Will Kim Jong's death hasten the unification of Koreas?

Will Kim Jong’s death hasten the unification of Koreas?
North Korea lost her second generation great leader on 17 December 2011 of a heart attack brought on by mental and physical strain. The TV screen shows the heartfelt cry of the citizens which undoubtedly proves their undeniable love for their popular leader Kim Jong whatever way the world leaders termed him. Kim was groomed to succeed his father for three decades taking power when the Great Leader and the founder father of North Korea died in July 1994 to an outpouring of national grief. He extended a cult of personality as the dear leader even as many of the nation’s 24 million citizens lived on an average income of less than a dollar a day. He ruled for seventeen years since he came to power in July 1994 and resisted opening up to the outside world in order to protect his regime. “The likely succession of his third son, Jong Un, threatens to trigger a dangerous period for the Korean Peninsula where 1.7 million troops from the two Koreans and the U.S. square off every day. Kim Jong Un’s taking complete control of the helm will not take place for a while due to his young and inexperienced leadership,”-- said, Yang Moo, Jin, a professor, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. Kim leaves behind an economy less than three percent the size of South Korea’s and which has relied on economic handout since the 1990’s when an estimated two million people died from famine. The United Nations and the U.S. last year increased economic sanctions imposed as result of North Korea’s nuclear weapons activities and attacks that killed 50 South Koreans. He earned the title ‘ axis of evils’ for his country because of his nuclear activities but his genuine love and patriotism for his country gave him courage to ignore these western and outside world pressures.
In 2009 as Kim defied threats of United Nations sanctions to test a second nuclear device and a ballistic missile, technically capable of striking Tokyo. The following year North Korea lashed out militarily, prompting stern warnings from the U.S. and South Korea. An international investigation blamed Kim’s regime for the March 2010 sinking of a South Korean war ship and shelled a South Koran island killing two soldiers and two civilians. These activities convinced the world that North Korea had achieved ‘stunning ‘advances to its uranium –enriched program. In 2010 Kim set in line his succession plan, Kim Jong Un, thought to be 28 or 29 , was first mentioned in official KCNA dispatches on Sept. 28 when his appointments as general and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the party were announced.
The world knows that before the Korean war of 1950-1953 both South and North Korea had been one nation and the people could go back and forth from northern part of southern part. But it got divided into two namely North and South Korea. North Korea was influenced and helped by the Soviet Union and South by two western superpowers. During 1980s when Soviet Union collapsed North Korea started receiving no support from Russia and Eastern European countries because of their political ideology change. China, the biggest power and the giant in terms of military and commercial partner, began to establish close ties with North Korea. It angered the western powers and their ally South Korea. Both the parts began to do well in terms of economic achievement though the South proved far advanced. But in 1990s the North Korea witnessed several weather disasters and some wrong policies of agriculture coupled with receiving no help from Eastern European countries which invited a famine in the country. Hundreds and thousands of North Korean died in the famine then. Kim refrained from enforcing the usual tight restriction on mobility, permitting starving people to travel within the country to find food Kim hoped to avert a sudden loss of popular support. It was a pragmatic decision.
For three decades Kim exercised power as a high-level official rarely travelling aboard or meeting foreign leaders and often going for long periods when his domestic public appearances weren’t mentioned in the state-run media. ‘Kim was cinema buff whose personal library included tens of thousands of western moves. Obsessed with improving the country’s film output, he had agents kidnap South Korea’s leading director Shin Sang-ok, and the director’s actress wife, Choi- Eun-hi, they subsequently escaped with tape recording s of conversation they had with Kim.’( source: internet)
In 1991 Kim Jong II became Commander in Chief of North Koran’s powerful armed force. Three years later when Kim II Sung died suddenly from a heart attack at 82, most outsiders predicted the imminent collapse of North Korea as the nation had lost its venerable founder father. Just a few years later, its powerful alliances had evaporated with the fall of the Soviet Union bloc and China’s move toward a market based system. The economy was on the rocks and energy and food were in short supply. Kim Jong II inherited a genius for playing the weak hand and by keeping the major powers nervous. It was Kim Jong who managed to open dialogue and arrange a summit level meeting with the then South Korean president in 2000. Now the political analysts ask whether the two Koreas are going to be unified as Kim Jong has passed away. If it might have been done, the poverty stricken lakhs of people of North Korea would have been benefitted. Again, another group comments the unification of two Koreas will create economic imbalance between them. At present the per capita income of South Korea is seven times higher than that of North Korea. So, North Korea will be benefited thought unification. Now North Korea sees China’s full hold on her. Again, the South enjoys western support. Hillary Clinton, the USA Secretary of State, has announced help and cooperating for North Korea. She hopes to establish good relations with the new administration of North Korea. Now will these big global players allow the unification of Koreas to happen smoothly ? Besides, Kim Jong Un, the son of Kim Jong has been groomed and brought up with the same ideology of his father. Will he allow the unification? Time will untie the knot of this riddle. Let us wait to see what is going to happen?
MASUM BILLAH
Program Manager: BRAC Education Program
Cell: 01714-091431
Email: mmbillah2000@yahoo.com, masumbillah65@gmail.com