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President Trump and Leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam (White House Twitter photo via Yonhap news) By Simone Chun & Kevin Martin Originally published on Truthout The second summit meeting between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, inspired hope for real progress in negotiations with North Korea, and an agreement on concrete steps toward denuclearization that has thus far proven elusive. While the talks ended with no agreement, diplomacy is still the only way forward. There are troubling reports that U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton may have played a negative role in scuttling a potential deal by inserting an eleventh-hour demand to address North Korea’s biological and chemical weapons. However, U.S. positions on sanctions relief, humanitarian exemptions to sanctions, denuclearization and steps toward inter-Korean reconciliation have been far too rigid since last year’s Singapore Summit. Fixing that is not rocket science. While no declaration announcing the end of the Korean War emerged from the Hanoi summit, that goal is still alive, and still crucial. While such a declaration could be seen as little more than a symbolic gesture, its benefits are actually quite concrete. Not only would it immediately relieve tensions and reduce the risk of renewed conflict, it would also provide the basis for further negotiations to conclude a formal peace agreement to finally and officially end the Korean War. Securing a final peace agreement is critical not only for reducing the risk of war, but also for advancing the goal of denuclearization, since the ongoing state of war is North Korea’s primary rationale for pursuing and maintaining a nuclear deterrent. South Korean President Moon Jae-in has already voiced his support for this type of declaration. Far from mere symbolic gestures, the end of war declaration and a formal peace agreement are both versatile diplomatic instruments that can be tailored to support U.S. interests while also mitigating North Korea’s security concerns. While we don’t know all the details as to why the hastily organized summit did not deliver an agreement, President Trump did express approval of North Korea’s offer to permanently close its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon. While he mentioned his desire to address other nuclear facilities, shutting down the Yongbyon facility, a centerpiece of North Korea’s nuclear program, would be an excellent first step toward complete denuclearization. The price tag need not be too high; perhaps some sanctions relief for food, medicine and easing restrictions on non-strategic economic activity, and the opening of liaison offices (a step below embassies) in Pyongyang and Washington. That package should be able to come together soon, and wouldn’t necessarily require another summit. Next, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, who has been tireless in his pursuit of peace and reconciliation, must play an enhanced, facilitating role, with China’s leader Xi Jinping perhaps joining in. In addition to nuclear diplomacy, deepening inter-Korean cooperation would foster a degree of economic interdependence between North and South Korea that would make the two Koreas more secure — economically, politically and militarily — and would help remove North Korea’s justification for maintaining a nuclear arsenal. It would aid in North Korea’s economic development. And because increased economic ties and security for North and South Korea mean increased security for the U.S., multilateral diplomacy and engagement is a win for everyone. The fact that no agreement emerged from Hanoi to open liaison offices or interest sections in each other’s capitals was a missed opportunity. This should be promptly rectified: Opening these offices would foster the type of ongoing dialogue necessary to keep diplomacy on track and advance the goals of peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. gains no advantage in denying this recognition to the North, and it loses a key chance at diplomacy. Negotiations can’t just be about the Trump-Kim “bromance.” The alternative to these steps toward peace is unthinkable. A war on the Korean peninsula would likely result in the deaths of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Meanwhile, a war on the Korean peninsula would substantially depress U.S. economic performance both in the region and globally. South Korea is the United States’ seventh largest export market and sixth largest supplier of imports. A prolonged conflict on the Korean peninsula would also significantly increase U.S. federal debt, which is already larger than our annual Gross Domestic Product. While it would have been unrealistic to expect a comprehensive, final deal in Hanoi, hopes were raised for concrete progress toward that goal. As talks continue, it is worth remembering that while an end to economic sanctions, a permanent end to the Korean War, a peace agreement and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula would rightly benefit Koreans, all of these steps are also in the best interests of U.S., regional and global security. Regardless of understandable concerns about the harmful policies and actions of both President Trump and Chairman Kim in other realms, Americans of all political stripes and their representatives in Congress should support the continued pursuit of peace through diplomacy. Thankfully, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), along with 18 original cosponsors, just introduced legislation articulating support for the nascent peace process and offering a common-sense vision for progress in negotiations. Congress is right to get involved in support of a productive and thoughtful diplomatic process. A sustainable peace will require active participation of a broader circle of champions and cheerleaders. As the great peace advocate A.J. Muste observed, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” Copyright © Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission. Dr. Simone Chun has taught at Northeastern University in Boston, and served as an associate in research at Harvard University’s Korea Institute. She is an active member of the Korea Peace Network, and a member of the steering committee of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea. She served as an international women’s delegation of peace to Korea organized by Women Cross DMZ and Nobel Women’s Initiative. Kevin Martin is president of Peace Action, the country’s largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization with over 200,000 supporters nationwide. He also serves as coordinator of the Korea Peace Network, a coalition of peace groups, arms control groups and Korean-American activists working for peace on the Korean Peninsula. #Trump #KoreaPeace #KimJongUn #DPRK #USDPRKSummit

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un and President Trump in Vietnam Feb. 28, 2019. (Vietnam News Agency) By Jeffrey Lewis | March 9, 2019 Originally published on NPR.org A bipartisan consensus seems to be forming that President Trump was right to walk away from the deal offered by Kim Jong Un at the two leaders’ summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. The consensus is a strange one, given that the deal itself was exactly the same as what had been reported to be North Korea’s position heading into the negotiation, a position that many commentators had praised. North Korea would offer to shut down facilities at its Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center that were involved in making plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. In exchange, North Korea asked the United States to lift sanctions that had been imposed on its civilian economy since 2016. Of course, North Korea would retain its nuclear weapons, long-range missiles and many other facilities after such an agreement. And the United States and other countries would also retain many sanctions on North Korea. The agreement on offer was hardly the disarmament that the president had hoped for, but it would have been another step away from the taunts and threats of 2017 and toward some other future. That was the deal the U.S. should have taken. For the North Koreans, the logic of the offer was obvious. The United Nations had tightened existing sanctions in 2016 in response to a series of tests of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. North Korea has now stopped such tests, closed its nuclear test site, partially dismantled a rocket-engine test stand and offered to dismantle some of the facilities at Yongbyon. Surely an adjustment in sanctions was warranted. Trump and his team disagreed. One State Department official explained that North Korea must not merely end testing but also give up all the weapons developed on the basis of those tests. “Testing was part of a process of developing nuclear weapons, and the weapons themselves need to be on the table,” the official explained. “It’s not the testing of the weapons; it’s the actual presence of the nuclear weapons — and, by the way, likewise in the case of missile testing, the ICBMs as well that are central to this discussion.” The U.S. position — that North Korea must unilaterally abandon its nuclear capabilities in exchange for promises of some different future — is a kind of American fantasy about power that is more suited to an action movie than the reality of international negotiations. Let’s be clear: During 2017, North Korea tested a series of new missiles, including two different intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that can reach the United States. One of those missiles, the Hwasong-15, can deliver a nuclear-weapon-size payload all the way to Mar-a-Lago. North Korea also tested a thermonuclear weapon that exploded with a force 10 times stronger than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By any measure, North Korea’s leverage over the course of 2017 increased dramatically as it acquired the ability to grievously harm the United States. We can be angry about this, but our rage is impotent. Attempting to remove Kim from power as we did with Saddam Hussein or Moammar Gadhafi would be sheer madness. And so, why would the United States expect North Korea to willingly trade away that advantage in its entirety? Why would North Korea, having completed the development of a nuclear deterrent that puts it in a class with countries like China, India, Pakistan and Israel, simply apologize and turn over these capabilities in exchange for a couple of McDonald’s and a Trump Tower Pyongyang? It is obvious, or it should be, that North Korea has a strong hand to play. Why is that so hard to see from inside the Beltway? I suspect that part of the problem has to do with a kind of embarrassment. Time and again, the United States has walked away from diplomatic agreements with North Korea. In fairness, the North Koreans have been no angels. But the U.S. has seldom stuck around long enough to work through the difficulties and differences. Each time, North Korea has increased its nuclear capability. In 2002, the United States walked away from the 1994 Agreed Framework that froze North Korea’s plutonium production, only to see North Korea conduct its first nuclear test in 2006. The United States tried again but abandoned Six-Party Talks in 2008 over concerns about verification, only to watch North Korea conduct more nuclear tests. And in 2012, the U.S. walked away from another tentative deal over a North Korean rocket launch, only to see Pyongyang spend the past few years testing ever more weapons, including its ICBM and thermonuclear weapon to arm it. Each time the United States walked, a lot of people in Washington promised that patience and pressure would produce a better deal than the one squandered. And each time they were wrong. Like a gambler racking up debt, the U.S. foreign policy community has consistently taken its chances at the roulette table rather than cutting its losses and admitting the obvious: North Korea has the bomb. But that’s apparently the one thing that remains taboo in Washington. Even now, the United States cannot recognize what seems pretty obvious. We can’t admit failure because it requires not merely changing our policy but admitting that we’ve been wrong. It’s far easier to pretend that a better deal is just around the corner. It isn’t. Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) is a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and author of a novel about how a nuclear war with North Korea might begin, The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States. #Trump #KoreaPeace #KimJongUn #DPRK #USDPRKSummit

A memorial statue for the military sexual slaves – young women from Korea, China and the Philippines, in San Francisco. (Steven Whyte’s Facebook) By Women of North and South Korea and Overseas allies | March 8, 2019 In a landmark joint statement on the centenary of the March First Movement for Korean independence and national self-determination, women from North and South Korea alongside overseas allies called for a long overdue, victim-centered resolution to Japan’s unredressed crime of military sexual slavery–its notorious “comfort women” system in which an estimated 200,000 women, the majority Korean, were coerced into sexual labor. The Korean Committee on Measures for the Sexual Slavery for Japanese Army and Drafting Victims from North Korea and the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance of the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (the Korean Council) from South Korea spearheaded writing the joint statement. The members of both organizations met from February 12 – 13 at Mount Kumgang in North Korea to begin discussing the plan. During those two days, more than 200 South Koreans, including victims of Japanese imperialism, family members of victims, activists, and scholars, attended this special meeting to discuss ways to address the past crimes of the Japanese military committed against Korea as a nation and its people before and during WWII. The Korean Council, which was one of the organizations invited to this special joint meeting, first met women from North Korea on May 31, 1991 in Tokyo at the First Symposium on Peace in Asia and the Role of Women (아시아의 평화와 여성의 역할 1차 심포지엄). South Korean citizens actively participated in the fundraising drive for the advertisement, organized by the Korean Council. Within a week, South Korean citizens and overseas organizations donated enough money to pay for the half-page advertisement in the Washington Post on March 1st. The efforts of the women from North and South Korea were soon strengthened by other organizations in South Korea and overseas. The international joint statement advocates for peace in the Korean peninsula and seeks long-overdue justice for the victims of Japanese imperialism. Joint Statement Calling for Resolution of the Issue of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery from the Women of North and South Korea, and those Standing in Solidarity  to Commemorate the Centenary of the March 1st Movement We demand that the Japanese government apologize and pay reparations for committing inhumane war crimes against our people and the women of Asia. In 2018, North and South Korea opened the door to peace and reunification through the historical Panmunjom Declaration in April and Pyongyang Joint Declaration in September. The road between North and South Korea has been reconnected, and the warmth of peace envelops the Korean peninsula and gives birth to a new spring. Significantly, it is the centenary of the March 1st Movement, in which the Korean people shouted for independence, standing against the Japanese empire’s devastating colonization of then-unified Korea. The March 1st movement was the large-scale resistance of the Korean people against Japan, which