Mourice Muhoozi
There is growing tension and political instability in the Korean peninsular and the two are constantly escalating. This is mainly due to North Korea’s increased pursuit for nuclear and missile programs which are actually condemned and banned by the United Nations. This has created a state of fear and speculation engineered by most of the world’s political analysts who have on several occasions predicted an outburst of a major war in the Korean peninsular, should these conflicts go unresolved.
Is North Korea solely responsible for these conflicts in the region? Well, there is a growing world opinion that this isolated communist state alone is to blame due to her missile and nuclear ambitions that is to say; on July 4 2017, she test-fired the Huasong 14, an Inter Continental ballistic Missile with the capacity to strike the US mainland and updated it on July 28.
It is right to blame North Korea, but any person with a sound mind would also blame the US and her allies.
In fact, it is lack of common sense to only blame Pyongyang yet Washington tests weapons and carries out military drills occasionally in the same region.
North Koreans claim that their missile and nuclear programs are tools of peace and security. This is held on the view that the US foreign policies are aggressive in nature. For instance in his first interview with the Sky News on May 10, 2017 the North Korean ambassador to the UK H.E Choe IL noted that his nation resorted to the manufacture of nuclear weapons to surpass any pre-emptive American aggression.
He noted that the US attacks weaker states with exploitative ambitions and gave an example of the US invasion of Libya in 2011. It is therefore generally accepted among all North Koreans that the nation’s nuclear ambitions are intended to thwart any pre-emptive US invasion.
Besides, the loopholes of the United Nations have also been exploited by the US to magnify differences in the Korean region. Being the word’s most powerful nation, the US has exploited the United Nations to achieve her wild ends. This international peace keeping body has mostly concentrated on imposing sanctions on Pyongnyany yet the US and China have tested sophiscated weapons in a broad day light and have gone uncastigated. For example, the UN increased sanctions on Pyongyang on June 2, 2017 after her launch of the SCUUD missile. This could have been thought wise but the same international body acted as a passive witness when the US and the Japanese navies conducted provocative military drills on June 1, 2017.
UN has failed to bring the conflicting parties on a negotiating table and make them know that diplomacy is the best way to resolve the matters. It has treated the US as an untouchable entity and this has increased tensions in the Korean region.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that major powers like Russia and the US are the major stockers of nuclear weapons. For example, according to the journal titled “Bulletin of Atomic Scientists” by Hans Krinstesten, the US is one of the major stockers of nuclear weapons with approximately 4,480 nuclear war heads to be delivered via ballistic missiles.
On a sad note, during the 1974 Helsinki SALT summit in Finland, major word powers like the US refused to destroy their weapons of mass destruction. This attracted other states like Iran, North Korea, China to invest heavily manufacturing the same weapons. Against this background, major world powers are blamed for their failure to play an exemplary role.
It is there fore thought rational to blame all nations involved in the Korean region crisis, not singling out North Korean. The concerned nations and organisations should bring North Korea and her rivals on a negotiating table and make them realise that it is rather diplomacy not the provocative military actions that is capable of resolving these wrangles which might see an outburst of an eminent bloody war.
The author is a second year student of Journalism and Communication at Makerere University.
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