More of the same. South Korea appeased North Korea with millions to get them to the table to talk. It's called blackmail, friends, live and learn.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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Seoul bribed Pyongyang with $191 for summit
HARVEY STOCKWIN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2003 11:03:43 AM ]
HONG KONG: In a sensational development, South Korean investigators have confirmed that immediately prior to June 2000 first-ever summit between North and South Korea, a payment of $191 million was funneled to the North Korean government by a leading South Korean conglomerate.
The revelation appears to confirm opposition charges that the summit between President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong IL, widely hailed at the time as a "historic" development, was in fact the result of cheque-book diplomacy by the South in favour of the North.
At issue is a special not-fully-explained loan of $342 million given by the Korean Development Bank to Hyundai Merchant Marine, a firm which has tried to spearhead South Korean business penetration of the communist North.
South Korea's Board of Audit and Inspection announced on Thursday that $191 million of the loan, given under suspicious circumstances, was funneled directly to the North Korean authorities shortly before the summit took place.
But the Board was unable to confirm other allegations that the loan was granted as a result of government pressure on the KDB or that the National Intelligence Service played a role in delivering the money to Pyongyang.
Nonetheless, the confirmation of the payment is sure to strengthen suspicions at home and abroad that President Kim Dae Jung effectively bribed Kim Jong IL to hold the summit, thereby winning a Nobel Peace Prize for himself. The pay-off helps explain why Kim Jong IL never kept the summit bargain for a return summit in Seoul.
The confirmation of the payment also further discredits Kim Dae Jung's Sunshine policy of seeking North-South rapprochement, ostensibly through conviction rather than through bribes. It comes two days after a high ranking envoy, sent by President Kim to Pyongyang to further negotiate the vexed nuclear crisis, was clearly snubbed when Kim Jong IL and other high ranking North Koreans declined to see him.
Significantly, a leading South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo reports staffers of incoming President-elect Roh Moo Hyun as saying that the whole truth must be made public and the relevant parties should be prosecuted for violating related laws. Another daily paper, Joong Ang Ilbo, quotes a Roh staffer as saying the government's National Intelligence Service did assist the transfer of the funds to the North.
Roh was elected on his pledge of continuing President Kim's policies, but clearly he realizes that he must try to distance his incoming administration from this potentially divisive controversy, especially as the opposition Grand National Party retains a clear majority in the National Assembly.
Already some opposition politicians are suggesting that Kim Dae Jung may be prosecuted for his role in this affair once all investigations are complete.
Conversely, President Kim himself issued a statement Thursday after receiving the Board's report, saying that he was against the prosecution of anyone concerned in the case as the money was used to promote inter-Korean cooperation.
The statement also called on the Korean people to understand that the progress in North-South relation should not be sacrificed because of the affair of the secret payments. But the disclosure, plus the snub, is much more likely to make South Koreans question how much real progress there has been in North-South ties. |
