Kim Dae-Jung’s Failed Legacy

What is likely to be most remembered about former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, dead at the age of 85, is that he won a Nobel Peace Prize and was snookered by North Korea’s nutbar leader, Kim Jong Il.

Although President Obama praises Kim’s “tireless efforts to promote peace” on the Korean peninsula, his efforts were rewarded by the other Kim to sucker concessions and aid from the South in the name of reconciliation.

Regarding President Obama’s tribute that Kim’s celebrated “Sunshine Policy” towards the North was “inspirational and should never be forgotten,” the reality is that they mostly inspired North Korea and were quickly forgotten.

I was in Korea in 2000 for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the start of the Korean War when Kim Dae-jung put a damper on veteran functions that might irritate the North and/or disrupt “Sunshine” negotiations and hopes for reconciliation.

At the time, South Koreans were uneasy, although keen for family reunification. The whole country relished its history of standing up against North Korea’s invasion, and of subsequently winning the peace and flourishing economically while the North became an impoverished pariah.

Kim Dae-jung was awarded the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for overtures of forgiveness towards the North and negotiating a summit meeting in Pyongyang with Kim Jong Il – whose promise of a reciprocate visit to South Korea went into the ash can along with all his other promises.

It is said that South Korea paid Dear Leader Kim $500 million for the summit meeting. There was a token gesture of family reunification, but it quickly ended when South Koreans were so much fitter, healthier, happier and well fed than their northern cousins.

Kim’s peace gestures had no effect on N. Korea’s nuclear weapon and missile ambitions, towards which Kim urged a passive response so as not to upset the “Sunshine” efforts.

Conciliation didn’t deter a North Korean warship entering South Korean waters to shoot up a South Korean ship and inflict casualties – about which, the good Kim didn’t demand even an apology. This disillusioned his countrymen.

Ironically, instead of North Korea reducing its military presence along the DMZ as promised in the “Sunshine” policy, North Korea added soldiers on the border.

Kim Dae-jung, a devout Catholic, was a genuine pacifist. Victim of a curious kidnapping in Tokyo (1973), he was convicted of sedition and conspiracy in 1980, and sentenced to death. This was commuted and he was exiled to the U.S. where he became a visiting professor teaching international affairs at Harvard University.

Unlike most of his countrymen, when the North invaded the South he did not serve in the Korean war, but always professed concern for human rights. He later relished being referred to as the Nelson Mandela of Asia, which was (quite) a bit of a stretch.

While credited with advancing democratic reform, Kim’s presidency was tainted with financial hanky-panky, along with undeserved tolerance and patience with North Korean mischief.

In short, his is a sort of sad legacy, betrayed by the tyrant he trusted and who proved him wrong in his apparent conviction that showing goodwill and generosity to an ideological enemy would result in peace, harmony and reconciliation.

To some, he was a Jimmy Carter-like figure on the wrong side of history. But thanks to Kim Jong Il, Kim Dae-jung’s last days were marked by disillusion and a Nobel Peace Prize. Not much of a legacy.