8- Alternatives to Peacekeeping in Korea - The Role of Non-State Actors and Face-To-Face Encounte

8/10/2019 8- Alternatives to Peacekeeping in Korea - The Role of Non-State Actors and Face-To-Face Encounte

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Alternatives to Peacekeeping in Korea: TheRole of Non-State Actors and Face-to-Face

Encounters

R O L A N D B L E I K E R

Korea is one of the worlds most volatile areas, not least because traditional UNmediation and peacekeeping missions are impossible. Having intervened in the

Korean War on behalf of the southern side, the UN is a party to the conflict,rather than a neutral arbiter. The situation is particularly problematic becausepolitical interactions are characterized by a high degree of state-control oversecurity policy. In both parts of the peninsula the state has, at least until recently,exercised the exclusive right to deal with the opponent on the other side of the her-metically divided peninsula. Given these domestic and international constrains,alternative approaches to conflict resolution are urgently needed. The recentlyproliferating literature on human security offers possible solutions, for it urgespolicy makers to view security beyond the conventional military-based defenceof the state and its territory. Using such a conceptual framework, the essay

assesses the potential significance non-state interactions between North andSouth, particularly those that promote communication, information exchangeand face-to-face encounters. Even though these interactions remain limited,they are of crucial importance, for they provide an opportunity to reduce thestereotypical threat images that continue to fuel conflict on the peninsula.

Few conflicts are as volatile and as protracted as the one in divided Korea,where deeply hostile and anachronistic Cold War attitudes have posed

major security problems for half a century now. The peninsula remainshermetically divided between a Communist North and a CapitalistSouth. The spectre of a military escalation continuously hovers over thepeninsula. The latest crisis emerged in the autumn of 2002, whenNorth Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.Once again, a war seemed dangerously close.

As opposed to many areas in the world, the UN has little or no possi-bility of mediating or intervening in the Korean conflict. Peacekeepingmissions are out of the question for different reasons. For one, there isno peace to keep. In 1953 an Armistice Agreement ended the KoreanWar, which killed more than a million people. The Armistice, which


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was never signed by South Korea, was to be replaced with a Peace Treaty.This never happened. In juridical terms, the two Koreas thus remain in astate of war. Moreover, rather than being a neutral actor, the UN inter-vened during the Korean War on behalf of the southern side, creatingthe only UN combat force in the organizations history. Sixteen UNmember states contributed to the war effort, although it was carriedout mostly by US and South Korean forces.1 Being a signatory to theArmistice, the United Nations Command has remained in Korea up totoday, representing the southern side in the Military Armistice Commis-sion. A UN mediation or peacekeeping role is thus politically impossible,at least as long as the peninsula remains divided. Under present circum-stances two central preconditions for peacekeeping operations, consent

and impartiality, cannot be obtained.

2

North Korea would have goodreasons to see such a mission as lacking the necessary neutral ground.In the absence of UN peacekeeping possibilities, the security situation

on the peninsula has come to be dominated by the two respective Koreanstates. In both parts of the peninsula the state has, at least until recently,exercised the exclusive right to deal with the enemy on the other side ofthe dividing line. This has been the case even though the two Koreanstates are of a rather different nature: the North is governed by an unu-sually authoritarian Communist regime that has all but annihilated civil

society. The South, which was ruled by a series of military dictatorships,has made a largely successful transition to democracy over the last 15years. But democratic participation has exerted only limited influenceon inter-Korean relations. For decades the DMZ has been one of theworlds most tightly sealed borders, suppressing not only the movementof people but also the exchange of information and communication.Against the background of such a hostile political environment therespective states have been able to legitimatize a particularly narrowapproach to security issues, one that almost exclusively revolves around

a military-based protection of the state apparatus.The recently proliferating literature on human security offers an

alternative to the current arrangement, for it urges policy makers toview security beyond the conventional defence of the state and its terri-tory. Advocates of human security stress the need to take into accountthe welfare of average people. This essay examines the usefulness of theconcept of human security for the Korean peninsula. Doing so is import-ant, because human security offers one of the few conflict resolutionmechanisms available on the peninsula. But to recognize this potential

it is necessary to differentiate between human security as policy makingand human security as a field of study that seeks to understand how

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former domain the field of policy the concept of human securityreveals several weaknesses. It does not offer clear and applicable guide-lines to policy makers nor does it deal with the dominant role of thestate: people are still seen as mere objects, rather than subjects of security.

