Living with the Enemy: Inside North Korea Description:
Review: Living with the Enemy , Saccone arrived at Sinp on North Korea뭩 east coast in early December 2000. It was not an auspicious time. The Clinton administration was wrapping up its second term, and the Bush administration was poised to usher in a more adversarial approach to North Korea.
During his tenure at KEDO, when he was not trying to explain the shift in U.S. policies, Saccone observed many of the characteristics that have divided Koreans more thoroughly than the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
Take the matter of the two-story golf driving range. The South Koreans built the range as part of their accommodations near the construction site. Several hundred South Koreans labored alongside North Koreans and later Uzbekis to build the reactors. They had to have some place to live as well as a place to relax. According to South Korean custom, relaxation included golf.
The North Koreans didn뭪 see it that way. After touring the facilities, a DPRK representative complained to Saccone that although the reactor construction lagged years behind schedule, the South Koreans had found time to build a driving range and recreation center. 밐e asked if the workers came to the site on vacation or came to work,� Saccone recalls. Another North Korea official 밹ited enormous civil projects North Korea had completed in record time without the advantage of the so-called labor-saving equipment we benefited from.�
Here in this apparently trivial disagreement over construction priorities, lies one of the profound differences between North and South. North Korea remains a relatively poor, strictly hierarchical society where the government determines the economic priorities and creates 뱒hock brigades� to accomplish the task. South Korea, on the other hand, has become one of the top dozen economies in the world. Since the democratization of the late 1980s, workers cannot be exploited at the whim of the government. The North has been hardened by adversity, while the South has become soft � or so the North Koreans view it.
Five decades of separation did little to alter the blood and DNA of the Korean people. But the years of separation did create utterly different political cultures. Saccone found himself in the strange position of mediating between two cultures not his own. His underlying goal, beyond keeping the nuclear project more or less on schedule, was to build a relationship of trust with his North Korean interlocutors. His South Korean colleagues sometimes made this difficult.
Once, in negotiations with the North Koreans over one of the routine disagreements, Saccone sat and fumed as he watched a South Korean colleague proceed to break every rule of 밽etting to yes� negotiations. Saccone passed notes to the fellow. 밪top blaming them,� he wrote first. Then: 밪top accusing them.� Finally, nearly fed up, he wrote, 뱋ffer a counterproposal instead of criticizing.� The South Korean ignored him.
On another occasion, a major incident threatened to break out when the North Korean authorities searched the baggage of a South Korean worker and discovered writings that criticized the North Korean leadership. Saccone was forced to mediate between the North Korean뭩 outrage and the principles of privacy by which he and the South Koreans operated.
When he was not resolving such conflicts, Saccone was trying to interact with as much of North Korean society as he could, never passing up an opportunity to see a sight, visit a city, have an informal conversation, or even just wave from his taxi at schoolchildren. Sometimes his efforts at being a good-will ambassador makes him seem a bit gullible. But his portrait of North Korea is valuable precisely because of his willful suspension of prejudice. Saccone뭩 perspective is empathetic: He understands the pride of the North Koreans, their understandable shortcomings, their willingness to reciprocate in an atmosphere of trust. It is the rare U.S. emissary who goes to such lengths to understand and engage an official adversary�.
It might seem counterintuitive that Koreans could learn anything from outsiders about their own experience of difference and yearning for reunification. But꿙accone뭩 personal example could serve as useful navigational points while North and South Korea make their way across the current minefield of division toward an embrace of equals.
John Feffer, Korean Quarterly
LC# 2006927000 ISBN-13: ISBN-10:
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