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The worst scenario in North Korea is an anarchic emergency, whether leader Kim Jong-il is alive or not, according to North Korea experts in Seoul on Wednesday.
¡ß Emergency
There is, for one thing, the danger of a military coup d'etat. "There is the possibility both of a coup of extreme adventurists, risking confrontation with the U.S. by embracing nuclear weapons, and a reform coup," said Prof. Yoo Ho-yeo at Korea University.
If food shortages and human rights abuses get worse, the result could be rioting, speculated Song Dae-sung, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute. Loyalty to Kim Jong-il is incomparably lower than toward Kim Il-sung when he died in 1994, said Prof. Kim Yong-yun at Dongguk University. And with the succession uncertain, an internal power struggle could cause a collapse of the regime, coupled with a complete stoppage of the ration system and public unrest, resulting in anarchy, Song said.
¡ß Short-term results
¨ç Exodus
If the North Korean regime's control weakens in an emergency, the chances are high that there will be an exodus of North Koreans. "South Korea, in collaboration with the UN, China and Russia, will have to form an international North Korean refugee relief organization and discuss accommodation and cost-sharing," said Yeo In-gon, senior researcher at the Korea Institute of National Unification.
¨è International security
The greatest danger in terms of international security is the outflow of weapons of mass destruction like nuclear and chemical weapons which is the major U.S. concern, said former National Assembly speaker Park Kwan-yong. "Against this, the U.S. may consider getting Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command to exercise its right to self-defense," said Baek Seung-joo, senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis.
¨é Civil war, UN peacekeepers
Hong Kwan-hee, the head of the Institute for National Security Strategy, said North Korea has 7 million troops including irregular forces. In an emergency, a civil war could break out, he said "Should a civil war lead to massacres or deaths from starvation, UN peacekeeping forces could be sent," said a Foreign Ministry official.
¨ê Chinese intervention
"If anarchy develops, it¡¯s almost certain that Chinese forces will be stationed in North Korea," said Hwang Jang-yup, former secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party who fled to the South in 1997. To counter it, Hwang said, South Korean and U.S. forces will have to administer the North as members of multi-national forces. A researcher with a national policy institute said, "We must develop a joint response to such a development with the U.S., which has no territorial ambition in North Korea, and Japan, a democratic country."
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