North Korea’s vice
foreign minister blames the US for causing problems on the Korean
Peninsula on Friday. In an interview with the Associated Press in
Pyongyang, Vice Minister Han Song Ryol also said Washington was
becoming “more vicious and more aggressive” since President
Donald Trump took power. Tensions are deepening as the US has sent an
aircraft carrier to waters off the peninsula and is conducting its
biggest-ever joint military exercises with South Korea
 |
Coreia
do Norte: o rato que ruge
Dada
a complexidade da situação e a elevada imprevisibilidade de Trump,
ninguém sabe o que vai fazer com a Coreia do Norte.
TIAGO MOREIRA DE SÁ
14 de Abril de 2017,
9:00
No hilariante filme
protagonizado por Peter Sellers, O Rato Que Ruge, o primeiro-ministro
de um pequeno país europeu, o ducado de Grande Fenwick, cuja
economia está a passar por sérias dificuldades, decide declarar
guerra aos Estados Unidos com a intenção de perdê-la e receber
reparações económicas. Todavia, contra todas as probabilidades,
ganha a guerra. O seu minúsculo exército, armado com arcos e
flechas, chega a uma Nova Iorque deserta devido a um alerta nuclear e
rouba uma bomba com capacidade para destruir o mundo, levando-a para
o ducado, que se torna assim uma potência nuclear.
A Coreia do Norte é
hoje a principal ameaça à segurança dos EUA e dos seus aliados na
Ásia. O país já possui armas nucleares e está a desenvolver um
sistema de mísseis balísticos, incluindo de longo alcance ou
intercontinentais, estimando-se que em poucos anos tenha a capacidade
para atingir várias cidades norte-americanas. Deste modo, Pyongyang
representa uma tripla ameaça: à América; aos seus aliados
asiáticos, como a Coreia do Sul e o Japão, com quem Washington tem
acordos de defesa; ao regime de não-proliferação.
O problema não é
fácil, nem é novo e tão pouco linear. A dificuldade está na
circunstância norte-coreana desde o fim da Guerra Fria, altura em
que perdeu a protecção da URSS e sentiu a sua segurança e a
sobrevivência do regime ameaçadas pela unipolaridade dos EUA,
concluindo que só a posse de armas nucleares podia garantir ambas,
percepção que só pode ter saído reforçada depois dos
acontecimentos no Iraque (2003) e na Líbia (2011). Quanto à sua
origem, a ambição nuclear da Coreia do Norte já vem da década de
1950, tendo porém sido limitada por Moscovo e pela bipolaridade do
sistema internacional da altura. Finalmente, ele conheceu várias
fases e diversos modelos de resposta, que foram desde o
"apaziguamento" e a "abordagem diplomática
multilateral" até à "coerção" e à "hipótese
de acção militar".
Em termos
esquemáticos, podemos considerar a existência de cinco fases e
quatro modelos de reacção.
A primeira, que vai
do imediato pós-Guerra Fria até 1992, foi de "apaziguamento"
e de diminuição da tensão entre a Coreia do Norte e a do Sul,
tendo levado a uma evolução positiva do problema coreano traduzida
na assinatura do Acordo de Reconciliação, Não-Agressão e
Cooperação entre as duas Coreias (Basic Agreement), na Declaração
Conjunta de Desnuclearização da Península da Coreia (Joint
Declaration) e no Acordo de Garantias Nucleares com a Agência
Internacional de Energia Atómica (AIEA).
A segunda, que vai
de 1992 a 1994, foi de "coerção", através da imposição
de mais sanções na sequência da adopção de uma nova orientação
estratégica ofensiva por parte da Coreia do Norte, traduzida na
ameaça de retirada do Tratado de Não-Proliferação (TNP) e no
bloqueio das inspecções da AIEA. Os motivos foram sobretudo
internos, nomeadamente as graves dificuldades económicas e o
espectro de queda do regime, mas também o relatório da Agência de
Energia Atómica alertando para a alta probabilidade de o país ter
reprocessado plutónio suficiente para uma ou duas bombas nucleares.
