NLL as political football

Any further brawl is dirty old electioneering

Analysts here have long worried the 18th presidential election would be a proxy war of ghosts: two deceased former leaders. Unfortunately, the premonition seems to be proving right, as ex-Presidents Park Chung-hee and Roh Moo-hyun are coming back in big ways.

For nearly two weeks, the governing Saenuri Party has been pressing the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) and its presidential nominee, Moon Jae-in, to play Truth or Dare. At issue is whether Roh virtually disavowed the de facto inter-Korean maritime border of Northern Limit Line (NLL) during his 2007 summit with Kim Jong-il.

Admittedly, national defense should be a key election issue, because there can be no economy or welfare without security. The way the ruling camp approaches this matter, however, is neither reassuring nor even plausible.

This is not to say the nation should forget the past and talk about only the future. Past is important as the mirror of the present, as are the cases of two historical issues still haunting the Korean society: the elder Park’s dictatorship and Japan’s brutal colonial rule of Korea. There are at least two important differences, however, which set Roh’s reported abandoning of the sea territory from the two other historical examples.

First, unlike the historical truths of Park’s dictatorship and Japan’s colonization, Roh’s alleged remark is still in controversy. That means the person who first raised the issue, a former secretary to Roh who has now switched to Saenuri, is obliged to provide hard evidence or at least disclose his source. He did neither, changing his words before falling silent. While contributing to his new boss by creating a phantom issue, the man might have lost little personally, but turned the political clock back five years to dirty, old smearing campaign.

Second, the past continues to be the problem of today only when the parties involved refuse to reject previous wrongs and vow not to repeat them. Park Geun-hye, the dictator’s daughter and Saenuri’s nominee, has recently rejected her father’s undesirable aspects and apologized on his behalf, while Tokyo has yet to do so. Moon, former chief of staff for Roh, made it clear he would take full responsibility if his old boss had made such a remark ― rejecting it if true ― and defend the NLL at all costs ― vowing not to repeat the same mistakes if any. Demanding anymore in this regard is both time-wasting and misleading.

The Saenuri Party should withdraw its calls for a parliamentary probe and opening up the summit records, which is possible only with the approval of two thirds of lawmakers.

No less problematic in this regard are two conservative leaders’ joining in the fray. Candidate Park Friday directly targeted Moon, pressing him to reveal if he has anything to say. Park’s demand, aside from violating the globally recognized rule of keeping summit records at least for decades, conflicts with her own two previous calls ― for discussing the future, not the past, and making a “100-percent Republic of Korea,” in which there should be no disharmony for reason of differences, including ideology.

Even more controversial was President Lee Myung-bak’s abrupt visit to Yeonpyeong-do, an island located just three kilometers south of the NLL that came under a North Korean artillery fire in 2010. We agree that there should be no lame-duck president in terms of national security. If the purpose was to check defense preparedness as Cheong Wa Dae says, however, it would have been far better for the commander in chief to visit eastern land border, where some North Korean soldiers could defect to the South undetected at all and had to knock twice to get any attention, instead of the western sea border where the troops are as alert as ever not to be hit in the same way twice.

Like his earlier landing on Dokdo, Lee’s unprecedented visit to the West Sea island not on the military clash’s first but second anniversary leaves bad taste of using territorial issues for domestic politics.

Lee’s diplomatic policy has long been criticized as that of “three-no’s” ― no philosophy, no principle and no consistency ― as the most hawkish administration tried and failed to hold a summit, made public by Pyongyang’s rude practice of revealing the contents of secret talks. A declassified U.S. diplomatic document also shows the late Park informed Kim Il-sung of his plan to extend dictatorship in the 1970s, seeking Pyongyang’s understanding. In North Korea policy, too, appearance can be deceiving.

There have been five major military clashes in the West Sea since 1999, but none during the five years while Roh was in office, and no one doubted the NLL’s effectiveness at the time.

Sun-tzu, an ancient Chinese strategist, said, “It is best to win without fighting.” <The Korea Times>