Indian role in
defusing the Korean situation 1950-54
The 38th parallel, the real line of latitude does
not actually divide the Koreas, but in diplomatic parlance is considered to be the
divider between the two. Prior to the Second World War (1910-1945) the whole of
Korea was under the Japanese regime. After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the
Americans and Russians decided to divide the country into the North and South roughly
around the 38th. The actual line of demarcation today is situated at
a slight angle to the 38th and meanders from the North to the South
in a more leisurely fashion. The tensions around that line and the
demilitarized zone, close to the large city of Seoul have since its creation, seesawed
wildly, at times coming perilously close to nuclear confrontation between world
powers. In the 50’s, one of the main peacemakers working hard to prevent a
nuclear attack and larger conflict was India, a story not well known to most.
The people who played a part in that tale are very familiar to us, and the
story is a master class in plays, counter plays and the art of diplomacy. Today
with the backdrop of the meeting which took place between Trump and Kim Jong-un
and the prospect of lasting peace between the two Koreas, this story will I
hope, provide an interesting aside.
The line was established in a hurry actually, for the
Americans were worried that the Russians could occupy the whole of Korea after
entering the war against Japan. Col Dean Rusk, was tasked with the job of drafting
a line, something that he had no idea about. He states - Using a National Geographic map, we looked just North of Seoul for a
convenient dividing line but could not find a natural geographical line. We saw
instead the thirty-eighth parallel and decided to recommend that ... [Our
commanders] accepted it without too much haggling, and surprisingly, so did the
Soviets. And that was how Korea got divided! Things got complicated after
the chill in the relation between the super powers, and the onset of the cold
war. The UNTCOK (temporary commission on Korea) was then formed under the aegis
of the UN, headed by KPS Menon. But the Soviets were firmly against it and did
not allow the commission to enter the 38th or set up elections in
the North.
By the autumn of 1948 the independent states of North and
South Korea had been established, pitted firmly against each other the communist
North headed by Kim Il Sung and the South by Syngman Rhee. Both sides conducted
independent elections, and the South’s election was supported by the UN. Following
a number of deadly border skirmishes, the North Koreans launched a full-scale
invasion against the south on June 25, 1950. Whether it was the North who really
started it is not clear and Karunakar Gupta is of the opinion that the Indian
Chairman of the UNSC did not consider the claims of the North while passing a
decision favoring the South. India’s BN
Rau condemned the invasion, a decision which was not supported by Delhi’s MEA since
Nehru remained under the opinion that India had abstained. During all these
parlays, the Soviets were boycotting the UN over the non-inclusion of China in
the UN. The US decided to provide military support to the South and Gen Mc
Arthur was to lead the UN forces into Korea to help repel the North Koreans as
well as to engage in a battle against communism in an Asia under transition.
India refused direct involvement, but finally acceded by providing limited
moral and medical support.
This was a critical phase and India’s involvement as an
interlocutor in matters concerning Asia considered very important. The players
on the UN scene and the ambassadors in key capitals were experienced diplomats,
namely VK Krishna Menon, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, KM Panikkar, BN Rau, KPS Menon,
KN Raghavan and so on, each held in high esteem. At this critical juncture,
USSR offered support for India’s permanent membership if it supported the
Soviets on Korea while US offered India the same to replace a possible Chinese
position at the UN. Nehru rejected both proposals stating that India was
opposed to these kinds of pressures to create a chasm between India and
China. Since China was not represented
in the UN, India was the interlocutor between them and the West. It was to
prove costly during the next four years for her relationship with USA became
acrimonious and opinions vastly divided. The Americans threat of ‘you are
either with us or against us’ was bandied about every now and then, as India
sought to position itself as a neutral, nonaligned and Commonwealth member in
the new world order. Nehru’s anti-imperialist views were viewed by America as
communist, especially Delhi’s support for the PRC during the Korean War years.
Over and above all that Nehru believed in the UN and its mediatory powers, more
than war and with his efficient representation at the UN, sought to build up an
important role as an educated mediator for sticky situations.
