| FootnoteTV, Footnote Fahrenheit, and more | By Stephen Lee |
North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) (last updated February 13, 2005) (back to top) North Korea said publicly for the first time on Feb. 10 that it had nuclear weapons and would not participate in upcoming talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia. Elaborating on the announcement, the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement (on-line here) that North Korea had manufactured nuclear weapons for "self-defence to cope with the Bush administration's evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK" and that its nuclear weapons would "remain nuclear deterrent for self-defence under any circumstances." In response, the Bush administration re-iterated its concerns with North Korea's development of nuclear weapons, while downplaying the significance of North Korea's announcement as consistent with prior announcements. The United States has long suspected that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons and had done so. North Korea acknowledged in October 2002 that it had developed a program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, expelled international nuclear inspectors in December 2002, and reportedly threatened privately in April and August 2003 to demonstrate its nuclear weapons. White House spokesman Scott McClellan also said on Feb. 11 (on-line here) that the announcement would not change the Bush administration's position that it would not engage in bilateral talks with North Korea, only in regional talks with the involvement of other countries. The Clinton administration engaged in bilateral talks. The Bush administration initially indicated that it would continue such talks but then said that it would engage only in multilateral talks, which began in April 2003 with China and expanded in August 2003 to include South Korea, Japan and Russia. Arguably the most Communist and most isolated country in the world today, North Korea has suffered economic downturns, food shortages, and an outflow of refugees in recent years. Nevertheless, it has continued to devote much of its resources towards its military and has provoked international crises through its development of nuclear weapons. North Korea is led by Kim Jong-Il, who took over in 1994 after the death of his father, Kim Il-Song, who ruled the country as a one-man dictatorship since its formation until his death. The country's economy is socialist and under tight state control, consists mostly of basic industrial production and agriculture, and is relatively weak, especially compared to South Korea, which has a GDP per capita many times greater. Although the economy is ostensibly based on the principle of "juche," or self-reliance, North Korea has suffered food problems since 1995 and has accepted foreign aid. Despite such problems, North Korea devoted about a fifth of its gross domestic product to military expenditures in 2003.  India and Pakistan (last updated June 3, 2002) (back to top) Religion and territorial claims have divided India and Pakistan for decades, but recent years have seen tensions escalate with the development of nuclear weapons, dramatic political changes such as a 1999 coup in Pakistan by General Pervez Musharraf, and the global war on terrorism. Much of the conflict centers around the province of Kashmir, which has a predominantly Muslim population but has been part of predominantly Hindu India for more than half a century. Since late 2001, the two countries have become enveloped in a crisis relating to terrorist actions against India made by people allegedly based in Pakistan. General Musharraf then ordered massive arrests and made a public address in January 2002 promising that Pakistan would not be used as a base for terrorism while still re-iterating support for Kashmir's independence from India. This action brought a brief reprieve, but India began amassing troops on the shared border in late May 2002 after an armed attack by three men led to more than 30 deaths in Kashmir, and both countries were again on the verge of war as of early June 2002. Facing pressure from the United States, both countries have made statements that they effectively would refrain from using their nuclear weapons, but a conventional war still seems possible. On May 31, the United States warned all American citizens to leave India and Pakistan due to the "serious tensions" there, and the United Nations followed with a similar order. United States officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld plan to visit the area in early June 2002. Both countries were created in August 1947 out of the remnants of the British colonial empire. The entire subcontinent had been under British colonial rule officially since the 1850s and unofficially for even longer, but the Hindu and Muslim populations could not reach agreement on a united country and so partition was deemed necessary. The partition, which took place just one month after the British announced they would leave, caused massive upheaval, chaos, and death; an estimated 10 million people tried moving from one newborn state to the other, and about 1 million of them never reached their destination. Now, India is mostly Hindu (81.3 percent) but also has a sizeable Muslim minority population (12 percent). Pakistan is almost entirely Muslim (97 percent), of whom three-quarters are Sunni and a fifth are Shi'a. Both countries have a low gross national product per capita and about 35-40 percent of the population in both countries live below the poverty line, but India has some industry while Pakistan does not. At the very center of the conflict between India and Pakistan is the province of Jammu and Kashmir, commonly known just as Kashmir, that lies in an especially precarious and strategically important location: it is India's northernmost province