Search Results

July 27th marks the 56th anniversary of the United States’ temporary armistice with North Korea. On this day, people in five cities across the U.S.—Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York City, Oakland, and Washington, DC—held candlelight vigils to commemorate the signing of the armistice. In 1953, the armistice provided a stopgap measure to halt the fighting. Although it was only temporary, it was significant. For, within three years, two million soldiers, including 37,000 U.S. troops, had been killed. Three million Korean civilians – or 1 out of 10 – had died, and the entire Korean peninsula had been decimated. Yet, without an official peace treaty or permanent resolution, the Korean War is not over. Nor has it been relegated quietly to the dustbins of history. Although the Korean War is currently overshadowed by more high profile conflicts, particularly in the Middle East, the fact that it lacks formal resolution has had no small bearing on the ongoing tenuous state of U.S.-Korean relations. This spring, a broad coalition of multiple generations of Korean-Americans, American veterans of the Korean War, and peace, justice and human rights groups came together to form the National Campaign to End the Korean War. This coalition organized these events not only to honor those nameless spirits who died 56 years ago, but also to wake us from our dangerous dream that all is well. As Professor Hazel Smith recently warned, the U.S. government is once more, “sleepwalking to war” with North Korea. Earlier this year, in a matter of weeks, North Korea launched several missiles, conducted its second nuclear test and declared that the armistice was no longer in effect and that it would consider sanctions by the United Nations to be an act of war. In response, the UN Security Council passed a new round of sanctions against North Korea. These sanctions also authorized other nations to stop and search North Korean seafaring vessels for nuclear weapons material—a decision North Korea claimed was tantamount to a declaration of war. And for days, the U.S. military deployed the U.S.S John McCain on high seas chase of North Korea’s Kang Nam ship that headed towards Singapore. Meanwhile, after President Obama met with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak in June 2009, he issued these threats: “There’s been a pattern in the past where North Korea behaves in a belligerent fashion, and if it waits long enough is then rewarded with foodstuffs and fuel and concessionary loans and a whole range of benefits. And I think that’s the pattern that they’ve come to expect. The message we’re sending — and when I say “we,” not simply the United States and the Republic of Korea, but I think the international community — is we are going to break that pattern.” In other words, North Korea is the problem here and needs to be restrained by punishing its people who are already struggling with the basics of food, medicine and electricity. For many watching tensions escalate between the U.S. and North Korea brought to mind the last time we were close to a full-scale war with North Korea. In 1993, the Clinton administration stood ready to bomb North Korea for maintaining its alleged nuclear program. Fortunately, this plan was subverted by Jimmy Carter’s swift diplomacy (and the backchannel organizing of Korean-American elders), when he flew into North Korea with a CNN crew and subsequently struck a deal with Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang, a process which later yielded the Agreed Framework. What is less known is that then South Korea President Kim Young Sam, when informed by Clinton of U.S. plans to strike, declared that he would not allow a war on the Korean peninsula during his tenure. Today, South Korea is ruled by President Lee Myung Bak, a neoconservative who not only joined the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism Proliferation Security Initiative but who also managed to reverse the significant progress made towards reconciliation and reunification over the past decade. North Koreans are weary and wary of U.S. denuclearization deals, having waded patiently through lengthy negotiations first with Bill Clinton and then with George W. Bush, only to have promising outcomes scuttled by hawkish neoconservatives within each administration. Most American policymakers and media pundits loyally insist that it is the North Koreans who haven’t upheld their part of the bargain, but many Korea experts, including Selig Harrison and Mike Chinoy, have documented play by play how it has been the United States that first reneges on its end of the deal which naturally causes North Korea to follow suit. The general consensus in the United States is that North Korea cannot be trusted, but as Joe Cirincione of Ploughshares Fund recently pointed out, “In September 2005 when North Korea agreed to the de-nuclearization process, the next day another part of the [U.S.] government was slapping sanctions on their bank accounts. The North Koreans were understandably upset, outraged and they pulled out of the deal. We stopped our fuel shipments; the whole thing spiraled out of control.” Furthermore, just where are the two light water reactors promised to North Korea in 1994? False promises by previous U.S. administrations have eroded the North Korean public’s trust in those North Korean officials who do support continued diplomatic engagement with the U.S. Furthermore, an increasing loss of confidence in the political process only further emboldens their hardline counterparts, who argue that North Korea’s nuclear weapons are its