Human security offers more potential as a form of insight into the pol-itical, for it allows us to recognize how actors other than states can play arole in security affairs. Indeed, far more important than academic debatesabout human security, which rarely reach beyond a small circle of intel-lectual elites, are a variety of largely inaudible grass-roots transform-ations of Korean politics. Among the respective phenomena are thosetriggered by the so-called Sunshine policy of South Koreas presidentKim Dae-jung, which loosened state-control over security by promoting

more interaction, communication and information exchange betweenthe two divided parts of the peninsula. Add to this numerous importantchanges that have occurred in North Korea over the last few years,ranging from increased trade, investment and tourism to an opening upof the country as a result of the presence of international humanitarianworkers.

The essay examines the significance of these growing non-state inter-actions, which have either gone unnoticed or been grossly underestimatedby most security experts. My assessment of them neither seeks to be

definitive nor advances new empirical evidence. The phenomena in ques-tion are far too diverse and complex to permit for an even remotely com-prehensive appraisal, especially in a brief expose. The essay is thus limitedto a conceptual engagement with those non-state interactions thatpromote communication, information exchange or face-to-face encoun-ters between average people. Timid as they so far have been, such encoun-ters nevertheless offer opportunities to break down stereotypical threatimages and to contribute to an eventual culture of reconciliation on thepeninsula.

A brief disclaimer is in order before the essay can begin. Drawingattention to the role of non-state actors is, of course, not to say thatthey operate independently of the state. Non-state actors have beenable to enter the political arena only because the state has explicitlyopened up spaces for them. And a range of factors, from visa regulationsto political pressures and funding restraints, invariably continue to tienon-state actors to the state apparatus. But there is nevertheless greatpotential for non-state actors to contribute to the promotion of aculture of reconciliation and it is this potential that the essay seeks to

explore. Needless to say, the respective activities neither replace theneed for state-based security nor do they exclude other approaches to

A LT E R N A T I V E S T O P E A C E K E E P I N G I N K O R E A 145


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Indeed, no solution to the problems on the Korean peninsula can be foundwithout involving all of the great powers concerned the US, China,Japan and Russia.

State, Identity and the Replication of Conflict

The state has traditionally played a key role in Koreas political, socialand economic development. But nowhere is this influence more pro-nounced and more consequential than in the articulation of securitypolicy, which already is the least democratic of all decision-makingdomains. Both Korean states have gone to great lengths to monopolizesecurity and to shield their respective populations from the subversive

other side. Comparing these two rather different states is, of course, aninherently problematic exercise. The state assumes a very different rolein the North than in the South. And yet, there are also many parallels.Ever since the creation of two separate Korean states, all travel, mailand telecommunication links between North and South have been cutoff. Indeed, for the past half a century the Korean DMZ has perhapsbeen the worlds most hermetically sealed border.

State control over civil society is particularly pronounced in NorthKorea, where average citizens have no access to foreign television pro-

grams, radio broadcasts or newspapers. The notion of a hermitkingdom, exaggerated as it may be at times, has nevertheless notemerged without reason. In a recent study, Kongdan Oh and RalphHassig stress that North Korea is the most closed society on earth,and that it has been more successful than any other modern governmentin cutting off its people from the outside world.3 State control over inter-Korean relations has been unusually high in South Korea too, and thisdespite a largely successful democratization process that has takenplace over the last 15 years. But until recently South Korean citizens

had no access to any form of news from the North. A variety ofdevices, including scramblers and different television systems preventedthe infiltration of media sources across the DMZ. Unauthorized privatevisits to or contact with the North remain punishable by law.

In the absence of meaningful communication and interaction betweenNorth and South, each state was successfully able to diffuse its own ideo-logical worldview. Through a variety of mechanisms, from ideology-based education to a tightly controlled media environment, both statespromoted nationalist discourses that portrayed the political system on

the opposite side of the divided peninsula as threatening, perhaps eveninherently evil. In the South, anti-communism emerged as the hegemonic



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discourse was legally forbidden and that North Korean communists wereliterally seen as not belonging to the same nation.4

At times this state-sponsored anti-communist discourse came underchallenge. During the 1980s, for instance, a radical protest movementespoused anti-American values and questioned prevailing security rheto-ric.5 But this and other comparable movements remained marginal andwere never able to change the prevailing sense of identity. Extensivestudies have shown how in various domains of South Korean society,from newspapers to public exhibitions and school textbooks, the Northis portrayed in highly negative and ideological terms.6 Here too, thesecurity discourse exemplifies the issue: In front of them all proclaimsthe much-heralded motto of the US and South Korean troops stationed

in the Joint Security Area.