As Mac Arthur’s forces were poised to enter the North, the
world feared that the Chinese would enter the conflict in support of the North
Koreans. In Oct 1950 the Zhou Enlai summoned Panikkar and asked him to convey
to the West that if the US forces did cross the 38th, China would
consider it an act of aggression and would come to the assistance of the North.
The Americans at that time thought that the Chinese were bluffing and that
Panikkar was panicking. Mc Arthur was tasked with destroying N Korean armed
forces, but to stay clear of Soviet border or Manchuria. For a few days the UN
forces advanced without resistance and the Americans believed that the Chinese
had bluffed, they even jokingly called KM Panikkar as ‘panicky’. It would be “sheer madness” for Mao to take
on America, Acheson said, and the Indian warning was the “mere vaporings of a
panicky Panikkar.”
But they were wrong and the Chinese who entered through
Manchuria inflicted heavy damages on the US led troops. This now resulted in
the UN allowing a Chinese representation to debate the issue at the UN and the
Chinese called for sanction on the US for occupation of Formosa and armed
intervention in Korea. As the debate became acrimonious and heated, the then US
president Truman decided to force the issue by issuing a nuclear threat. Nehru
conveyed through Atlee visiting Washington that an Atom Bomb drop in Korea was
a no-no and requested that Gen Mc Arthur’s powers be clipped.
India then tried to pressure China into declaring a
ceasefire, but did not succeed for the Chinese wanted full US withdrawal. As
the matter deadlocked, Truman declared a national emergency in the US, driving
up mass hysteria and panic, and China were now convinced that the Americans
were now preparing for a full scale war in Korea. As the permanent powers seemed
to be unable to do anything at the UN in these matters, the ‘little six’ as
they were called, India, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Norway, Egypt and Ecuador tried to
bring about a solution, but that effort did not take off. Eventually the
commonwealth ministers met in London in Jan 1951 to discuss a fresh set of
proposals agreeing to return of Formosa to China, entry of China into the UN
and a cease fire in Korea.
The Chinese seemed amenable to most of the terms but
the Americans did not agree and fighting continued. The 60th Indian
Parachute Field Ambulance provided the medical cover for the operations,
dropping an ADS and a surgical team and treating over 400 battle casualties
apart from the civilian casualties that formed the core of their humanitarian objective.
But the fighting also moved into a stalemate stage by July which resulted in
the US finally requesting Soviet involvement for negotiations. During the
interim Mac Arthur was relieved of his powers by an incensed Truman who later said
“I fired him [MacArthur] because he wouldn't respect the authority of the
President ... I didn't fire him because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although
he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to
three-quarters of them would be in jail”.
The war itself, especially the battles at Pusan, Unsan and
Incheon, the involvement of USSR and China and their leaders Stalin and Mao,
and the leadership of Mac Arthur etc is a subject which would involve a huge
amount of text, so I will not get into the same here. The negotiations started
with the first liaison meeting on 8 July 1951. The Americans considered the
negotiations to be very difficult with the UN according to the US being unduly
influenced by India and other neutrals. In 1952 the negotiations ground to a
halt with the issue of the POW’s.
The next rounds were actually fought at the UN and involved
India to a large extent. In China, Panikkar had been replaced by KN Raghavan (I
hope you recall him from my previous article on the IIL in Penang). At the UN,
the impeccable ‘saint’ KN Rau had been replaced by a suave Vijayalakshmi Pandit
supported by the mercurial and highly impetuous VK Krishna Menon. While the
Chinese insisted on the 1949 Geneva Convention implementation where the
prisoner would be returned to the country of his origin, the Americans wanted
the principle of voluntary repatriation to be enforced (after a preliminary
screening it was determined that only 73,000 of the 170,000 wanted to return home).
It was soon a matter of egos and neither side would budge. The American bombing
of the power stations at Yalu, Poyang and Antung complicated the issue further
and the Chinese did not back off.