best defense. If we look at Iraq, in many ways, perhaps they have been right. During his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to sit down and talk with Kim Jong Il. He inaugurated his presidency with an offer to “extend a hand” so long as those “on the wrong side of history” would “unclench [their] fist.” Yet, thus far, the Obama policy on North Korea has punitively continued to emphasize sanctions and repeat many exhausted tropes about North Korea, many of which are blatantly untrue. Unfortunately, President Obama seems reluctant to learn from the lessons that Clinton and Bush learned the hard way—that refusing to engage North Korea produces negative consequences, such as a nuclear North Korea. Add to this scenario an ailing Kim Jong Il, coupled with distorted intelligence from pro-war forces in South Korea, Japan and the United States—and a very dangerous situation is indeed afoot on the peninsula. In 1949, on the cusp of the Korean War, veteran American journalist Anna Louise Strong wrote, “In days to come, Korea will continue to supply headlines. Yet there is little public knowledge about the country and most of the headlines distort rather than reveal the facts.” Strong couldn’t have been more prescient, and thankfully the one to document the distortion was none other than the scrupulous journalist I.F. Stone. I just finished reading “The Hidden History of the Korean War,” which he was finally able to publish in 1952 through the Monthly Review, as no mainstream publisher in the U.S. or the UK was willing to risk disseminating his views during the height of the McCarthy era. In 1952, the publishers of the book explained, “This book, by the distinguished journalist, I.F. Stone, paints a very different picture of the Korean War—one, in fact, which is at variance with the official version at almost every point. The reader will, regardless of his inclinations or intentions, find over and over again that he is forced to compare what he has been so often told about the Korean War with the facts and interpretations presented by Stone. More than that, he will find that he is forced to choose, to accept one version and discard the other, for the two are contradictory and irreconcilable.” Fifty-seven years later, current U.S. intelligence on North Korea remains hopelessly dated. The major media outlets continue to perpetuate the same narratives upheld by the Truman administration, and the true underlying motivations that drive the ongoing, sixty-plus-year U.S. occupation of Korea remain obscure and grossly distorted. Most Americans who consider themselves somewhat knowledgeable about the Korean War believe that the U.S. first landed in Korea in 1950 to “liberate” South Korea from a North Korean invasion and that Korea was divided along the 38th parallel after the fighting ceased. Yet it was the U.S. government that actually authored the division of Korea along the 38th parallel, years before war had officially been declared. Then War Department officer Dean Rusk drew a line across the 38th parallel, thus keeping Seoul under the control of the United States and the north under the Soviets. As Korea historian Bruce Cumings has noted, the Soviets consented tacitly, but Stalin never signed or made an official verbal agreement; his acceptance was just de facto. And the U.S. didn’t consult anyone in this decision, certainly not the Korean people. Following Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, the U.S. landed in Incheon and for the next three years installed a military government and put into power an elite cadre of Korean administrators who had gained their political and military experience during the Japanese colonial period. Imagine the millions of Koreans who had organized peoples’ committees and fought for their independence—only to be “liberated” by the United States, which immediately replaced their Japanese oppressors with Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese! But the tragedy continued. The Korean War, known in the United States as the “Forgotten War,” was characterized by military experts for its “scorched-earth” policy, essentially a three-year fire-bombing campaign. In Pyongyang, a city of 400,000 people in 1950, approximately 420,000 U.S. bombs were dropped—more than one per resident. Not only were more bombs dropped on Korea than on Europe during World War II, but more napalm was used there than during the Vietnam War. At one point, President Truman even seriously considered dropping an atomic bomb on North Korea. There are numerous important passages in I.F. Stone’s The Hidden History, but here are two that are relevant to capturing the mindset of that period, especially from the West. “On June 25, 1951, Major General Emmett O’Donnell Jr., commander of the Far Eastern Air Force Bomber Command, testified to the Senate: ‘I would say that the entire, almost the entire Korean peninsula is just a terrible mess. Everything is destroyed. There is nothing standing worthy of the name… There were no more targets in Korea.'” “Were UN and U.S. forces more appreciative of the plight of their South Korean charges, those whom they were ostensibly fighting to liberate? In its 1951 edition, Brassey’s Annual: The Armed Forces Yearbook, the authoritative British military publication, has this to say: ‘The war was fought without regard for the South Koreans, and their unfortunate country was regarded as an arena rather than a country to be liberated. As a consequence, fighting was quite ruthless, and it is no exaggeration to state that South Korea no longer exists as a country. Its towns have been destroyed, much of its