").
As some of you know, I'm a terrible proof
reader, and should let someone check this first, but
let me send this out
as a bit of history while the time is right - which is now. This is a
story
which doesn't begin in Asia at all, but with the German Democratic Republic
(GDR). So here
it is, my first and final draft of some diplomatic
memories.
My own role is, at best, merely a guest at
history's table, but I have had the chance to see some things
before
others were aware of them. I had been in East
Berlin a couple of times during the height of the Cold
War and found it terribly oppressive. The police,
whom I remember as dressed in grey, marched through
the streets with their rifles. The apartment
buildings had none of the wonderful bursts of flowers in
window boxes which one saw in even the poorest
sections of West Berlin. On one occasion the members
of the War Resisters International Council, of
which I was a member, were meeting in West Berlin and
were invited by the GDR's Peace Committee to
dinner at what I think was called the Bertold Brecht House.
We had to chose our
delegates with care - one or two would not have been permitted past the Berlin
Wall
because of involvement with dissidents. Our
delegation included a courageous Danish member of
our Council who had been active in the underground
during the war, and our Chair at the time -
the
redoubtable Myrtle Solomon.
There was one brief moment of unease when a little
"pocket calculater and clock", which I carried
in my jacket and which sounded the time once every hour, beeped during the middle of something
I was saying. I turned to my jacket
pocket and said "Be quiet". I assume the GDR
folks were
convinced it was a CIA device recording
all.
The GDR sent delegations to the US and on one
occasion the US Peace Council asked if I would
host their delegation. I said yes, and, knowing
that most of the time they would have been wined and dined
in the spacious apartments of Communists in
New York City, I said we would meet at my
apartment,
a fourth floor walkup on the Lower East Side. I
spent all day cleaning the house and preparing
a meal of genuine chili (no beans) and
rice.
We had a small group of our people, Paul Mayer and
Norma Becker were there - I'm not sure who
else. The Germans were very late in coming, Norma,
who had a habit of smoking pot, had broken out a
joint and passed it around, so that when the
Germans finally did come "our side" was mildly high. The occasion
was rather stiff and formal. They were talking in
platitudes about peace and democracy, while we wanted
to have a real discussion. At one point, somewhat
impatient, I said "This is all very interesting, but we
would like to have your views on Solidarity". (The
Polish union was just then much in the news). I'm afraid
my question brought the meeting to an early
conclusion, and their American minders got them safely out.
But from time to time, at the office of War
Resisters League, I would have visitors drop by from Pravda, from
the Soviet Peace Committee and, somewhat oddly, a
young man from the GDR Consulate in Washington
DC. The Soviets always brought a bottle of vodka,
and while I had by then stopped drinking, it was
shared with friends.
One afternoon the young man from the GDR came to
visit, shortly after Yuri Andropov had assumed command
of the Soviet Union. He told me to expect major
shifts in Soviet policy. He said "I've been to parts of the
Soviet Union that are off limits to tourists - the
situation is not good. There will be changes, so great
you may not believe them". Andropov, who had headed
the KGB, had been a hard-liner in dealing
with the crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1968. But he
was, as my East German friend had said, a
man
who sought major reforms in the Soviet Union. (It
was during his time in office that Samantha
Smith
was invited to the
Soviet Union - Samantha was an American child who had written
Andropov
urging peace). When his health began to fail, he strongly urged that Gorbachev replace him. That
however, didn't happen - Cherenenko took his
place before, in turn, falling ill and
dying. That was when
Gorbachev became the head of the Soviet
Union. Gorbachev was the KGB candidate.
Because of that visit from the young man from the
GDR who had told me what Andropov would do,
(but who had died before he could do it),
when the first signs of change came from
Gorbachev,
I knew something major was in the wind.
At about that time I was going down to Washington
DC to
give a talk to a pacifist group. My friend from
the GDR suggested he meet me for lunch.
When
we met, I said "I'm not clear what we are supposed
to talk about - the FBI is probably following me
and the CIA is certainly following
you".
On my last trip to East Berlin I asked a young
friend who lived in West Berlin to take me across the
wall
so that I could meet with East German dissidents. I
met first with some student dissidents and then
with some East German pastors. As I was leaving the
pastors I said "I'm going next to meet with the
official committee - should I tell them that I've
met with you or would that place you in a difficult position?"
They said "By all means tell them you've met with
us - it is important for the official committee to know
that these discussions are going on - in fact,
we'll drive you there", and so they drove me to the headquarters
of the GDR's Peace Committee. Clearly things had
eased enormously from my first visit to East Berlin.
Looking back on this after the collapse of the
GDR I realized that what the
GDR was doing in a
somewhat clumsy way was to try to "open a door to the West", to see if they might find ways of
having relations with the West, rather than going through
Moscow. Tragically that movement
toward change in East Germany ended with the
collapse of the GDR. Very strange, that
year. I had a wall calendar in my office which I'd
been sent by the GDR - before the year was out,
the calendar was still up but the GDR had
vanished.
In looking at the DPRK I suspect that at least some
of those in high places in Pyongyang would like to
have a more open window to the West. China has been
a very good friend, having sent its own troops
to die in the Korean War, and supplying food and
energy to a country that is desperately poor. But if I
were in Pyongyang and read the Wikileaks in which
China and the US discussed possible futures for
Korea, I'd want to look for more options. It is
quite certain - there is no doubt of this in my mind - that
some key forces in the US want to maintain the
state of "no peace / no war" with North Korea as an
excuse to keep US bases in South Korea and
Japan in an effort to encircle China. But there are other
key figures - certainly former President Jimmy
Carter - who feel that this hard line
military approach
is neither safe nor sensible.
Thus the kind of relations between the Christian
Churches in North and South Korea are of special
importance. And the relief work of the Mennonites,
while totally non-political, provides a door through
which both sides can get a better sense of the
other.
Remember the famous "Ping Pong Diplomacy" in 1971,
when a team of American ping pong players,
who had been in Japan, were invited to China, the
first break in the wall, opening the door, eventually,
to the visit by Nixon.
So those of us who are outside the doors of power
should not think our actions do not count.
The end of the Cold War was, in my view, made
possible in part because the truly independent "European
Nuclear Disarmament" movement (END) gave the
Soviets some assurance that if they took the kind
of gamble for peace which Gorbachev did, the
Americans could not take advantage of it. (Tragically
the West never realized the chance it had to move
toward genuine disarmament and the dissolution
of NATO - still trapped in its old game of
domination it simply moved NATO's borders closer
to Russia).
These are brief notes, typed in haste. They are
meant to assure those of us who think all things in
Korea are locked up solidly, that we must watch for
any opening to extend a hand of friendship. Not
because we are in love with the policies of the
DPRK, but because the dangers of war are so much
greater and more harmful to all sides than the
risks of peace. Signals of great change often come
as softly as a drop of water. An open hand achieves
more than a closed fist.
(David McReynolds was a chair of War Resisters International,
and served as a co-chair of the
Socialist Party USA. He is retired and lives on the Lower East
Side in NYC. He can be reached at:
In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the
junipers and sage, on the game trails,
in the tributary canyons with the
thick red maples, and on the high windy ridges -- and
they dance from within
the very essence of our own inner being. They do this especially
when the
bright night moon shines down on the clean white snow that covers the valley
and its surroundings. Then it is as bright as day -- but in an always
soft and mysterious
and remembering way. [Hunter Bear]
"[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt."
--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31
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First Posted: 12- 2-10 10:37 AM | Updated: 12- 2-10 01:26 PM Huffington Post