[imText1]On the morning of the 23rd, as early rain soaked the mountain in central Seoul where the National Unification Advisory Council (NUAC) has its headquarters, The Daily NK arrived for an interview, to be told by the guard, “He just came in and hasn’t even had a chance to wash his hands.”
On the 21st, new NUAC Chief Director Kim Hyun Wook received his appointment letter from the Blue House. Since then, he has been engaged in two straight days of NUAC meetings. The next day, he finally sits down with The Daily NK. Given that it is his first interview since taking up the position, Kim is both eager to speak, and careful with his words.
On his desk are copies of articles written on every comment he made during the recent meetings, some of which have attracted criticism. He remarked, “Our people’s last, most significant mission is to unify the Korean Peninsula under liberal democracy,” and an online newspaper immediately published an article critical of the remark, saying that Kim publicly endorsed ‘reunification by absorption.’ Yet, Article 4 of our constitution clearly states that Korean unification must proceed under liberal democracy.
When our reporter comments on the degree of press coverage he has been getting, Kim says wryly, “I lament the fact that it is taken as a problem when the director of a constitutional organ simply refers to the constitution.”
Granting Kim the letter of appointment, President Lee told Kim, “The reason why North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun said that the sinking of the Cheonan was fabricated by the Korea and the U.S. is because there are people in the Republic of Korea who actually believe his claim. The unification of South Korean people’s minds must come before the reunification of the peninsula.”
Kim says he agrees with the statement, and emphasizes the importance of educating the public about reunification. “The majority of Koreans,” he says, “tended to focus on the negative aspects of German reunification, but it is changing now. In Germany, most people agree that ‘the positive side of reunification is the larger’.”
Kim says he has ambitions to make NUAC the ‘Headquarters of the Korean Global Unification Network,’ noting, “Many assume wrongly that the cost of reunification will sink the Korean economy. We have to overcome this prejudice. Reunification will not be based on the North feeding off the South. We have to realize that the eventual synergy between North and South will generate success.”
The Lee administration’s policy on North Korea, he says, is the most realistic for this aim. The core of government policy is, he says, “to rewind inter-Korean relations and eliminate the North’s nuclear weapons.”
“Continuing to communicate with North Korea at all times, while consulting with the international society on the nuclear issue and keeping the pressure on North is the most realistic plan,” he explains, noting of the policies enforced by former presidents Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun, “Policies of appeasement allowed the North enough room to develop nuclear weapons.”
Lee Ki Taek, the former chief director of NUAC, once emphasized the necessity of North Korean democratization. Kim strongly agrees with his predecessor’s views.
“Right now is the prime time to push for North Korean democratization. We have to find the ways to shake more aggressively North Korea’s system,” Kim suggests, adding that the solution lies with the defectors. South Korea needs to develop more plans and activities, but the support of the government is crucial in doing that. “NGOs should not be alone working for an important issue like this. The government needs to act on it,” he says.
Kim has been active with NGOs, at meetings and in debates on passing the North Korean Human Rights Law, and says he hates the fact that the law has been neglected for so long. “It is an embarrassment that the North Korean Human Rights Law is yet to be passed. In the future, when North Korea had been democratized, history will remember those who opposed passing the law,” he notes.
Picking up the phone to confirm his next appointment, Kim concludes, “Even North Korea cannot defy the current of history, the one called global democratization.”
