In the land of the killer clowns

The Indonesian orchid "Kimilsungia"

"Guns, Guerillas and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World" is a book written hy Benjamin R Young. It was recently published by Standford University Press as part of their "Cold War International History Project". While the book does contain interesting facts (and a lot of borderline factoids), it nevertheless comes across as a rough draft. The book tries to describe North Korea´s foreign policy from 1956 to 1989, but lacks a more detailed analysis of the entire period in question. There isn´t even a general summary chapter. To be honest, the book comes across as a kind of catalogue of every weird North Korean mishap in the Third World, but without any attemp at a real synthesis. There are also a number of strange errors: the author (or his editor?) confuses Mauritius with Mauritania, claims that Muhammad is a "deity", and insists on calling the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna "the People´s Liberation Front" - while that is what the name means, everyone else just calls it JVP. After reading the book, I still don´t understand *why* the DPRK did what they did (as in "why really"), although a few answers can be gleaned by reading the narrative carefully. 

Which doesn´t mean you shouldn´t read the book. If you love killer clowns on a Halloween rampage in the Third World, you gonna love "Guns, Guerillas and the Great Leader". 

A long time ago, I assumed that the DPRK were a super-isolationist Communist regime which really did have an independent line, and in contrast to Enver Hoxha´s Albania didn´t even try to create a "world movement" all their own. Later, I assumed that North Korea was really just a Soviet satellite, although a slightly idiosyncratic one. Judging by Young´s overview, the truth is more complex and also more sinister. North Korea was politically independent from both the Soviet Union and the People´s Republic of China, but also economically dependent on them - the "North Korean miracle" was really Made in Elsewhere. The solution seems to have been to play off the Soviets and the Chinese against each other, reaping dividends from both. When necessary, the DPRK carried out its own influence operations, economic deals and even terrorist attacks. There is a certain irony in this, since the "Democratic People´s Republic of Korea" was established by the Soviet Army and saved from USA/UN occupation by the People´s Liberation Army of China! Yet, since both the Soviets and the Chinese left early, the Kim family clan could remain firmly in control and pursue their own policies without direct supervision by Moscow or Beijing (both of which frequently complained about the North Korean attitude). So why were the North Koreans allowed to continue, year after year, even when they carried out crazy stuff worthy of a Gaddafi? I assume the reason is geopolitical: neither the Soviets nor the Chinese Communists can allow a "capitalist" or "pro-American" unification of Korea, and therefore need the DPRK as their buffer state in the north. This gives the Kims (including the present one) a certain leverage and ability to manoeuvre. They can go very far without risking more than some diplomatic reprimands backstage... 

I think the main, or even only, reason for DPRK´s "solidarity" with "the Third World" is the North-South conflict on the Korean peninsula. Judging by Young´s account, this is the case even when North Korea tries to get influence in Africa. It´s really a way to counter attempts by *South* Korea to gain such influence, or to move first. Sometimes, North Korea wants to test its weaponry, or even engage South Korean agents and military personnel abroad. During the Vietnam War, North Korea supported North Vietnam and the NLF, while South Korea did likewise with South Vietnam. The DPRK sent fighter pilots to Vietnam, and tried to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the South Korean troops active there. They also attempted to abduct South Korean military, spread Communist propaganda among them, etc. In Africa, the two Koreas were engaged in a decades-long propaganda war against each other, the purpose of which was to secure African support for the North Korean position within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which North Korean diplomacy tried to use as a forum and a tool for DPRK interests. While the aid to various Third World nations was originally free of charge (the North Koreans even paid handsomely for propaganda in various foreign newspapers), during the 1980´s the relations became more business-like, with the DPRK demanding payment (in foreign currency) for services rendered. 

What struck me most was the intensely opportunist character of the North Korean foreign operations. Machiavelli would have liked these guys. In Uganda, North Korea supported both Idi Amin, Milton Obote and Yoveri Museveni! In southern Africa, North Korea originally had cozy relations with Zaire´s very own killer clown Mobutu Sese Seko, only to abandon him (and his Angolan FLNA proxies, and I suppose his avasuits), in favor of the Angolan MPLA. In the Middle East, Kim Il Sung secretly supported Egypt´s peace deal with Israel, while saying the opposite in public! And despite its support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War, the DPRK pivoted to Pol Pot´s Cambodia after the war, even trying to get Vietnam expelled from the NAM. The bromance between Cambodia´s Sihanouk and Kim Il Sung must have been something to behold, with Sihanouk telling a high-ranking US official that the North Korean leaders don´t want war, since they are used to a life in complete comfort and luxury (something that must have impressed this truly precious prince who, alas, was no stranger to war). Sihanouk preferred having North Korean body guards, notorious for their brutality, being intensely suspicious of Cambodian royal palace guards... 