colonized Korea under military rule. During almost 40 years of colonial occupation, Japan plundered our historical relics and resources and committed unjustifiable crimes against humanity. These war crimes, which include human trafficking, use of slave labor, and military sexual slavery, violated international law and can never be erased. However, rather than apologizing officially and making reparations, the Japanese government continues to distort and deny the facts of the history of invasion, refusing to take responsibility for the sexual slavery they committed, as well as other crimes against humanity. Furthermore, following the historic Panmunjom Declaration in April and Pyongyang Joint Declaration in September, and subsequent improvement in inter-Korean relations, the Japanese government has repeatedly attempted to block progress towards peace and is in fact preparing for a resurgence of militarism and imperialism. The transnational movement for the resolution of the issue of Japanese military sexual slavery has grown beyond solidarity between North and South Korea and extended globally. We, women from North and South Korea, and overseas, stand together on the centenary of the March 1st Movement to tell the world of the war crimes that were committed by the Japanese empire and its imperial army, including Japanese military sexual slavery. Furthermore, we resolve to strengthen our shared activism towards the goal of a complete and satisfactory solution, including an official apology and legal reparations from the Japanese government. We demand the following: We demand that the Japanese government: Unequivocally admit to committing illegal colonization and war crimes, and fulfill all its legal responsibilities for these crimes. Officially apologize and pay legal reparations to the victims of Japanese military sexual slavery, and immediately cease any remarks and behaviors that defame the victims, strip them of dignity, or deny and distort the truth. Admit to the crimes against humanity, including forced mobilization, which were committed during its illegal colonization, and apologize and fulfill all legal responsibilities to the victims. Immediately cease all policies which result in renewed aggression against Korea or lead to a resurrection of militarism. Immediately cease all discriminatory policies and behaviors against Korean-Japanese who were displaced to and settled in Japan as a result of Japan’s illegal colonization of Korea. We demand that the international community: Investigate the crime of Japanese military sexual slavery, which the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies has repeatedly and consistently confirmed as a serious violation of human rights, as a vital step in resolving and bringing an end to the prevent wartime sexual violence that is still being perpetuated. Demand that the Japanese Government seek and implement a permanent resolution according to the principles of a victim-centered approach and the recommendations of the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Urge the U.S. Government and Governments of the Allies of World War II to disclose all records on Japanese military sexual slavery in order to facilitate a complete investigation and prevent further defamation of the victims and denial of the war crimes by the Japanese Government. We will continue to work in solidarity, not only from North and South Korea but globally, so that these demands are met. February 28, 2019 Note: A key driver in the transnational pursuit of justice and a signatory to the statement, the Bay Area-based Education for Social Justice Foundation has produced key educational resources, including a compilation of primary source documents, for teachers, students, and activists alike. #Japanesewarcrimes #MarchFirstmovement #MilitarySexualSlavery

People watch a TV live broadcast about top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, Feb. 27, 2019. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaochu) By Paul Liem | March 4, 2019 Rarely, if ever, has the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) succeeded in commandeering the narrative when it comes to past setbacks in its negotiations with the United States.  Washington, with China and Russia on occasion weighing in, has typically had the final word.  But after the Hanoi Summit last week, that has all changed. As expected, in Hanoi, the United States called a press conference to make its case to the “global community” that the talks had stalled due to unreasonable demands by the DPRK. But in an unprecedented move for North Korean diplomats, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and Vice Foreign Minister Choi Son Hui went directly to the international press to share their views, and likely the views of Chairman Kim Jong Un, on where the talks went awry, challenging the U.S. team to account for its omissions. Last Thursday, President Trump told the press that Chairman Kim wanted the United States to lift sanctions “in their entirety” in exchange for partial denuclearization: They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that…. I mean, they wanted sanctions lifted but they weren’t willing to do an area that we wanted. They were willing to give us areas but not the ones we wanted. Shortly after midnight, 3/1/2019, Foreign Minister Ri told the press: We aren’t asking for all the sanctions to be lifted, but only some of them. We’re asking for relief from five of the UN Security Council’s 11 sanctions resolutions, the ones adopted between 2016 and 2017, and in particular the aspects of those sanctions that interfere with the civilian economy and the people’s livelihood. Ri went on to explain in detail what the D.P.R.K. was offering in exchange for a partial lifting of sanctions, and why: Our proposal was that, if the US lifts some of the UN sanctions, or in other words those aspects of the sanctions that impede the civilian economy and the people’s livelihood, we will completely and permanently dismantle the production facilities of all nuclear materials, including plutonium and uranium, in the Yongbyon complex, through a joint project by technicians from our two countries, in the presence of American experts. Even though the security guarantee is more important to us, as we take denuclearization measures, we understood that it could be more difficult for the United States to take measures in the military field. That is why we proposed the removal of partial sanctions, as corresponding measures. Our proposal was that, if the US lifts some of the UN sanctions, or in other words those aspects of the sanctions that impede the civilian economy and the people’s livelihood, we will completely and permanently dismantle the production facilities of all nuclear materials, including plutonium and uranium, in the Yongbyon complex, through a joint project by technicians from our two countries, in the presence of American experts. Ri also stated that the DPRK would commit in writing to a “permanent halt to nuclear testing and long-range rocket testing.”  Emphasizing North Korea’s insistence on a measure-for-measure process, Ri reasoned, “If we go through this level of trust building measures then we’ll be able to accelerate the process of denuclearization.”  The talks foundered, he pointed out, when “the U.S. insisted we should take one more step besides the dismantlement of nuclear facilities in Yongbyon areas.”  “It became crystal clear that the U.S. was not able to accept our proposal,” he stated. Madame Choi underscored Ri’s frustration.  UPI reported that “she accused the Trump administration of having moved the goal posts, saying it initially talked about dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear complex and is now taking issue with other sites as well.”  Madame Choi also stated that Chairman Kim “may have lost the will to negotiate” and that Trump and the United States were “missing an opportunity that comes once in a thousand years” and claimed “our Chairman had a difficult time understanding the U.S. system of measuring,” according to CNN. Ri and Choi’s press conference had the effect of holding the Trump administration accountable to a set of facts that President Trump and Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, had omitted from their account of the latest U.S.-DPRK summit.  A senior U.S. official clarified the administration’s account to the media on condition that he remain unnamed, according to Eric Talmadge, AP Bureau Chief in Pyongyang. Although the official stated that the North Koreans “basically asked for the lifting of all sanctions,” he conceded that “the North’s demand was only for Washington to back the lifting of United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed since March 2016 and didn’t include the other resolutions going back a decade more. What Pyongyang was seeking, he said, was the lifting of sanctions that impede the civilian economy and the people’s livelihood – as Ri had claimed,” Talmadge reported. Lifting the post 2016 sanctions would be worth billions of dollars which the North could use to fund their nuclear and missile programs, the official explained.  “So, it was definitely a robust demand.  But it wasn’t, as Trump claimed, all the sanctions.  It also didn’t come as a surprise.  He said the North had been pushing that demand for weeks in lower-level talks,” according to Talmadge. Up until the last-minute cancellation of the closing ceremony scheduled for last Thursday, during which President Trump and Chairman Kim were expected to sign a joint statement, hopes were running high in South Korea and the Korean diaspora that the two leaders would declare an end to the Korean War and a pathway to denuclearization.  Why this did not occur can be understood from the two press conferences and statements by U.S. officials responding to the DPRK’s account. Ri explains that they proposed a partial lifting of sanctions in exchange for shuttering the Yongbyon nuclear facilities because they understood that that security guarantees would be more difficult for the United States to offer.  But the closure of Yongbyon was not sufficient for the U.S. team.  Statements by Trump, Pompeo, and a senior State Department official indicate that the U.S. team sought a comprehensive disarmament agreement including closure of a “second uranium enrichment” and furthermore, a freeze on production of any “weapons of mass destruction.” In reply to questions from the New York Times reporter, David Sanger, President Trump revealed that the United States demanded that a “second uranium enrichment plant” be closed.  “But remember, too, even the Yongbyon facility and all of its scope — which is important, for sure — still leaves missiles, still leaves warheads and weapons systems,” Pompeo added.  A senior state department official put it this way, “the dilemma that we were confronted with is that the North Koreans at this point are unwilling to impose a complete freeze on their weapons of mass destruction programs,” the Hankyoreh reported. The official continued, “So to give many, many billions of dollars in sanctions relief would in effect put us in a position of subsidizing the ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction in North Korea,” the report continued. In retrospect, the DPRK team was prepared to forgo a peace declaration in favor of offering the closure of Yongbyon in exchange for a partial, albeit “robust,” lifting of sanctions, as a trust-building measure.  The U.S. team upped the ante to a freeze on the DPRK’s production of “weapons of mass destruction.” For a day and a half of talks, this goal was so farfetched that one has to wonder whether the Trump entourage arrived in Hanoi with any intention to seal a deal or with the goal of simply pushing back on criticism at home that President Trump had been “duped” by Chairman Kim at the first summit, by proving to his detractors that he could “walk.”  After all, the North Korean counterpoint to the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” regime of sanctions is that it is now focusing on the mass production of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, asserting that they have no need for further testing.  Why would they give them up before sanctions are likewise given up, and before a peace regime is in place, let alone freeze production of weapons programs not yet on the table? “When we saw the table and John Bolton sitting at the table and Stephen Biegun sitting behind when he had done all this work to do all this preparation, it just seemed for us, ‘Oh my gosh, something fishy is going on here,’” exclaimed Christine Ahn, founder of Women Cross DMZ, Newsweek reported.  Indeed, a “former South Korean Unification Minister, Jeong Se-hyun, attributed the failure to a last-minute stipulation proposed by Bolton that would mandate North Korea not only report on its nuclear weapons but its chemical and biological stockpiles too,” the report also said. Ultimately, at the Hanoi Summit, the parties came to an impasse, they walked away from the table on cordial terms with a clearer view of the distance between their positions, they shared their separate accounts of the talks with the international press, and they declared their intentions to return.  But momentum towards implementing the pledges of the Singapore Summit last June has been lost, and reconnecting will be challenging. Early last September, South Korean President Moon Jae-in helped lay the groundwork for the Hanoi Summit when he obtained an agreement with Chairman Kim in Pyongyang, in which “The North expressed its willingness to continue to take additional measures, such as the permanent dismantlement of the nuclear facilities in Yeongbyeon, as the United States takes corresponding measures in accordance with the spirit of the June 12 US-DPRK Joint Statement.”  In the triangulated relationship between the two Koreas and the United States, how will President Moon intercede on behalf of U.S. proposals now demanding full disarmament of not just nuclear weapons programs, but also non-nuclear programs, before any sanctions are lifted? At Stanford University in January, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, shared a vision with the audience of a “perfect outcome moment where the last nuclear weapon leaves North Korea, the sanctions are lifted, the flag goes up in the embassy and the (peace) treaty is signed in the same hour.”  He won the trust of his counterparts in Pyongyang with his positive outlook.  But after being sidelined by his own team in Hanoi, will Biegun continue to have the same influence in Pyongyang? Koreans in both Koreas and in the diaspora have long awaited peace on the Korean peninsula, but is U.S. society ready for a major culture shift in policy towards the DPRK?  Is President Trump capable of preparing the American public to lay aside its reservations and make peace with the DPRK, a U.S. nemesis for the past 70 years? As for the DPRK, in his 2019 New Year’s address, Chairman Kim indicated his desire to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough with the United States but cautioned that he would seek other options as needed: I am ready to meet the US president again anytime, and will make efforts to obtain without fail results which can be welcomed by the international community. But if the United States does not keep the promise it made in the eyes of the world, and out of miscalculation of our people’s patience, it attempts to unilaterally enforce something upon us and persists in imposing sanctions and pressure against our Republic, we may be compelled to find a new way for defending the sovereignty of the country and the supreme interests of the state and for achieving peace and stability of the Korean peninsula. What are the limits to North Korea’s “patience,” and what might be the “new way” forward for North Korea at this point? These are only a few of the daunting challenges and questions generated by the ambivalent outcome of the Hanoi Summit. Paul Liem is chair of the Korea Policy Institute Board of Directors. #Trump #KoreaPeace #KimJongUn #DPRK #USDPRKSummit #NorthKorea