7

The situation in the North is comparable, for an anti-imperialist andanti-capitalist discourse prevails in an equally strong manner. In order tounderstand North Korea, one commentator argues, one only needs tolook at the South, for whatever characterizes the South is denouncedand demonised in the North.8 One of the key differences, though, isthat North Koreas Juche or self-reliance ideology is based as much onanti-Japanese and anti-American values as it is on an opposition toSouth Korea.9

Over the years these antagonistic forms of identity have become sodeeply entrenched in societal consciousness that the current politics ofinsecurity appears virtually inevitable. Indeed, the prevailing identity con-structs have helped to legitimatize the very militarized approaches tosecurity which have contributed to the emergence of tension in the firstplace.

State and (In)Security: Rendering the Omnipresent InvisibleEpisodes of negotiations and tolerance have existed at numerousoccasions in Korea, but they were always short-lived. For the pastdecade, security relations on the peninsula have been regulated largelythrough the 1994 Agreed Framework, which managed to bring Koreafrom the brink of war back into the realm of dialogue. Pyongyangagreed to freeze its nuclear programme in return for US, South Koreanand Japanese promises, including aid, heating oil and the eventualconstruction of two light-water nuclear reactors that would provide

North Korea with energy sources.10 A period of quasi-detente followedon the peninsula, culminating in the summit meeting between the two



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regime in Pyongyang, or inadequate security arrangements among states,such as the lack of a regional Asian security framework analogous toNATO or the OSCE.14

States do, of course, play a central role in East Asian security affairs.In that sense the strong statist language is not surprising. It is, perhaps,inevitable. We all slip into it whether we want it or not. It is often theonly way to address security dilemmas. But states are not monolithicentities. The policy formation within them is often hotly disputed andunder constant transformation. Neither are states the only actorsdriving events. But state-centric metaphors of security relations makeit very difficult to appreciate, or even recognize, the multitude ofadditional factors that shape security environments. Seen through a

strategic studies lens, actors other than states from internationalorganizations to NGOs, business representatives or average citizens simply have no bearing on the political realm, or at least not on itssecurity dimensions. And yet, these non-state interactions offer importantopportunities to overcome the antagonistic identity practices that havesustained the Korean conflict over the years.

The Problematic Move from State to Human Security

How to see beyond state-based and militarized forms of security? How torecognize and deal with the problems they cause? How to even beginvisualizing security dynamics that exist beyond the state? And even ifone manages to do so, how can one assess the significance of thesefactors in light of the prevailing state-based construction of securityissues? Answers to these questions do not come easy of course. Butthey can be found at both the conceptual and practical level.

At a conceptual level, the idea of human security has gained significantcredibility in recent years. Its advocates urge policy makers to view secur-

ity beyond the conventional military-based defence of the state and its ter-ritory. They stress the need to take into account the welfare of averagepeople. Issues such as development, poverty, health or human rightsshould thus become part of the security agenda. Although its rootsreach back to the Cold War period, the 1994 Human DevelopmentReport of the United Nations Development Program is usually creditedwith having generated broad discussions on human security.15 Thereport laments the narrow and deeply entrenched tradition of definingsecurity as security of territory from external aggression. Instead, it

draws attention to much-neglected legitimate concerns of ordinarypeople who sought security in their daily lives. This remains perhaps



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articulated in very broad and vague terms. But this did not hinder theconcept of human security from becoming politically important. Itgained increased international credibility when, in 1998, the governmentsof Canada and Norway officially promoted the concept.16 A rapidlyincreasing body of scholarship has meanwhile generated intensivedebates about the potential and limits of human security.17 Althoughsome Asian countries are strong advocates of human security18 thedebate has not yet entered Korea in a significant way.

Can human security locate a way out of the problematic politicaldilemmas on the Korean peninsula? To appreciate its potential, it isuseful to differentiate between security as a policy domain and securityas a field of study that seeks to understand how people, groups and

states affect and are affected by conflict. In the former domain thefield of policy the concept of human security faces several formidablechallenges. Critics of human security see problems in its broad and impre-cise definition. Roland Paris stresses that virtually any kind of unex-pected or irregular discomfort could conceivably constitute a threat toones human security.19 This poses problems for policy makers. Securitiz-ing a domain, such as the well-being of people, is to set priorities in policymaking and funding. But given the broad scope of human security, anunlimited range of issues could become potential security concerns. The

result, Yuen Foong Khong fears, is an inability to prioritize at all.20

Fears of policy paralysis resulting from a broadening of security arejustified. In Korea these fears are reinforced by a variety of otherfactors. Securitizing the well-being of Korean people may well amountto no more than extending the already problematic role of the state.21