A terceira, que vai
de 1994 a 2000, foi de um regresso ao "apaziguamento" dada
a combinação de duas novas estratégias conciliatórias,
nomeadamente a da Administração Bill Clinton e a do novo líder da
Coreia do Norte, Kim Jong-il (1994-2011). A fórmula essencial ficou
conhecida como "troca do nuclear por incentivos económicos"
e produziu bons resultados, sendo o mais importante de todos o
chamado Acordo de Genebra (Agreed Framework), assinado em Outubro de
1994, pelo qual Pyongyang aceitou o congelamento do programa nuclear,
a realização de inspecções da AIEA e a manutenção no TNP,
enquanto Washington, em troca, garantiu respeitar a integridade
territorial norte-coreana, normalizar as relações diplomáticas
entre os dois países e aprovar um programa de ajuda económica,
entre outras medidas.
A quarta fase
começou com a chegada de George W. Bush à Casa Branca, tendo
decidido praticamente de imediato a suspensão do Acordo de Genebra.
A sua reacção ao 11 de Setembro de 2001 fez o resto, levando a um
radical endurecimento da posição dos EUA contra o chamado "eixo
do mal" – Coreia do Norte, Irão e Iraque –, Estados párias,
acusados de possuírem armas de destruição maciça e apoiarem o
terrorismo, logo os seus regimes tinham de ser mudados. Para provar
que devia ser levado a sério, o Presidente norte-americano decidiu
invadir o Iraque e derrubar Saddam Hussein, levando os líderes
norte-coreanos a pensar que eram os próximos, só se salvando se
adquirissem poder nuclear. Acto contínuo, adoptaram a estratégia
mais ofensiva desde o fim da Guerra Fria: aceleraram o programa
nuclear, expulsaram os inspectores da AIEA, retiraram-se do TNP e
declararam ter reprocessado combustível nuclear e obtido plutónio.
Envolvido em duas guerras em simultâneo – no Afeganistão e no
Iraque –, Bush optou por uma "abordagem diplomática
multilateral", dando início em Abril de 2003 ao Three Party
Talks (Coreia Norte, EUA, China) e em Agosto do mesmo ano ao Six
Party Talks (Coreia Norte, Coreia do Sul, EUA, China, Japão e
Rússia).
Mas pouco depois
começou uma quinta fase caracterizada pelo avanço impetuoso do
programa nuclear norte-coreano e, logo, por um endurecimento da
"opção coerciva". Em Fevereiro de 2005, Pyongyang
anunciou oficialmente possuir armas nucleares e desde então fez
vários testes nucleares. Para agravar, depois da sucessão de Kim
Jong-il por Kim Jong-un (2011) a Coreia do Norte deu inicio a testes
de mísseis balísticos e em Janeiro de 2016 afirmou ter detonado a
primeira bomba de hidrogénio (facto nunca provado). Na sequência
destes desenvolvimentos, em Março desse ano o Conselho de Segurança
da ONU aprovou um novo pacote de sanções, classificadas pela então
embaixadora dos EUA nas Nações Unidas, Samantha Power, como "as
mais duras aplicadas pela organização nos últimos 20 anos".
É este o contexto
em que se coloca o problema nuclear da Coreia do Norte na
actualidade, sendo que a conclusão a extrair é que até agora
nenhum dos modelos de reacção adoptados no passado resultou. Pelo
contrário, o poder nuclear do país é hoje maior do que nunca.
Assim sendo, o que
pode a Administração Trump fazer? Ela tem cinco opções, estando
todas em aberto. A primeira é retomar com renovado empenho a
"abordagem diplomática multilateral", envolvendo a Coreia
do Norte, a Coreia do Sul, a China, os EUA, a Rússia e o Japão.
Aqui o entendimento Washington-Pequim é a chave para qualquer
resultado digno desse nome. A segunda passa pelo que podemos designar
de "opção coerciva reforçada", endurecendo
significativamente o regime de sanções a Pyongyang (mas só pode
funcionar se os chineses alinharem). A terceira consiste em apressar
a construção e operacionalização do escudo anti-míssil balístico
na Coreia do Sul e no Japão, protegendo ambos os países de qualquer
eventual ataque por parte da Coreia do Norte. A quarta opção, que
está a ser estudada pelos conselheiros de segurança nacional de
Donald Trump, prevê a possível colocação de armas nucleares na
Coreia do Sul. Finalmente, há a "opção militar",
nomeadamente através do bombardeamento cirúrgico das instalações
nucleares norte-coreanas.
