Time to get focused, get real about North KoreaBy Kate Nash
When a friend asked Eric Sirotkin to be part of a lawyer's delegation to North Korea in 2003, he got to studying the faraway Asian country.
A human rights attorney who does work in Albuquerque and internationally, he spent hours brushing up on the nation, which President Bush in 2002 declared part of the Axis of Evil.
He was shocked at how little he knew about life on the Korean peninsula and about the three-year Korean War.
Once he got to Pyongyang, Sirotkin was even more surprised to see how different the country was from his impressions.
"It's not as we're being told," he said.
"There has been an ongoing approach to demonize North Korea and to create a boogeyman out there . . . to continue to justify the huge military investment in the region."
The U.S. investment in South Korea includes 32,000 troops and expenditures of between $20 billion and $30 billion a year, Sirotkin said.
Americans are led to believe that North Korea is isolated, that it has an enormous military worth fearing and that there is no tourism and little interaction with South Korea. But that's not what Sirotkin - back just three weeks ago from another visit there - has found.
He saw a South Korean women's golf team in North Korea. He met Scottish businessmen and teachers from Canada. He noted significant trade between the North and South and a will of the people in both countries for peace between their nations.
He also saw that the military - touted as among the biggest in the world - is the major employer.
"Most people go into it because there are few other jobs," he said. Soldiers there build roads and bridges, and work in fields, Sirotkin said. He didn't see a weapon on the peninsula until he got to the Demilitarized Zone between the North and the South.
"Billy Graham has preached there twice. I mean, there's all kinds of things you don't hear," Sirotkin said.
Maybe we don't hear a lot about North Korea because the Korean War, which ended in 1953 and left millions dead, seems too long ago or is overshadowed by the war in Iraq.
Or maybe because news outlets are cutting back on international coverage.
Or because we're not sure what to think about the bizarre character and even stranger loyalty that leader Kim Jong Il embodies.
Sirotkin advocates a more open dialogue with Pyongyang - building a diplomatic relationship to work from - but he doesn't gloss over the human rights violations, malnutrition or the nuclear threat.
But those issues can't be addressed if there's no working relationship, he said.
While North Korea might seem outdated, or too isolated to matter, Americans need to get interested in the country and the region, if not for its nuclear potential, for the economic ramifications a more stable Asia could have.
"If we don't get our act together in Asia, we're going to miss the economic boat," he said.
We should pay attention to the six-party talks in Beijing and try to understand the role the United States really plays among the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan.
Sirotkin isn't sure U.S. leaders really want a stable Asia.
"I believe the U.S. thrives off instability and is fearful of a peaceful economy," Sirotkin said.
"There's a strategic game in keeping those countries a little on the edge and spending their budgets on their military."
Sirotkin, chairman of the New Mexico-based National Lawyer's Guild Korean Peace Project, plans to travel again to North Korea in about three weeks.
Gov. Bill Richardson, too, has said he would consider going to Pyongyang to try to convince North Koreans to shut down their nuclear program, if the six-party talks fail.
Sirotkin isn't too hopeful the negotiations will succeed.
Let's hope he's wrong, that this round of talks is different from all the others.
With so much at stake if relations continue as they are, let's hope the globe-crossing trip Richardson would make is one he doesn't have to take.
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