Question of reunification biggest focus
At the third meeting regarding North Korea’s government and how to improve human rights, organized by ‘Good Neighbors’ and sponsored by the Hankyoreh, intense debates were underway between progressive and conservative participants. Lee Tae-ho, a senior official of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, said, “There is no question that North Korea is less democratic than South Korea.” However, Mr. Lee said South Korea can be neither confident of being morally superior to North Korea nor have confidence in its ability to fully absorb the North in the event of reunification. “Talking about which regime is superior produces an obstacle on how to reunify the two Koreas in a productive manner,” Mr. Lee said.Regarding the North’s human rights, Mr. Lee said a foreign containment policy only gives the North reason to bolster its internal control, saying those measures will cause more damage to people than to the nation’s strongmen. In an alternative measure, Mr. Lee proposed a ‘prudent dialogue on human rights" between the two Koreas. To do that, South Korea must show its willingness by abolishing its own anti-human rights systems such as the National Security Law, Mr. Lee said. Responding this, Sohn Kwang-joo, an editor of DailyNK, said, “The era of reunification in the Korean Peninsula is on its way, following the collapse of the Cold War regime.” Mr. Sohn said the prerequisite condition for reunification is to help North Korea establish a democratic government by getting rid of the Kim Jong-il rule. However, Mr. Sohn admitted the financial difficulty in implementing reunification. “Within the next 10 to 15 years, South Korea should at least double its per-capita income,” Mr. Sohn said. “The U.S. policy of pressing North Korea is only causing Pyongyang to shun the six-nation talks, without showing any visible result,” said Cho Seong-ryeol, a senior official of the International Affairs Investigative Research Institute. Mr. Cho said U.S. foreign policy was a "democratic peace theory." Mr. Cho also branded South Korea’s North Korean policy as a ‘market peace theory." He said that South Korea’s policy has a limit because "no one can believe the North’s goodwill in resolving its nuclear problems.” Mr. Cho said a programmatic approach would be a combination of the democratic peace theory and the market peace theory.
