Korean Peninsula’s 75 million population at grave nuclear risk
The United Nations Security Council is witnessing a hectic period, as it has already held two emergency sessions within a week on the escalating situation created by North Korea’s twin provocations of firing a ballistic missile which overflew Japan, followed by its ‘perfect success’ in testing a hydrogen bomb, that sent shock waves, both literally and figuratively, across the region and the world. But, despite universal condemnation Pyongyang, in a show of suicidal brinkmanship, is reportedly preparing to launch another Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, an act which might prove the last straw and invite retribution from the US, which is itself exhibiting a warlike rhetoric, judging from the fiery statements of President Trump, Defence Secretary Mattis and Nicki Haley, the US’s UN Ambassador. Trump’s ‘fire and fury’ speech (termed ‘a load of nonsense’ by equally brash North Koreans), Mattis’s threats of ‘massive military response’, and North’s ‘total annihilation’, was followed by Haley’s frivolous contention that Kim Jong Un was ‘begging for war’. In this highly charged verbal atmosphere, a tiny spark can result in a massive conflagration, because, ‘if arguing makes us sweat, the proof of it will turn to redder drops’, as a protagonist ominously remarks in ‘Julius Caesar’ just before the Battle of Philippi.
The North Korean leader, whose family is traditionally accorded a demi-god status by his people, is understandably riled at the repeated US-South Korea war games, military drills, and lately, so called ‘bombing runs’, intended to take out the North’s nuclear facilities and decapitate its leadership. There is also the example of Libya before him, and the tragic fate of Colonel Qaddafi after he had voluntarily surrendered his nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. This explosive standoff is really a time for words not blows, and the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, while warning Kim ‘to stop provocative actions that destabilise the region’, justly stated that ‘who is stronger and smarter should show restraint’. This is the correct analysis, for diplomacy is the only viable and rational solution, not bravado and threats. And stringent sanctions must be followed by fruitful negotiations.
