뉴욕타임스에서 옮겨온 기사 내용이다.
1990년대부터 불과 2년전 까지, 남한의 모든 어려움을 뒤로 제껴두고, 당시의 대통령들은 북한에 퍼주기만 하면서, 북한이 남한에 편하게 대해주기만을 바랬었다. 마치 짝사랑하듯 말이다. 그렇게 해주었는데도, 돌아온것은 핵무기를 개발하여 그기수를 남쪽으로 겨누지 않나, 정상회담을 하기로 합의하고, 좌파 김때중이가 북한에 갔었고, 김정일이는 남한을 답방하기로 약속해 놓고, 헌신짝 버리듯 했고, 그래도 혹시나 하면서, 그다음 대통령도 북한에 김정일이를 알현하러 가서, 퍼주고 왔었지만, 결과는 오늘 아래 기사에서 보듯이, 유엔군을 통해 남한과 맺은 휴전협정을 깨버리겠다는, 그래서 핵무기 설비나 물자를 싣고 공해상이나 남쪽 해상을 지나는 북한 선박이 남한해군이나 미군당국에 의해 정지당하고 해상점검을 받게 되면, 전쟁으로 간주하고 남한을 공격 할수도 있다고, 국제사회 통념상 절대로 이해가 될수 없는 망발을 해대는 북한의 최종 목적은 무엇인지? 그속셈은 뻔한 것으로 보인다. 이번 기회를, 남한정부와 미국은, 오히려 북한에게 섯부른 군사적 행동에 대한 대가라는것이 어떤것인지를 꼭 보여주고, 가능하면 김정일 집단을 권좌에서 몰아내고, 북한 주민들을 철의장막 고통으로 부터 해방 시켜야만 된다는 의무감을 기억했으면 한다. 상투적인 북한의 공갈에, 이제까지 호의적이었던 남한주민들까지도 더이상 참지 못하고, 망나니 북한을 얼르기에 이제는 지쳤다고 뉴욕 타임스는 지적하고 있다. 우리 한반도 조국이 더 크게 융성하고, 국민들의 답답함을 털어내기 위해서는 막힌 휴전선이 뚫려, 자동차를 몰고, 북을 통해 만주로, 시베리아로 그리고 유럽까지 달릴수 있도록, 위정자들은 명심하고, 지혜를 짜내고, 장애물을 제거 해야 한다. 안타깝기 그지 없다. 망원경을 통해 북쪽 산하를 쳐다보는 국민들의 모습이, 관광으로 본다기 보다는, 애잔한 마음이 더 깊게 묻어 있음을 보는것 같다. 아 조국이여, 이 염원이 언제 풀어질것인가? 이제는 감상에서 깨어나서 바짝 정신 차려야 한다.
S. Koreans Express Fatigue With a Recalcitrant North
Seokyong Lee for The New York Times
Visitors to the Unification Observatory Post in Paju, South Korea, can look into North Korea.
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: May 27, 2009
PAJU, South Korea — Peering at North Korea in the hazy distance from the demilitarized zone, standing under an upbeat mural trumpeting improved relations between the separated countries, a visitor from South Korea struck a skeptical note.
“We sent them food, fertilizer, factories, more than we give our own poor people,” said the South Korean, Lee Soon-hwan, a 30-year-old office worker. “And all they pay us back with is this nuclear test.”
After years of hope that relations with the North would thaw if the South tried to coax it into engagement, regional experts and others speak of growing disenchantment. Many South Koreans reacted with exasperation and even anger to North Korea’s nuclear test on Monday, uncharacteristically harsh responses in a country that has long been more tolerant of its unruly northern neighbor than have its allies in Washington and Tokyo.
Partly, the reaction reflects the outrage here at the timing of the test, coming as South Korea was in mourning over the suicide of a former president on Saturday.
But there are also signs of fatigue with a recalcitrant North that has responded to the South’s largess by continuing to build up its nuclear arsenal.
