[Editorial] How Could They Enjoy Mushrooms North Korea Has Given as Gifts

Previously, North Korean leader Kim Jung Il sent a gift of mushrooms. It has become known that 110 luminaries in our society including President Kim Dae-jung enjoyed the mushrooms. We just got surprised. It is disappointing to find the leaders of our society are so indifferent to what the general public feels. It`s not prudent for the leaders to snatch up the gift of North Korea when the development of North`s nuclear weapons is threatening the national security. Kim Dae-jung administration itself knew that that was wrong. That is why the administration officials did not say anything about the whereabouts of the gift for more than ten days. Upon request of Congress, the administration grudgingly disclosed the names of the people who cut a share out the gift. Pathetic!!

Each of the luminaries may have been in a different position. It may have been hard to refuse the gift for some of the businessmen or heads of organizations who hosted the North Korean delegation that visited South to learn its economic system. Others may have got confused as to what to do about the sudden gift.

But some senior administration officials should have acted differently, at least those who are in charge of North Korean policies such as President Kim Dae-jung, Unification Minister Chong Sae-hyun and Special Presidential Aid Lim Dong-won. They should have told North`s delegates, "What we want is not the mushrooms. We want your promise not to develop nuclear weapons," and refused the gift. The issue of North Korea`s development of nuclear weapons program has become the hot potato on the Korean Peninsula. Seeing this, we seriously doubt whether they really could make North understand how determined they are to resolve the nuclear problem.

A present means something when there are sound reasons for giving or taking it. It is not a time for North and South to give and take gifts with each other. It is hard to believe that the gift of North contained any sincerity in it. North Korea has secretly developed nuclear weapons. How could we believe North gave this out of pure appreciation?

We could learn a lot from what Japan did to the mushroom gift. The Japanese government officials reportedly burnt up all the mushrooms North gave to them, saying that the gifts were from a terrorist group that had kidnapped its citizens. Kim Dae-jung administration cannot deny their knowledge of that event. We are worried that North Korea might think, looking at Kim Dae-jung administration, that the nuclear issue does not pose any problems between North and South.