Leeward: we meet South Korea’s probable president

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The Economist. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Back in 2016, as Colombia's violent paramilitary group the FARC disbanded, Colombians hoped for a long peace. But in one region, another guerrilla group now wants supremacy and is terrorizing the public and hunting down former FARC members with impunity. And our obituary's editor pays tribute to Marianne Faithfull. For better and for worse, the British singer's life intersected the era of free love, the Rolling Stones, William S. Burroughs, and epic amounts of heroin. But hers is most of all a redemption story. First up, though, back in December, South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol sent troops streaming into the national assembly, part of his attempt to impose martial law. As the chaos played out, Lee Jae Myung, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, streamed it. This is serious, vigorous democracy stuff. Mr. Lee scaled the walls of parliament to help put a stop to what was seen as a self coup. It's been two months since that night, and South Korea is still in limbo. Mr. Yoon and his Prime Minister were booted out. Mr. Yoon was indicted last month for insurrection, and his impeachment trial is still going. So as the dust continues to settle, attention has turned to future leadership. Our East Asia Bureau chief, Noah Snyder, went to meet the man who's most likely to become the next president.

Thank you very much for taking the time. Late last month, my colleague Emma Hogan and I went to see Lee Jae Myung at the same national assembly building, which just several months earlier had been the site of this remarkable showdown. On the night President Yun declared martial law, Lee Jae Myung was confident, he was composed, and he was also quick to smile. He had the air of a practiced politician about him, someone who can spin answers off the cuff, doesn't need to look at his notes, knows what he wants to talk about and what he wants to avoid. He made the point that it's essential now to restore constitutional order. And he skirted questions about running for president again, which he may have to answer directly very soon. If he did run and did win, it would have huge implications for South Korea's future direction across a host of different domains.

So, I mean, for a start, how likely would he be to win?

It's a good question. And there's some important caveats to be made here in the polling. At the moment, he is the frontrunner. That said, he faces some serious legal problems of his own. He's been charged with a spate of alleged crimes linked to a development project during his time as mayor of his hometown south of Seoul, and to some illegal fund transfers to North Korea. In November of last year, he was found guilty on election law violations for lying during the previous presidential campaign, which strikingly is a crime in South Korea. And if that conviction is upheld on appeal, he'd be barred for running for several years. Now he denies any wrongdoing and says these charges are essentially politically motivated. His allies remain pretty confident that he'll be able to run in snap presidential elections because the appeals process on any of these charges will take much longer than it will to get essentially to the polls. Regardless of where the legal processes end up. The allegations alone have helped to make him a really divisive figure in South Korea, someone who inspires fierce, passionate opinions from both supporters and opponents. And we saw this really manifest clearly ahead of parliamentary elections last year when he survived an assassination attempt by a knife wielding extremist.

And so all of that is feeding into, or perhaps just reflective of, the very polarized political environment that we spoke to you about last time.

Exactly. And in many ways, that polarization is becoming ever more entrenched in recent weeks. The public opinion polls, which had been strongly in favor of his party, the Democratic Party, following the failed martial law attempt, they've swung back. Some polls show them essentially neck and neck. There's a frustration that voters are now expressing towards the Democratic Party, and we asked him about what he reads into these shifts in public opinion. His view was that it's a sign that voters saw his party as an opposition force in the past, but now essentially see it as the main political actor, effectively the leadership force, and that they need to take more responsibility for bringing the turmoil to a swift and smooth end.

So what does that pitch to voters look like?

Well, Lee Jae Myung in recent weeks has really been playing up the idea that he is a responsible choice. Now, it's worth stepping back and sketching a little bit of a portrait of this man because his life story is quite remarkable. He grew up in abject poverty. His parents cleaned public toilets. He couldn't go to secondary school because he had to work in factories to help earn money for the family. And he ended up essentially educating himself and getting into law school. He became a prominent human rights lawyer and labor activist before entering into politics. And he rose quite rapidly through the political system in South Korea, where he developed a reputation as someone who's extremely effective, but at times slippery, hard to pin down, a bit of an operator, never quite sure what exactly he stands for. What he's saying to us is that what he stands for is pragmatism, realism, tack towards the center, especially on economic issues, where he was known as somewhat of a progressive in the past. He talked a lot to us about the importance of restoring growth, the crucial role of private markets, and so on. And he also hinted at a potentially more pragmatic approach to foreign policy than we've seen from Democratic Party administrations in the past.

It's a bit of a tease there, no? What do you mean? What's the interesting foreign policy angle here?

Well, the Democratic Party is typically known to favor engagement with North Korea. It typically mistrusts Japan due to its abuses during the colonial period. And while supportive of the alliance with America, it seeks a greater balance between America and other great powers, in particular China. But in meetings with foreign diplomats, and in our interview as well, he tried to dispel some of those assumptions. He positioned South Korea pretty firmly as a member of the what he called liberal Democratic camp, diplomatic code for essentially the Western side of the line. In the American Chinese confrontation, there are forces that perhaps pull him in a slightly different direction than his predecessors. That said, we shouldn't overstate this. A change in administration in South Korea would still mean a big change in South Korea's foreign policy orientation.