Dada a complexidade
da situação e a elevada imprevisibilidade de Trump ninguém sabe
honestamente o que vai fazer. Embora todos os sinais apontem para um
sério endurecimento da sua política para Pyongyang, sendo que
vários analistas sublinharam o facto de a decisão de bombardear a
Síria ter servido também para avisar os norte-coreanos de que os
Estados Unidos podem recorrer à força para travar o seu programa
nuclear. Certo é que este Presidente – e qualquer outro – nunca
deixará que aconteça com a Coreia do Norte o que aconteceu com o
ducado de Grande Fenwick no maravilhoso filme o Rato que Ruge: que se
torne numa potência nuclear.
|
North Korea parades military might
and warns US amid nuclear test fears
As thousands of soldiers mass at Kim
Il-sung square, Pyongyang tells US to end its dangerous ‘military hysteria’
Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Tom Phillips in Beijing
Saturday 15 April 2017 05.44 BST First published on Saturday
15 April 2017 03.53 BST
North Korea has held a vast military parade to celebrate the
birth of its founding father, Kim Il-sung, and warned that it was prepared to
take the “toughest” action unless the US ended its “military hysteria”, as
speculation grows that the regime is preparing to conduct a nuclear test.
On a sunny Saturday morning in the capital, Pyongyang,
military vehicles and tens of thousands of soldiers filled Kim Il-sung square
as a band played rousing military music, the instruments falling silent for
oaths of loyalty to the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
Experts said the array of military hardware included what
appeared to be a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) being carried
along the streets on a huge truck.
Yonhap quoted South Korean military officials as saying they
had not seen the missile before and that it appeared to be a new type of ICBM.
North Korean state television showed what appeared to be
several KN-08 and KN-14 missiles. Although they have yet to be tested, analysts
say the missiles could one day be capable of hitting targets as far away as the
continental United States.
Also on show for the first time were Pukkuksong
submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), which have a range of over
1,000km (600 miles).
Experts said the display of multiple SLBMs indicated that
North Korea was closer to being able to launch submarine-based missiles, which
are harder to detect. “It suggests a commitment to this programme,” said Joshua
Pollack, editor of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Review. “Multiple
SLBMs seems like a declaration of intent to advance the programme”.
A senior North Korean official used the parade to accuse the
US of “creating a war situation” with the recent dispatch of warships to the
region.
“We will respond to an all-out war with an all-out war and a
nuclear war with our style of a nuclear attack,” Choe Ryong-hae, who is
rumoured to be the second-most powerful politician in North Korea, said during
the parade.
Kim, dressed in a black suit and white shirt, and flanked by
senior military and Workers’ party officials, applauded and occasionally smiled
as he watched the tributes to his grandfather, who was born 105 years ago
today.
But the so-called Day of the Sun was clouded in uncertainty
as the world waited to see if Kim Jong-un, the country’s third-generation
ruler, would provoke a potential regional crisis with what would be North
Korea’s sixth nuclear test in just over a decade, or a test launch of an ICBM.
As the USS aircraft carrier Carl Vinson and its strike group
sailed towards the peninsula in a show of force, North Korea’s official KCNA
news agency, citing a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People’s
Army, warned of “merciless” retaliation against any US provocation.
Donald Trump’s decision to send an “armada” of warships to
waters off the tense peninsula, coupled with recent US strikes in Syria and
Afghanistan, were proof that Washington had chosen the path of “open threat and
blackmail”, KCNA said.
“Our toughest
counteraction against the US and its vassal forces will be taken in such a
merciless manner as not to allow the aggressors to survive,” it added.
It said the Trump administration’s “serious military
hysteria” has reached a “dangerous phase that can no longer be overlooked”.
It added: “Under the prevailing grave situation, the United
States has to come to its senses and make a proper option for the solution of
the problem.”
As the parade unfolded in Pyongyang, China’s state-run media
warned that the US president was mistaken if he believed that piling military
pressure on North Korea would resolve the regime’s nuclear and ballistic
missile programmes.