And with the arrival of ‘Formula’ Menon, the so called ‘Menon
Plan’ took shape whereby a special commission took into custody the
non-repatriate prisoners and decided later on their disposition. The unhappy
Americans launched the 21 Power draft resolution when they saw that the Menon
plan found support with other commonwealth members. Meanwhile, a new US
president Ike Eisenhower was elected, based mainly on his assurances to end the
Korean War quickly. The various drafts of the POW plan, the acrimonious
relations between Menon and Vijayalakshmi, the tough exchanges between Menon
and Acheson, the mentions of the existence of a Menon Cabal, the mediation by
Canadas Lester Pearson, Menon’s secretiveness, all add color to the larger
story. Without doubt, it was a tense affair, but in the end things worked out.
Menon revised his plan to create a repatriation commission to
take custody of all prisoners, repatriating immediately willing prisoners and
persuade over the next 90 days the rest to return home. After 90 days the fate
of unwilling prisoners would be decided by the UN after discussions. India
upped the ante by summarily submitting the draft without an US approval as
Acheson continued to persuade members to accept the US draft. Acheson was
furious when he found little support for his plan and obtained Truman’s
approval to vote against Menon’s. But matters took a different course as the Soviets
seemed against the Indian proposal. The US now decided to support the Indian
resolution, hoping that the communist states would vote against it. Nehru was
aghast at all this and was considering to step out of the whole Korean
business. When the UN members now saw a vacillating Nehru, they put their
weight behind Menon’s plan which had huge support and in Dec 1952 adopted it despite
a lack of support from the Soviets and the Chinese.
Truman was formally succeeded by Eisenhower in USA and
Dulles replaced Acheson as secretary of state. During the 20th May
NSC meeting Eisenhower concluded that if the truce talks failed, the United
States would have no choice but to initiate a greatly expanded military
offensive into North Korea, Manchuria and China using nuclear weapons.
President Eisenhower went so far as setting a tentative D-day for May 1954. He
directed Secretary Dulles to relay that threat through Nehru and Raghavan to
the Chinese.
On 5th March 1953, Soviet leader Josef Stalin
died and was replaced by Georgi M. Malenkov. Malenkov and his advisors were
facing unrest in Eastern Europe, wanted to ease the tensions with the West, and
saw the Korean War as a growing burden. They, as is believed, consequently
relaxed Stalin's previous opposition to a negotiated truce announcing a ‘peace
offensive’ at Stalin’s funeral. The Chinese and North Koreans facing huge
expenses and losses also agreed to negotiation concessions and with it the
Korean War came to an end in 1953. The Chinese in the end did not achieve much
from this foray, for neither did they obtain UN membership nor Taiwan.
Krishna Menon however saw no connection between the death of
Stalin and the softening of Soviet policy toward the West. "Unlike most
Americans," he said. "Indians have no terror or phobia of the
Communists. In India we don't say. "Thank God the man is dead." After
six years in the United Nations, Menon had come to the conclusion that
"effective diplomacy is the capacity to keep quiet."
The Chinese signaled that they were willing to exchange sick
prisoners and accepted the rest of the Menon plan. After some differences of
opinion with the Americans were ironed out, the Menon plan was finally
executed. The resolution as submitted by Brazil and received unanimous support.
Meanwhile South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee unilaterally released 27,000
prisoners allowing them to escape into S Korea and threatened to kick out the
Americans from S Korea if they entered into an armistice. But an armistice was completed
on July 27th 1953, with the South Koreans not signing it.
The person in charge of the POW transfer operations was none
other than Lt Gen Thimayya, assisted by Maj Gen Thorat. India helped with the
repatriation of captured prisoners to each side, a very delicate issue because
thousands of North Korean and Chinese prisoners wanted to be free to stay in
the South and not go home. The Indian custodian force located at the DMZ called
‘Camp Nagar’ and ‘Shanti Nagar’, despite severe criticism and lack of support from
the Rhee (they forbid the Indian forces to land in S Korea) regime, supervised
a careful process that ensured they were able to defect, but without too much
humiliation for the communist regimes. The UNC held 132,000 prisoners while the
Communists held 12,773 prisoners. All of these prisoners had the choice of
whether or not they wanted to be repatriated. The vast majority of prisoners
wanted to return home and each side had 60 days to hand the prisoners over. Statistics
shows that under the operations Little Switch and Big Switch eventually around
83,000 POWs were repatriated to the north, while around 22,000 preferred to
remain in the south. Nehru decided to bring the 88 left to India.
