Editorials
Friday, November 5, 1999Clinton’s North Korea
policy is under fireThe issue: The Clinton administration has offered aid to North Korea in exchange for restraint on security matters.
IMPATIENCE with the North Korean Communist regime seems to be growing, in both Washington and Tokyo. In Washington, House Republicans charged that Pyongyang has not complied with an agreement limiting its nuclear weapons capability and now poses a major threat to the United States.
In Tokyo, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi warned North Korea against launching another long-range missile, saying it would have serious effects on Japan's security.
The Clinton administration policy was condemned as "appeasement" in a report issued by the Republicans. Rep. Floyd Spence of South Carolina, chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a member of the Republican advisory group that developed the report, said, "The administration policy of appeasement and bribery with North Korea has not worked."
In Tokyo, Obuchi told a parliamentary panel that the government does not to believe that a North Korean missile attack is imminent, but another missile launch -- comparable to the one in August 1998 that sent a missile soaring over Japan into the Pacific -- would have "serious effects" and would not be to North Korea's benefit.
The Republican congressional report said the Stalinist state has not frozen its nuclear weapons development and continues to acquire uranium-enrichment technologies. The report said North Korea's missile capabilities and weapons proliferation have increased dramatically in the last five years.
Meanwhile the United States has replaced the USSR as Pyongyang's principal benefactor by providing $645 million in aid.
On the recommendation of former Defense Secretary William Perry, President Clinton eased economic sanctions against Pyongyang in September after it agreed to suspend its next long-range ballistic missile test.
But there is no telling whether the secretive regime in Pyongyang will keep that pledge or threaten to cancel it if more aid is not forthcoming. If the Republicans' claims are correct, the administration's attempts to restrain the North Koreans have failed.
The key to the administration's efforts is the 1974 agreement under which North Korea pledged to freeze its nuclear weapons development in exchange for two nuclear energy plants and other aid.
Suspicion persists that the North Koreans are secretly proceeding with their nuclear weapons program despite the pact and the aid that followed its conclusion.
Given the potential for a disastrous war in the Korean peninsula, providing inducements to the North Koreans to halt nuclear weapons development makes sense -- but only if they are effective. The burden is now on the White House to show that its policy is working.
Khmer Rouge trials
CAMBODIA'S Prime Minister Hun Sen has indicated that all of the top leaders of the Khmer Rouge may be put on trial on charges of genocide in the deaths of more than a million Cambodians during their bloody reign from 1975-78. That would be a welcome development, provided that the trials aren't a whitewash.
Only two top leaders, the notorious torturer Kaing Khek Iev, better known as Duch, and Ta Mok, a military commander, are currently in custody and facing trial. But Hun Sen said trying only two leaders of the radical movement would not satisfy the Cambodian people's demands for justice.
Hun Sen said he intended to begin the trials early next year, with or without U.N. approval of a U.S. formula for the proceedings. But to proceed without U.N. sanction would be to invite suspicion of the trials.
Cambodia has been negotiating the trials' format with the United States and the United Nations. The U.N. had sought an international tribunal but was unable to obtain Hun Sen's consent. Now the world body wants a strong international presence on the court.
Hun Sen has endorsed a U.S. recommendation to create a panel of judges with a Cambodian majority that would require agreement by at least one U.N.-supported judge to pass rulings.
The U.S. side is believed to have recently added another proposal providing for both Cambodian and foreign prosecutors and investigating magistrates. Hun Sen said the idea of co-prosecutors is sound but did not reveal what other elements of the U.S. plan might be included in Cambodia's draft law.
The purpose of the U.S. proposal is to blunt opposition to a Cambodian-controlled tribunal. The question is whether the plan would give the court international credibility. That would depend in part on the reputation of the U.N.-supported judges and the power given them.
Hun Sen has been dragging his feet over the prosecution of the Khmer Rouge, apparently hoping to enlist the support of some of its leaders. The U.S. proposals, by accepting the principle of a trial under the auspices of the Cambodian government, seem to hold an attraction for him.
The 1997 coup in which Hun Sen ousted his co-premier cooled relations with Washington, but he now seems to want to improve those relations. He points out that five of his six children are living in the United States and that one graduated from West Point.
If Hun Sen accepts stipulations that keep the trials honest, he will improve his government's image abroad and probably win rewards from Washington in the form of economic aid.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert 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