Choe Son Hui Press Conference | February 28, 2019 In comments to the press following the collapse of the Hanoi summit, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui who entered the global spotlight last year with her assessment of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy” for likening North Korea to Libya, noted that Kim Jong Un “may have lost the appetite for negotiations after seeing the U.S. reaction to our unprecedented proposal of dismantling the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex in its entirety.” Translation of press conference  (Korean follows below) Choe Son Hui: We’ll take questions regarding our Foreign Affairs Minister’s statement. – When would Chairman Kim Jong Un visit Seoul? Choe: Please limit your questions to DPRK-US Summit. – What are the additional measures the United States demanded? Choe: As the Minister clarified, what we proposed was historically significant. We proposed the permanent dismantling of all the nuclear facilities in their entirety at Yongbyon, including all the plutonium facilities and all the uranium facilities, in the presence of U.S. experts. In return, we proposed, as the Minister mentioned, that the United States lift the 5 sanctions that are closely related with livelihood of civilian economy. By rejecting this proposal, the United States is missing out on a golden opportunity for peace. -What are the 5 sanctions related to civilian livelihood? Choe: The 5 sanctions we proposed lifting do not include any sanctions related to the military. We only proposed lifting the sanctions that are related to civilian economic livelihood. Since 2016, there have been 6 sanctions resolutions against DPRK. Including Res. 2280, there are 5 that we want to see lifted, but even among those, we did not propose to scrap them 100%, only those parts that are directly related civilian livelihood. What we proposed was dismantling the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex in its entirety and inviting U.S. nuclear experts to join uss. As I watched this Summit, I felt our Chairman was struggling to understand the U.S. calculation and approach to the negotiations. Going forward, I am afraid that our Chairman may have lost the appetite for negotiations after seeing the U.S. reaction to our unprecedented proposal of dismantling of Yongbyon Nuclear Complex in its entirety. – When would be the next Summit? Choe: Not decided yet. There is no agreement on the next Summit (or negotiations) yet. – What is DPRK’s position on declaring the Nuclear List? Choe: I’d like to mention that the American nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker visited the uranium enrichment facility in Yongbyon Nuclear Complex. What we proposed is to completely, irreversibly dismantle such a enormous facility, including the enriched uranium facility. However, there was no appropriate response from the United States. Therefore, I do not know if such opportunity will be presented to the United States again. Thank you. _______________________________________________________________ 최선희 부상 : 우리 외무상 동지가 한 기자회견에서 의문시되거나 물어볼 것이 있으면 몇가지 질문만 받겠습니다. (김정은 위원장 서울 답방 하시나요?) 회담과 관련된 질문만 국한시켜주십시요. Choe Son Hui Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Choe: We’ll take questions regarding our Foreign Affairs Minister’s statement. – 김정은 위원장은 언제 서울 답방하나요? – When would Chairman Kim Jong Un visit Seoul? Choe: Please limit your questions to DPRK-US Summit. – 미국이 요구한 추가 조치는? – What are the additional measures the United States demanded? 최선희 부상: 영변 지구와 관련해서 이번에 우리가 내놓은 안은 외무상이 밝힌 바와 같이 영변 핵 단지 전체 그 안에 들어있는 모든 플루토늄 시설, 모든 우라늄 시설 포함한 모든 핵시설을 통채로 미국 전문가 입회 하에 영구적으로 폐기할 데 대한 역사적으로 제안하지 않았던 제안을 이번에 했습니다. 그 대신 우리가 미국 측에 요구한 것은 외무상동지가 밝힌 바와 같이 제재결의 중에서 민생용 민수용 제재 5건에 대해서 해제할 것을 요구했습니다. 이러한 제안에 대해서 미국측이 이번에 받아들이지 않은 것은 천재일우의 기회를 놓친것이나 같다고 생각합니다. Choe: As the Minister clarified what we proposed was to historically significant. We proposed permanent dismantling of all the nuclear facilities in its entirety, including all the plutonium facilities and all the uranium facilities with the presence of US experts. In return, we proposed, as the Minister mentioned, the US lift the 5 sanctions that are closely related with livelihood of civilian economy. Rejection of such proposal by the US is missing out on a golden opportunity for peace. -민생을 위한 5가지 제재는? -What are the 5 sanctions related to civilian livelihood? 최선희 부상: 민생과 관련해서는 우리가 제안한 5가지 제재 결의에서 군수용은 요구하지 않습니다 아직까지는. 그러나 민생과 관련돼서 인민생활 경제발전과 관련된 그 부분에 대한 사항들이 제재 해제를 요구하였을 뿐입니다. 결의 제재가 2016년부터 취한 대조선 결의가 6건이 됩니다. 그 중에서 2270호 등 5개 인데, 여기에서 이 가운데서도 100%가 아니고 민생과 관련된 부분만 제재를 해제할 것을 요구한 것입니다. Choe: The 5 sanctions we proposed lifting do not include any sanctions related to military. We only proposed to lift the sanctions that are related to civilian economic livelihood. Since 2016, there are 6 sanctions resolutions against DPRK. Including Res.2280, there are 5 that we want to see lifted, but even among those, we did not propose to scrap 100%, only those parts that are directly related civilian livelihood. 우리가 제안한 것은 영변 핵단지 전체에 대한 폐기입니다. 여기에서 실행할 때는 미국 핵전문가들이 와서 입회하게끔 돼 있다. 이번에 제가 수뇌회담을 옆에서 보면서 우리 국무위원장 동지께서 미국에서 하는 미국식 계산법에 대해서 리해하기 힘들어 하지 않시지 않는가, 리해가 잘 가지 않아서 하는 듯한 느낌을 받았습니다. 앞으로 이렇게 지난식에 있어보지 못한 영변 핵단지를 통채로 폐기할 데 대한 그런 제안을 내놨음에도 불구하고 민수용 제재 결의 부분적인 결의까지 해제하기 어렵다는 미국측의 반응을 보면서 우리 국무위원장 동지께서 앞으로의 조미 거래에 대해서 의욕을 잃지 않으시지 않았는가 하는 느낌을 받았습니다. What we proposed was dismantling of the Yongbyon Nuclear  Complex in its entirety. And when we are executing the dismantling, we’ll invite (US) nuclear experts. As I witness this Summit, I felt our Chairman was struggling to understand the US’s calculation and approach to the negotiations. Going forward, I am afraid that our Chairman may have lost the appetite for negotiations after seeing the US’s reaction to our unpresented proposal of dismantling of Yongbyon Nuclear Complex in its entirety. – 다음번 회담은? – When would be the next Summit? 최선희 부상: : 아직 정해진 것은 없습니다. 다음번 회담이 정해진 것은 없습니다. Choe: Not decided yet. There is no agreement on next Summit(or negotiations) yet. – 핵리스트 제출에 대한 북한의 입장은? – What is DPRK’s position on declaring of the Nuclear List? 최선희 부상: 제가 한 가지 강조하고 싶은 것은 미국의 핵 박사 지그프리드 헤커 박사가 영변 핵시설에 있는 농축우라늄 시설을 방문한 적이 있습니다. 그러한 공장까지도 거대한 농축 우라늄 공장까지 포함한 모든 핵시설을 우리가 이번에 영구적으로 되돌릴 수 없게 폐기할 데 대한 제안을 했지만 여기에 대한 미국 측의 대답이 호응이 없었습니다. 그래서 앞으로 이러한 기회가 다시 미국측에 차려지겠는지에 대해서는 저도 장담하기 힘듭니다. 감사합니다. Choe: I’d like to mention that the American nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker visited the uranium enrichment facility in Yongbyon Nuclear Complex. What we proposed is to completely, irreversibly dismantle such a enormous facility, including the enriched uranium facility. However, there was no appropriate response from the US. Therefore, I do not know if such opportunity will be presented to the US again. Thank you. Video of press conference #KoreaPeace #DPRK #ChoeSonHui #USDPRKSummit #NorthKorea

21 March 2019 Open Letter to the UN Security Council Members The peace process on the Korean Peninsula must go on We are 55 civil society organizations that act for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Since the last summit in Vietnam between the DPRK and the U.S. ended without result, concerns have been raised that the deadlock between the two countries will be prolonged. We wish to make it clear that there must be no further action to aggravate the situation. We appeal to the Members of the UN Security Council, the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1718, and the international community to ensure that the peace process on the Korean Peninsula is firmly sustained. We request the Members of the UN Security Council to publicly announce in support of the following: the reopening of the DPRK-the U.S. dialogue; the lifting all the sanctions related to humanitarian assistance; and the starting of negotiations to build peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. We also request the 1718 Committee to lift all the sanctions against humanitarian support to the DPRK. The dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. must continue. The 2nd DPRK-U.S. summit clearly showed that removing tensions from the Korean Peninsula, where the Cold War still runs, is not an easy task. For the countries who have been enemies to each other for almost 70 years, it is not easy at all to trust and begin to have open talks with each other. This is why it is neither realistic nor appropriate for the U.S. to demand that the DPRK completely denuclearize at once. The DPRK needs to consider the fact that deep-rooted mistrust is also alive despite her stated willingness to denuclearize. We would like to highlight that the DPRK and the U.S. committed in Singapore ‘to establish new relations, to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula’. We expect the two countries will adjust their demands and expectations to start phased and simultaneous implementation of their promises at the smallest level they feel comfortable with. Once they start building trust in the process, they will be able to agree on larger issues. The DPRK and the U.S. must earnestly listen to each other and continue their dialogue. At least, the sanctions against the DPRK that are related to humanitarian assistance must be lifted The UN says that the sanctions against the DPRK are not the end, but the means. In the same light, all resolutions of the UN Security Council on the sanctions emphasize the commitment to “a peaceful, diplomatic, and political solution to the situation.” The true purposes of such resolutions are to urge “the DPRK and the U.S. to respect each other’s sovereignty and exist peacefully together” and also “the council members as well as other states to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue”. Humanitarian assistance is a universal and non-derogable value and spirit in the work of the UN. As the UN Security Council resolutions clarify that these resolutions “are not intended to have adverse humanitarian consequences for the civilian population of the DPRK or to affect negatively or restrict those activities, … the work of international and non-governmental organizations carrying out assistance and relief activities in the DPRK for the benefit of the civilian population of the DPRK.” However, the sanctions against the DPRK by the UN and the stronger ones imposed by the U.S. after the 1st DPRK-U.S. summit have aggravated the conditions for humanitarian assistance to the DPRK. We urge the 1718 Committee to lift all the sanctions that prevent humanitarian assistance to the DPRK. These sanctions hamper implementation of inter-Korean agreements for exchange and cooperation. They even made it difficult to resume operation of Mount Geumgang tours and Gaeseong Industrial Complex, which are stopped activities unrelated to the UN sanctions. As initial steps for peace, the two Koreas need to expand meetings and cooperation among them in order to end military tension and confrontation, and thus paving way for peace in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia. The sanctions against the DPRK which impede to conduct humanitarian assistance and build cooperative relationships between the two Koreas must be relieved as soon as possible. ‘Denuclearization as Peacemaking Process’ must be observed as a principle The nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula is a product of the instability inherent to an armistice regime, grown out of the decades-long military confrontation and arms race. Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is closely connected to building a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula with normalizing relations between the DPRK and the U.S. The denuclearization of the DPRK alone cannot be the entry point for negotiations to begin. Peace on the Peninsula cannot be achieved only through denuclearization. It can only be achieved, instead, when it becomes part of a peace-building process. Efforts to build a permanent peace regime here, such as signing a peace treaty or a non-aggression agreement, and normalizing relations between the DPRK and the U.S. must be paralleled. The kind of complete denuclearization that people in the two Koreas sincerely wish to achieve is a state where all nuclear threats surrounding the Peninsula are removed. This cannot be achieved only by ‘Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Denuclearization’ of the DPRK alone. Abolishment of the extended deterrence strategy to which the ROK, the U.S., and Japan rely on is one of the associated and necessary tasks. Nuclear-Free Korean Peninsula can become a stepping stone for Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone and Nuclear-Free world. There is no other way to achieve peace but through peaceful means Achieving peace on the Korean Peninsula will serve as a testing case for whether humanity will be able to peacefully resolve the accumulated conflicts of today’s world, or not. In Korea, we have recently witnessed that peace can be achieved through peaceful means and problems can be solved through dialogue and negotiation. Since the inter-Korean summit last year, the two Koreas have ceased all hostile activities, cherishing the most peaceful time ever since the armistice began. We should never return to the repeated threats of nuclear war and heightened military tension under any circumstances. Once again, we urge the UN Security Council and the international community to support the painstaking efforts to bring peace to the Korean Peninsula. Cooperation from the international community is absolutely crucial. We plead that you do utmost to ensure the continuity of the peace process on the Korean Peninsula. For its part, Korean civil society will spare no effort. 80 Million Koreans Community Preparing for Reunification (K.P.R.) Asia Peace & History Education Network Chuncheon Womenlink Citizens’ Coalition for Democratic Media Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice Civil Peace Forum Civil Society Organizations Network in Korea Civilian Military Watch Conference for Peace in East Asia Daejeon Differently Abled Women Solidarity Daejeon Women’ Association for Better Aging Society Daejeon Women’s Association United Daejeon Women’s Association for Democracy Daejeon Women’s Association for Peace-Making Dongbuk Womenlink Eco Horizon Institute Green Korea Gunpo Womenlink Gwangju Womenlink Incheon Womenlink Jeju Peace Human Rights Center Jeju Peace Human Rights Institute WHAT Korea Federation for Environmental Movements Korea NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea Korea Veterans for Peace Korea Women’s Associations United Korea Women’s Hot Line Korean Sharing Movement MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society Movement for One Korea Namseo Womenlink National YWCA of Korea NCYK (National Council of YMCA’S of Korea) Networks for Greentransport Ok Tree Peace Network Peace Sharing Association PEACEMOMO People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) Professors for Democracy Pyeongtaek Peace Center Reconciliation and Reunification Committee, NCCK (The National Council of Churches in Korea) Research Institute for Peace and Reunification of Korea Sejong Women’s Corporation Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea (SPARK) The Corea Peace 3000 The Headquarters of National Unification Movement of Young Korean Academy The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan The Research Institute of the Differently Abled Person’s Right in Korea The Righteous People for Korean Unification Women in Action for Life PAN Women Making Peace Womenlink Won-Buddhism Diocese of Pyongyang World Without War #KoreaPeace #Nuclearweapons #SouthKorea #USDPRKSummit