and it has Pakistan to its west and China on its north and east. Kashmir is protected on all sides by mountains (it is in the Himalayas) and has few passes in or out, and it is where the rivers which flow down into Pakistan start. Kashmir was long been predominantly Muslim, but in 1947 it was also ruled by a Hindu maharajah, Hari Singh, who could choose which country his province would join. Singh delayed making this decision for months, but in October 1947, soldiers from the Northwest Frontier Province, which had joined Pakistan after partition, invaded. Singh requested military assistance from India, but received it only after agreeing to accede and have Kashmir become part of India. Even with India's assistance, fighting continued in Kashmir for two years, ending with a cease-fire brokered by the United Nations in 1949. As part of the cease-fire, India retained most of Kashmir, and agreed to allow a plebiscite in which locals could decide which nation the province would join. However, this plebiscite has never taken place as India has refused to allow this plebiscite until all fighting stops. Other rounds of fighting between Indian and Pakistani soldiers occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the late 1980s, Kashmiri rebels, many of whom had Pakistani support or received training from Pakistan or from Islamic militant groups, began uprisings against Indian control, a guerrilla struggle that has continued for more than a decade. An estimated 30,000 have died since then. Given all this, the Indian subcontinent was unstable enough, and then both countries became nuclear powers. In May 1998, India shocked the world - and caught the US intelligence community entirely off-guard - when it conducted three nuclear bomb tests on May 11 and another two on May 13. The move was an effort by the recently elected and still fragile Hindu-led government to rally support, and the move succeeded immensely. Pakistan, however, followed with its own explosions on May 29. The United States imposed sanctions on both countries, but little happened for months. Finally, in February 1999, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan came together to pledge to take steps to reduce the risk of nuclear war. Nevertheless, another round of fighting between Indian and Pakistani soldiers occurred in May 1999. Events began when Pakistani soldiers entered Kashmir and seized key land in what is now called the Kargil operation after one of the towns so seized. India mobilized its own military force, and the two countries engaged in fighting and were on the brink of outright war for 10 weeks. Finally, with some help from President Bill Clinton, Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he would persuade his military to withdraw their forces. Pakistan's backing down from the Kargil operation, however, helped cost Sharif his position and freedom. The military, led by General Pervez Musharraf, who reportedly wanted to push the Kargil operation even further, carried out a coup in October 1999, and Sharif was subsequently convicted of corruption and exiled. The coup and Musharraf's rule were validated on May 12, 2000 by Pakistan's supreme court, which also granted Musharraf executive and legislative authority until October 2002. India's prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has faced his own problems keeping power, but has been more successful than his former counterpart. He narrowly lost a vote of no confidence in April 1999, but has managed to rebuild a governing coalition since then and has continued to maintain power into 2002. In late 2001, India and Pakistan again almost came to war over a crisis relating to terrorist actions allegedly by people based in Pakistan. On December 13, 2001, a group of five armed terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament, killing 9 people as well as causing their own deaths. Indian officials said that Pakistani terrorists within two groups, the Army of the Pure and the Army of Muhammad, were to blame and that Pakistan was not doing enough to contain such groups. India mobilized forces along the Pakistan border, while Pakistan had forces stationed on its western border with Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaeda members from fleeing that country. Tensions began to ease somewhat in early January 2002, after General Musharraf took actions against terrorists located within Pakistan. He ordered the arrest of leading members of the two groups accused of the December 13 attacks. In a major address on January 12, 2002, he publicly pledged that he would not allow Pakistan to be used as a base for terrorism and he banned the Army of the Pure and the Army of Muhammad within Pakistan or within Kashmir. At the same time, he reiterated that Kashmir was still a disputed issue between the two countries and that Pakistan supported non-militant Muslims' efforts for independence from India. India has a larger and more advanced military than Pakistan, though both are far behind the United States in terms of weapons capabilities. India spent about $13.02 billion on its military in FY 2001, and Pakistan spent less than a fifth of that, about $2.435 billion, in FY 1999-2000. Sources: Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India, sixth edition. Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Proudest Day: India's long road to independence (W.W. Norton, 1999). Michael R. Gordon, Kashmir threat eases, but U.S. still sees dangers, New York Times, January 20, 2002. The State Department has country background notes on India and on Pakistan on-line via here. Information on the countries' economies and military is taken from the CIA World Factbook 2001, on-line here. |
|
 Index / Home FootnoteTV Footnote Fahrenheit Footnote Media Issues Cases Resources Footnote Comics Site FAQ Search via Google Election 2004 
Issues | |||||
|
|