You hinted at that at the beginning, that what happens here might really change the course for South Korea and for the region. Me some detail.

I think you can look at South Korea's foreign policy through three interlocking challenges. The first and most fundamental is the one with North Korea. Now, as we talked about earlier, the left tends to favor more engagement, and certainly Lee Jae Myung would shift the balance between deterrence and dialogue more in the direction of dialogue. But he was also clear that he sees the relationship with North Korea at this stage as, quote, a hostile one. Strikingly, when talking about Japan, he was also clear that at this stage it is not a hostile relationship. And he sounded to my ears more open than past leaders of his party to collaboration and cooperation with Japan. That said, he was clear that he didn't want South Korea to be in a position, quote, subordinate relationship. And when it came to America and China, this was the place where he was the slipperiest. He talked about needing to be practical and avoiding spoiling relations with China to the point where it hurts South Korea's own national interest. I suspect that Lee Jae Myung, if he does become South Korea's next president, will find that navigating this superpower competition and this turbulent geopolitical environment around South Korea will make the defense of democracy at home feel like the easy part.

Noah, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you for having me, as always.

Last month, violence erupted in the Colombian region of Catatumbo. That's in the northeast of the country, on the border with Venezuela.

Claire McHugh writes about Latin America for the Economist and is based in Colombia.

And things really escalated on January 16th when the oldest active guerrilla group, called the National Liberation army, or the ELN as they're known over here, they began attacking dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, who are better known as the FARC. They demobilized under the peace till of 2016, and the nature of the attack is horrific. Residents report fighters going door to door, assassinating community leaders and picking off former FARC members who signed that peace deal. The death toll continues to rise. At least 80 have been killed so far, though locals estimate the true number to be in the hundreds. This is one of Colombia's worst security crises for decades. Locals from Catatumbo have escaped their homes in canoes, in cars, in motorcycles. It's a really tragic situation.

So tell me more about the crisis. What's going on here?

More than 53,000 people have been displaced so far. It's the largest forced movement of people in the country since records began in 1997. Almost half of them have fled to the regional capital of Cucuta, which is directly on the border with Venezuela. They're taking refuge in the football stadium there in the center of the city that's become the site of the humanitarian response. And I spoke to some of the people about their experience of fleeing their homes. Many of them were terrified. They're worried about being a target for these armed groups in future. A woman I spoke to told me that she locked herself in her house for four days with her children while bodies piled up on the street outside. Another girl who was a teenager, she fled with her 10 year old brother and her mother and had to pass through checkpoints with masked men. I spoke to these people at the stadium in Kukuta, where they're waiting for food and shelter, and there's children there receiving packets of colouring, pencils. And in the center of the stadium, there's a chef who's making more than 15,000 meals a day for these people. He's cooking big vats of sancocho soup and making arepas. But not everyone managed to get out of their homes. About 31,000 more people are still trapped in Catatumbo, while others actually fled over the border into Venezuela. I met a Red Cross coordinator who's part of the humanitarian response, and he was explaining to me that some of the children who left have PTSD because they've seen their parents die. So it's a really tragic situation, and this is not the first time that these people have faced violence in their lives.

So what is behind this particular flare up in the violence, though?

As is always the case in Colombia, the heart of the issue is cocaine. So Catatumbo is a hub of drug production. It's where about 17% of Colombia's coca leaf is grown. Coca is the base ingredient for cocaine. So as a result of this, violence has long been present in the region and the state has not been present. These armed groups have started fighting for control of drug production and trafficking out through Venezuela. They did have a truce, but I think that broke down towards the end of last year, which is why the fighting has returned. And above all, it's really a blow for President Gustavo Petro, whose flagship policy was total peace, and that involved simultaneously negotiating with armed groups across Colombia.

He's called off peace talks. I mean, what is he doing to quell the violence?

So the peace talks with the eln, they're suspended for now. And then he declared a state of internal commotion, which is the first time that's happened in Colombia since 2008. And that's an emergency measure that allows him to pass security laws and impose taxes by decree for 90 days, temporarily bypassing the normal legislative procedures through Congress. So the military also got sent in to assist with the humanitarian response. But the complication there is that the government has a ceasefire with the FARC dissidents, and it's difficult for the Colombian military to know who it's fighting because no one has insignia. So it's a really delicate situation for the military, and it just highlights that the ELN has near total control of that region of Colombia.

How did it get to be in that Kind of near total control.

I mean, the ELN operate across Colombia, but particularly in this region which is on the border with Venezuela. They benefit from being sheltered by Venezuela, where the regime of Nicolas Maduro profits from the illicit activities, gold mining, drug production that keep the airline afloat and continue to cause misery for Colombians. And actually the ELN probably moved reinforcements from another region in Colombia through Venezuela.

So you've hinted that this is not the first time that the people have been subjected to this kind of violence, this flare up between these armed groups. What's the solution here? Is there a long term way to keep the peace?