Christopher Ahn, a leading suspect in the case who is now in US custody and sought by Spain for extradition, standing outside the North Korean embassy in Madrid on February 22, the day of the attack. (Department of Justice) By Tim Shorrock | May 6, 2019 A Special Nation Investigation On Monday night, the Department of Justice issued a wanted poster for the leader of Free Joseon, a shadowy group of Korean exiles suspected of leading a violent assault on the North Korean embassy in Madrid on February 22. A suspect, Adrian Hong Chang, “is considered to be armed and dangerous,” says the poster, which includes a color photo of the fugitive and instructs arresting police officers or anyone who knows his whereabouts to contact the US Marshals Service. The public notification from the DOJ underscores the seriousness of the US government’s efforts to track down two Koreans sought for possible extradition to Spain under a criminal warrant issued in March by Judge José de la Mata of Spain’s high court. The very unusual move has stirred a backlash from US foreign-policy hard-liners on North Korea who say the Trump administration’s manhunt for the suspects amounts to support for that country’s 34-year-old dictator. That response is being led by Lee Wolosky, a New York lawyer and partner at Boies Schiller Flexner with extensive national-security experience. He entered the picture as the attorney and spokesperson for Free Joseon on March 26, the same day de la Mata identified Hong (Chang’s original surname), and has added a layer of mystery—and obfuscation—to an already strange story. In his public statements, Wolosky has defended Free Joseon’s actions in Madrid, denied the judge’s accusations, and chastised the US government for publicly disclosing the names of the suspects. Wolosky did not respond to requests from The Nation for an interview. On Tuesday, a Boies Schiller Flexner spokesperson called to ask “what this story is all about” but did not respond to questions about who was paying for Wolosky’s representation and how he got involved in the case. Hong is a Korean citizen of Mexico long known in Washington for his strident opposition to the government of Kim Jong-un. Hong and Christopher Ahn, a former US Marine who once served in Iraq, stand accused of breaking into and entering the North Korean embassy in Madrid, taking North Korean diplomats hostage, and stealing computers, hard drives, cellphones, and encryption devices that they later handed over to the FBI. Ahn was arrested in Los Angeles by US Marshals on April 18. In the first court action in the case, on April 23, Ahn appeared in federal court in Los Angeles. He remains in jail and was denied bond under an extradition warrant from Spain, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Justice Department, with another hearing scheduled for July. In a series of events that has yet to be explained, Hong met with the FBI in New York and Los Angeles in late March to discuss the embassy attack, according to the DOJ court filings. Yet he somehow managed to evade the government’s raid in April on his apartment in LA and is now in hiding, his attorney claims. Hong, who is a permanent US resident, came to fame in 2004 after founding Liberty in North Korea (LiNK), a California-based organization which claims to operate an “underground railroad” that helps North Korean defectors and refugees settle in South Korea and the United States and uses the media and the Internet to promote their stories. He left LiNK in 2008 but remained active in his staunch opposition to the Kim government in Pyongyang. In 2015, Hong reemerged in public to organize the Joseon Institute—a precursor to his new organization—and announced that he would be preparing for “increasingly imminent, dramatic change” in North Korea. A recent posting on the Free Joseon website hints at that change. In it, an embedded YouTube video titled “In Our Homeland” claims to show someone in North Korea shattering framed pictures of Kim Jong-un and his father. “Down with Kim family rule!” the video reads. “For our people we rise up! Long live Free Joseon!” No North Koreans, however, were involved in the Madrid attack, according to Spanish police. Nevertheless, the perpetrators showed a remarkable sense of timing. The incident occurred a few days before the failed summit between President Donald Trump and Kim in Hanoi, where one of Kim’s top negotiators was Kim Hyok Chol, a former ambassador to Spain. The DOJ’s quick response to the warrant and its respectful treatment of North Korea in its “Memorandum of Points and Authorities” filed on April 19 is clearly linked to the Trump administration’s desire to keep the denuclearization talks with Kim going after months of stalemate. But it also could be a way for the US government to distance itself from the raid. Spanish intelligence initially blamed two individuals connected to the CIA for the attack, according to the Madrid daily El País. The State Department responded that the US government “had nothing to do with” it. And within days of that report, The Washington Post jumped in with a story tamping down the CIA talk. Quoting “people familiar with the planning and execution of the mission,” the Post countered that the raid was actually the work of Cheollima Civil Defense, a mysterious “dissident” organization that first came to public attention in 2017. On March 26, Cheollima confirmed the story on its website. Under its new name of Free Joseon (Joseon is the ancient name for Korea adopted in 1919 by opponents of Japanese colonial rule), Cheollima justified the raid as a stand against an illegal regime: “The charade of pretending that the [Kim] regime is a normal government must stop—the regime is simply a giant criminal enterprise.” Cheollima claimed it had been “invited into the embassy” and insisted that “no one was gagged or beaten.” At the same time, it complained that the names of Hong and others were leaked by the US government in a “profound betrayal of trust.” That left the impression that one of two things had happened: The attack was never approved by Cheollima’s US-government allies, or it was sanctioned but went drastically wrong. Strangely, before the DOJ notification, few in Washington’s community of North Korea antagonists seemed to be aware of Free Joseon or its recent activities. “Honestly, I don’t know anything about them,” said Greg Scarlatoiu, the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), who last saw Hong in 2015 and considered him a “dedicated human-rights activist.” Scarlatoiu, whose organization was founded in 2001 to expose the cruelties of the North’s police state and prison system, was excited by the emergence of another opposition group. “This is the first time we see organized, apparently militant resistance outside of North Korea,” he told The Nation. But he was quick to add that, as of now, there is “no clear, irrefutable evidence of resistance inside North Korea.” Jenny Town, a senior analyst and editor with the 38 North website and research group who last saw Hong around 2006, said Free Joseon’s claims that its actions were peaceful don’t seem credible in light of video and other evidence gathered by Spanish police. “I would trust the video rather than the political statements,” she said in an interview. Moreover, Hong’s “politics were never secret. He’s always been pro–regime change and trying to rescue North Korean defectors.” Several Korean Americans who knew Hong said his obsession with fomenting a revolt led by defectors has been well known in DC and the large Korean communities in Los Angeles and New York for years. “He was very, very demagogic,” said Christine Hong (no relation), a professor and historian at UC Santa Cruz who met Hong in the early 2000s at a conference on North Korea. A Rashomon  Story The conflicting tales and explanations about Hong and his group have a Rashomon, dueling-perspective feel to them that makes it difficult to come to definitive conclusions about the Madrid attack. “I think everybody’s telling the truth, at least in part,” John Kiriakou told The Nation. A CIA counterintelligence officer from 1990 to 2004, he was a whistle-blower prosecuted for divulging details to the media about the CIA’s torture program and, after a plea agreement, jailed in 2013 on the absurd charge of confirming the name of a known CIA officer. Kiriakou’s first take, he said, was that “the CIA would never, ever sanction an operation like what we saw in Madrid. It was so amateurish and so criminal in its nature that no one at headquarters would ever approve.” If the agency launched an embassy break-in, “it would be done in the middle of the night, with one insider and several specialists sent from Washington—not a bunch of exiles. Never, absolutely never.” But that said, he asked, “Do I think the CIA has had contact with these people? Absolutely. That’s what they do. The CIA has contact with opposition people, real and fake, all over the world.” The confusion about Free Joseon’s US-government ties is apparently what Wolosky is trying to clear up. In his press statements, he has tried to portray his clients as heroic dissidents “who are working in opposition to a brutal regime that routinely and summarily executes its enemies.” He turned up the heat when the DOJ arrested Ahn. “We are dismayed that the US Department of Justice has decided to execute warrants against US persons that derive from criminal complaints filed by the North Korean regime,” Wolosky declared on April 19 in a statement posted on the Free Joseon website. A few days later, he went on CNN and made the audacious claim to reporter Brian Todd that Hong is in hiding because “North Korean hit squads have been dispatched” to kill him. (Wolosky chose his media outlet carefully: Todd is responsible for some of CNN’s most sensationalized reporting on North Korea over the past two years.) After the arrest, Wolosky sought to link the dissidents to Otto Warmbier, the Virginia student who was imprisoned in North Korea for a year and a half before being returned to the United States in a coma and dying in 2017. “The last US citizen who fell into the custody of the Kim regime returned home maimed from torture and did not survive,” Wolosky said. “We have received no assurances from the US government about the safety and security of the US nationals it is now targeting.” On April 22, he tweeted, “Never thought I’d see the day when DOJ is executing warrants against U.S. nationals being targeted by North Korea, based on criminal complaints from the Kim regime.” Last Friday, he charged that the DOJ and Spain based their accounts on “the highly unreliable accounts of North Korean government witnesses.” Those claims are preposterous and are based on fallacies about the investigation, said a European analyst who is in contact with Spanish officials involved in the investigation. North Korea, which called the embassy intrusion a “grave terrorist attack” and an “act of extortion” in its state-run media, did not file charges against the attackers or request their extradition. In fact, “they haven’t cooperated at all,” the analyst said. The Spanish just “wouldn’t issue direct warrants without proof,” he said. “The people in the embassy were beaten pretty badly and were hospitalized. The Spanish authorities view this as a serious case.” So who are these guys, and what are they really up to? Are they working for the CIA? Why has a lawyer who has represented clients in important national-security cases suddenly emerged as their spokesperson? The Nation has gathered enough strands of information to provide some preliminary answers. First, there is strong evidence that Hong has connections to US intelligence agencies. According to the European analyst with ties to Spanish law enforcement, Spanish police and intelligence officials have “solid proof” that Hong met with known CIA officials in Spain—including photographs and communication records. In April, the right-wing Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest newspaper, which is known for its contacts with South Korean intelligence, reported that Hong signed a US-government contract about eight years ago and that his “consulting work often involved the CIA.” And in 2018, according to a prominent North Korean defector interviewed by The Washington Post, Hong was in Washington for a meeting at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. When I asked the ODNI if it could confirm or deny that report, a US official said the ODNI “declines to comment.” But she warned that reporters should “really check” and “be careful” of their sources on this story, adding, “I’ve said enough.” Second, several North Korea analysts believe that the CIA was involved in past actions by Free Joseon. In 2017, Cheollima Civil Defense was involved in a covert action that whisked Kim Han-sol, a nephew of Kim Jong-un, from Macau to a safe house in an unknown country after his father, Kim Jong-nam, the North Korean leader’s half-brother, was murdered in Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. At the time, Cheollima thanked the US government, as well as the governments of China, the Netherlands, and another nation it did not identify for their assistance and later posted a video of the younger Kim speaking about his family. (His poise and solid command of English can also be seen in a remarkable interview he did a few years earlier with a Finnish journalist at his school in Bosnia.) Last week, Wolosky told CNN that Ahn was involved in the extraction of Kim Han-sol and called him “an American hero.” Ahn would have been prepared for a covert mission: As a Marine in Iraq, he was the deputy chief of intelligence for a battalion that ran US detention facilities after the scandal at Abu Ghraib, according to a 2008 article in The Washington Times. After his time in Iraq, he worked in Washington as the director of operations for Vets for Freedom, a group that stood out for its adamant support for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and advocated for victory in Iraq, according to a profile on NPR. (See him lament the “loss” of patriotism at the University of Virginia in this video from the 10th anniversary of 9/11.) Third, Wolosky’s background in national security could explain why he represents Free Joseon. During his years as director for transnational threats at the National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, he was responsible for several important investigations, including that of the US blacklisting of a bank in Macau that was linked to North Korea. From 2015 to 2017, Wolosky was President Barack Obama’s special envoy on closing the US detention facility in Guantánamo, Cuba, and has extensive connections to many top Democrats involved in counterterrorism. Most significantly, Wolosky is the attorney for United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a neocon organization that focuses much of its energy on Iran’s links with North Korea. It is chaired by former senator Joseph Lieberman and was co-founded by (and retains close ties to) John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish national-security adviser. Wolosky’s representation of UANI was confirmed on Tuesday by Edward Evans, a spokesperson for Boies Schiller Flexner. “UANI is a long-standing client, but there are no active litigation matters,” he said. That organization, according to journalist Eli Clifton, receives much of its funding from “GOP megadonors Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.” It claims Iran’s weapons and missile programs are illicitly backed by North Korea and wants the US government to increase sanctions against both countries. UANI would have good reason to support regime change in North Korea, which the group sees as part of a triumvirate of countries threatening US interests. “I am hopeful that Trump will use his recent momentum from Venezuela to demonstrate strength and resolve to North Korea and Iran’s regimes,” Mark Kirk, a