Analysts and experts treated the audience to rare accounts and informed insight into the North Korean regime’s mindset on Tuesday 15th April at the Frontline Club.
BBC East Asia Editor Charles Scanlon hosted the discussion on the hot topic of North Korea’s threat – is it imminent, or is it overstated? – with former British Ambassador to North Korea John Everard, Cambridge lecturer Dr. John Swenson-Wright and Andrea Berger, a Research Fellow in Nuclear Analysis at the Royal United Services Institute.
(L-R) John Swenson-Wright, Charles Scanlon, Andrea Berger and John Everard. Photo: Alex Glynn
Everard reflected on Kim Jong-Un’s behaviour and what it meant:
“Given the way the North Koreans continued the escalation – even after the US had offered them a ladder to climb down by famously postponing their missile test – at that point, if it had just been a point of Kim Jong-Un trying to show he is strong, he could’ve claimed victory. . . . But he didn’t do that – it leads me to think that the North Koreans want the US to finally recognise them as a nuclear state; they want them to cease their hostile policy to North Korea and they want aid”
On the other hand, Swenson-Wright, who had recently returned from Seoul, spoke about how the North’s actions were so intrinsically linked to South Korea:
“Some of us thought that the North Koreans were looking to test the new relationship with Park Geun-hye [the new South Korean president] and that’s a consistent pattern we’ve seen when there is a transition in South Korean politics.”
“There is an argument that we should be ignoring this country. The problem there is that if you try and put North Korea in a box and try to contain it, you give them the opportunity to engage in these efforts to proliferate and enhance its capabilities,” he added.
Scanlon asked Berger, who had recently been to North Korea spending time with military generals and the Worker’s Party, if there is any substance behind the threat. She replied:
“For the threats to be credible there has to be capability and intent. On the capability side there is a very large question mark over their nuclear capabilities and ballistic missile capabilities. We don’t think they have the capability to hit [as far as they claimed]. But North Korea certainly seems like it’s working to develop its [military] capabilities. So even though they might not be there yet, they look like they want to reach that ability.”
An audience member asked the panel what the likelihood was of either side opening fire and causing deaths. There was a slight disagreement:
Berger felt it was unlikely because the North would be scared of the South’s reaction. She cited an incident while Lee Myung-bak was in power in the South where the North caused the death of South Koreans: “The current leader in South Korea has made very clear that that situation will not be repeated and I think the North has heard that message.”
Everard disagreed, stating:
“I think that the probability is quite high. They have in the past have got away with sinking a South Korean vessel and shelling South Korean gun placements on an island. I’ve got a sinking feeling they think they can get away with this again.”
Alex Glynn is a freelance journalist currently doing a Newspaper Journalism MA at City University.
You can watch the video of last nights event and listen to or download the podcast below:
https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/north-korea-sabre-rattling-or
]]>The complex situation of the French-led intervention in Mali and the issues in the surrounding region was untangled somewhat on 6 February 2013 at the Frontline Club’s First Wednesday: A new front in the fight against terrorism?
Paddy O’Connell of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House was the chair and started things off by asking the panel to give their impressions of the region.
Ibrahima Diane, a journalist and editor at BBC Afrique, said that common thought is that the fight is between “Islamists against the southern Mali and it’s more complex than that”.
Wilfred Willey, president of the Malian Community Council in the UK, reinforced Diane‘s point that the complexities must be understood:
“Mali has known several rebellions since it took its independence in 1960. But none of them have had the impact and severity that this one has brought.”
Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News’ International Editor, who had returned from Mali only two days before said that the Malian people are rejoicing now that François Hollande has intervened, but “liberator soon becomes occupier”. There is “hatred and vitriol” building for the Tuareg, a nomadic community spread out over Mali, Niger and Algeria, with people looking for who to blame for Mali’s situation.
The debate moved on to the complex number of forces in the region: the MNLA, Ansar Dine, Al Qaeda, Mujao and the Signed-in-Blood Battalion. While some of these forces have been around for years before the Arab Spring, there are some more opportunistic rebel groups who have, as Willey pointed out, “used the opportunity to have a go and take over the whole region”, such as the Signed-in-Blood Battalion who instigated the Algerian hostage situation.
On the question of whether Hollande was right to intervene in Mali, Willey had no doubt that it was the best thing to do at the time:
“There were those on the frontline who had lost all hope . . . and their intervention gave that hope back. . . . Mali has suffered up to 10 months under the Sharia law. . . . We just wanted someone to come and help us with these people. So yes, the French were right to intervene.”
But what should be done going forward in Mali?
Lord Ashdown, former leader of the Liberal Democrats and UN High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said:
“The Prime Minister has said this will last 10 years. . . . If you think of Afghanistan and Iraq as a model for the next 10 years then you’re going the wrong way and my worry is that a prevailing thought that is in Whitehall at present.
“Using the purely military option as we did in Afghanistan, as we did in Iraq, and as we’re in danger of doing in Mali, not only doesn’t work . . . but anyway we can’t do it. We don’t have the troops any longer, we don’t have the resources, we don’t have the defence budgets. And actually that may be rather a good thing. If this lasts 10 years, it’ll be because we do this in a different, cleverer, smarter way.
“We get ahead of the curve. . . . We begin to use all the networks of skill that we have in order to build up the structures in those countries so that they can do this job for themselves.”
“I want to be optimistic about the fate of Mali and the fate of this region,” Diane said about the next move for Mali and its elections later this year.
Ashdown disagreed, he thought that creating a rule of law would have a greater effect:
“In a post-conflict country . . . if you do not first of all create the rule of law as best you can . . . [elections] will embed the corrupt structures into the process of an elected government.”
Hilsum finished off with a final thought about the people she had met throughout her time in Mali:
“For me the most important thing is that there has to be a process which involves reconciliation, . . . the rule of law and the installing of human rights. Because if you don’t have that then the people I’ve met and . . . have been very excited and delighted at this intervention, those people will be let down and those people’s lives will never improve.”
Watch the full discussion below:
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The Frontline Club starts the Narco Wars season on the War on Drugs on June 23rd. The season is packed with films, discussions and events focussed on the topic of drugs from Colombia to Afghanistan and into South East Asia. Here’s what’s coming up,
– June 23 – Photojournalist Jason P. Howe talks drugs in Colombia
– June 24 – Panel discussion about the impact of the Narco Wars in Mexico and around the world
– June 25 – Screening – Dancing with the Devil by Jon Blair in Rio de Janeiro
– June 30 – Colombia’s parapolitica
– July 3 – Screening – Mexico – Seven days in hell – Alex Nott and Siobhan Sinnerton
If the Narco Wars season is anything as good as the short promo film above, put together by Leona Chaliha at the Frontline Club, this looks like a great month of drug discussion and films. Book your tickes early.
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