hankyoreh

The ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) and the rest of the conservative establishment started to make political capital of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) during the 2012 presidential election. The charge began with Saenuri lawmaker Chung Moon-hun, who served as the secretary for unification at the Blue House during the Lee Myung-bak administration. During a National Assembly audit in Oct. 2012, Chung claimed that former president Roh Moon-hyun had promised to surrender South Korean territory during a summit with late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at the 2007 inter-Korean summit.

Roh said that the NLL was a headache and that the US had arbitrarily drawn the line in an attempt to seize more land, Chung alleged. He also claimed that Roh had suggested that Seoul would not make claims about the NLL in the future and that if they used the area as a joint fishing zone, the NLL problem would disappear on its own.

Several figures who had been present at the summit - former Unification Minister Lee Jae-jeong, former National Intelligence Service (NIS) director Kim Man-bok, and former Blue House security chief Baek Jong-cheon stepped forward at once to dismiss these claims as fabrications. Nevertheless, the conservative forces brought them up as talking points throughout the presidential campaign in a bid to sway the election. It was a new spin on the old tactic of smearing the opposition by portraying them as North Korean sympathizers.

While the transcript of the summit was not actually made public during the election, the ruling party maintained its groundless assault using the NLL allegations. Defense officials and diplomats associated with the Lee administration reinforced Saenuri’s efforts, suggesting that Roh’s remarks were shocking, but saying that they couldn’t get into the details. These attacks took the wind out of the sails of Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in and aided the efforts of Saenuri candidate Park Geun-hye.

After Park became president, the NLL controversy subsided temporarily. But soon allegations surfaced that the NIS had posted comments online related to the presidential election. The moment the NIS realized it was in danger of being the subject of a parliamentary investigation, it trotted out the trusty NLL issue. Despite the fact that the NIS had previously insisted that the summit transcript could not be released because it was a classified document, it made public excerpts from and the full text of the transcript of the inter-Korean summit meeting.

However, when one actually examines the transcript that the NIS released, there is no evidence that Roh said anything about abandoning the NLL. This illustrates the extreme extent to which Chung was cherry-picking quotes from the transcript when he made his original allegations.

In the summit transcript, it was former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who first brought up the issue of the NLL. Kim said, “What would you say to declaring the waters between our Military Demarcation Line and your Northern Limit Line to be a joint fishing zone or a peace zone?” If Roh had accepted this proposal as Kim had formulated it, the South Korean waters that are south of the NLL would have been put under the joint administration of North and South. This could be understood as surrendering territory.

It is true that Roh used a number of expressions in his response that were unsophisticated or inappropriate for his status as the head of a country. “The NLL has no grounds in international law, and its logical basis is not clear either,” said Roh, adding that “the origins of the NLL are weird, and it has become a kind of sacred cow that no one can mess with.”

But in any event, it is clear that Roh did not accept Kim Jong-il’s proposal. Instead, he tried to persuade Kim to accept the reality of the NLL, remarking, “at present [the NLL] has a considerable influence on the situation.”

If one interprets what the two leaders said about the NLL in the proper context, it is more accurate to view them as having reached an understanding that entering negotiations about the NLL at the present time would only lead to controversy, and that therefore deliberations on the problems of maritime boundaries in the West (Yellow) Sea should be deferred until more degree of trust has been established in inter-Korean relations. For the time being, Roh and Kim agreed, they should move toward a future of joint prosperity by establishing a peace and prosperity zone in the West Sea that could alleviate military tension.

This can be confirmed simply by reviewing the Oct. 4 statement that was published after the inter-Korean summit. Of the eight items in the statement, the fifth stated that North and South had agreed to set up a special peace and cooperation zone in the West Sea that would oversee the Haeju region and the surrounding waters and to diligently pursue the establishment of joint fishing areas and peace zones, building special economic zones, using the port of Haeju, allowing direct passage of civilian vessels to Haeju, and making joint use of the Han River estuary. The fact that the North Korean city of Haeju is included in the special peace and cooperation zone in the West Sea means that this cannot be viewed as a plan to abandon the NLL.

Ultimately, the transcript of the summit that was made public confirms that Roh did not try to abandon the NLL, but rather that he worked hard to protect the NLL, at least until such a time as an agreement was made about maritime boundaries. Nevertheless, conservative newspapers including the Chosun Ilbo, the Donga Ilbo, and the Joongang Ilbo all chose isolated quotes such as “change the NLL” and “I share your opinion, Kim Jong-il” for the front-page headlines of their June 25 issues. The newspapers distorted the actual meaning of the text through the deceptive strategy of ignoring the larger context and focusing on specific phrases that suit their purposes. They completely disregarded the actual intent of Roh’s remarks to start by establishing a cooperation zone in the West Sea and not to resolve the issue of the NLL until later.

At a June 25 cabinet meeting, President Park Geun-hye said, “We must not forget that our Northern Limit Line is defended by the blood of countless young men, and that many of them have sacrificed their lives to protect it.”

In itself, the statement is not wrong, but it smacks of a calculated attempt to back up the pig-headed claims of conservative forces - including the Saenuri and the three conservative newspapers - that Roh tried to abandon the NLL. What Park ought to be doing is not making divisive, throwaway remarks but rather dedicating herself to forging a system under which the young soldiers guarding the West Sea no longer have to endure such tragedies.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]