former Illinois senator and a senior UANI adviser, wrote in a February 2019 op-ed timed for Trump’s ill-fated summit with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi. Adrian Hong and the Axis of Evil Adrian Hong is from an evangelical family and discovered North Korea issues while a student at Yale. He founded LiNK shortly after George W. Bush famously declared in 2002 that North Korea was part of an “axis of evil,” along with Iraq and Iran. With the US government now clearly on the side of regime change, activist groups and evangelical Christians who opposed North Korea on anti-communist grounds were given a renewed lease on life. “The axis of evil allowed all these cold warriors to renovate along human-rights lines,” said UC Santa Cruz’s Christine Hong, who has written extensively about the role of defectors in US foreign policy. By all accounts, Adrian Hong was driven by a messianic regime-change ideology that was on vivid display in his last public appearance, before the Canadian Parliament in 2016. In 2006, he was instrumental in a State Department operation that smuggled six defectors into the United States in the first US-sponsored effort to give asylum to North Koreans. His fame grew when he was briefly arrested and detained in China for helping refugees. He spoke often, as at this conference at the Hudson Institute in 2012 that was broadcast on C-SPAN. In the ensuing years, LiNK and other groups established a formidable network that included Scarlatoiu’s HRNK, the Defense Forum Foundation, and the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy, which has poured millions of dollars into programs for North Korean defectors and sponsors visits of high-level defectors to Washington. In contrast to the American Friends Service Committee and other humanitarian organizations that work in North Korea, these more hard-line groups argue against engagement with Pyongyang, even by the South Korean government, and often talk openly about the need for regime change. Under Hong, LiNK adopted a peculiar America-first approach to North Korea that largely excluded the South as a player in reunification discussions. During his time there in 2006, Hong led several delegations of college kids, most of them Korean American, to South Korea to voice “frustration about how little South Koreans seem to care about human rights.” Their activities, according to an account in the South China Morning Post, “included ambushing local politicians, distributing fliers and staging public demonstrations.” South Koreans basically told him to bug off, a response that stung Hong. “The worst reaction has been student protesters saying ‘go back to your country, mind your own business, this is our issue, we will take care of it,’” he complained to the newspaper. Hong also promoted an economic vision for a liberated North Korea that sounds much like Trump’s predictions of US-led development for the North today. “In serial calls for regime change in North Korea, [Hong] has glibly pitched the vast growth potential of a post-collapse North Korea brightened by capitalism and annexed to U.S. financial interests,” Christine Hong wrote in a recent essay. In 2008, Hong quit LiNK and his high-profile job and left Washington. “He went dark on most of his contacts,” said Town of 38 North. A few years later, he founded a financial consulting firm, Pegasus Strategies, and began focusing more of his energies on overt support for regime change. One of his motivations was the example of Libya, where in 2011 the government of Moammar El-Gadhafi was overthrown by a US- and NATO-led intervention assisted by the CIA. “I consider the Arab Spring a dress rehearsal for North Korea,” Hong told The National, a daily published in the United Arab Emirates, shortly after Gadhafi was captured and murdered. North Korea “has seen what happened” to deposed rulers in Tunisia and Egypt “and especially Gaddafi this year.” Shortly after Gadhafi’s fall, Hong went to Libya to test his model. By this time, he was established as a TED fellow, with the credentials to organize autonomous gatherings for the Silicon Valley PR organization under the rubric TEDx. As a conference in Tripoli was getting underway in 2012, Africa Intelligence, a specialty newsletter, said the event “allowed international investors and business people to mingle with Libya’s new rulers,” including Libya’s Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur (who became an adviser to the Joseon Institute, the London Sunday Telegraph reported last week). The idea behind meetings like this, Hong later wrote in an op-ed for The Christian Science Monitor, was to help create “a class of Korean technocrats [who] must be capable of stabilizing and rebuilding on a national scale.” It was around this time that he signed his contract that “involved” the CIA, according to Chosun Ilbo. A few years later, Hong began to work with Ahn, and Cheollima Civil Defense took shape. Little is known of Ahn since his days with Vets for Freedom, but Hong was likely attracted to his commitment to the exercise of US power. “Who is the leader of the world pushing for goodness and harmony and democracy and trying to facilitate that?”Ahn asked in his 2008 interview with The Washington Times. “It’s the Americans, and not the government, but the people through their sacrifices.” Hong had a similar vision. In his trips to Asia, he frequently sought to persuade high-level North Korean defectors to join his cause—including Kim’s half-brother while he was exiled in Macau. “He asked Kim Jong Nam multiple times to serve as the insurgent leader, only to be met with rejection,” a former South Korean intelligence official told The Washington Post. Just before the attack in Madrid, Hong went to Tokyo in an attempt to raise funds and meet Japanese officials “who could help provide protection for Kim Han Sol,” according to an account in NK News. But a Japanese intelligence official told the reporter that he didn’t understand Hong’s request because Kim’s nephew “now resides in either the U.S. or Israel under full government protection.” Now Hong and Ahn stand charged with violent crimes that the DOJ said could put them in prison for over 10 years. DOJ documents claim that Hong, after first visiting the embassy posing as a financial consultant, returned on February 22 and asked to see the chargé d’affaires, identified as Y.S.S. When an official went to look for him, Hong opened the door and let Ahn and six others “carrying knives, iron bars, machetes and imitation handguns” into the grounds. Once in control, they proceeded to restrain members of the embassy staff “using shackles and cables.” In a technique often used by terrorists and US Special Forces, Hong and his crew placed bags over their captives’ heads. Among them was Y.S.S. Hong and Ahn, according to the DOJ complaint, “took Y.S.S. to a bathroom where they tied his hands behind his back, placed a bag over his head, and threatened him with iron bars and imitation handguns.” This was apparently an attempt to persuade the commercial attaché, who had been an aide to Ambassador Kim Hyok Chol, to defect. Once done with their mission, the suspects then flew to the US East Coast, where Hong contacted the FBI and apparently turned in his colleague, according to DOJ documents related to the case. (In a meeting with the FBI in Los Angeles, the DOJ said, Hong “stated that Ahn was one of the members of the group who participated in the attack” and “lived in Chino, California.”) Hong did not respond to queries sent to his verified Twitter account or an e-mail address provided by a former classmate. So who’s paying Wolosky, the lawyer? “That’s a great question,” said former CIA operative Kiriakou. If Wolosky has a security clearance, “it’s conceivable that he could be paid by the government, including the ODNI, the CIA, or even the NSC.” In fact, the chances that he has retained his clearance since leaving government are high: A defamation lawsuit against UANI that Wolosky handled was dismissed by a federal judge in 2015 after the government argued that it could reveal state secrets. Evans, the spokesperson for Boies Schiller Flexner, ignored questions about Wolosky’s security clearances. On Tuesday, however, Wolosky released a statement to The Nation taking issue with the DOJ’s claims. “As we have maintained from the beginning, Free Joseon was invited to enter the Embassy, and there was no ‘attack’ or forced entry,” he said. “This is now made clear by the CCTV images released by the DOJ itself. In due time, we expect to be able to present additional evidence that contradicts the account of the North Korean government, which correctly recognizes the threat posed to it by those championing the cause of freedom.” It now looks as if Wolosky’s audacious defense of Free Joseon could mark the beginning of a campaign by regime-change advocates to support Hong and Ahn as freedom fighters who deserve US support. The opening salvo was fired on April 25 by Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University who is frequently called to testify before Congress because of his hard-line views and ardent support for military and economic pressure on North Korea. “For the U.S. to accept what is essentially a North Korean version of the events is to effectively defend the Kim regime,” he wrote in The Los Angeles Times. Fox News picked up the story, with interviews with Wolosky and Lee, and that segment has been tweeted by such neocon stalwarts as Iraq War promoter Max Boot. Last Friday, the campaign against North Korea was boosted by a well-timed story in The Washington Post that said the Kim government issued a $2 million bill for Warmbier’s hospice care before he was released. Trump denied it, saying “We don’t pay money for hostages.” But by Monday, despite former US envoy Joseph Yun’s explanation that the US government was obligated to make the payment, hundreds of people from left and right tweeted the Warmbier story and used it to hammer Trump and Kim. What’s next? In a mysterious posting on its website on Saturday after the Post story broke, Free Joseon wrote just one word: “Orange.” An intelligence source quoted by one Korean newspaper said the color may indicate “a deciphering algorithm.” But could it be a sign that Free Joseon’s next target for its campaign against extradition is Trump, well known for his orange countenance? For Adrian Hong, who used the alias Oswaldo Trump while hailing an Uber during his getaway in Madrid, that’s entirely possible. As Town concluded, the tale of the attack and Hong’s role in it “is all very murky to everyone.” Tim Shorrock is a Washington, DC–based journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World, and a Korea Policy Institute Associate. #KimJongUn #DPRK #TimShorrock #USDPRKSummit #NorthKorea

Korean Americans take part in a DMZ Peace Chain in New York City on April 27, 2019.(Dami Choi) By Simone Chun |  May 23, 2019 Originally published on Truthout.org “The April 27 Panmunjom Declaration was indeed a historic event. The path to peace and reconciliation since then has been rocky, but the effort cannot be allowed to fail, or even to be delayed. It is too important. The promise is too great to be lost, the costs of failure are too grim to contemplate.” —Noam Chomsky to Truthout On the one-year anniversary of the April 27 Panmunjom Declaration, the landmark inter-Korean agreement in which President Moon and Chairman Kim committed to bringing a formal end to the Korean War, South Korean news networks were peppered with coverage of the hundreds of thousands of South Koreans forming a human chain along the 500-kilometer demilitarized zone (DMZ) established in 1953 as part of the Korean Armistice Agreement. Originally intended to serve as a temporary buffer zone between the two Koreas until a peace settlement could be reached, the DMZ remains the most heavily fortified border in the word, separating generations of Koreans from one another. The DMZ Peace Chain, as this human chain came to be called, served as a powerful expression of the Korean desire for reconciliation and peace. It gathered worldwide attention, with Pope Francis offering his prayers that “this celebration offer hope to all that a future based on unity, dialogue and fraternal solidarity is indeed possible.” In the U.S., however, the anniversary of the landmark inter-Korean agreement passed with virtually no attention from the domestic media. In spite of the fact that over 70 percent of South Koreans believe that the Panmunjom Declaration has had a positive impact on inter-Korean relations, cynicism and overt opposition to the inter-Korean peace process have dominated U.S. media since the groundbreaking meeting between President Moon and Chairman Kim. The U.S. media’s overt tendency to discount Korean sentiment while appraising Korean affairs is a reflection of a longstanding political dynamic in Washington. With almost colonial flair, the U.S. has dominated inter-Korean affairs for nearly a century, to the extent that domestic Korean sentiment is barely treated as an afterthought. A Korean women’s peace delegation visiting Washington last month reported that the majority of U.S. congressional representatives they met with characterized the summit held in Singapore between Chairman Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump as “just a show,” diminishing the fact that the state of U.S.-North Korea relations impacts millions of actual people. Many of these Congress members openly cast doubt on the fact that South Koreans overwhelmingly support peace with the North. Lamenting that even “progressives in the U.S. seem unwilling to support the efforts of South Korean President Moon Jae-in,” Rev. Jiseok Jung, one of the organizers of the DMZ Peace Chain, appealed to Americans to “support respectful dialogue with North Korea.” I had a similar experience during my own visit with Democratic members of Congress on June 12, 2018, as part of the Korea Peace Network, finding myself on the receiving end of some rather blunt comments by an adviser to Sen. Bob Menendez. Commenting on the then-recent Panmunjom summit, he pointed out that irrespective of any current or future South Korean diplomatic initiatives, U.S. self-interest dictated that “the 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea remain to defend America’s strategic interest in Northeast Asia,” presumably in perpetuity, with Koreans continuing to foot the bill. In this sadly popular version of U.S. realpolitik, the will of the Korean nation is unshakably subordinated to U.S. geopolitical and strategic interests. Bringing Koreans Together Pyongyang and Washington have been deadlocked since the Singapore summit, due primarily to Trump’s hardline stance demanding the North’s upfront and total denuclearization, which even conservative analyst Daniel DePetris labels the “same bankrupted formula under [a] delusional theory.” In spite of this impasse, President Moon, who brokered the first meeting between Trump and Kim, is continuing his efforts to salvage diplomacy and to place Koreans at the center of the peace process. The concept of providing Koreans with something beyond a proxy role in determining their own destiny resonates with many. Philip Zelikow, a former U.S. diplomat who had direct experience in steering the U.S.’s role in German unification and navigating the end of the Cold War, favors the model of “bringing Koreans together first.” Zelikow argues that the key to successful denuclearization lies not in narrowing the focus to the resolution of “technical issues,” but in harnessing the “enormous political force in both of the Koreas” by focusing on “issues that the Korean people care deeply about.” Zelikow’s stance is shared by 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland, a veteran of the Irish peace process. In her solidarity message with the DMZ Peace Chain, she invoked the universal principle of self-determination