MEDIA REACTION: EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC: DPRK NUCLEAR TEST;

UNCLAS SAO PAULO 001088

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD

DEPT PASS USTR

USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP ETRD BR
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC: DPRK NUCLEAR TEST;
SAO PAULO

1. "Bush Has No Trump Card"
Center-right O Estado de S. Paulo (10/13) editorialized: "By saying
that the US does not intend to attack North Korea, George W. Bush
was unusually and involuntarily transparent.... Bush is trying in

vain to disguise the obvious fact that he does not have, either on
the table, or up his sleeve, any serious option for the new
international crisis created by Stalinist dictator Kim Jong-Il. But
how could he have one if he has done everything wrong in regards to
supposed or real threats made against the US following September
11?.... The Iraqi adventure has been the mother of all Bush's
disasters.... When Kim Jong-Il requests direct negotiations with the
US - which obstinately refuse to agree with that - he just wants to
do business. His apparent goal is to revive the agenda of agreements
that was drafted and then abandoned by the Clinton administration,
through which, in exchange for surveillance of the North Korean
nuclear facilities, the US would supply energy and food to that
nation of famine-wrought 23 million people.... What the US
shortsightedness is now helping to destroy is what has been left of
the NPT."

2. "Apocalypse Soon"
Political Scientist Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira remarked in liberal,
largest national circulation daily Folha de S. Paulo (10/13):
"Before condemning North Korea and Iran, as the US is doing, and
forcing the Security Council to approve sanctions, it is necessary
to exam the factors that led the two nations to reject the nuclear
weapons non-proliferation policy.... In his State of the Union
Address in January 2002, President George W. Bush accused Iraq, Iran
and North Korea of being allied to terrorists, forming an 'axis of
evil' and threatening peace in the world.... President Bush adopted
a national security doctrine based on threatening preventive
attacks... whose program consisted in increasing defense
expenditures , strengthening democratic links and challenging
regimes that are hostile to US interests and values.... In view of
such circumstances, North Korea felt threatened and decided to
develop its program to produce weapons so that it could have a
dissuasion element against any possible US attack.... And Bush's
decision to terminate the agreement reached by the Clinton
administration revived tensions in the region, in addition to
interrupting the peace process between the two Koreas.... How come
President Bush now demands that North Korea and Iran respect UNSC
resolutions? He did not respect the SC and unilaterally determined
the invasion in Iraq after saying that the UN would be 'irrelevant'
if it did not agree with US purposes."

McMullen