means of livelihood eradicated, and its few people reduced to a sullen mass dependent upon charity… Few attempts were made to explain to the American soldier why he was fighting… The national hatred and fear of Communism was sufficient in most cases to inflame him with a rather indiscriminate belligerence… It failed however to bring about any kind of sympathy for South Koreans, except, of course, in the thousand and one little kindnesses troops offer to children and lost dogs… The South Korean, unfortunately, was regarded as a ‘gook,’ like his cousins north of the 38th parallel.'” I.F. Stone’s Hidden History well-documents the fabrication of lies by Macarthur and Truman, the media’s wholesale collusion in perpetrating these lies, the fact that peace was thwarted at every turn by rabid anti-Communist hawks, and the blatant disregard for Korean lives by the American government. Now it is easier to understand why the Korean War is known as the Forgotten War. The U.S. legacy on the Korean peninsula is a shameful one, and as more and more contravening testimony emerges, it is the clear that the U.S. government prefers to keep the truth under wraps. Fifty-six years have now passed since the signing of the Korean War armistice. For 60 years, the U.S. has had some 30,000 troops on the Korean peninsula. And over the past twenty years, South Korea has become a more democratic society, fostering an outpouring of new research, which gives us a much deeper understanding of the role of the U.S. in Korea. Yet, in 2009, discerning American citizens are still expected to uncritically accept the “official,” fabricated narrative of Korea’s liberation. There are some days when I question why I continue to work for the peaceful reunification of Korea, and I imagine countless Koreans feel the same way. Reading the mainstream media’s interpretation of Korean affairs can easily lead us to feel quite depressed about any prospects for truth or reconciliation. Working to disavow the “official” U.S. government history in favor of the peoples’ history often feels like wrestling with an 8,000-pound gorilla. But, for most of my adult life, I have committed to work for some semblance of social justice, in the U.S. as well as beyond its borders. And no social movement I have participated in has inspired me more than the Korean people’s desire for peace, for justice, for healing and for the right to determine their own destinies. I think about the villagers of Pyongtaek—halmonis and haddabugees, simple farmers who used their bodies to defend their homes and land from being demolished to accommodate the expansion of a U.S. military base. I think of the elderly repatriated political prisoners I met in North Korea who spent up to 40 years in South Korean prisons, tortured daily and exiled by their families, who held onto their convictions about Korea’s right to sovereignty. I think about the movement in South Korea, millions who struggled onwards for democracy under the heavy repression of decades of dictatorship with the backing of the United States. I think of the families from Nogunri, Cheju-do and countless other massacre sites before and during the Korean War—who, despite all the pressures to remain silent—have courageously spoken out about South Korean and U.S. military involvement in the massacres. And despite the sadness I often feel at how marginalized the Korean people’s history has become here in the United States, I also realize how incredible it is that, despite all the propaganda, the Cold War mentality that my family carried with them when they left South Korea during the Park Chung-hee era, and the daily dose of misinformation we get from U.S. media, I have learned the people’s history of Korea. I am keenly aware that the process of uncovering, hearing, absorbing and speaking truth to power requires tremendous work. It requires conscious dedication to studying, learning and asking hard questions while keeping an open mind and heart. It requires tremendous courage in the face of being intimidated, red-baited, attacked, and perhaps isolated from our families. It takes even more courage to be willing to write and speak publicly about this truth. But as many can attest, once we know the truth, we cannot turn our back on it. We have been endowed with the responsibility to do all we can to contribute to the healing. And each one of us who understands this true peoples’ history of the U.S. occupation of Korea bears a responsibility to take immediate action. Over 10 million families still remain divided, and millions of elders will soon pass away without ever uniting with their siblings. All three governments (U.S., South and North Korea) are wasting billions of dollars on further militarizing the de-militarized zone, a pristine area now saturated with 1.2 million landmines. Millions of North Koreans live without electricity and struggle daily to obtain basic food and medical care. Thousands of North Korean migrants—predominantly women—are incredibly vulnerable to the exploitation awaiting them in their journey in search of food and work. Today, South Korean movements for the rights of workers, farmers and reunification are being severely repressed under the authoritarian reign of Lee Myung Bak. One South Korean scholar recently said, “With the exception of torture, it is like the period under Park Chung Hee.” The Korean War must end once and for all, and the U.S. holds the key. This past December, James Laney, the former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea said: “One of the things that have bedeviled all talks until now is the unresolved status of the Korean War. A peace treaty would provide a baseline for relationships, eliminating the question of the other’s legitimacy and its right to exist. Absent such a peace treaty, every dispute presents afresh the question of the other side’s legitimacy.” We must end the Korean War by replacing the temporary armistice with a permanent peace treaty. If any president can achieve it, it is Obama. And if any generation can make it happen, it is ours. Christine Ahn is a Fellow with the Korea Policy Institute and also a member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War. The Candlelight Vigils to end the Korean War, on the occasion of the 56th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War Armistice, were organized by the National Campaign to End the Korean War with local grassroots community-based organizations.