Interestingly of the 88 prisoners who were brought to India,
5 were sent to N Korea, 2 to China, 55 to Brazil, 11 to Argentina and 9 to
Mexico. Two returned to S Korea while the remaining five who elected to stay in
India namely Ji gi cheol, Hyun Dong hwa, Jang Gi Hwa, Cho in Cheol, and Ji Sin
young lived out the rest of their lives in India.
Four died in India and the last went back to S Korea with his son.
On 27 April 2018 the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace,
Prosperity and Unification on the Korean Peninsula was signed by South Korean
President Moon Jae-in and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un which commited
the two countries to denuclearization and talks to bring a formal end to conflict.
The two leaders agreed to, later in the year, convert the Korean Armistice
Agreement into a full peace treaty, formally ending the Korean War after 65
years.
The broad canvas of geopolitics that played in the
background is a great study for those interested. The Soviets pulled the cords
at key moments, the Chinese were goaded on by the Soviets, the North Koreans perhaps
got the nod and support from both in varying amounts, the South Koreans and Syngman
Rhee (who himself had been raising the war bogey to prop his regime) were supported
by America who was fighting a war against communism and hoping to arrest its
spread into Asia’s southern regions. The global cold war played its part as a
backdrop to the various acts and sub acts and it was into this heady mix that
Nehru and Menon stepped in, perhaps attempting to project the intellectual
might of a young India authoritatively in the world arena, for the first and
last time. The Korean War bruised many a leader and India earned the distrust
of America and S Korea due to her firm stance. When India refused to call China
an aggressor, Truman is said to have stated – ‘Nehru has sold us down the Hudson. His attitude has been responsible
for our losing the war in Korea’. It is believed by academics that Truman resented
India’s socialist stance and her being right about potential Chinese
intervention.
The Canadians proved to be a bridge between India and US
throughout the play of events wanting India’s direct involvement while at the
same time pointing out that America resented public Indian criticism of any US
stance or policy. In addition, this was also to prove an important point to the
Americans that the general assembly and not the UN Security Council would prove
decisive in thwarting war and attaining peace.
Tragically most historians and strategists agree- if only
the Americans had listened to KM Panikkar, the situation may have been
different. Panikkar himself wrote in his diary later in 1950 that “America has
knowingly elected for war, with Britain following. The Chinese armies now
concentrated on the Yalu will intervene decisively in the fight. Probably some
of the Americans want that. They probably feel that this is an opportunity to
have a show down with China. In any case MacArthur’s dream has come true. I
only hope it does not turn into a nightmare.” It did eventually when in Tokyo, MacArthur
and Willoughby completely dismissed the Indian warning as merely communist
propaganda delivered by an untrustworthy source. Over 2.5 million people were
to die during the Korean War, including 30,000 Americans.
References
Military armistice in Korea: a case study for strategic
leaders –lieutenant colonel William T. Harrison
Between the Blocs: India, the United Nations, and Ending the
Korean War - Robert Barnes
India’s Diplomatic Entrepreneurism: Revisiting India’s Role
in the Korean Crisis, 1950–52 - Vineet Thakur
How Did the Korean War Begin? Karunakar Gupta
Conflicting visions – Canada and India in the cold war world
1946-1976 - Ryan M. Touhey
Explaining the origins and evolution of India’s Korean
policy - Rajiv Kumar
The Role of India in the Korean War-Kim ChanWahn
Ending the Korean War: Reconsidering the Importance of
Eisenhower's Election - Robert Barnes
Heroes of the Korean War: Lieutenant General Subayya Kadenera
Thimayya – See link
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