President Bush, for instance, used the lack of human rights in NorthKorea as a reason to reinforce a more aggressive military posturetowards the government in Pyongyang. Security issues have also beenused (to various degrees) by both Korean states not to support, but to

undermine the rights and well-being of people. This is particularly thecase with North Korea. Stephen Noerper, for instance, argues thatthe production of military tension has been an essential component ofthe North Korean state to sustain itself externally and internally which, of course, entailed the violent suppression of virtually all dissent.22

But in the South too, various military rulers, from Park Chung-hee toChun Doo-hwan, have used the perception of a hostile North as a strategyto control opposition forces and to consolidate domestic power struc-tures. The situation has improved with South Koreas gradual transition

to democracy, but the government still employs the notorious NationalSecurity Law to crack down on dissidents who show sympathy for the



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years for sympathizing with anti-state groups. As recently as 2001 indi-viduals were tried for unauthorized contacts with North Koreans.23

Besides providing guidelines for policy making, human security canalso be seen as a way of understanding and studying the factors thataffect the security of people. Objections here are far less justified.Critics lament that its broad scope prevents the concept of human securityfrom providing useful guidelines for research. In the absence of a precisedefinition, they fear, human security means almost anything and thusseems capable of supporting virtually any hypothesis along with itsopposite.24 But imposing rigid academic definitions and guidelineswould not necessarily bring us new insight into security. Instead, itwould simply enforce the role of academic disciplines, which are

already powerful mechanisms that direct and control the productionand diffusion of knowledge. They establish the rules of intellectualexchange and define the methods, techniques and instruments that areconsidered proper for the pursuit of knowledge. While providingmeaning, coherence and stability, these rules also delineate the limits ofwhat can be thought, talked, and written of in a normal and rationalway. Innovative solutions to existing problems cannot be found if ourefforts at understanding security issues remain confined to a set of rigidand well-entrenched disciplinary rules. The key, rather, lies in understand-

ing connections between a variety of issues that shape security.The main problem with human security, as it is articulated today, is

not lack of definition, but something more substantial: for all its effortto see beyond the state, human security advocates are unable to escapeits omnipresent conceptual grip. Consider how Lloyd Axworthy,former foreign minister of Canada and a key advocate of human security,stressed how security policy ought above all be measured by its success orfailure. . .to improve the protection of civilians against state-sponsoredaggression and civil, especially ethnic, conflict.25 People thus become,

in Axworthys terminology, referents of security. But the state remains,as Neuman points out, the central provider of security.26

Commendable as such a position may be from the vantage-point ofprogressive policy making, it fails to provide conceptual tools throughwhich the increasingly complex world of security politics can be under-stood. Because people are mere objects, rather than subjects of security,the ensuing conceptual framework remains state-centric. It fails to recog-nize many significant instances where people transgress and at times chal-lenge and transform the very security environment that regulates (or

disrupts) their lives.27

An excellent model for bringing people into the realm of the political



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which, much like its sub-discipline of security studies, remains wedded toa strong state-centric paradigm. In its prevailing neo-realist and neo-liberal form, international relations scholarship revolves around under-standing the influence of structures and norms on state-behaviour. Theonly individuals who matter are those imbued with the power of adecision-maker: presidents, diplomats, generals and the occasionalCEO of a multinational company. Cynthia Enloe is among a group ofinnovative scholars who have challenged this narrow vision of the inter-national. She interprets the dynamics of world politics from the vantagepoint of the margins by heeding the voices of women migrant workersin Mexico or sex workers in brothels outside US military bases in Asia. Bytheorizing the international from the margins, Enloe reveals what other-

wise would remain unnoticed: that relations between governmentsdepend not only on capital and weaponry, but also on the control ofwomen as symbols, consumers, workers and emotional comforters.28

Visualizing Non-State Transformations of Security

A similar visualization of non-state transformations of security environ-ments is needed in Korea. And such transformations are occurring.Face-to-face encounters between people are essential for removing

entrenched stereotypes and threat images. They contribute to the creationof a culture of reconciliation, which is an essential and so far lacking precondition for a significant diplomatic breakthrough on the Koreanpeninsula. To understand the ensuing dynamics is to pay attention to rela-tively mundane daily interactions, which have not usually been con-sidered relevant by a security studies community that is preoccupiedabove all with the heroic dimensions of high politics.

One of the most visible aspects of change, at least at first sight, is NorthKoreas effort to end its diplomatic isolation. During the last few years,

Pyongyang has entered into diplomatic relations with several OECDcountries, including Australia. NorthSouth contacts now take place ona regular basis, of which the summit meeting of June 2000 is the most spec-tacular event. In some sense this diplomatic breakthrough has occurred inthe wake of so-called Track II diplomacy, for the fact that the 1994nuclear crisis in Korea ended up not in war, but in a negotiated settlement,is to a certain extent due to a semi-private intervention by ex-presidentJimmy Carter.29 Such interactions, as for instance interventions by SeligHarrison, can play a crucial role in diffusing tensions, for they allow for

a level of informal interactions that is not possible in official state-to-statenegotiations.30 Important as these diplomatic and Track-II breakthroughs



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encounters among Korean citizens. Without the latter the current culture ofinsecurity is unlikely to change. The recent re-emergence of major militarytension on the peninsula illustrates this dynamic perfectly.

