How I Started the Saemaul Undong in South America

The road from Libertad International Airport to the Presidential Palace was a living river of bodies.

"Waaaaaah—!!"

"Viva Eugene! Viva San Marcos!"

"His Excellency looked at me!"

"Aaaah...!"

Tens of thousands packed both sides of the road, San Marcos flags snapping in their hands. They had not come for a ceremony or a speech. They had come for a single glimpse of Eugene's face as the motorcade rolled past.

Eugene lifted a hand and answered the roar.

The instant the window slid shut, fatigue poured into his features like water into a cracked hull.

"Whew. I'm wiped."

The brutal Korean itinerary and the long flight had left his body feeling like lead, but the moment he reached the Presidential Palace he convened ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a cabinet meeting with the senior secretaries already waiting for him. Central and South America was a candle in a high wind.

"We'll skip the greetings. What's the situation in Venezuela right now?"

Eugene cut straight to it. Lucio, Director of the SIA, rose with a thick file in his hands.

"Chaos, in a word. Immediately after U.S. Delta Force abducted President Maduro, an interim transitional government formed in Caracas under Vice President Delcy. She had been anti-American by inclination, but since the incident she has swung pro-American."

"Maduro's people won't sit still."

"No, Your Excellency. Remnants of the military and the militias are promising extreme resistance. Fear that street fighting could break out is spreading, and public order is extremely unstable."

Eugene's brow tightened.

"And the odds this spirals into something extreme?"

If the neighbor's house caught fire, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flames could jump to yours. A blockade of Caribbean shipping lanes now, with the San Marcos economy only just finding its feet, would be a killing blow.

"SIA analysis puts the probability of escalation into a full-scale war at under one percent."

Lucio's answer was flat and certain.

"That's a relief. Senior Secretary for Resources and Tourism. Have you assessed the crude sales situation?"

Lessa shot to his feet.

"Because we have been stepping down the share of crude exports since the refinery came online, the damage is limited. We are shipping refined petroleum to El Salvador, Uruguay, Paraguay, and other South American countries, and on the revenue side we actually expect to outperform the previous period."

"Small mercies."

"As a precaution, we are also looking into European export channels so nothing slips."

"Going into Venezuela directly would be too much, I take it?"

"The American majors have finished every preparation and are standing ready. There does not appear to be a gap for Tortilla Energy to squeeze through."

"Well. We can hardly show up with a spoon to a table someone else has already set. Good work."

Only then did Eugene let out a breath and loosen his tie.

"How is the highway construction? Will this crisis disrupt imports of raw materials or heavy equipment?"

"Fortunately our import routes have been diversified, so there shouldn't be any major problem, it seems."

Eugene's face darkened on the spot.

"Seems? Is the highway project a joke? Do you not understand this is a national undertaking?"

"I-I'm sorry!"

"Go back this instant, investigate every contingency, prepare alternatives, and report."

"Y-yes, sir!"

The Senior Secretary for Construction bolted from the room. The looks Isabella and Lucio sent after him could have drawn blood.

After that, Ricardo, the Senior Secretary for Finance, finished his report on Tortilla Bank. The Senior Secretary for the Interior reported on tightening civil-service discipline. The Senior Secretary for Education reported on the construction of regional schools.

"Good. Nothing looks seriously off. You've all worked hard while I was away. That's enough for today. We'll reconvene in two days."

Eugene rose as if the chair itself had grown heavier. Isabella's eyebrow twitched. He had skipped the most important item on the agenda: the election.

Of course, given Eugene's popularity, he would win a presidential race held tomorrow. There was no opposition party. There was no rival at all. But Isabella's target was not a mere victory.

One hundred percent approval. An impregnable fortress built on the support of an entire people. That was the blueprint she had drawn for the Eugene Choi regime.

There was a snag. The provincial Unregistered Outlaws who had only recently been entered into the civil registry. Eugene had built schools and thrown open highway jobs, but a great many people still stood outside the reach of those gifts. Some households had no children. Construction work was, at bottom, a young man's living. Families of women and the elderly remained locked inside the old circle of poverty.

And if they turned their backs? Approval might slip below ninety-nine percent. One percent of opposition to the regime. And if that one percent chose a spokesman and found its voice? In five years it would be ten. In ten years, fifteen. Perhaps twenty.

Isabella, who intended the Eugene Choi government to hold power permanently, found that possibility intolerable.

Once the cabinet meeting is over, I need to convene the members of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Ujin Forever and work out a countermeasure.

She was still sunk in that grim calculation when Eugene, already on his feet, tossed a document envelope onto the desk as if he had just remembered it.

"Ah. Isabella."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"This is material on an Official Development Assistance project I negotiated with the Korean government. Check whether we can adapt it to our circumstances."