The Global Times said Trump’s decision to drop the “mother
of all bombs” on Afghanistan was clearly “a new gimmick in US military
deterrence” designed to intimidate Kim Jong-un.
“North Korea must have felt the shock wave travelling all
the way from Afghanistan,” the Communist party-controlled newspaper said in an
editorial.
However, the Global Times, which sometimes reflects
government views, said the use of such a “vicious weapon” was in fact likely to
make Pyongyang even more determined to upgrade its own arsenal. “[Trump] has
demonstrated a certain level of obsession and pride toward US military
prowess,” it said, adding, that the US president “may go down in history as the
‘war president’”.
As North Korea’s only ally and biggest trading partner,
China has come under unprecedented pressure in recent days to use its influence
to persuade Kim not to risk conflict with a nuclear test or ballistic missile
launch.
On Friday, China again called for talks to defuse the
crisis. “We call on all parties to refrain from provoking and threatening each
other, whether in words or actions, and not let the situation get to an
irreversible and unmanageable stage,” the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi,
told reporters in Beijing.
Speaking to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on
Friday night, Wang said steps were needed to prevent “war and chaos” on the
Korean peninsula.
US officials have said the policy of “strategic patience”
pursued by the Obama administration has ended, after years of diplomatic
pressure and international sanctions failed to slow North Korea’s progress
towards developing nuclear missiles capable of striking the US mainland – a
milestone some experts believe is only years away.
In echoes of the bellicose rhetoric that reverberated around
the Korean peninsula during its last major crisis in the spring of 2013, KCNA
said North Korea would respond in kind to any perceived US military
provocation.
Referring to the country by its official title, the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it warned: “The army and people of the
DPRK will as ever courageously counter those who encroach upon the dignity and
sovereignty of the DPRK and will always mercilessly ravage all provocative
options of the US with Korean-style toughest counteraction.”
Agencies contributed to this report
China urges North Korea and US to
step back from brink of war
Chinese
foreign minister Wang Yi says the region faced a precarious situation in which
conflict could break out at any moment
Justin McCurry in Tokyo, Tom Phillips in Beijing and Julian
Borger in Washington
Friday 14 April 2017 15.38 BST First published on Friday 14
April 2017 05.37 BST
China has urged the US and North Korea to step back from the
brink of a potentially catastrophic conflict after Pyongyang warned it would
not “keep its arms crossed” in the event of a pre-emptive strike.
Speaking in Beijing on Friday, the Chinese foreign minister,
Wang Yi, told reporters the region faced a “precarious situation” in which “one
has the feeling that a conflict could break out at any moment”.
He made his plea before an anticipated sixth North Korean
nuclear test on Saturday to mark the birth of the country’s founder, Kim
Il-sung.
“We call on all parties to refrain from provoking and
threatening each other, whether in words or actions, and not to let the
situation get to an irreversible and unmanageable stage,” Wang said, according
to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.
“If a war occurs, the result is a situation in which
everybody loses and there can be no winner. It is not the one who espouses
harsher rhetoric or raises a bigger fist that will win.”
North Korea’s vice-foreign minister, Han Song-ryol, earlier
warned it would not “keep its arms crossed” in the event of a pre-emptive US
strike and would conduct a nuclear test when it saw fit.
Han told the Associated Press in an interview in Pyongyang
that Donald Trump’s “aggressive” tweets aimed at the regime were “causing
trouble”, adding that the mounting crisis on the peninsula was locked in a
“vicious cycle”.
Experts believe Pyongyang could defy Trump by carrying out a
missile launch or nuclear test to coincide with the so-called Day of the Sun on
15 April, commemorating the birth of the country’s founder. Satellite imagery
has revealed signs of preparations for a possible nuclear test in a new tunnel
complex at the Punggye-ri military site.
Scores of foreign reporters have been allowed into Pyongyang
to cover celebrations to mark the 105th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birth, but
they have not been granted access to military-related areas. Some North Korea
specialists played down expectations of a test, however, saying the regime was
more likely to use the military parade in Pyongyang to showcase a new
long-range missile it is developing.
The US vice president, Mike Pence, is due to fly to South
Korea on Sunday, in what the White House said was a show of support for its
regional ally. Aides said there were contingency plans for trip in case North
Korea carries out a nuclear test.