“There has been a paradigm shift in how South Koreans view North Korea,” said Jeung Young-tai, a North Korea expert at the Korea Institute for National Unification. “The nuclear test has made people feel that North Korea has gone too far, and it’s high time for us to be tough on North Korea.”
The engagement policy followed years of enforced separation and relentless anti-North propaganda that ignored South Korea’s deep emotional bonds with the other half of the peninsula, forced apart, as they see it, by big-power politics during the cold war. The so-called sunshine policy began in the late 1990s and was broadly popular, even surviving the first North Korean nuclear test in 2006.
But Mr. Jeung said that people now felt no safer after 10 years of engagement and that the latest nuclear test, along with the North’s test-firing of a long-range rocket last month, had driven home to many in South Korea their need to build up their own military, and stick with their traditional ally, the United States.
Such a shift may bring South Korea closer in many ways to Washington. A sign came Tuesday, when President Lee Myung-bak announced that South Korea would belatedly join the Proliferation Security Initiative, an American-led program to intercept ships suspected of carrying unconventional weapons. The South had refrained from joining for fear of angering the North.
At the same time, fundamental differences with the United States remain. While Washington has in the past spoken of blockades and further isolating North Korea, few South Koreans are talking about cutting off aid and economic relations completely.
Instead, the South Korean public appears ready to accept continued engagement, but with new demands that North Korea also show good faith, particularly by curtailing its weapons program.
Still, even talk of imposing conditions on aid suggests a shift in attitudes for South Koreans, who have long viewed the North as a proud but poor cousin that should be tolerated and led toward eventually peaceful reunification. Such sentiments guided South Korean policy for a decade, as Seoul opened an industrial park and a mountain resort in the North, and extended it hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
Those ties began to sour after the election last year of Mr. Lee, a conservative who said aid should be offered only if the North ended its nuclear program. Weariness with the North has also grown over the past year, after the North responded to Mr. Lee’s tougher stance by temporarily closing access to the Kaesong industrial park, detaining a South Korean accused of slandering the North Korean government, and test-firing a long-range rocket in April.
“South Koreans are feeling frustration and fatigue with the North Korea relationship,” said Daniel Pinkston, North East Asia deputy project director at International Crisis Group, an nonprofit organization that tries to prevent deadly conflicts. “They want more reciprocity.”
While there have been no recent public opinion polls, the shift has begun emerging in online chat rooms and newspaper opinion articles, like one in JoongAng Ilbo on Wednesday entitled “Stop Being Suckers for Kim Jong-il.”
The tougher attitudes were also apparent in more than a dozen recent street interviews with South Koreans at places like the Unification Observatory in Paju, an hour northwest of Seoul overlooking the demilitarized zone.
Many of those interviewed said they were frustrated that North Korea seemed to be pushing their country around, although the South was the one opening its pocketbook. And while no one called for cutting off the North outright, most agreed that South Korea should get more benefits, and more respect, for its money.
“I’m tired of the whole relationship,” said Kim Bong-jin, 52, who owns a machinery factory nearby. “The past administrations have supported North Korea too excessively, and the result is nuclear weapons.”
His friend, Lim Jae-hyung, 52, a technician, said, “We have the money, we should be getting more from it.”
From the observatory, the vastly different levels of wealth between the Koreas were plainly visible. In the North Korean town of Maegol, people could be seen walking along dirt roads between gray buildings with no vehicles in sight. By contrast, a busy six-lane highway cut through Paju, a popular tourist area with a go-kart track, a drive-in theater and rows of gaudy “love” hotels.
While conservatives have always taken a hard line toward the North, many on the left who supported the sunshine policy also say they are fed up with the North Koreans. This was particularly evident among supporters of former President Roh Moo-hyun, who jumped to his death on Saturday. A suicide note suggested that he was despondent about a corruption investigation.
Mr. Roh had pursued friendly engagement with the North, and many of those who mourned him at makeshift altars on Wednesday expressed anger at the North over the nuclear test, which they called an unforgivable show of callous disregard.
“It is unbelievable that they would do this at such a sad and sensitive time,” said one mourner, Kang Han-seung.
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