Nukes
For Food
Exclusive by Greg Lewis / WashingtonDispatch.com
May 6, 2003
The motivation for Kim Jong Il's continuing brinksmanship
is beginning to come into clearer focus, according to sources close to
Kim. The sources said that the North Korean dictator has finally taken
to heart the plight of his starving people. As Saddam Hussein did, Kim
Jong Il seeks to implement an international trade agreement, supervised
by the United Nations, which will allow him to exchange the source of
his country's wealth for food.
Where Saddam Hussein was able to trade oil for food, Kim
is banking on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to shepherd his Nukes For
Food proposal through the security council, and for the Secretary General
to personally oversee the program, signing off on every exchange as he
does currently with the Iraqis. Annan has magnanimously agreed to do what
he can to "make this thing happen."
Kofi Annan had, until recently, been strenuously working
to lift a U.S. boycott implemented by the Bush administration against
North Korea. Annan characterized the suspension by the U.S. of food and
oil shipments to North Korea as thwarting the humanitarian work begun
by ex-Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. The boycott is the latest
reason given by Kim for his country's not being able to feed its people.
Within the past week or so, however, since North Korea
formally announced that it has nuclear weapons and is not afraid to use
or test them, Kofi Annan is said to have changed his tune and now to favor
continued boycotts, "with this exception, that the North Koreans
will be able to trade nuclear weapons for food, medicine, and other humanitarian
supplies, in much the same way Iraq should continue to be able to do until
the UN can confirm that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, in which
event the sanctions could be lifted."
The cases are similar, but there is one key difference,
Annan went on. "Since North Korea has already admitted it has weapons
of mass destruction, there is no longer a need to lift any sanctions that
may now be in place. The humanitarian thing to do is to let the sanctions
remain while North Koreans exchange their country's riches for humanitarian
supplies, just as Iraq has done and should continue to do."
French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, from whose bedroom
the Secretary General issued his statement, agreed, saying that, under
the circumstances, France would suspend its reservations in the name of
"doing the right thing" for the North Korean people. He further
stated that "France stands ready to go to the wall for the people
of North Korea in the same way it went to the wall for the Iraqis."
Chirac dismissed as groundless allegations that his nation was simply
looking for another trading partner willing to let France throw in Peugeots
and inferior electronics products as long as French wines and foie gras
were included in the Nukes For Food program.
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