A fun fact is that North Korea weren´t the only opportunists in these transactions. Frequently, *they* were taken advantage of themselves, especially in the super-corrupted African theatre. Once, a pro-Western newspaper in Cameroon published pro-DPRK propaganda just for the money. Many "Korean friendship associations" in Africa paid people to become members, which all kinds of unscrupulous elements took advantage of. In Uganda, the "friendship association" supported Museveni, at a time when the North Korean regime was still aiding and abetting Obote. The Communist Dergue regime in Ethiopia cynically accepted aid from both Koreas! But then, the Dergue may also have been the only regime in the world which accepted aid from both Cuba and Israel...

Judging by Young´s account, the best aid rendered by the Kim regime to its "allies" in the Third World was the military one, which included both weapons, ammunition and frequently brutal instructors. He doesn´t have an opinion on the quality of the huge palaces and monuments built in Africa by North Koreans. Much other aid was substandard, including porcelain factories which made dishes of such bad quality that you could cut through them with a steak knife. I´m not surprised. One popular "export" were the Mass Games, a kind of political gymnastic exercises, which could be used for propaganda purposes in a variety of nations (although the locals preferred to enhance the Mass Games with references to their own cultures). This brings me to perhaps the most entertaining portion of North Korean foreign propaganda: its notoriously inept character. It´s not clear to me whether the Kim Il Sung leadership really didn´t get it, or whether they simply didn´t care, since the real deals between DPRK and its "allies" were negotiated off-stage. 

North Korea is notorious for its bizarre and hysterical personality cult of Kim Il Sung, and later also of Kim Jong Il, his son and heir-very-apparent. This personality cult was liberally diffused abroad (or in North Korea to visiting foreign delegations), often to the bemusement and slight consternation of the intended targets. After reading some of the Great Leader´s sage pronouncements myself, I have to say that most of them are basic bitch commonplaces. "We have to strengthen the people, weaken imperialism, and mobilize. This is very important". That kind of level. I assume that the statements *about* the Great Leader and the Dear Leader are more, shall we say, turgid. Even foreign diplomats, including from friendly socialist nations, where frequently forced to listen to long speeches extolling the virtues and excellencies of Kim Il Sung. One Spanish visitor, I think, was taken to the doctor for a check up before being allowed to visit Kim - the medic explained that the Leader is such a great man, that people frequently faint in his presence! An African delegation, when realizing that the next 40 rooms of a Kim Il Sung exhibition in Pyongyang were very similar to the 20 rooms they had already walked through, kindly asked to be taken elsewhere. The translations of books about Kim Il Sung to foreign languages were frequently pretty bizarre. One English translation had the headline "Kim Il Sung: The Divine Man", while an Arabic translation claimed that Kim Il Sung is God! (No less.) Ironically, the idea known as Juche, which the Korean Workers´ Party claims is Kim Il Sung´s foremost contribution to revolutionary theory, was succeful in the Third World mostly because it was interpreted as a commonplace. Thus, in India, Juche was associated with everything from Plato to Mahatma Gandhi, which seems correct - for what is Juche other than the idea of autarkic self-reliance from the Western-dominated world economy, the dream of many Third World nationalists? 

Unfortunately, the Communist fun house of North Korea also had a darker side. One thing that struck me was that the North Koreans sometimes attacked "progressive" governments they should logically have tried to lobby diplomatically instead, as when they supported the mad Maoists of the JVP against the left-nationalist SLFP government of Sri Lanka, or when they backed a small revolutionary foco against the Mexican PRI government. In both cases, the rebellions were adventurist and doomed from the start (the Mexicans hardly started theirs before the police arrested them). Notoriously, North Korea supported the Japanese Red Army, a kind of East Asian version of the Baader Meinhof gang. Further, there was the Rangoon bombing of 1983, during which North Korean agents tried to assassinate Chun Doo-hwan, the president of South Korea, during his official visit to Burma (at the time a socialist nation). Finally, there was the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 in 1987, killing over 100 people, in retaliation for South Korea refusing to co-host the 1988 olympic summer games. After the Cold War, it´s been pretty much downhill from there, with the North Korean regime looking upon the Third World as a gigantic smorgasbord for smuggling, hacking and other ways to obtain hard currency (implicitly or explicitly threatening to nuke the US unless the West pays tribute is another sure method). 

North Korea has become a rogue state and international outlaw, and it seems the roots of the predicament go pretty deep. So does the geopolitical realities that seemlingly make the North Korean entity as viable as ever, at least for the Kim clan and its cronies. Today, the great benefactor of "self-reliant" Juche DPRK is, of course, China.  