"What sort of project, sir?"

"A program for tearing down and rebuilding rural villages, more or less. Read it. You'll grasp it quickly enough. I'm exhausted. That's all from me."

He waved as if it were nothing and was gone.

Isabella picked up the envelope with a puzzled frown. She opened it and began to read the project overview on the first page — and her pupils widened, page by page.

This is...!

The master key she had been hunting for was sitting in that envelope.

Your Excellency... just how far ahead are you looking?

Gooseflesh ran the length of her body.

A short while later, in the secret room beneath the Presidential Palace, Isabella and the members of Ujin Forever were locked in a fierce debate over a single object on the table.

The Saemaul Undong. They were tearing apart the Korean ODA program — a Korean-style rural revitalization project — and rebuilding it to fit the realities of San Marcos. The heat of the argument carried through the walls.

"...We need to plant informants in every village and cut off any seditious intent before it takes root."

Lucio, the hardest of the hardliners even inside UF, kept offering proposals that made the air go cold.

"Most of these people can barely read. Even if you made them informants, could you actually use them?"

Ana, the Protocol Secretary and a merciless realist, shook her head.

Pedro wanted a squad of five to ten men stationed in every village under the pretext of aiding the countryside. Lessa wanted to push rural tourism onto the city-dwellers of Libertad, whose incomes had already begun to rise.

After nearly ten hours, the bones of the Saemaul Undong — San Marcos edition — had been boiled down to five pillars.

On paper, it was a suite of policies for country people and for the nation. Look closer, and it was a spiderweb of traps laid for Eugene's dictatorship.

Take the rural income program alone. The plan was to import a Korean cash-crop model — tobacco — and lift village earnings with it. If village incomes actually rose, the farmers would have money and the state would have taxes. A beautiful bargain. It could not fail in the first place. Korea, a first-rank country in tobacco cultivation, had already agreed to supply methods and seed, and San Marcos was blessed with conditions made for the crop.

But if the government monopolized the seed? If the government took exclusive charge of purchasing after the harvest? Then the countryside would no longer be able to defy the state.

The rest of the program worked the same way. Pit village against village over how faithfully each obeyed policy, then dole out housing funds by rank. Found a shadowy organization called the Women's Association and use it to steer public opinion. Weave morning calisthenics and the rest of ordinary life into a daily exercise in loyalty to His Excellency. And because genuine welfare — night schools, clinics — sat alongside all of that, Eugene's approval was only going to climb.

The members of Ujin Forever nodded, their faces taut.

One week later. Libertad International Airport, San Marcos.

An agricultural technical advisory team — dispatched as part of the Korean government's ODA program and at the request of the government of San Marcos — was filing out of arrivals. The group was built from veterans of the Korea Tobacco & Ginseng Corporation and experts who had spent their careers inside the Rural Development Administration, and every one of them was pouring sweat.

"Ugh, it's hot. This heat is no joke."

"Team Leader, is tobacco farming actually going to work here? Even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if the climate fits, the people are the problem, aren't they? This crop eats labor like nothing else..."

Manager Park, hauling a suitcase beside him, asked it in a worried voice.

"That's what I keep thinking. South Americans are famous for taking life easy. My fear is we teach them the technique and they drink it straight out of their heads."

"Haha. Yeah."

The team walked out of the airport wearing sour little smiles. In truth, they had already made their peace with failure. Teaching tobacco — a crop notorious even among crops for how much work it demanded, and not rice — to Latin Americans with a reputation for idleness was not a small errand.

It'll take at least three years just to lay the groundwork.

Kim Seon-heung, head of the agricultural technical advisory team posted to San Marcos, was steeling himself when a Latin American man came toward them from a distance, holding up a sign. He was a civil servant at a glance, and he picked his way through Korean one careful syllable at a time.

"Hel...lo? Welcome to... San Malcos. I am... Josh. I am the guide."

"Oh? You speak Korean?"

"In San Malcos... Korean is popular. Josh also study... very hard."

"Haha, now I feel like I should be the one thanking you. I appreciate the interest in Korea."

"Now? I take you to... lodging. Follow Josh."

The team climbed into the car behind him. They left the airport and rolled into the city, and from every direction music began to pour out. People turned their bodies toward the north and set their right hands over their left breasts.

A sight he was sure he had seen somewhere before. Kim Seon-heung asked, half in disbelief.

"Hm? What is everyone doing?"

"They turn body toward... Presidential Palace. Salute to His Excellency. San Malcos people always do this."

"...And if they don't?"

"No such thing. Always? Do it."

"There must be people who don't want to, though."

"Nobody not want... If someone don't, they foreigner? Probably."

"......"

Kim Seon-heung felt that something was wrong.