October 31, 2000

North Korea Is All Smiles, and Bewildered by It All

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 27 - It is impossible for any outsider to know 
exactly why North Korea has changed its tack so dramatically in recent 
months, inviting old enemies from South Korea and the United States to 
the capital, Pyongyang, and toasting them lavishly.

But it was clear last week that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, 
had impressed his long-skeptical guests as someone Washington could work 
with when he made a quip to Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright 
about cooperation on missiles.

Speculation over the reasons for North Korea's campaign ranges from 
sheer distress - because of repeated famines and a collapsing economy - 
to a push from the country's Chinese benefactors, who are eager to 
remove North Korea and its weapons programs from Washington's list of 
justifications for developing missile shields.

But for all the attention to the reception given to Dr. Albright, the 
scenes of conciliation and good cheer were merely the latest in a 
gradually accelerating transformation that has been under way for at 
least a year.

If the shift away from brinkmanship has been most visible at the top, 
diplomats and international aid workers who have had either long or 
recently intense exposure to the country say that the changes are even 
more impressive at the more mundane level of contacts with diplomats and 
middle-level bureaucrats.

North Korea has been on a diplomatic blitz for a year now, establishing 
or planning links with Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy and France. 
"Meeting with North Korean officials used to be like watching a man try 
to cross a river by feeling the rocks under his feet one by one," said a 
diplomat from one of those countries. "The only thing is that whenever 
the North Koreans reached a rock, you could never be sure they wanted to 
proceed any further."

"Nowadays," the diplomat said, "you walk into a meeting with them for 
the first time, and before you can even get acquainted, they are saying, 
`Great, how quickly can we establish relations?' "

The cynical view is that this diplomatic offensive merely seeks as much 
aid as possible while diversifying the sources. Just as surely, though, 
these new engagements will expose people in the world's most reclusive 
nation to outside influences, a risky proposition, which perhaps 
explains why such an opening has not been tried before.

In a system like North Korea's, with power highly concentrated and 
closely held, such changes reflect decisions at the summit of power. But 
it is clear that few of the changes have been explained to people down 
the bureaucracy.

Now, suddenly, people in a nation that with China's help fought the 
United States to a standstill in the Korean War, and have been told all 
their lives that Americans are wolves, are seeing their leaders making 
merry with the enemy.

"Why are people suddenly so cooperative?" said a Western diplomat whose 
country is planning to open relations soon. "Because they know the 
instructions have come from the chairman to smile and get as much help 
from the outside as possible, and they know they'd better not fail. But 
boy, are they confused."

The theme of confusion was repeated by almost every Westerner with 
experience in North Korea. "Decisions in a pyramidal society like this 
are so centralized, so political and so personal, that it is hard for 
Americans to understand that kind of pressure," said Peter Hayes, co- 
executive director of the Nautilus Institute, a private aid group that 
has been active in the country for years.

"Many people are confused," Mr. Hayes said. "They don't know what the 
new edicts from the top mean. Those at the top might not even know. They 
are striking out in a completely new direction, and they are going to 
have to make it up as they go along." 

But frequent visitors say that given the sheer weight of the country's 
totalitarian ideology and generations of mass indoctrination, changing 
course will be akin to turning a huge ship at sea.

Seoul Says No to Dalai Lama 

SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 30 (Agence France-Presse) - South Korea said 
today that it would not allow a visit in November by the Dalai Lama. The 
Foreign Ministry spokesman gave no reasons for the ban, but other 
officials cited China's strong protest against contacts with the Dalai 
Lama, whom it calls a Tibetan separatist.

Supporters of the Dalai Lama's visit said they would work for Foreign 
Minister Lee Joung Binn's resignation. They have also asked why a 
government led by President Kim Dae Jung, who was awarded the Nobel 
Peace Prize earlier this month, would not allow another Nobel peace 
laureate to visit.

The Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his nonviolent 
campaign on behalf of his homeland, which China occupied 50 years ago.