Authentic propaganda

Mobutu Sese Seko was the effective leader of Congo-Kinshasa or Zaire from 1965 to 1997. Colonel Mobutu took power during the Congo crisis by overthrowing the left-leaning government of Patrice Lumumba. His foreign policy was pro-Western, Mobutu's regime having good relations with France, Belgium, Israel, Morocco and the United States. Mobutu also established relations with China during Mao's pro-American tilt. (This explains the curious fact that Maoist group didn't condemn Mobutu outright.) Zaire's clashes with rebels based in socialist Angola were an integral part of the Cold War. Domestically, Mobutu put himself forward as a Black African nationalist, campaigning for “authenticity” in culture, religion and dress. Until 1990, Mobutu was the virtual dictator of Zaire, amassing a huge fortune in the process. A seven-year period of shaky co-habitation with some opposition groups followed. In 1997, rebel forces headed by Laurent Kabila (a very jaded leftist who never belonged to the coalition government) finally overthrew Mobutu with support from Rwanda and Uganda. Interestingly, both nations had pro-American governments, suggesting that the United States had finally lost confidence in its old ally in Kinshasa…

This was still in the future in 1989, when Mobutu gave an extensive interview to French reporter Jean-Louis Remilleux, so extensive that it fills an entire book. In “Dignity for Africa”, the Zairian leader talks about his early life and education, dodges the issue of Lumumba's assassination, and expounds on “authenticity”. While nominally claiming that his regime is democratic, he cheerfully admits that there is only one legal political party. Mobutu argues at length that newly independent colonies can't have parliamentary Western-style democracy, since competing political parties will inevitably become tribal-based. His goal is to unite all Congolese tribes into a single Zairian nation, something that necessitates one party rule. The point of “authenticity” is to create a united Zairian culture as expressed in art, dance, theater and novels. All Western (including Christian) names were banned and replaced by African ones (thus, Mobutu Sese Seko's original name was Joseph-Desiré Mobutu). The Catholic Church in Zaire introduced a special “Zaire rite” in its liturgy, which Mobutu actually managed to get approved by the Vatican. During the interview with Remilleux, Mobutu even defends the more frivolous aspects of “authenticity”, such as the “awasuite” (“away with the suite”), a new and somewhat Maoist-style clothing introduced by the regime. I originally assumed the awasuite was somebody's idea of a joke! At least he doesn't mention the rumble in the jungle…

I don't know how Zaire's propaganda looked like during the 1960's or 1970's, but in 1989, Mobutu says very little about the Cold War or the fight against Communism – perhaps due to the decline of the Eastern bloc? Instead, he directs most of his criticism at the Western powers, trying to put himself forward as a Pan-Africanist and representative of the Third World. The old dictator demands debt reductions, accuses human right groups of colonialist hypocrisy, and emphasizes how unfairly Zaire has been treated by its former colonial master Belgium. At the same time, Mobutu tries to put himself forward as an international statesman of some stature, the book being filled with photos of the Zairian leader as he meets Reagan, Mitterrand, King Hassan II of Morocco and even Mao. Mobutu strongly implies that it was him (who else!) who made the rapprochement between the ANC and the South African apartheid regime possible, not to mention peace in Angola and the independence of Namibia. More seriously, he proudly mentions Zaire's intervention in Chad against Gaddafi's Libya.

I can't say that “Dignity for Africa” is *the* most interesting book around, being essentially a propaganda pitch for Mobutu's “authentic” regime, but if things Congolese are of interest to you, I suppose you could give it a glance or two.

Rumble in the jungle

A review of the flag of Zaire, sold by Amazon. Yes, they sell the flag of Zaire, LOL.

Since I recently reviewed a book containing a lenghty interview with a certain Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga, I might as well also comment this peculiar-looking product. Yes, this is the flag used by Mobutu's regime, during the period when Congo-Kinshasa was known as Zaire. Note the Pan-Africanist colors. This flag was part and parcel of Mobutu's campaign for "authenticity" in matters Afro-cultural. Weirdly, the third party vendor selling the Zaire flag calls itself "FindingKing". A co-incidence? Or an in-house joke? Don King was the boxing promotor who set up the "rumble in the jungle" between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa! Mobutu himself was overthrown in 1997 during another rumble, and the new government naturally changed the national flag, turning Mobutu's design into an odd memento. Except in the Amazon jungle, where everything is on sale...

