Fearing debris
could fall in the Philippines, President Benigno Aquino III on Thursday urged
North Korea to forego a planned launch of a long range missile next month.
Aquino said it was “probable” that he would raise his government’s
"grave concerns” over North Korea’s rocket launch with fellow leaders of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations when they meet in the 20th Asean
summit in Phnom Penh next week.
The president is to leave for Cambodia for the April 2-4 summits of the
Asean and the 8th Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asean Growth Area.
Speaking at the inauguration of the Peftok-Korean war memorial near the
Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City, Aquino voiced out for the first time his
government’s official position on the new crisis involving North Korea.
The president, who unveiled the marker, thanked the Korean government
for the memorial hall it had funded to honour the 7,000-strong Philippine
Expeditionary Forces to Korea during the 1950s war, including former President
Fidel Ramos who was present in the event.
The president noted how the two governments were able to work together
during the tensions in the Korean Peninsula in November 2010 and how it
strengthened “our mutual solidarity.”
Needless
provocation
Referring to North Korea’s shelling of a border of South Korea, Aquino
said the experience then was “an unnecessary burden on all of us, when we could
have concentrated on commerce and cooperation.”
"No one benefits from a return to those tension-filled days, and
it is precisely out of our desire to promote the well being of all our
peoples—Korean and Filipino alike—that we express today our grave concerns over
the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s plans to launch what it claims as
an earth observation satellite, but is widely believed to be a long range
ballistic missile between April 12 and 16,” Aquino said.
The president said the use of ballistic missile technology in any
launch violated the United Nations Security Council resolutions and would
present “risks to all concerned”.
He said North Korea’s plans increased “tensions, particularly in the
period of uncertainty leading up to the launch—where no one is sure of the
trajectory of the missile.”
"Similarly, debris from the launch may potentially land in our
territory. This is a needless provocation not only in the Korean peninsula, but
in our entire region,” he said.
"It is with our respective peoples in mind that we urge the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea not to proceed with its planned launch,”
the president said. “The way forward is for the DPRK to engage the
international community and return to actions that promote confidence-building
among its neighbours.”
Virtual invasion
Interviewed by reporters later, the president said: “You launch a
missile and it winds up in a territory that does not belong to you. What right
do you have to actually invade another country’s sovereign territory?”
Aquino said North Korea had a “lot of problems” and that it could have
devoted its resources for the missile launch “to solve sufficiency of food for
their people.”
"And if they turn to that direction I think the Philippines and
other countries are more than willing to share whatever expertise and resources
we do have so we will all prosper instead of diverting our attention to issues
like this that pose unnecessary risk for all concerned,” he said.
Asked whether his call to North Korea would be heeded, the President
said everyone knew how Pyongyang “responds to world opinion that’s why they
have been labeled a pariah state.”
'In Tagalog, don’t care—or deadma—but will we not protect our right?”
he added.
The president said the country was unprepared to deal with the debris
because the government was not sure where the missile was headed.
Kurt Campbell, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and
Pacific affairs, was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald as telling Australian
Foreign Minister Bob Carr last week, “If the missile test proceeds as North
Korea has indicated, our judgement is that it will impact in an area roughly
between Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines.”
"We have never seen this trajectory before. We have weighed into
each of these countries and asked them to make clear that such a test is
provocative and this plan should be discontinued,” Campbell said
Potential
paralysis
Ramos told reporters that the United States, South Korea, Russia and
China had the clout to persuade the new North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to
change his mind.
"Can you imagine, even if we are outside the fallout zone of, let
us assume a nuclear warhead, business will be paralyzed towards East Asia and
that includes us,” Ramos said.
"We cannot export, and we cannot import, and tourism will just die
off for a while, until normalcy resumes. So that is the danger that we are
facing and it’s bad,” the former President said.
In his speech, President Aquino paid tribute to “the men of the
Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea”
that included his father, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., who was a war correspondent during the Korean
War.
Aquino said his father’s dispatches were a “tribute to the importance
of solidarity, the demands of sacrifice and the true value of freedom and
democracy.”
"He would return from the war and embark on a political career
with these lessons in the back of his mind. They became the strongest weapons
he had when he learned what it meant to fight for freedom in a time of peace,”
the president said of his father Ninoy who fought the dictatorship of Ferdinand
Marcos and was assassinated upon his return in 1983 from exile in the United
States.
Christine O. Avendaño
Philippine Daily Inquirer
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