On Thursday evening, NBC News cited intelligence officials
as saying the US could carry out a pre-emptive conventional strike if it got
intelligence that the North Koreans were about to test, but that was strongly
denied by Pentagon officials.
However, administration officials repeated on Friday that
military options were under active consideration in the search for containing
Kim Jong-un’s nuclear aspirations.
Speaking in advance of Pence’s trip, a senior official said:
“We’ve got some military options already being assessed, but we’ll work that as
we sit down in discussions with General Brooks, the commander there on
Peninsula.”
“[Kim] continues to develop this program,” the official
said. “He continues to launch missiles into the Sea of Japan. So with that
regime it’s not a matter of “if,” it’s “when.” So we’re well prepared to
counter that.”
Writing in the Global Times, a Communist party-controlled
tabloid, one Chinese scholar urged Trump against carrying out a Syria-style
bombing campaign against North Korea. “North Korea is not Syria. It may have
the ability to strike South Korea and Japan with nuclear weapons,” said Li
Jiacheng, a fellow at Liaoning University in north-eastern China.
“If the US makes a pre-emptive strike on North Korea,
Pyongyang will attack South Korea, Japan and the US forces stationed in the two
countries,” Li warned. “What’s more, the war will not be a blitz but a
protracted one, which will require a lot of energy from the countries
involved.”
“In the current situation, [the] possibility is still low
that the US will initiate a war on the peninsula,” Li added. “However, because
of Trump’s unpredictability, it is difficult to predict his policy toward the
region.”
On Thursday, Trump, who has previously accused Beijing of
failing to rein in its North Korean ally, said he believed China was prepared
to act. “I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North
Korea. If they are unable to do so, the US, with its allies, will!” he wrote on
Twitter.
However, despite signs of warming ties between the US and
China, experts doubt the relationship is sufficiently sturdy for definitive
collaboration on North Korea.
Steven Weber, an international relations specialist from the
University of California, Berkeley, said: “If you want regime change in North
Korea then you have got to have a plan for how to manage that on the other side
of the collapse – and that requires a long-term collaborative relationship
between the Americans and the Chinese to make sure that whatever happens, and
however that reconstruction emerges, is acceptable to both sides.”
“I don’t think we are anywhere near a place right now where
either side trusts the other to a depth that you believe that you could sustain
and maintain that kind of relationship for that long a period of time.”
The rise in tensions came ahead of the arrival in South
Korea on Sunday of the US vice-president, Mike Pence, who will also visit
Japan, Washington’s other key ally in the region, early next week.
Previewing Pence’s trip, a White House foreign policy
adviser said: “We’re going to consult with the Republic of Korea on North
Korea’s efforts to advance its ballistic missile and its nuclear programme.”
Seoul and Tokyo are considered at greatest risk of a North
Korean counterattack in the event of a pre-emptive strike by the US. On
Thursday, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, warned that North Korea may be
capable of attacking the country with a missile loaded with sarin nerve gas –
the same substance used in a deadly attack on the Tokyo subway by a Japanese
doomsday cult in 1995.
North Korea appears to have resumed the use of cold war
scare tactics with the radio broadcast of indecipherable code that could be
used to communicate with its spies in the South. Radio broadcasts containing a
combination of mysterious random numbers were picked up in South Korea on
Friday, according to Yonhap news agency.
Some experts in South Korea said the use of radio broadcasts
– a common means of issuing orders to agents during the cold war – was outmoded
and could instead be intended to raise tensions. The state-run Pyongyang Radio
began broadcasting the messages early on Friday, with an announcer reading out
a series of numbers and page numbers.
The radio announcer referred to the numbers as “review works
in elementary information technology lessons of the remote education university
for No 27 expedition agents”, according to Yonhap.
North Korea ended broadcasts of encrypted numbers after
tensions with South Korea eased following a historic inter-Korea summit in
2000. Their resumption last June is seen as a reflection of how far relations
have deteriorated.
Yonhap said Pyongyang Radio had made 32 such broadcasts
since June last year, most recently last weekend. With agents based in the
South now able to communicate with their handlers via the internet, the use of
numbers, which they would then decipher using a reference book, appears outdated.
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