The "Idi Amin" Solution May Beckon
An interesting piece out of Australia has appeared in our local rag. It is quite some time since we read about the dire internal threats facing North Korea. Yet, the fact remains that Kim Jong-un is between the proverbial rock and a very hard place. He faces a threat that historically, in the past one hundred years, has brought down more dictatorships than anything else.
That threat has not been war (although all totalitarian states place their countries on a permanent war footing). The threat has been people power. Their own people. Totalitarian states, those that have imposed secular atheism by force throughout the twentieth century, have ended not with the a bang, but the proverbial whimper.
The article quotes Professor Kim Dong-yup, director of research at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, who has personal experience dealing with North Korea's negotiating tactics, having taken part in previous military talks between the North and South.
Prof Kim said the country's people, brutally oppressed by the regime for so long, are becoming more aware of the outside world and harder to control, so are less likely to tolerate continued economic malaise. "Given the context, that the North Korean people have access to five million mobile phones and numerous markets where they can access information, the regime simply cannot be sustained through control and oppression," he said. "The biggest thing Kim Jong-un is fearful of is not the pressure from the outside world it is his people. So he has made the strategic decision that by keeping nuclear weapons, he will not make his people happy and will not ensure his regime's survival. [NZ Herald. Emphasis, ours.]
The last thirty years of the previous century teache us what happens when countries build walls not for defence, but to keep their people inside the stockade.
