Many Koreans Fear Bush, Not A Nuclear North
News Agency Reports Movement Of Fuel Rods Into Controversial Reactor
December 26, 2002
By BARBARA DEMICK, Los Angeles Times
SEOUL, South Korea -- When Lee Jin Ju pauses to think about the nuclear crisis brewing over the Korean peninsula, she knows exactly whom she fears.
"George Bush," replies the 22-year-old accounting student without missing a beat. "He's a war maniac."
Lee doesn't like North Korea's Kim Jong Il much, either. "But we're not afraid of him. He's a Korean like us. Even if he does get the bomb, he's not going to use it against us."
This is a sentiment echoed by many Koreans - even some conservatives - and it is complicating U.S. efforts to forge a consensus on North Korea among its allies.
There is a tendency, particularly among the young, to shrug off the current nuclear showdown as the creation of a hysterical White House. Many South Koreans see their estranged countrymen to the north more as subjects of pity than fear, and the Americans less as saviors who defended them against communism than potential troublemakers.
The news that North Korea was removing surveillance cameras from its nuclear facilities got smaller headlines in Monday's newspapers in South Korea than in the United States. Several major papers played the story below the news of a political party reshuffle.
The stock market actually went up in mid-October when it was revealed that North Korea was violating its international agreements on its nuclear program. Only in the last two days have the markets here shown any jitters, and those mostly attributed to Iraq.
In one more step, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported today that the North Koreans were moving fresh fuel rods into a small, 5-megawatt reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, which had been closed under a 1994 agreement with the United States. The agency also said that workers were moving freely in and out of the facility, apparently in preparation to restart it.
Despite North Korea's actions since October to restart its nuclear program, there is no sense of impending crisis in Seoul.
The streets of the South Korean capital throb with neon advertising, the jangle of ringing cellphones, Christmas carols and throngs of people bent on spending money. Stop almost anyone to ask about the North Korean nuclear program, and they will respond with a quizzical stare.
"We don't seriously fear there will be a war, and if there will be the Americans will start it," said Hyun Ho Sang, a 19-year-old college freshman who was drinking a macciato at Starbucks in downtown Seoul.
Han Sung Joo, a former South Korean foreign minister, complains that the South Korean government has deliberately kept people ignorant about the danger posed by the North Koreans.
"We have a government that is interested in playing down the threat," said Han. "There is not much interest in explaining how serious it is that North Korean is developing nuclear weapons and as a result there is a certain insensitivity among the public."
Kim Kyong Won, a former Korean ambassador to the United States and a leading intellectual voice in the South Korean establishment, says South Koreans do not believe that the North's development of nuclear weapons has anything to do with them.
"The Koreans think there is no need to worry about North Korea developing nuclear weapons," said Kim. "They figure that Kim Jong Il loves life too much to start a war that he will surely lose. ... But Bush, on the other hand, is an ascetic and a warrior."
The reaction may be baffling to outsiders with an image of Korea frozen from the 1950-1953 war, when more than 1 million people were killed. The perception is that U.S. intervention paved the way for South Korea's current prosperity, sparing its people from the hunger and cold that now grip the North.
But the official version of history is challenged by many South Koreans, who increasingly question the U.S. role, past and present, in keeping the peace.
The victory in last week's presidential election of left-of-center labor lawyer Roh Moo Hyun has emboldened those who favor more independence from the United States in foreign policy and has given rise to a mood of giddy nationalism.
A fatal traffic accident in June involving GIs has triggered months of protests against the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea - the most recent being on Christmas Eve when 1,000 people marched with candles in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.
Many South Koreans say they do not believe Bush's repeated assertions that the United States does not intend to attack North Korea. They were rattled by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's comments this week suggesting that the United States could wage simultaneous military campaigns against Iraq and North Korea.
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