Pyongyang's Unity Festival Disunites Seoul Delegation

PYONGYANG － As controversy continued to swirl around what was supposed to be a feel-good festival for all Koreans, the delegates found something that did unify them － resentment against Japan.

At Pyongyang's People's Palace of Culture delegates from North and South adopted a joint resolution denouncing Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni shrine and Japanese attempts to rewrite history.

The occasion was a two-day ceremonial event to mark Korea's liberation from colonial Japan. North Korea named the jamboree the Grand Festival for National Reunification, and according to South Korea's government there was a little too much togetherness going on.

Some members of the 337-strong South Korean delegation flouted instructions issued by Seoul not to attend any ceremony held at the North's "Monument to the Three Charters of National Reunification," where both opening and closing exercises were held.

This was the first time South Korea had given official permission, even with conditions, to South Koreans to attend an event in the North. Previous participants in such ceremonies were dealt as violators of the National Security Law.

The South Korean delegation leader, Kim Jong-su, said that he would try to keep other members away from the closing ceremony. He said that about one third of the delegation, had attended the opening ceremony.

"We will deal sternly with those who went," he said. "We are aware of the ramifications the action will have on inter-Korean exchanges, and we are looking into just how some of the delegates attended."

Pyongyang's insistence on staging the ceremonies at the monument, which presents a North Korean vision of reunification that the South does not accept, almost scuttled the joint event. The South Korean government threatened to withdraw permission for a delegation to attend, but changed its mind at the last minute, after receiving a signed pledge from three leaders of the South Korean delegation not to visit the site.

Once in Pyongyang, however, members of the South Korean National Alliance for Unification protested that they had not signed anything.

"We made it clear, in a pre-visit session, that the delegates should not go to the monument site," a South Korean government official said. "Participation at the site violates Clause Nine of the law governing inter-Korean exchanges."

Both the ruling and opposition political parties questioned the delegates' actions.

"Attendance by the South Korean delegates plays out as accepting the North's proposal for reunification through a confederation," said Chang Kwang-keun, vice spokesman of the opposition Grand National Party.

"The government should take appropriate measures," the Millennium Dem-ocratic Party spokesman, Jeon Yong-hak, said.

by Oh Young-hwan