in calling for Koreans to take control of their own destiny. Recalling her visits to both North and South Korea in an interview with Truthout, she lauded “the Korean people’s passion for peace and a peace treaty,” and encouraged Koreans not to “let outsiders destroy your peace.” “It is your country, make peace happen!” Maguire said. The Deep Roots of Nonviolent Resistance in Korea In fact, nonviolent resistance to injustice is a deeply rooted principle within Korean political culture. The DMZ Peace Chain invoked the spirit of the Korea’s 1919 March 1 Movement — a nonviolent nationwide protest calling for Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, and one of the first civilian-led social movements of the 20th century. It also drew inspiration from more recent nonviolent civil political transformations in Korea, including the 2016-2017 Candlelight Revolution, which brought an end to the rampant corruption of the Park Geun-hye administration. As Boston College Emeritus Professor Ramsay Liem told Truthout, the DMZ Peace Chain “continues the long history of the Korean people’s struggle for independence and justice … Korea’s greatest gift to the world will be the example of the indomitable will of everyday people to chart their own future and make their own justice.” Koreans take part in a human peace chain in South Korea on April 27, 2019. (DMZ Human Peace Chain Movement Headquarters, South Korea) The more than 500,000 participants represented Koreans of all stripes and political beliefs, from young to old, and from far-right religious groups to the most progressive organizations. Reflecting the global significance of the Korean peace process, citizens of 20 countries were represented among the 30,000 participating non-Koreans who joined in at the DMZ and around the world, as concurrent human chains were formed in Sydney, Okinawa, Berlin, Los Angeles and New York. In the United States, the Peace Chain was endorsed by renowned intellectuals, peace activists, military veterans and prominent Korean American community leaders, who reiterated the obligation and responsibility of the United States to bring about — or at least not impede — peace in the Korean Peninsula. Their voices are having an impact on the U.S. Congress, as evinced by resolutions such as H.R 1771 – Divided Families Reunification Act and H. R. 152 – Calling for a formal end of the Korean War. The DMZ Peace Chain stands in magnificent contrast to the Washington-dominated political narrative, in which 80 million Koreans seem to be considered at best incidental to a Korean peace process. Reconciliation and peace between the Korean people, and an end to the genocidal war that scarred their nation, is a gravely historic matter that should be for them to decide. It cannot and must not be reduced to a bargaining chip in the struggle for one-upmanship between U.S. Republicans and Democrats. It is high time that Koreans take their place at the center of the peace process. Let Koreans set themselves free. Dr. Simone Chun has taught at Northeastern University in Boston, and served as an associate in research at Harvard University’s Korea Institute. She is an active member of the Korea Peace Network, and a member of the steering committee of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea and a Korea Policy Institute Associate. She served as an international women’s delegation of peace to Korea organized by Women Cross DMZ and Nobel Women’s Initiative. Copyright © Truthout. Reprinted with permission. #DMZPeaceChain #peacetreaty #PanmunjeomDeclaration #SimoneChun #USDPRKSummit #WomenCrossDMZ

Members of Korea Peace Now! and South Korean Parliamentarians participate in a Hill briefing on March 12, 2019, to announce the launch of a global women-led campaign to end the Korean War. By Christine Ahn | May 23, 2019 Originally published in Truthout.org On Friday, when the news broke of North Korea’s missile test, two dominant myths immediately circulated in both mainstream and social media. One was that U.S. diplomacy with North Korea was failing, because North Korea had once again proved that it couldn’t be trusted to keep its promise. The other was that more pressure was needed to force North Korea’s denuclearization. But these narratives — which cut across partisan lines — fail to address an obvious fact: The U.S. policy of maximum pressure has not achieved its desired aim to denuclearize North Korea. To the contrary, U.S. policies of aggressive sanctions, military posturing and political isolation have only further emboldened the Kim regime to pursue nuclear weapons as a defense against U.S. regime change. As a recent U.N. study reveals, these types of aggressive policies are driving a devastating humanitarian disaster in North Korea. The Failure of U.S. Maximum Pressure Following North Korea’s Friday test, many were quick to chastise Trump and the limitations of his personal diplomacy with Kim. Instead of fixating on the failure of Trump’s diplomacy with Kim, we should point to the decades-long failed U.S. approach to force North Korea’s denuclearization, including Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, or its predecessor, Obama’s strategic patience. North Korea didn’t test missiles for over 400 days while engagement was underway with both Washington and Seoul. Weeks ahead of the Hanoi summit, U.S. Special Representative Stephen Biegun outlined the Trump administration’s pragmatic approach, a departure from his administration’s previous maximum pressure strategy, saying the president was “ready to end this war.” Yet in what can only be described as diplomatic whiplash, the talks in Hanoi collapsed because Trump revived Bolton’s Libyan Model, demanding that North Korea unilaterally disarm before improving relations between the two countries as promised under the Singapore Declaration, a clear nonstarter for Kim. Reuters verified that “U.S. President Donald Trump handed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a piece of paper that included a blunt call for the transfer of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States.” While the U.S. media was singularly obsessed with Pyongyang’s test, it failed to cover the Trump administration’s military provocations. Trump reneged on his promise to Kim in Singapore to cancel the war drills with South Korea: U.S.-R.O.K. joint military exercises are still underway. This time the military exercises involved the highly controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, which prompted North Korea to denounce as “destroy[ing[ peace and stability in the Korean peninsula.” On May 1, the United States tested an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile off the Vandenberg Air Force base in California. Context matters. Sanctions: War by Other Means The other narrative that cuts across partisan lines is that sanctions are succeeding in applying pressure on Kim who is feeling the domestic heat as the North Korean economy suffers. Also last Friday, the UN World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization released a joint report signaling the alarm that 40 percent of North Koreans — 10 million people — are in dire need of food aid following the worst harvest in a decade. Following the U.N. findings on the food crisis in North Korea, Washington analysts quickly pointed the finger at the Kim regime, which “spends obscenely on its military while its people starve.” U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions “are not intended to have adverse humanitarian consequences for the civilian population of the DPRK,” according to the 2017 UNSC Resolution 2375, particularly on economic activities and humanitarian assistance. However, the May 2019 U.N. report found that sanctions are in fact harming North Korea’s agricultural production, preventing the import of necessities like fuel, fertilizers, machinery and spare parts. In addition to impacting North Korea’s food production, sanctions are impacting the livelihoods of ordinary North Koreans, such as those working in fisheries and textiles. Sanctions specifically impact the garment industry because UNSC sanctions now ban the export of North Korean textiles. Who do we think works in those garment factories? Of the estimated hundreds of thousands of North Koreans employed in the textile industry, 98 percent are women. The international community has long known that sanctions are hampering humanitarian aid operations. In October 2017, the UN Humanitarian Resident Coordinator in Pyongyang cited 42 examples of direct and indirect occasions where sanctions have impeded and prevented humanitarian work inside the country. Yet in the U.S., across partisan lines, the humanitarian crisis in North Korea is solely placed on the government with no mention of the potential or actual impact of international sanctions. On CNN’s “State of the Union,” presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota criticized the administration’s lack of “a plan” or a “real negotiating tactic.” She suggested Trump “should listen to Otto Warmbier’s mother who said we should be upping sanctions.” Even progressive presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders told ABC News the North Koreans are a “threat to the planet” and that the right approach was more “pressure on North Korea.” Tim Shorrock, veteran Korea journalist at The Nation quickly offered Sanders a corrective on Twitter: “It’s not North Korea that’s a ‘threat to the planet.’ It’s the 70 year-old confrontation between the US and North Korea that’s the threat to the planet – not to mention Korea itself. The US has a responsibility here, sir. You know that talking to peace activists.” In fact, in March, I was among those peace activists when I traveled to Washington with the Korea Peace Now!, a global campaign of women mobilizing to end the Korean War. We organized a delegation of South Korean women parliamentarian and peace activists to meet with several U.S. Members of Congress, including Senator Sanders. During our meeting, Sanders seemed genuinely concerned about what can be done to address the stalemate with North Korea. The South Korean delegation, which included Lee Jae-Jung, the only woman on the Moon administration’s elite inter-Korean economic cooperation policy team, urged easing U.S. sanctions impeding progress between the two Koreas. Sanders also heard from Esther Lee, a North Korean defector, who talked at length of the counterproductive effect of sanctions on ordinary people in North Korea. “What will improve the ordinary North Korean people’s situation is more engagement with people from the outside world, not less,” Lee explained. After our visit, Sanders released this video and tweeted that a peace agreement is “the best path for American security and for the security of the region.” Though Sanders doesn’t currently have executive decision-making power, he can introduce the Senate version of a Congressional House Resolution calling for an end to the Korean War, H-Res 152, which now has dozens of sponsors including progressive champions, such as Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Pramila Jayapal and the first Korean-American Democrat, Andy Kim. Fortunately, after Friday’s missile test, the White House did not immediately jump into attack mode. After a 35-minute call on Tuesday between President Trump and South Korean President Moon on how to keep channels open with Kim Jong Un, Trump agreed to support South Korea’s food aid to the north, noting that such humanitarian assistance would be very timely and a positive step,” according to Seoul’s Blue House. What would be timely and positive is lifting some of the sanctions that are harming ordinary civilians, especially those impacting inter-Korean cooperation. Last month, South Korean farmers purchased 30 tractors to send to North Korean farmers in a show of their solidarity and to challenge the harsh sanctions. Five of them are now in Gwanghwamun Square near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul awaiting approval to cross the DMZ. The farmers are calling for the lifting of sanctions, which are impeding inter-Korean cooperation, such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex and tourism in Mt. Kumgang. In a statement released by the farmers, they said “it is the right of the Korean people to determine their own destiny, citing the Panmunjom Declaration,” the joint declaration signed by Moon and Kim on April 27, 2018. While Trump’s response to North Korea’s Friday test was measured, unless Trump can recognize the futility of maximum pressure, we may see a dangerous return to the era of “fire and fury.” In his April speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly, Kim Jong Un gave Washington until the end of 2019 to “quit its current calculation method and approach us with a new one.” The short-range test is a message to Trump: The clock has started. While there is no guarantee that North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons, it is more likely to do so if it no longer perceives a threat to its security, which Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed following his meeting with Kim last month in Vladivostok. Putin said that Kim was willing to disarm but needed international “security guarantees.” In other words, peace is key to achieving denuclearization. We should heed advice from two U.S. leaders who succeeded in freezing North Korea’s nuclear program, President Jimmy Carter and President Clinton’s former Defense Secretary William Perry. In his endorsement of Congressional Resolution H-Res 152, Carter said ending the Korean War is “the only way to ensure true security for both Korean and American people.” And Perry argues that “normalization is essential in achieving denuclearization. They go together hand in hand.” On April 27, on the anniversary of the first summit between Kim and Moon, 500,000 South Koreans and peace-loving friends in cities across the world held hands in a “DMZ Human Chain for Peace.” I traveled to Cheorwan, South Korea, and held hands with thousands who gathered in this city divided by the demilitarized zone (DMZ), while many of my colleagues joined hands with 200 people in New York City from the North Korean to South Korean Missions at the U.N. Ultimately, it will be the Korean people who will end the Korean War, but it will take all of our solidarity and pressure on the United States to negotiate a peace settlement with North Korea. Christine Ahn is the international coordinator of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Copyright © Truthout. Reprinted with permission. #Trump #MissileTests #KoreaPeace #Nuclearweapons #ChristineAhn #Armistice #Sanctions #USDPRKSummit

