DIVIDED KOREA.

Evening Star, Issue 25894, 11 September 1946, Page 6

DIVIDED KOREA.

At the beginning of the year it was recorded: “The disparity between Russian and American methods in Korea, likely now to be reconciled, has worked badly since liberation.’’ Far from being reconciled the disparity, as the latest statement of /General Hodge,’ American army commander in Southern Korea, makes amply clear, still exists. The Russians and Americans have been no more able t,o co-operate in Korea than the Russians and Western Powers have been m Germany. The two zones into which the country is divided, the northern controlled by Russia and the southern by the United States, were more or less linked up by a joint commission till four months ago, but the commission’s members failed to work together, and since then it has been in abeyance. Twice, when General Hodge urged a resumption of conversations, the Soviet leaders ignored his letters. When he requested that, as the Russians'had a legation in the southern city of Seoul, the United States should be allowed to have a similar listening post in the north, the Seoul legation was withdrawn.

The American Administration has had to bear the sniping of Communists resident in both the zqnes. Now General Hodge, with his own plans for self-government, which was promised at an early stage by the Allies, has to lay it down that his country “ does not intend to stand by idly and watch a self-interested, venal segment- of the people impose their shoddy power.” He still favours attempts to “ reojjen the joint American-Soviet Commission to unite the country,” but that does not appear to be a likely prospect. Meanwhile there has been talk of hastening the same cure for disunity that Mr Byrnes has been recommending for Germany. It is proposed that the Koreans, at least in Southern Korea, should be given some experience in self-government, which would have chances then of spreading to the north. A provisional Government, or at least a legislative body, would be set up, under American or Allied supervision, which would represent all political opinions. Guidance would be heeded for a beginning, because it is thirty-five years since the Koreans have had any experience of self-govern-ment. The Communist Party in Southern Korea, however, has denounced the formation of such a , body, and refused to participate in it. The Communists, it has been said, do not attack the American plan of tutorship as being undemocratic, but rather 'as a devious device to fasten United States military government on Korea and strengthen American control. So suspicion on every side impedes every attempt 'to reshape a disorganised world, and it is only in Japan, where General Mac Arthur rules by himself, that progress appears to be made.