Summary1 The United States is the Republic of Korea’s (South Korea) third-largest trading partner, after China and Japan, and its largest foreign direct investor, and the U.S. market is South Korea’s second largest export destination. South Korea is the seventh-largest trading partner for the U.S. and its seventh-largest export market. South Korea ranks as the tenth-largest economy in the world. Major imports from the U.S. include semiconductor chips, manufacturing equipment, aircraft, agricultural products, and beef. Major imports from South Korea include cellular phones, semiconductor circuits, television and flat panel screens, cards, computer parts, and construction vehicles. U.S.-South Korean trade in 2004 topped $70 billion. In February of 2006, the two governments announced their intention to negotiate a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA). The first round of formal negotiations occurred during June of 2006 in Washington, DC, and a total of six rounds alternating between countries have taken place. The seventh round is scheduled for the week of February 12-16 near Washington, DC. Informal talks have been interspersed between the rounds. The FTA is being negotiated under “fast-track” authority granted to the Bush Administration shortly after 9/11. This authority allows the executive branch to present a completed agreement for a mandatory Congressional vote without possibility of amendments. The South Korean National Assembly must also pass the FTA for it to go into effect. Although the proposed FTA would be the largest for the U.S. since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, it is likely that the American public is largely unaware that negotiations are ongoing. There has been little American media attention to the talks, and while members of Congress often speak of trade issues, few have focused their attention on this specific FTA. There are no U.S. based public opinion polls on the proposed FTA. On the other hand, South Korean public engagement with the FTA has been continuous since the governments announced that talks would occur. Media coverage has been ubiquitous, and important sectors of South Korean civil society have mobilized to bring attention to the negotiations. Public opinion polls currently suggest that a slight majority of the South Korean public is against the FTA and that a large majority has serious concerns about the process that the talks have followed thus far.2 The FTA talks are covering a range of controversial issues including agriculture, pharmaceuticals, automobiles, anti-dumping legislation, investor-state claim rules, intellectual property rights, U.S. visa policies toward South Korean nationals, and whether to include products made in the North-South joint industrial park at Kaeseong. Although beef is not formally part of the talks, it has become a major issue. This brief discusses several key areas of concern raised by the prospect of the FTA, including a discussion of how South Korean government actions have fueled public tension over the nature and process of the negotiations. Introduction On February 2, 2006, the United States and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) announced that they would open talks on a bilateral free trade agreement between the two governments that would remove protective trade measures such as tariffs and import quotas. The U.S. is South Korea’s third-largest trading partner, after China and Japan, and its largest foreign direct investor, and the U.S. market is South Korea’s second largest export destination. South Korea is the seventh-largest trading partner for the U.S. and its seventh-largest export market. South Korea ranks as the tenth-largest economy in the world. Major imports from the U.S. include semiconductor chips, manufacturing equipment, aircraft, agricultural products, and beef. Major imports from South Korea include cellular phones, semiconductor circuits, television and flat panel screens, cards, computer parts, and construction vehicles. Other major issues under discussion include pharmaceuticals, automobiles, investor-state claim rules, steel, intellectual property rights, U.S. visa policies toward South Korean nationals, and whether to include products made in the North-South joint industrial park at Kaeseong. The FTA talks between the U.S. and South Korea come at the height of strained relations between the two countries, with anti-Americanism on the rise in South Korea.3 The relationship between Washington and Seoul has declined considerably during the Bush Administration, with clear policy differences in their approaches to Korean reunification and the North Korean nuclear crisis. The deployment of South Korean troops to Iraq—the third-largest military contingent behind the U.S. and Great Britain—was and continues to be divisive and unpopular in South Korea, and South Korea’s attempt to link their support of the war in order to induce a more flexible Bush Administration posture toward North Korea clearly failed.4 U.S. President George W. Bush is widely unpopular in South Korea, as is the U.S.