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Seoul and the Great Powers
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14889 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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10 / 1988 |
1,788 Words |
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Richard G. Stilwell
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On september17, athletes of 161 nations will stand at attention as the Olympic banner is hoisted in Seoul, signaling the start of the world's most prestigious sports competition. A few miles away, another international banner--that of the United Nations--has long been flying, albeit largely unnoticed. It is no mere coincidence that these two emblems--each of global import--will wave side by side for the two weeks of the Games.
The convening on the remote Korean peninsula of the largest Olympiad ever, a truly global event for the first time in 12 years, is explicit confirmation of the validity of the United Nations armed intervention to resist North Korean aggression and thus to uphold the principles in its charter.
Beyond that, there is some prospect--faint, to be sure--that the 24th Olympiad will be a catalyst for the termination of the United Nations' role in Korea and the institution of more stable and enduring arrangements among the Northeast Asian nations.
A decade ago, few would have wagered that South Korea would be official host to the entire world community, less such questionable worthies as Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Albania, and Cuba. The sixties and seventies were witness to the breakdown of the overwhelming consensus that impelled the United Nations of fight for the cause of freedom on the battlefields of Korea. The reasons for what were multiple and complex: the prolongation of the conflict on an issue (voluntary repatriation) more important to the United States than to the world organization; inability to forge a de jure settlement that would replace the armistice and permit UN disengagement; the changing mood of the United Nations as more and more third World states were admitted to membership; and the influence of the People's Republic of China and North Korea on the so-called Nonaligned Movement.
The Korean issue was debated annually by the UN General Assembly; year by year, support increased for a resolution that would absolve the United Nations of further responsibility for maintaining peace on the divided peninsula and, in effect, forgive and forget North Korea's bloody aggression. The year 1976 might well have seen the passage of that resolution and not North Korea perpetrated another of those incredibly brutal acts that periodically lay bare the reprehensible nature of that regime. As a result of the ax murders of two UN officers in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the resolution was removed, summarily and permanently, from the General Assembly agenda.
But the impasse continued. Due to the effectiveness of communist propaganda and disinformation, many nations held that South Korea--its record notwithstanding--was no less repressive than its neighbor to the north and undeserving of the symbolic protection of the UN banner. On the peninsula, Pyongyang rebuffed all efforts for even the most modest accommodation. The fundamental issues dividing the Soviet Union and China gave North Korea the leverage to ensure the continued staunch support of its two principal allies; and the realities of a great power conflict precluded any forward motion on the long-espoused concept of cross-recognition of the two Koreas by the United States, Japan, the Soviet Union, and China.
Happily, the business of international relations is not the exclusive province of diplomats. When the International Olympic Committee
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