More than diplomatic summits and state-level negotiations are neededto break the impasse on the Koran peninsula. Some alternative steps havealready been taken, most notably with regard to promoting non-statecontacts between Koreans on both sides of the dividing line. Significantfrom this perspective, although much overshadowed by the currentnuclear crisis, are changes that occurred in the wake of the faminesthat have struck North Korea repeatedly since 1995. Representatives offoreign humanitarian organizations now have access to a significantpart of the North Korean territory. Some indicate a figure of 75 per

cent of the country or 80 per cent of the population.

31

Hazel Smithspeaks of a de facto opening up of the country to the outside world.She points out, for instance, that the World Food Program alone has 46full-time resident international staff in North Korea.32

Various NGOs and funding agencies are now supporting a diverserange of projects in the North, from long-term agricultural assistanceto the exploration of alternative energy sources.33 Many internalchanges have taken place as well. With the collapse of the officialeconomy, farmers markets have emerged in many parts of North

Korea. The resulting aspects of a quasi-market economy are reinforcedthrough a new incentive-oriented agriculture, which allows farmers touse surplus production at their own discretion.34

Foot shortages have also led to a significant movement of people awayfrom their authorized residence, which produced a flow of informationabout the seriousness of the situation that would otherwise not havebeen possible.35 The latest aspect of this evolution is the increasingnumber of North Koreans seeking to escape their country via China.

The extent to which the above evolution signals a North Korean will-

ingness to embrace change is open to question. Many of the policychanges are likely the result of a severe economic crisis. Crippled byhalf a decade of recurring famines that have devastated the county, thegovernment in Pyongyang desperately needs foreign aid, investmentand trade. And yet, many of the ensuing dynamics would not havebeen possible without policies that explicitly supported them. Particularlysignificant here is Kim Dae-jungs Sunshine Policy, which has lead to adramatic increase in cross-border contacts. The respective contactshave occurred through various ways, including delivery of humanitarian

aid, work on the KEDO project, family exchanges, cultural interactionsand cross-border (that is, SouthNorth) tourism. Many of these inter-



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Instead of seeking to summarize all of these phenomena, which wouldbe impossible in a brief essay, I would like to illustrate their potential andlimits by focusing briefly on one aspect: business interactions. In somesense, business seems the least likely focus for such an inquiry, for asopposed to traditional NGOs, business activities are usually character-ized by an explicit lack of motivation. The search for profit can hardlybe seen as grounds for a practice of conflict resolution. And yet, evensuch seemingly apolitical activities can, as I shall seek to illustratebelow, play an important role in a political environment that is character-ized by an almost total absence of communicative links between the citi-zens of the two states involved in the conflict.

One of the key aspects of the Sunshine Policy has been its attempt to

separate economics from politics. But that is perhaps not the right way ofconceptualizing the issue. Economic cross-border contacts, be they tradeor aid related, are hardly non-political in nature.36 Indeed, they are highlypoliticized. A better way of understanding the issues at stake is to see thechallenge as one that consists of broadening the political to include theeconomic, and to question the long-held insistence that the state shouldbe the only actor allowed to deal with the archenemy.

Despite obstacles of various kinds, not least the highly unpredictableinvestment climate in the North, there have been a series of bold business

ventures since the inauguration of Kim Dae Jung in February 1998.A breakthrough occurred in June and November 1998, when ChungJu-yung, founder of the Hyundai conglomerate, crossed into North Korea,via Panmunjom, with several hundred head of cattle, to be donated tothe North. The visit of the South Korean business tycoon signalled thearrival of a new era of inter-Korean economic relations. Hyundai embarkedon business ventures, including the opening up of the Kumgang mountainarea for South Korean tourists as well as plans for a possible NorthSouthoil pipeline and a computer-making plant near Pyongyang. Other compa-

nies, such as Samsung or LG Electronics, embarked on similar projects.Many of these new ventures have not become financially viable. HyundaisKumgang Mountain project, for instance, could only survive thanks tosubstantial government subsidies. This also illustrates a second limitation:even though business activities are part of the non-state sector, they do notescape the influence of the state. Many of Koreas key businesses, mostnotably the Chaebol conglomerates, have strong ties to the government.But even smaller South Korean businesses can operate in the North onlywith explicit approval by both states.

