Editorials
Wednesday, December 10, 1997A four-nation conference aimed at negotiating a peace treaty for the 1950-53 Korean War has begun in Geneva. Proposed last year by the United States and South Korea, the talks took months to materialize. Still, merely to get North Korea to sit down at the conference table for the first formal talks involving the four key participants -- China is the other one -- since the Korean War ended nearly half a century ago is an achievement. Korean War
peace negotiations openExpectations of progress are low. A Western diplomat predicted that the negotiations would not be a sprint but a marathon. This could take years. Just before the talks started, North Korea reiterated its demand that the United States withdraw its 37,000 troops from South Korea. In a commentary carried by the official news agency, North Korea said peace could never be ensured while U.S. troops remained.
If the regime of Kim Jong-il insists on U.S. troop withdrawal as a condition for peace, there is no telling how long the negotiations will take. Washington has no intention of pulling the troops out of South Korea as long as a threat of invasion from the North exists.
The secretive Pyongyang regime has become even more mysterious since the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994. His son, Kim Jong-il, recently assumed formal leadership of the Communist Party but has yet to accept the title of president although he is apparently running the government. Meanwhile North Korea has suffered economic collapse and devastating floods that have resulted in widespread famine.
South Korea has its own problems. A loss of confidence in its overheated economy has forced major companies into bankruptcy and required a massive bailout by the International Monetary Fund. President Kim Young-sam, elected as a reformer, has been discredited by disclosures of corruption in his government.
Dismayed by reports that North Korea was building nuclear weapons, the Clinton administration in 1994 negotiated an agreement to halt the weapons program in return for fuel oil supplies and construction of a nuclear power facility that could not produce weapons-grade plutonium. The facility is to be built by South Korea and largely financed by Japan.
The nuclear agreement provided a glimmer of hope that the hostile regime in the North could at last be dealt with. The opening of talks on a peace treaty might be considered a result of that success. North Korea's situation is desperate, but its leaders still seem reluctant to face reality -- particularly the reality of a strong and prosperous South Korea. It will take patience and firmness to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion.
THE Hawaii State Teachers Association has seen the light and canceled its endorsement of a lottery to support the public schools. The HSTA board of directors reversed its previous position in favor of lottery legislation provided that all of the revenues were devoted to public education. No on a lottery
Now the HSTA board has decided that a lottery would undermine the values that teachers work to instill in their students. The HSTA raised the lottery issue at a teachers institute day workshop in October, asking teachers their opinion. President June Motokawa said, "It is clear the majority of our members do not believe that supporting a state lottery, even to support education, is in the best interest of our association, our profession and students."
The decision coincided with the visit to Hawaii of Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, who travels the country lecturing on the evils of gambling. During his three years as director of the coalition, 35 states have rejected gambling proposals.
It's common for lottery advocates to say the revenues will be devoted to education, but sometimes the lottery income merely serves as a substitute for tax revenues and the schools don't actually benefit. According to one study, in the current decade states with lotteries dedicated a declining share of their total spending to education while it increased in nonlottery states.
Continued HSTA support of a lottery would have helped efforts to push a bill through the Legislature. Fortunately the HSTA has consulted the teachers and gotten the message: Find another way to support the schools.
IT was two weeks before the 1996 election, and advisers to President Clinton were meeting in the White House, fretting over a brewing scandal concerning campaign fund-raising. Then-chief of staff Leon Panetta asked, "What do you think will come of this?" Nothing, was the prediction of one aide. The Federal Election Commission "won't be able to finish an investigation before (the) election," the aide said. Campaign donations
This remarkable exchange is recorded in notes written by Janis Kearney, presidential records manager, as an informal diary never meant to be made public. Angry congressional investigators received the notes Monday night, months after all White House fund-raising documents had been subpoenaed.
The prediction, of course, was accurate. There wasn't enough time for the scandal to affect the election results.
Over the course of the last year, disclosures of campaign law violations or at least questionable practices have multiplied. But the White House has continued to respond only slowly and reluctantly to the investigators demands for records, sometimes claiming that the material had been lost only to find it later.
The belated disclosure of these notes, with the Senate investigation already wrapped up, is an example. The stalling is one of the reasons the inquiry was pretty much of a flop. But the notes confirm the cynical game the White House was playing.
Rupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
