South Korea has prepared secret plans to take control of North Korea and accommodate at least 200,000 refugees in the event of the communist regime's sudden collapse, a news report said yesterday.
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Under one of the two plans disclosed during a parliamentary audit on Monday, Seoul's unification minister would take over as ruler of post-collapse North Korea, the Joong-Ang Ilbo reported. The other plan detailed Seoul's preparation for any mass defection and included contingencies for a possible civil war. The major Seoul daily said that the contingency plans concerning North Korea's collapse were first drawn up around 1994 when the founder of the Stalinist state, Mr Kim Il Sung, died. They have since been updated. Many officials and experts predicted the North's imminent collapse at the time. However, fears eased with the successful transfer of power to Mr Kim Jong Il. North Korea has since survived serious famine and natural disasters in the mid-1990s and a deepening standoff with the outside world over its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Details of the secret plans have been kept classified, but the Unification Ministry provided selective details to try and assure the public that Seoul would be able to cope with the possible collapse of the North Korean regime. The contingency plans were discussed in the parliamentary hearing on Monday at the request of opposition Grand National Party lawmaker Chung Moon Hun. Under one plan, code-named Chungmu 9000, South Korea would establish an emergency administrative headquarters in North Korea after the regime's collapse. South Korea's unification minister would head the agency and would have powers greater than a governor, according to the newspaper. Under a separate Chungmu 3300 plan, Seoul would prepare for any mass defection and include contingencies for a possible civil war. Mr Chung said the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been conducting exercises to prepare for mass defection since drawing up the plan in 1993. The programme's top priority is withdrawing South Koreans who are in the North at the time of any emergency. Operations include evacuations of South Koreans working at the inter-Korean Gaeseong Industrial Complex and of tourists out of the Mount Geumgang resort. |