Despite these clear limits business activities can play a role in facilitat-ing communication and face-to-face encounters among average Koreans.



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business people visited the North. By international standards these econ-omic activities may be insignificant. But they are revolutionary in thecontext of the hermetically sealed Korean peninsula. While the visitingbusiness people would have only very limited possibilities of engagingwith average North Koreans, their presence is politically significant.Indeed, historians of tomorrow may well identify the turning point inNorth East Asian politics with such low-key economic interactions,rather than the diplomatic summits that attract global media attention.Some go as far as portraying the Hyundai Group the leading inter-Korean mediator.37

It is not so much, as some commentators suggest, that these non-stateactors are able to speak with one or both parties to the dispute without

prejudice to either.

38

The Korean situation is far too entrenched and tooemotionally and rhetorically charged to allow for any assessment oraction that is free of prejudice. But non-state actors can, indeed, behighly effective and perhaps even revolutionary negotiators. They arebound by fewer restrictions than state actors and can thus pursueagendas that governments cannot. They may also help to update theworlds psychological map of North Korea by replacing stereotypeswith a more differentiated understanding.39 This is the case becauseface-to-face encounters offer perhaps the best opportunity to create dia-

logical spaces and to dismantle threat images. Compromise needs confi-dence, and the building of confidence requires personal encounters thatcan build trust over time.

Non-state interactions between North and South are not without pro-blems and obstacles. Some fear that more direct contacts carry thedanger of South Koreans becoming attracted to the North Korean wayof thinking, which might lead to the Vietnamese style unification.40

This risk seems rather minimal. The difficulties are much bigger on theother side of the DMZ. Statistical evidence is highly revealing in this

case too. Consider the data given by the South Korean Ministry of Unifi-cation. The total number of South Korean visitors to the North during thelast few years was usually a few hundred per month, sometimes slightlyabove one thousand. Compare this figure to the Kumgang Mountaintour. The number of South Korean participants who visited the NorthKorean mountain site dwindled, from a peak of 27,950 in October2000, to anywhere between 1,500 and 11,000 per month in 2002.41

But participants on the Kumgang-san tour still outnumber by far thetotal of all other remaining visitors to North Korea.

This statistical fact is both striking and politically relevant. It revealsabove all that North Korea is trying its utmost to minimize face-to-face



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easily be controlled, to the point that virtually no contact with averageNorth Koreans is possible. The result is a self-contained event thatbrings badly needed foreign currency but little fact-to-face interactionsto North Korea.42 The state remains largely in control not only of thesecurity situation, but of civil society too.

Fear of the outside world is indeed something that Kim Jong-il hasexpressed on various occasions. Opening up, he stressed in a secretlyrecorded conversation, is no different from the withdrawal of a countrystroops.43 The survival of the political order may well be contingent onthe regimes ability to shield the population from subversive outside influ-ence. These constraints are likely to influence any attempt to promoteface-to-face interactions between average citizens. North Korea will

inevitably be torn between, on the one hand, having to open up inorder to attract badly needed economic assistance and, on the otherhand, trying to stay in power by retaining as much control as possibleover the flow of information.

Conclusion

Despite their so-far limited nature, and the obstacles they face, non-stateinteractions across the DMZ have increased significantly in recent years.

Although many of these interactions are still strongly influenced by therespective states they offer important alternatives to more establishedpractices of security and conflict resolution. Such alternatives are particu-larly important in Korea, where state-control over security is unusuallyhigh, and where the UN has no possibility of offering mediation or peace-keeping services. I have drawn particular attention to those non-state-interactions that promote face-to-face interactions among averageKoreans. These interactions can play an important role in supplementingother forms of conflict resolution, such as bilateral or international diplo-

macy, for they have the potential to dismantle some of the deeplyentrenched threat images that have contributed to the current culture ofinsecurity on the peninsula.

Various obstacles have so far prevented the further expansion of face-to-face contacts between Koreans on both sides of the DMZ. The North istrying to minimize its contacts with the outside world. A new and muchmore confrontational US foreign policy is likely to be a major obstacle aswell. Hope has emerged with South Koreas unusually engaging position.President Kim Dae-jungs Sunshine Policy has opened up the possibility

for more non-state interactions between North and South, from econ-omic family exchanges to tourist visits and economic activities. Kims suc-



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this policy of engagement. But despite this sustained effort, non-stateinteractions across the DMZ remain very limited. They hardly transgressthe state-centric pattern of intra-Korean relations. And yet, the gradualdemocratization of South Korean society is likely to put further pressureon foreign policy decision making, eventually undermining the statesmonopoly to deal with the North.44