Photograph Source: White House – Public Domain By Gregory Elich | July 13, 2019 Originally published in Counterpunch.org Although widely derided by the Washington Establishment as an empty photo opportunity, the recent meeting between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un at Panmunjom produced an agreement to resume working-level talks in the near future. According to the North Korean news agency KCNA, the two leaders discussed stumbling blocks in improving relations and easing tensions, and agreed to work towards a “breakthrough in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in the bilateral relations.” The resumption of working-level talks comes as welcome relief after months of stalled progress since Trump pulled the plug on the Hanoi Summit due to North Korea’s failure to accede to the demand that it unilaterally disarm. At Hanoi, U.S. negotiators presented a plan that called for North Korea to denuclearize, while promising nothing in exchange. Nothing, that is, other than punishment in the form of “maximum pressure” sanctions. All that was on offer to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, the official name for North Korea) was the vague mention of unspecified economic benefits after it had fully denuclearized. In addition to denuclearization, the U.S. side widened the scope of talks at Hanoi by delivering a document to the North Koreans that demanded the dismantlement of chemical and biological warfare programs, as well as ballistic missiles and facilities. U.S. negotiators also wanted a detailed accounting of nuclear facilities, subject to intrusive U.S. inspections. For the North Koreans, to implement such a proposal would allow inspectors to map the bombing coordinates of its nuclear facilities, an obvious non-starter when the U.S. has yet to provide any semblance of a security guarantee. In essence, what the U.S. offered at Hanoi was the Libya Model of denuclearization, in which obligations are loaded solely on its negotiating partner. That is not an approach that is going to work with North Korea, as among other reasons, its nuclear program is far more advanced than was the case with Libya’s. The DPRK has something substantial to trade, and it is not going to relinquish it for free. The sanctions against the DPRK are designed to strangle its economy. The North Koreans regard sanctions relief as an essential element in the trade-off for denuclearization. The fate of small nations that the United States has attacked, such as Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, did not go unnoticed in the DPRK. Those object lessons led the North Koreans to draw the logical conclusion that the only way for a small targeted nation to ensure its survival would be to develop a nuclear deterrent. There has been much talk in the U.S. media about the Trump administration’s apparent intent to adopt a more flexible approach to negotiations. This has resulted in much hand-wringing among the Washington Establishment, panicked over a potential reduction in tensions, which it fears could have knock-on effects in sales of military hardware to Asian allies like South Korea and Japan. New pretexts would need to be developed to explain the military buildup in the Asia-Pacific that is aimed at China. How real is this new flexibility? In a widely misread report in the New York Times, it is suggested that Trump may “settle” for a nuclear freeze, leaving the DPRK as a nuclear power. A careful reading of the article indicates, however, that the Trump administration does not envision a nuclear freeze as an end state, but rather as a “foundation for a new round of negotiations.” Talks “would begin with a significant – but limited – first step.” From there, U.S. negotiators would seek to persuade Kim to expand the range of nuclear facilities that would be dismantled. On Trump’s return flight from South Korea, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun talked about U.S. plans for the next summit between Trump and Kim. Biegun said that the U.S. wanted a complete freeze on the DPRK’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs while negotiations are underway. This is not different than what was stated in the New York Times report, leaving aside the misleading use of the word “settle” and the fretful comments the Times quoted from Establishment analysts. Biegun’s choice of words is significant: ‘WMD,’ rather than ‘nuclear.’ John Bolton’s insistence on including chemical and biological weapons programs in any negotiated settlement remains very much to the fore. North Korea denies having any such operations and U.S. belief in their existence is predicated primarily on supposition, backed by weak and inconclusive indications. If the DPRK does not have a chemical or biological weapons program, then it cannot freeze what it does not have, and it cannot provide details on programs that remain a fantasy in the minds of Washington. It requires little imagination to anticipate how hawks in the Trump administration would seize upon North Korean denials as a means of sabotaging negotiations. Whether North Korea has chemical and biological programs or not, it is likely to have misgivings about the United States adding demands while at the same time offering no concessions. When Libya denuclearized, it too faced an ever-expanding array of conditions, including visits by John Bolton and other U.S. officials, telling it how to vote at the United Nations and ordering it to cut military ties with Syria, Iran, and North Korea. It is notable that at no time has any U.S. official mentioned what kind of security guarantee it could offer to the DPRK. Given the record of U.S. militarism in recent decades, it is difficult to conceive of any assurance the U.S. would provide that could be trusted. Whatever the U.S. may offer will need to be supplemented, and protection will have to come from elsewhere. Chinese President Xi Jinping alluded to the same during his recent visit to Pyongyang, when he stated, “China will take an active role in resolving North Korea’s security concerns.” In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced that security guarantees are an “absolutely mandatory” component of any negotiated agreement with the DPRK. “Russia and China are prepared to work on such guarantees,” he added. In his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on May 14, Lavrov stressed the importance of providing security guarantees to the DPRK, but all Pompeo wanted to talk about was hitting North Korea as hard as possible with sanctions, without letup. Much has been made of Stephen Biegun’s claim that the United States plans on a more flexible “simultaneous and parallel” approach to negotiations. When examined, there is less change than many suppose. Biegun is in line with the rest of the Trump administration, emphasizing that “in the abstract, we have no interest in sanctions relief before denuclearization.” Since sanctions relief and security guarantees are off the negotiating table as far as U.S. officials are concerned, what are they ready to offer? According to Biegun, flexibility means the U.S. would consider agreeing to the two nations opening liaison offices in each other’s capitals, permitting some people-to-people talks, and humanitarian aid. That last point may mean that the United States would consider stopping its efforts to block humanitarian assistance. Or it could indicate a willingness by the U.S. to directly provide a token amount of aid while continuing to shut down independent aid operations in the DPRK. To the North Koreans, this “flexibility” is a distinction without a difference. It remains the Libya Model. As such, it is a recipe for failure if the U.S. rigidly adheres to this strategy. Complicating matters further is the rider the U.S. Senate attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. If the rider makes it into the House version, then once the defense budget is signed into law, it would mandate secondary sanctions on any financial institution that does business with the DPRK. Current sanctions leave it to the discretion of the Treasury Department as to which firms to sanction. The Senate bill aims to cut off the North Korean economy from what little international trade it still has after sanctions, so as to inflict further harm on the population. Certainly, this also signals the Senate’s opposition to any negotiated settlement. The North Koreans need two things in exchange for denuclearization: the lifting of sanctions and a security guarantee. What that security guarantee would look like is difficult to discern. A piece of paper is not going to do it. The DPRK needs a reliable means of assuring its security if it is going to denuclearize. Across the entire U.S. Establishment, both within and outside the Trump administration, there is an unwavering belief that every action the DPRK takes towards denuclearization should be rewarded with “maximum pressure” sanctions. It is a curious notion, this expectation that nothing need be offered to North Korea in exchange for meeting U.S. demands. Odder still is the conviction that the DPRK ought to be satisfied with being tormented by crippling sanctions for each concession it makes. But then, imperialism and arrogance go hand-in-hand. There is no reason, however, to expect the North Koreans to be servile. “North Korea wants actions, not words,” observes Christopher Green of the International Crisis Group. “I’m not sure the U.S. is mentally ready for it, even now.” Whether or not North Korea denuclearizes depends entirely on the United States. If the Trump administration believes it can bully the DPRK into unilateral disarmament, then it is sadly mistaken. If on the other hand, it eventually comes to recognize that the only way to achieve its objective is to offer some measure of reciprocity, then denuclearization becomes an achievable goal. At this point, there is little indication that the U.S. is prepared to move beyond the former position. Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific. His website is https://gregoryelich.org  Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich. #Trump #DPRK #GregoryElich #Nuclearweapons #USDPRKSummit #NorthKorea

Sanders-021507-18335- 0004 By Tim Shorrock | July 29, 2019 Originally published in the Nation.com Led by former vice president Joe Biden, the leading Democratic candidates for president in 2020 have focused on President Trump’s friendly (though presently shaky) relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un as a prime example of a foreign policy that’s gone off the establishment tracks and left traditional US allies in the dust. With their next televised debate set for next week, Biden and most of his competitors hope to convince voters—especially those who voted Republican in 2016—that Trump’s personalized style of US power projection presents an existential danger not only to the United States but als0 to its friends around the world. “We need allies,” Biden told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on July 5, five days after Trump revived his once-stalled negotiations with Kim in a historic meeting on the North Korean side of the demilitarized zone arranged with the support of South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Yet Trump “is absolutely dissing them,” the Democratic front-runner continued, and is instead “embracing thugs. He’s embracing Kim Jong-un, who is a thug.” Even as Trump and Kim announced at the DMZ that their new negotiating teams would soon begin a new round of talks, Biden continued his line of attack, declaring on Twitter and in the CNN interview that the conversation at the border was merely a “photo op” that “gave Kim everything that he wanted: legitimacy.” Since then, of course, those talks have been delayed by continued disputes between Washington and Pyongyang, most lately about an upcoming series of US–South Korean military exercises and the North’s latest test, on Wednesday, of two short-range missiles. Yet, given all that’s happened in Korea over the past 18 months, it’s hard to see how Biden’s tough line toward Kim—or a return to the confrontational days of 2017, when all-out war seemed a distinct possibility—could win over the swing voters the Democrats need to defeat Trump. On most issues, particularly immigration, the president’s racist stands and outrageous tweets give the party plenty of ammunition, no manner who the nominee is. But on Korea and Kim, not so much. Since the first Trump-Kim summit, in June 2018, North Korea has refrained from testing any long-range strategic weapons, and the United States and South Korea has stopped the massive military exercises that so angered the North in years past (the ones coming up in August will be much smaller). And despite an onslaught of media stories about North Korea’s still-formidable military capabilities, the two Koreas have taken advantage of the first major diplomatic opening since the early 2000s to make enormous strides in scaling down tensions on the border, including destroying dozens of front-line guard posts and getting rid of mines. “If Biden tries to make North Korea a campaign issue and tries to say that Trump is appeasing the Kim regime, he is wasting his time,” said Harry Kazianis, a prominent conservative and senior director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest, a think tank founded by former president Richard Nixon. “The 2020 election will come down to economics, not nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula,” he told The Nation in an interview. Still, Biden’s competitors have kept up the political offensive. At the first Democratic debate, on June 27, Senator Kamala Harris called North Korea “a real threat in terms of its nuclear arsenal” and said Trump “embraces” Kim, “a dictator, for the sake of a photo op.” Senator Elizabeth Warren continued the attack in a tweet a few days later, saying that instead of “squandering American influence on photo ops,” the United States “should be dealing with North Korea through principled diplomacy that promotes US security, defends our allies, and upholds human rights.” Senator Bernie Sanders, in contrast, has been more nuanced. “I have no problem with [Trump’s] sitting down with Kim Jong-un,” he told ABC’s This Week. But in his view, he said, Trump has badly damaged the State Department and its ability to manage foreign affairs. “We need to move forward diplomatically, not just do photo opportunities,” he added. It’s a close race for the Democratic nomination: In a poll released July 19 by NBC News, Biden led the pack with 25 percent, with Sanders and Warren holding steady at 16 percent and Harris just behind at 14 percent. This week, a CBS poll had it even closer, with Biden still at 25 percent, but with Warren at 20, Harris at 16 and Sanders at 15. The next three—Pete Buttigieg, Beto O’Rourke, and Julián Castro—came in at 6, 4, and 2 percent, respectively. A total of 20 candidates will square off next Tuesday and Wednesday on CNN. When it comes to foreign policy, Biden has been by far the most outspoken. He outlined his philosophy in a major speech on July 11, in which he castigated Trump as an “extreme” threat to US national security and again criticized his “cozy” relationship with Kim. (Writing in The Washington Post, neocon columnist Josh Rogin said that Biden views the 2020 election “as the last chance to save what’s left of the United States’ moral and international credibility and respect.”) But the former vice president’s alternative policy on Korea, spelled out in his earlier interview with Cuomo on CNN, was a throwback to his days in the Obama administration, which (contrary to a ludicrous claim by Trump at the DMZ) rejected the idea of direct talks with North Korea unless Pyongyang gave up its nuclear weapons first. Trump, Biden told CNN, “ended our relationship, as a practical matter, with South Korea and Japan as a united front and let China off the hook.” He accused Kim of doing nothing in return. “And what have we done? We’ve suspended exercises.” Asked what he’d do differently, Biden offered a taste of the militarism that Trump tried in 2017. “I make it clear that we’re going to move our defenses up, as we did before, and we’re going to make sure we have the capacity to deal with it near term. I’m going to let South Korea and Japan know we’re there for them. We are their nuclear umbrella. We’re there for them. And China understands, if you don’t want us in your throat here, if you don’t want us in your face, do something.” Biden’s approach reflects a basic misunderstanding of the peace process in Korea. His overwhelming focus on Trump’s relationship with Kim—shared by the other candidates—obscures Korea’s agency in the peace process and the real issues at stake for Washington, Seoul, and Pyongyang. “This is a rare moment in history where US and Korean interests are aligned,”said Hyun Lee, US national organizer for Women Cross DMZ and the Korea Peace Treaty Campaign, in a talk in Washington on July 16. In a discussion at the Center for International Policy, Lee identified the “greater motivating factors” behind the US talks with North