-led war on Iraq, and more South Koreans see the U.S. as a threat to their safety than they do North Korea.5 Given the concern over anti-Americanism in South Korea, some South Korean politicians are promoting the FTA talks as an opportunity to mend bridges between the U.S. and South Korea. Vice Finance Minister Kwon Tae-Shin, for instance, has argued that a successful FTA will help to ease tensions with the U.S. on differences in North Korea policy.6 U.S. and South Korean negotiators initially declared it their goal to come to an agreement by the end of 2006, but conceded later that negotiations would continue well into 2007.7 The relatively short time frame within which to negotiate such a massive and complex free trade agreement appears to be a function of political developments in both countries. On the U.S. side, under the Trade Act of 2002, the Bush Administration has what is known as “fast-track” authority to negotiate international trade agreements and submit them to Congress for a mandatory vote without possibility of amendment. This Presidential Trade Negotiating Authority expires on July 1, 2007; because the Trade Act requires that Congress be given at least 90 days for deliberation after any agreement is reached by negotiators behind closed doors, the effective deadline for coming to an agreement is April 2, 2007, less than 10 months from when negotiations began in June of 2006.8 Pro-FTA interests in the U.S. and pro-FTA chaebol (corporate conglomerates) in South Korea have pressed their respective government officials to come to a quick agreement in order to take advantage of the authority afforded by the Trade Act to avoid Congressional intervention.9 On the South Korean side, there are suspicions that the South Korean government’s effort to engage in trade talks with the U.S. is driven in part by the weakness of the South Korean government and specifically of the highly unpopular President Roh Moo-hyun. South Korean presidents are elected for a single 5-year term.10 As a lame duck president who cannot run for re-election in the fall of 2007, and whose approval rating has polled in the single digits, Roh may view the strategy of pursuing FTAs as a means to quickly achieve a political legacy through the insular strength of South Korean bureaucracy that would be impossible were popular democratic debate allowed. It is worthwhile to note that South Korea took three years to conclude FTA negotiations with Chile despite the significantly lower trade volume between the two countries. Concerns over democratic process in South Korea According to South Korean law, interested stakeholders and the public at large must have the opportunity to register their concerns about the possibility of an FTA before negotiations are launched.11 The purpose is to facilitate democratic debate on the possible merits and defects of holding the talks as well as of the possible FTA itself. The Roh Administration scheduled this hearing for February 2, 2006, but had earlier announced that the decision to hold the talks had already been made, and that an official announcement would be made shortly. Representatives of various sectors of South Korean civil society, and especially farmers, expressed tremendous unhappiness that the decision to pursue talks had occurred before a hearing was held, and South Korean government officials abruptly suspended the hearing shortly after it began.12 South Korean promises that greater effort would be made to seek public opinion have not come to fruition, suggesting that South Korean officials are both aware that the public’s voice has not been heard and that the public’s voice is not a priority for negotiators. South Korean negotiators also appear confident that is unnecessary to consult meaningfully with National Assembly members. For example, legislators have had limited time to pore over complex English-language documents that require translation into Korean. An August 2006 survey of National Assembly Members revealed that a majority of them believed that the South Korean government should at least inform the National Assembly when the talks were concluded and that the outcome of negotiations should be made public. A majority of Assembly Members also acknowledged that they had failed to seek out public opinion, and admitted having neglected their duties as political representatives.13 Given the general unwillingness of the Roh Administration to allow and facilitate an open discussion of the proposed FTA, and the failure of the National Assembly to take the lead in a public conversation about the merits and weaknesses of a proposed FTA, it should come as no surprise that important sectors of South Korean civil society have organized and emerged in opposition to both the negotiations and the FTA itself. On March 28 of 2006, some 270 civic organizations representing millions of workers, farmers, intellectuals, artists, and citizens announced the formation of the Korean Alliance Against the Kor-US FTA, and shortly thereafter on April 16, thousands of trade unionists, farmers, students, and major celebrities marched in Seoul to demand that the government both abandon talks and allow the public to view the earlier negotiation process.14 The Roh Administration’s desire to achieve an FTA with the U.S. combined with its dearth of popular approval appears to