Perhaps more significantly, technological changes will make it increas-ingly difficult for each Korean state to control the flow of informationbetween the two sides. It is only a matter of time until fax, radio, satellitetelevisions, e-mail and the internet start reaching greater parts of theNorth Korean population. Likewise, it is only a matter of time too untilSouth Koreans will have access to information from (and interactive com-

munication with) the North that is not censored by the state apparatus.The long-term consequences of increasing non-state contacts on theKorean peninsula are difficult to predict. They can entail anything froma gradual rapprochement to a sudden collapse of the North. Muchmore certain, by contrast, is the fact that non-state interactions are occur-ring, that they are significant and, above all, that they can contribute tothe promotion of a badly needed culture of reconciliation on the penin-sula. The fact that this process is already underway, although largelyunacknowledged, is perhaps one of the most reassuring aspects on a

peninsula that is still plagued by the constant spectre of violence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to Alex Bellamy, Kim Soonam and an anonymous referee for comments on an

earlier draft. Thanks as well to Moon Chung-in, for hosting my stay at Yonsei University,

and to the US Institute of Peace and the Humboldt Foundation for sponsoring my research.The essay expands on ideas first expressed in my From State to Human Security: Reflections

on Inter-Korean Relations, KNDU Review: Journal of National Security Affairs, Vol.7,No.2, December 2002, pp.14369.

NOTES

1. Koh Byung Chul, The Foreign and Unification Policies of the Republic of Korea,Kil Soong Hoom and Moon Chung-in (eds.), Understanding Korean Politics(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), pp.2312.

2. See Alex J. Bellamy and Paul Williams, Introduction to this collection.3. Oh Kongdan and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass (Washing-

ton, DC: Brookings, 2000), pp.30, 1423.4. See Kil Soong Hoom and Moon Chung-in, Introduction to Kil and Moon,Under-

standing Korean Politics, p.2; and Shin Gi-Wook, Nation, History and Politics:South Korea, in Hyung Il Pai and Timothy R. Tangherlini (eds.), Nationalism andthe Construction of Korean Identity (Berkeley CA: Institute of East Asian Studies



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5. Shin (see n.4 above), pp.156 64.6. See Choi Chungmoo, The Discourse of Decolonization and Popular Memory: South

Korea, Positions, Vol.1, No.1, 1993; Roy Richard Grinker, Korea and Its Futures: Uni-fication and the Unfinished War(London: Macmillan, 1998); Park Ki Sun and Chon RiRyong, Hankook shimun-ae banyong-dwen Bukhan image [North Koreas image

reflected in South Korean newspapers] (Seoul: So Hwa, Hanlim Science InstituteReport No. 25, 1995); Dennis Hart, Creating the National Other: Opposing Imagesof Nationalism in South and North Korean Education, Korean Studies, Vol.23,1999, pp.68 93.

7. Eighth US Army, United Nations Command Security Battalion, Panmunjom, 2000,www.korea.army.mil/org/jsa/.

8. Park Han S., North Korean Perceptions of Self and Others: Implications for PolicyChoices,Pacific Affairs, Vol.73, No.4, Winter 2000, p.504.

9. See Hart (n.6 above).10. William Perry, then US Secretary of Defense, considered the 1994 Korean nuclear crisis

the only time during his tenure when he believed that the US was in serious danger of amajor war. William J. Perry, The United States and the Future of East Asian Security,in Woo Keun-Min (ed.), Building Common Peace and Prosperity in Northeast Asia(Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 2000), p.121. Numerous analyses have meanwhilebeen written about the crisis. Among them are Don Oberdorfer, The Two Koreas: AContemporary History (London: Warner Books, 1998) and Leon V. Sigal, DisarmingStrangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1998).

11. See, for instance, Moon Chung-in, The Korean Summit and Implications for Peace inNortheast Asia, in Woo (n.10 above).

12. Kent E. Calder, The New Face of Northeast Asia, Foreign Affairs, Jan./Feb. 2001, p.16.13. Ibid. p.110.14. Ibid. p.107. See also Francois Godement, Une paix asiatique est-elle possible sans

architecture regionale,Politique E

trangere, No.1, 2001, pp.8292.15. United Nations Development Programme,Human Development Report(New York:Oxford University Press, 1994), p.22.

16. Lloyd Axworthy, Human Security and Global Governance: Putting People First,Global Governance, Vol.7, No.1, Jan.March 2001.

17. See, for instance, Edward Newman, Human Security and Constructivism, Inter-national Studies Perspectives, Vol.2, 2001; Roland Paris, Human Security: ParadigmShift or Hot Air? International Security, Vol.26, No.2, Fall 2001.