and South Korea as Trump’s need to show a win before the 2020 election; Kim’s need to lift sanctions as part of his drive to improve North Korea’s beleaguered economy; and Moon’s need to make progress in inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation before his own term is up in 2022. The organizations she works with, Lee added, are working in Washington and in Congress “to create a political space in DC to prepare for peace in Korea.” Any discussion of the peace process, in fact, must begin in South Korea. The talks between Trump and Kim only came about because of the encouragement of President Moon, who began the current wave of diplomacy in January 2018 when he invited Kim to send emissaries to the Winter Olympics in the South. Even Shinzo Abe, Japan’s right-wing prime minister and Trump’s closest ally in Asia, has jumped on the bandwagon, offering his own direct talks with Kim (he’s also now embroiled in a bitter economic and diplomatic dispute with Moon over Japan’s World War II–era conscription of Korean laborers). Biden’s emphasis on the nuclear umbrella—under which the United States has pledged to defend non-nuclear South Korea and Japan with its own weapons—also shows an appalling lack of understanding about the North and its motives. Those weapons, which are carried on US ships and planes in the Pacific region, are part of the arsenal that Kim Jong-un would like to see directed elsewhere, and they explain why he has insisted on the wording “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” in any joint statements with Trump. It’s also a key issue for South Korean peace activists. “There’s been a lack of discussion about what South Korea and the US should give up to help North Korea give up its nuclear weapons,” Tae-ho Lee, an activist with People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, one of the largest and most influential NGOs in South Korea, said during a recent visit to Washington. “Security assurances to North Korea are impossible without removal of the nuclear umbrella.” He also said the combination of the US and South Korean militaries, linked in an alliance since 1954, are an “overwhelming power.” For the past 30 years, he pointed out, South Korea’s military spending alone has been higher than North Korea’s entire GDP. Sanders, alone among the Democratic candidates, has been paying attention to and meeting with peace activists and has incorporated into his platform some of their ideas for engagement. He recently used a campaign video that featured an interview with Christine Ahn, executive director of Women Cross DMZ, to argue that Trump’s insistence on tough sanctions until an agreement is reached is threatening progress. “Peace is the best path for American security,” he says. Sanders’s stance is winning support from other progressives within Democratic ranks, such as Representative Ro Khanna of California, a Sanders backer who was the primary author of a bill that passed the full House on July 11 calling for a “binding peace agreement” to bring a formal end to the Korean War. Khanna’s bill, an amendment to a National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020, marked the first time that Congress had taken a stand on ending the 70-year-old war. The vote was the result of intense lobbying by an array of peace groups, including Ploughshares, Win Without War, and Peace Action. In a statement, Ahn called the vote on the Khanna amendment a “game-changer.” She added: “It’s a clear sign that the American people want an end to the oldest U.S. conflict, and that ending decades of hostilities with a peace agreement is the only way to resolve the nuclear crisis.” In a sign that civil society groups may be having an impact on the Trump administration, Ahn and Hyun Lee recently met with Stephen Biegun, Trump’s chief negotiator, to discuss the prospects for peace. In the weeks after Trump’s meeting with Kim at the DMZ, close analysts of the Korea situation, and the South Korean officials who have been in discussion with the White House, predicted that the next step in US–North Korean talks will involve North Korea’s giving up a major chunk of its nuclear program in return for a partial lifting of US and UN sanctions that are crippling the most vulnerable parts of the North’s economy. That would move both sides past the disastrous summit in Hanoi in late February, when Trump walked out after unsuccessfully pressing Kim to accept a deal that would have involved the North giving up its entire weapons program before obtaining any sanctions relief whatsoever. This was seen in Pyongyang as a demand for surrender or capitulation—something they have said they will never do. Biegun expressed the new US flexibility a day before Trump’s meeting at the DMZ, when he informed his South Korea counterpart, Lee Do-hoon, that the US government was prepared to move the US–North Korean negotiations forward “simultaneously and in a parallel” manner. Biegun, whose role was eclipsed in Hanoi by John Bolton, Trump’s hardline national security adviser, added in a speech to the conservative Atlantic Council on June 19 that “the door is wide open” for negotiations, and said he and his North Korean partner were committed to “regain our momentum” by returning to the basic areas of agreement—including establishing new US–North Korean political relations and building a “lasting and stable peace regime”—that came out of the first summit in Singapore in June 2018. Bolton, as many observers noted, was nowhere to be seen at Trump’s meeting at the DMZ. Despite Biegun’s signaling and Trump’s insistence that he’s in “no hurry” to get an agreement, North Korea recently complained about new, albeit small, US military exercises with South Korea, and said they make it hard to trust the United States. In statements carried on its official news agency, KCNA, the North Korean foreign ministry said the upcoming “19-2 Dong Maeng (Alliance)” drills scheduled for August are “clearly a breach of the main spirit” of the June 12 statement in Singapore, where Trump canceled large-scale military drills and—to the shock of many—called them “provocative.” Underscoring its concerns, on Monday KCNA broadcast photographs of Kim examining a new submarine that experts cited by The Wall Street Journal “believe could carry multiple missiles, including those with nuclear capabilities.” And then came this week’s launch of what South Korea called a “new kind of short-range ballistic missile,” one that is similar to two projectiles fired last May. North Korea, in a KCNA dispatch, said the test was a message to South Korean “warmongers who are running high fever in their moves to introduce the ultramodern offensive weapons into South Korea and hold military exercise in defiance of the repeated warnings from” the North. Recently, the South began deploying the first of 40 F-35A advanced fighter jets made by Lockheed Martin. The North Korean statements and actions alarmed Kazianis, of the Center for the National Interest. “If the situation remains unaddressed” and US and North Korean diplomats can’t return to “dialogue and compromise…we could very well go back to the days of North Korean nuclear testing, ICBM launches, and President Trump calling out ‘little rocket man,’” he warned Monday in The American Conservative. Yet even after Pyongyang’s angry statements, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has assured reporters that a new round of talks will start soon. On Tuesday, he said the United States is prepared to “provide a set of security arrangements” that would guarantee to North Koreans that “if they disband their nuclear program,” the United States “won’t attack them.” The next round of negotiations, he added, “will begin in a couple of weeks.” Later, he downplayed the latest test, telling reporters that “lots of countries posture before they come to the table.” Still, if personalities matter, Biden is unlikely to shake his disdain for Kim and the North Koreans. Last May, responding to Biden’s initial criticisms of Trump’s relationship with Kim, KCNA called him “reckless and senseless, seized by ambition for power.” In an echo of its denunciation of Trump in 2017 as a “dotard,” KCNA said that what Biden uttered “is just sophism of an imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being, let alone a politician.” If the Democrats are smart, they will realize that words like that, like North Korea’s latest missile salvos, are often a prelude—even an invitation—to dialogue. Tim Shorrock is a Washington, DC–based journalist and the author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing and a Korea Policy Institute Associate. #KimJongUn #BernieSanders #USForeignPolicy #Nuclearweapons #TimShorrock #Democraticcandidates #NorthKorea

Korean Americans in NY march for peace, and reunification of Korea. By Minju Bae and Ju-Hyun Park | September 21, 2019 Originally published in Truthout.org On September 11, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a screenshot of CNN’s headline ticker and highlighted “Trump Sides with Kim Jong Un,” assessing “That’s it. That’s the headline.” She continued, “Obviously [Former National Security Advisor John] Bolton leaving is good — it was an enormous mistake to appoint him in the first place. One doesn’t need to boost authoritarians to make the point.” And then, two minutes later, Rep. Ilhan Omar retweeted Ocasio-Cortez, “Trump sides with yet another dictator.” To their credit, both congresswomen voted for House Resolution 152 (introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna) earlier this year, which calls for the formal end to the Korean War. However, it was disappointing but unsurprising to watch two of the most progressive members of Congress discuss Korea in this light. After all, the sentiments that Representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Omar expressed are common among Democrats writ large. In the Democratic debate on September 12, presidential candidates Julián Castro and Sen. Kamala Harris made similar points. The problem with reflexively dismissing U.S. diplomatic engagement with North Korea is that it depends on a narrative that is disconnected from facts. For more than 70 years, Koreans have lived with division and the horrific consequences of war. The last two years of Korean-led intergovernmental cooperation have laid the groundwork toward peace and reunification. U.S. progressives ought to be supportive of that process — it’s their obligation to history and morality. The origins of the Korean War are directly linked to the surrender of Japan in World War II, which ended two generations of violent colonial rule in Korea. The movement for Korean liberation was just as long. Liberation activists quickly organized a unified, democratically established government called the Korean People’s Republic (KPR) under the leadership of lifelong liberation activist Yeo Un-hyeong. But just weeks after Japan’s surrender in 1945, the U.S. military began to occupy southern Korea and outlawed the nascent KPR, establishing a military government staffed by many former Japanese colonial officials. Koreans resisted U.S. occupation in numerous uprisings. U.S. and pro-U.S. forces responded with retaliatory massacres. In 1948, the U.S. military — in collusion with the newly formed United Nations — installed the conservative, pro-U.S. Republic of Korea (ROK) through a sham election. One of the first acts of the U.S.-installed “democracy” was to suppress an uprising on the island of Jeju by slaughtering tens of thousands of people. It was only after the ROK’s formation that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly known as North Korea, was founded. Since then, the U.S. has done everything in its power to destroy the DPRK, from carpet bombing more than 90 percent of the country from 1950-1953, to modern-day bipartisan economic sanctions, which deprive North Koreans of life-saving necessities like fuel, medicine and access to international trade for their livelihoods. As part of its decades-long war against North Korea, the U.S. aided and abetted South Korean dictators Rhee Syngman, Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan in brutally crushing reunification and democratization movements, like the Gwangju Uprising of 1980. The U.S. and South Korean militaries also collaborated in creating systems of institutionalized sexual assault of Korean and migrant women, including medical torture and forced sterilization of sex workers who serviced U.S. military personnel. Decades of worker, student and rural organizing eventually made South Korea a democracy in the 1990s, but the U.S. military occupation continues. It’s no wonder the dead — our dead — never make it into the U.S. narrative of freedom and democracy. This narrative attempts to justify U.S. militarism in the Pacific as it disciplines an inherently untrustworthy and illegitimate regime. Five million people died in the Korean War, and it’s hard to say how many more have been killed (and are still being killed) by U.S. policies since. This is the status quo Democrats uphold when they diminish the complexity of contemporary Korean politics to a false binary of siding with or not siding with “a dictator.” What about denuclearization? What about human rights? And indeed, what about them? The U.S. has no moral authority to enforce denuclearization or human rights on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. has bombed civilian targets in Korea and installed nuclear missiles in the south. It still has the largest nuclear arsenal of any nation on Earth and has military infrastructure, including missile sites, throughout the Pacific. Americans cannot be moral and political arbiters for places they do not live in and people they do not know. The greatest threat to human rights in Korea isn’t reunification; it’s the war, which the U.S. must end. The Trump administration may entertain direct talks with North Korea. But the same administration also blocked joint economic projects like the inter-Korean railway and refused to end sanctions as a precondition to an eventual peace treaty. Progressives can do better by pushing to end sanctions and sign a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. That’s the choice the U.S. faces: cooperate with the peace process in full, or perpetuate a forever war that exacts a bloody toll on both sides of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. In spite of everything, Koreans have created resilient communities throughout the peninsula. Whether in North Korea, South Korea, or elsewhere, we have cared for each other, shaped our own destinies amid extraordinary violence and most importantly, survived. And for decades, we’ve built across borders toward reunification. A just and lasting peace is possible in Korea but only if we build it ourselves, not on the U.S.’s terms. For Koreans around the globe, Friday’s full moon marked the beginning of Chuseok. Some have characterized Chuseok as the “Korean Thanksgiving.” This is inaccurate. Unlike Thanksgiving, Chuseok is not a celebration of genocide. Instead, it is a holiday for family reunion, communion with our ancestors, and commemoration of our past, present and future. For Koreans with separated families, it is a time to mourn our separation. May this be the last Chuseok that this is the case. Copyright Truthout.org.  Reprinted with permission. Minju Bae is an activist, scholar and educator. Her work examines Asian and American diasporas and histories. Minju is a member of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development. Follow her on Twitter: @mnj_b. Ju-Hyun Park is a genderqueer writer of the Korean diaspora. Their work has previously appeared in The Fader and Public Radio International. Ju-Hyun is a member of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development. Follow them on Twitter: @hermit_hwarang. #elections #KoreaPeace #DPRK #KoreanWar #NorthKorea