The political storm over the released minutes of the 2007 South-North summit brings a few questions to the mind of this annoyed watcher. First, was President Roh Moo-hyun really ready to abandon the NLL or did he just mention it as a strategic rhetoric to lead his host to a meaningful negotiation on overall inter-Korean issues? Second, who gains and who loses with the exposure of the details of the dialogue between the two men who both have died? 

In this summer of 2013, we are confronting a wholly new world, with the replacement of top leadership not only in both parts of the Korean Peninsula and in all concerned powers and the global economic and security situations changing constantly. Tension on the peninsula has escalated to an all time high to make the joint declaration from the 2007 summit a piece of worthless scrap paper.

The release of the document in Seoul will have not a bit of effect on the relations between the two Koreas. If the wording of the minutes make Roh Moo-hyun look spineless before the autocrat in the North and even treacherous ― for his shown flexibility on the maritime border ― it may cause the so-called “Chinno,” or the Roh sympathizers in the opposition Democratic Party, a little humiliation before the conservative majority in the political arena. Overall, the transcript does not merit so much attention to outrun other priorities.

There is another question as to why the National Intelligence Service declassified the document and released it so promptly when it was the subject of a political row between the rival parties, even disregarding legal complexities. This unprecedented action regrettably meant the state intelligence agency succumbing to the rages of partisan struggle, risking political neutrality.

From the text, one feels the desperation of Roh, who had five months until the end of his term, to glean as many items of agreement with the North’s ruler as possible and try to use his well-known conversational charm for that purpose. He talked over many subjects ranging from economic cooperation to reduction of tension and the nature of the alliance between South Korea and the United States, although the printed text makes it difficult to distinguish between a naive idealist and an earnest negotiator.

During the two nights and three days he was in the North Korean capital, Roh might not have imagined that his chats with Kim Jong-il would be revealed to the Southern public almost word for word this soon instead of the usual three decades. So, he must have had few qualms in showing his deference to his host and telling him how anxiously he had “defended” Pyongyang’s position in his frequent conversations with foreign leaders.

Out of curiosity, I searched the Internet and picked up the text of the “Declaration on the Advancement of South-North Korean Relations, Peace and Prosperity” Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il signed on Oct. 4, 2007. The eight-point document was nearly three times wordier than the South-North Joint Declaration of June 15, 2000 produced by the earlier summit between President Kim Dae-jung and the same Northern dictator.

More than anything, I could not but realize the futility of inter-Korean politics over the past decades as I read sentence after sentence of hollow promises and assurances of cooperation and joint efforts for peace and common prosperity. The words on “special peace and cooperation zone in the West Sea” with joint fishing and industrial areas only evoked the memories of the Cheonan warship sinking and the Yeonpyongdo Island bombing in the same sea.

When he walked into the North across the Military Demarcation Line for the Pyongyang meeting, Roh was not contemplating a talkfest with Kim Jong-il over state ideology or economic priorities. He should have wanted to offer the sweetest baits in the sweetest words in order to have the Northerners lower their guards and produce some tangible fruits that could highlight his presidential tenure.

The most controversial part in his conversation with Kim Jong-il, the mention of a possible change to the Northern Limit Line, was his biggest gambit to invite North Korea’s positive responses in the areas of economy and security. Yet, he did not accept Kim’s proposal for a simultaneous declaration by Seoul and Pyongyang of their abandoning of the NLL as the delimitation of territorial claims. The result was the ambiguous “bid to proactively push ahead with the creation of joint fishing and maritime peace zones.”

The dead president is silent. To make a fair judgment on him, we living souls should examine all records he left behind. Now we have the official transcript of his conversation with the Pyongyang leader, but I am not sure if the words in this dialogue entirely contained his conscientious belief. So I was glad when I spotted through Internet surfing a piece of an address President Roh made to the delegates of the Presidential Advisory Council for Peaceful Unification shortly after his Pyongyang visit.

Roh confided that Pyongyang set forth three requests upon his visit; paying tribute to Kim Il-sung’s mausoleum, the lifting of the National Security Law, and the abolition of the “suffocating” NLL. “None were accepted,” he said. About the NLL, Roh said Kim Jong-il insisted that the line was not drawn in agreement with the North and that it did not follow the established international methods of delimiting territorial rights.

“Both his claims were right and I as a jurist myself did not have much to rebuke him with. Yet, if I agreed to draw a new line and came back to Panmunjeom, I might be stopped by a placard, saying, ‘You leftist president, go back to the North.’ After all, I returned without touching the NLL,” Roh told the gathering. Strangely, this speech which also covered other aspects of the Pyongyang summit offered a clearer vision of what happened during Roh’s three days in Pyongyang.

Roh Moo-hyun squandered much public support in radical leftist reforms, sharpening social polarization and ill-prepared external initiatives. He was an unconventional president particularly with his rejection of the authoritarian style of governance to the extent of stirring the authority of his office itself and with his much resisted pursuit for changing social and political conventions. One can also see his unsuccessful attempt at breaking the pattern of inter-Korean relations in his frustrating dialogue with the autocrat in Pyongyang. 

By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former The Korea Herald editorial writer. ― Ed.