18. See Amitav Acharya, Human Security: East versus West, International Journal,Vol.56, No.3, Summer 2001.

19. Paris (n.17 above), p.89.20. Yuen, Foong Khong, Human Security: A Shotgun Approach to Alleviating Human

Misery?Global Governance, Vol.7, No.3, JulySept. 2001, p.232.21. Hazel Smith, Bad, mad, sad or rational actor? Why the Securitation paradigm makes for

poor policy analysis of North Korea, International Affairs, Vol. 76, No.3, 2000, p.596.22. Stephen Noerper, Regime Security and Military Tension in North Korea, in Moon,

Understanding Regime Dynamics in North Korea, p.16774.23. Valerie Reitman, South Koreans on trial for warming to those from North,Sydney

Morning Herald, 30 Oct. 2001.24. Paris (n.17 above), p.93.25. Newman, (n.17 above), p.244.26. Ibid. p.240.27. For two excellent and highly insightful analyses of this dilemma see Anthony Burke,

Caught Between National and Human Security: Knowledge and Power in Post-

Crisis Asia, Pacifica Review, Vol.13, No.3, 2001; and Alex J. Bellamy and MattMcDonald, The Utility of Human Security: Which Humans? What Security? SecurityDial V l 33 N 3 2002 373 8



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28. Cynthia Enloe,Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of InternationalPolitics(London: Pandora, 1989), p.xi. For an excellent application of this strategy ofinquiry to Korea see Katharine H.S. Moon,Sex Among Allies: Military Prostitution inU.S.Korea Relations(New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).

29. See Sigal (n.10 above).

30. Chung Oknim, The US-ROK Private Sector Role in Peace and Security on the KoreanPeninsula, The Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, Vol.11, No.1, Summer 1999,pp.1046.

31. Omawale Omawale, An Exercise in Ambivalence: Negotiating with North Korea,Harvard Asia Pacific Review, Vol.3, No.2, Summer 1999.

32. Hazel Smith, Opening Up by Default: North Korea, the Humanitarian Communityand the crisis,The Pacific Review, Vol.12, No.3, 1999, pp.453, 455.

33. See, for instance, Chung (n.30 above), pp.120 21; Timothy Savage and NautilusTeam, NGO Engagement with North Korea: Dilemmas and Lessons Learned,AsianPerspective, Vol.26, No.1, 2002, pp.15167; Hazel Smith, Five-year Review of theCaritas Program in the DPRK (Hong Kong: Caritas, 2001); Eric Weingartner, NGOContributions to DPRK Development: Issues for Canada and the International Com-munity, UBC North Pacific Policy Papers No.7.

34. See Ahn Yirihay, North Korea in 2001: At a Crossroads,Asian Survey, Vol.42, No.1,JanFeb. 2002; and Moon Chung-in and Kim Tae-Hwan, Sustaining Inter-KoreanReconciliation: North South Korea Cooperation,The Journal of East Asian Affairs,Fall/Winter 2001, p.24041.

35. Ahn (see n.34 above), p.2.36. Or so argue, quite convincingly, a range of conservative critics of the Sunshine Policy.

See Park Tong Whan, Nation versus State: The Dillema of Seouls Foreign Policy-Making Towards Pyongyang,Pacific Focus, Vol.14, No.2, Fall 1999, pp.445.

37. Choi, Won-Ki. Dealing with North Korea as it is,Nautilus Institute Policy ForumOnline, accessed at www.nautilus.org/fora/security/9907K Choi.html, 1999.

38. Chung (n.30 above), p.104.39. Ibid. p.125.40. Park (see n.36 above), p.51.41. See Ministry of Unification, Overview of Intra-Korean Interchange & Cooperation,

http://152.99.76.131/en. For interesting interpretations of these data see MarcusNoland, Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the two Koreas (Washington, DC:Institute for International Economics, 2000) and Park, (n.36 above), pp.5361.

42. The same logic underlies the attempt at containing economic interactions with theoutside world to controllable special economic zones, initially at Rajin-Seonbongand now, as planned, at a second site in Sinuiju. See James Cotton, A Radical Exper-iment: The Evidence is in from North Koreas Rajin-Seonbong Area, Harvard AsiaPacific Review, Vol.2, No.1, 1997 98, pp.57 60; and Lee Young-jong, North

names Sinuiju special economic zone,JoongAng Ilbo, 20 Sept. 2002.43. Cited in Oh and Hassig (n.3 above), p.108.44. See Park (n.36 above), p.45.



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Documents

8- Alternatives to Peacekeeping in Korea - The Role of Non-State Actors and Face-To-Face Encounte