Put them on the endangered species list

"Congo" is a film that massacres a novel by Michael Crichton. A team of scientists and soldiers enter the dark rain forests of the Congo in search of a mysterious blue diamond that might revolutionize communication technology (or the arms race). Unfortunately, the diamond is guarded by evil gorilla clones inside an ancient temple. Corrupted mercenaries with a taste for sesame cake, a tame gorilla that likes martini, and multinationals up to no good are other ingredients in this hideous turkey. But yes, it's mentioned (tongue-in-cheek) at several cryptozoological websites. The heroes eventually escape from the temple of doom when it turns out that the mad killer apes worship Amy the Martini Drinking Gorilla as a deity. Ha ha ha. I admit that I haven't really seen this film. As behoves a genuine Amazon reviewer, this review is based purely on hearsay. KIDDING. One thing is for sure: I already have a stereotypical love-hate relationship to "Congo". If you loved/hated "Anaconda II" and similar flicks, this is definitely in your league. Otherwise, you might consider watching "Gorillas in the mist", LOL.

Don't show this to Uncle Charlie

"Nation or Class?" is a pamphlet published by the International Communist Current (ICC), a small and somewhat peculiar left-wing radical group. The ICC claim adherence to the so-called Left Communist or ultraleftist tradition, associated with Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter and (rightly or wrongly) also with Amadeo Bordiga. The ICC's most immediate ideological precursor seems to be the Italian Left Fraction in Exile, an ultraleftist group in France during the 1930's. The Left Communists were anti-Stalinist, but nevertheless rejected the Trotskyist movement. The Trotskyists, in turn, accused the Left Communists of being hopeless sectarians. This is somewhat ironic, since - of course - Trotskyism was accused of pretty much the same thing by stronger anti-Stalinist left parties such as the Spanish POUM, the British ILP or Norman Thomas' Socialist Party in the United States. Scattered Left Communist groups of rather diverse kinds still exist today, with the ICC being one of the more visible groups. Well, at least if you use a magnifying glass! The ICC has always been strongly sectarian and completely isolated from most of what counts for leftist politics, something the group apparently takes a certain pride in.

"Nation or Class?" is an ICC pamphlet arguing against any kind of support for national liberation movements. The ICC admits that national liberation could sometimes play a positive role during the "ascendant" epoch of capitalism, but with World War I capitalism definitely entered its epoch of "decadence", making genuine national liberation struggles impossible and presumably undesirable. The ICC criticizes Lenin and the Bolsheviks for their support to national liberation struggles, while arguing that Rosa Luxemburg's position on the matter was better. They make a connection between Lenin's and Luxemburg's different analysis of imperialism, and their respective positions on national liberation. To the ICC, the world of decadent capitalism has been decisively portioned between imperialist great powers. Even worse, *all* nations - even the smallest - are forced to conduct an imperialist policy. Thus, "national liberation" either means that a nation passes from the control of one great power to another, or becomes an imperialist bully in its own right, or both.

It should be noted that the ICC regards the regimes in the Soviet Union, China and elsewhere as "state capitalist" and hence just as imperialist as the United States, Britain or France. Thus, national liberation struggles during the Cold War were, to the ICC, simply a way of former Western colonies to become hirelings of Russian imperialism instead. In rare cases, the trend went in the opposite direction, as when Israel went from Soviet asset to Western ally, or when Siad Barre's regime in Somalia switched its allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States. In even rarer instances, formerly subjugated nations managed to become imperialist great powers in their own right (China).

The ICC attacks Vietnam with special venom, presumably because most of the left supported North Vietnam and the NLF during the Vietnam War. ICC's attacks on Vietnam sound surprisingly "right-wing": peasants in North Vietnam resisted collectivization, peasants in South Vietnam fled before the North Vietnamese army, the reunited Vietnam has forced labour as in Pol Pot's Cambodia, and its bullying of Cambodia or the Chinese minority is "imperialist". Another target of the pamphlet is the Congolese rebel movement which attempted to invade Katanga from bases in Angola. Apparently, the rebels were former supporters of pro-Western strongman Moise Tshombe, temporarily allied with the pro-Soviet MPLA regime in Angola. Angola, of course, was another favourite nation of leftist solidarity activists...

Obviously, "Nation or Class?" wasn't intended to win any leftist popularity contest!

Since the ICC rejects *all* support to national liberation movements, no matter how temporary or tactical, the only alternative is a "straight" working-class revolution, during which the workers reject, once and for all, all forms of nationalism and imperialism, both domestic and foreign, and strike out on their own, with soviets and red guards, in a kind of simplistic reprise of the 1917 October revolution in Russia. Then, the revolution must be immediately spread around the world, with force of arms if necessary. National self-determination will not be granted after the revolution either. Here, the ICC supports Rosa Luxemburg's position. Luxemburg criticized the Bolsheviks for having granted national self-determination to Finland, the Ukraine and other non-Russian regions after the October revolution. The only alternative to national liberation is the "world-wide civil war" between the working class and the bourgeoisie, and the subsequent construction of a "world human community" after the victory of the world revolution.

I admit that "Nation or Class?" is somewhat more interesting than ICC texts on average, so I will therefore grant it three stars. But no, I can't say I agree with ICC's truly ultraleft position on matters national...