I spoke to a group of community leaders from Catatumbo who I met in Kukuta, and they really emphasized to me that the territorial transformation is the only way really to resolve this conflict. And that implies reducing this region's dependence on cocaine and instead setting up alternative economies based on legal crops. But to do that, that needs to have money from the state to implement these sorts of social programs. But also there needs to be enough money to have a clear security policy designed. Now, America's 90 day freeze on foreign aid will also reduce the state's capacity to respond to this humanitarian crisis. And in terms of the territorial transformation, the government of Gustavo Petro in 2022 agreed to build roads and schools and to create a kind of agricultural superpower out of Catatumbo by encouraging farmers to switch from growing coca and instead growing high value crops such as cacao. Unfortunately, no payments or roads or schools have materialized yet. And those social leaders emphasized how deeply disappointed they were with the government for that. Although you can't entirely blame the current government because a lot of this was foreseen by the peace deal of 2016, most of which has not been fully implemented. And as long as that peace deal of 2016 is not fully implemented, then that cycle of violence in Catatumbo but across the whole of Colombia is likely to continue.

Claire, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you, Jason. Thanks for having me on.

When Marianne Faithfull was asked what she remembered of the 60s, she had a whole list of things.

Ann Ro is the Economist's obituaries editor.

Embroidered Moroccan cushions for one free love, of course. Psychedelic drugs, knee high boots. Ossie Clark dresses what she called customized existentialism. The sort of place where you were wearing ruffled shirts and cloaks and where if you wanted a good chat up line before jumping into bed with someone, you might say, have you read Les Fleur du Mal? But what she remembered most of this extraordinary decade was how beautiful everyone was. And she was most beautiful of all in many people's minds. Very few forgot her first appearance on Top of the Pops in 1964, singing as tears Go by, her first record. She looked like a demure convent girl. Her long blonde hair was falling straight down her face. Her eyes were innocent, her voice was breathy and almost scared. That was when she gained her first label, the first of the shadows that she carried round with her. And the first one was Virgin on a Pedestal. She didn't really think the pedestal was as high as all that. She started by taking up near constant smoking, but of course, the aspect she concentrated on more than any other was sex. The great time of free love. After the pill had been invented, she tried three of the Rolling Stones. Brian Jones she found a bit feeble and she didn't really fancy. Keith Richards gave her the greatest night of her life, but she decided the best bet was the lead singer, Mick Jagger. And so it was Mick who became her boyfriend for the next four years. She had an image in that time of being an extremely sexy article, but she was getting into perilous waters. And the most dangerous of them, of course, were the drugs that were flowing at that time. She always insisted that she hadn't been on drugs before she met the Rolling Stones. She dated her initiation to a summer party she went to in 1967, where the host had laid out six lines of cocaine on the table and he handed her a dollar bill. She didn't really know what to do with it, but when he told her, she then snorted all six lines. It was very weak and delicate cocaine, she said apologetically afterwards. But it didn't take her long to go from cocaine to heroin, and she was already quite strongly on heroin by the late 60s. In 1967, there came one of the most celebrated events of her career, one which absolutely delighted the press, who'd christened her now Mix Muse. They were told that there'd been a party going on at Keith Richards country house. The police went to raid it, and when they found Marianne there, she was wearing only a fur rug and a Mars bar, which was rather intimately inserted into her person. From then on, the press had only to call her Wanton Woman in a Fur Rug, or sometimes just Mars Bar. And she was utterly humiliated and horrified by this. But it unfortunately stayed. But she began to feel after that that she really ought to disappear. So following the lead of William Burroughs and what he'd written in the Naked Lunch, she decided she would go and be a junkie and live on the street. So that was what she did for two years, 1970 and 1971. She More or less took nothing with her but her fashion dresses. And even though she would sit on a wall in Soho wearing these fashion dresses, no one seemed to recognize her. She found that people were very kind to her. The shopkeepers roundabout would wash her clothes for her and they would bring her cups of tea. She ran up the most enormous bill for drugs, which she reckoned at £20,000. She was a bad junkie, though, in the sense that she couldn't even manage to inject her heroin herself. She kept missing the veins. And so she became pock marked. Her face was ravaged, she lost two teeth in a brawl, her looks were completely gone and her voice was gone when in 1979, at the insistence of a record producer who rediscovered her, she recorded an album called Broken English. And you could hear on the title track how her voice had changed. Fighting for it's not. It's thrilling in a way, to see how a human being can degrade herself and yet come through defiantly. And defiance was really the keynote to the rest of her life. She finally got clear of heroin in 1985. She had had a pretty terrible time in the end, in the 60s, but she'd also lived through a time when young people, these beautiful, scintillating folk, believed that they were in the best time ever and that there'd never been a better time to be alive. And she was aware as much as anyone that they were all dancing on the edge of a volcano, which fairly soon was simply going to explode and blow them all away. And she wasn't going to have regrets about a thing.

Ann Ro on Marianne Faithfull, who's died aged 78. That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow, Sam.