have led it to embrace certain authoritarian trends that have been prominent in South Korea’s history. State-sponsored efforts to prevent the political expression of democratic thought has been a staple feature of South Korea since its inception in 1948, and the Roh Administration has taken up this legacy in both formal-legal and more openly confrontational ways. For instance, the state-run Korean Advertising Review Board rejected an ad submitted for approval by representatives of South Korean farmers and filmmakers because the ad included images of farmers expressing their opposition to the FTA. KARB reasoned that the farmers’ beliefs were unfairly one-sided against the South Korean government, and thus could not be aired. On the other hand, a $3.8 million (US$) ad by President Roh’s Committee to Support the Conclusion of the Korea-U.S. FTA has aired daily in South Korea. The pro-FTA commercial was not reviewed by KARB on the basis that government beliefs need not be regulated.15 More explicitly, the Roh Administration has declared that it will cut off access to government subsidies for any organization that opposes the proposed FTA.16 Consistent with South Korean history, there have also been a number of physical confrontations between sectors of civil society and the coercive authority of the state as embodied by police. Historically, these confrontations centered on the importance of political, economic, and social rights, and the recent clashes have been more of the same. Tensions have run especially high since a November 22, 2006 confrontation between farmers and police during a protest against the FTA. The Roh government took the opportunity afforded by events of the day to outlaw all FTA-related public demonstrations.17 The resulting tactics of implementing this ban on public protest have been police deployment in the thousands and checkpoints set up on major roads leading to Seoul to prevent ordinary workers and farmers from exercising their freedom of assembly and travel.18 To stop the organizing of protests, the police issued summons and warrants for over 170 social movement leaders, raided local offices of civic organizations, detained 19 leaders of farmers’ and workers’ organizations, and according to social movement leaders, even made threatening phone calls to potential participants of public rallies.19 South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission has suggested that the Roh Administration tactics are inconsistent with the South Korean constitution, and urged that the anti-FTA rallies be allowed to take place.20 It is worthwhile to note that if the South Korean public believes that such an important negotiation with the U.S. was held largely without meaningful input from civil society, this failure to adhere to reasonable democratic standards has the potential to become a serious political liability for pro-FTA legislators in the upcoming 2007 elections.21 Thus, even legislators who intend to vote yes on any negotiated agreement are concerned about the increasing sense in South Korea that the Roh Administration has failed in a fundamental civic duty. Developing public opposition to the proposed FTA Concern in South Korea about the FTA is driven both by worries about the undemocratic nature of the negotiations and by the possibility of negative policy consequences to various sectors. South Koreans are not convinced by, and perhaps suspicious of, the financial projections being made by both the U.S. and South Korean governments as well as corporate and chaebol interests. For instance, former U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman declared that, “this agreement will boost the incomes of both countries by several billions of dollars.”22 South Korean Trade Minister Hyun-Chong Kim brought hard numbers to the table with the claim that the FTA will increase South Korea’s GDP by $13.5 billion a year, trickling down to $290 per individual per year, and that manufacturing employment will see a 6.5 percent increase.23 The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea projects that U.S. imports will rise by 43 to 54 percent per year while exports to the United States will increase by 21 to 23 percent, translating into roughly $12.2 billion in U.S. imports to South Korea and $7.1 billion in South Korean imports to the U.S.24 Roh Administration rhetoric as well as the commentary of South Korean commercial mass media has been almost uniformly positive about the presumptive economic consequences of the FTA. However, South Koreans are perhaps the most internet savvy “netizens” in the world, and an extraordinarily high percentage of South Koreans in their 20s, 30s, and 40s get a significant portion of their news from independent internet rather than commercial news sources available on the street. Independent internet news sites are significantly less likely to profess faith in neoliberal economic policies than their commercial counterparts. Readers of independent internet news are more likely to learn that the proposed FTA will further concentrate the power of multinational corporations and erode the rights of governments to determine national policies to protect the rights of workers, farmers, the environment, and cultural institutions. They are perhaps more likely to read about scholarly analyses like the one offered by Lee Hae-Young, Professor of International Relations at the Hanshin University in Seoul, who argues that the economic benefits that South Korea will gain from the FTA will be shared almost exclusively by four major conglomerates that will accrue competitive advantages in areas including electronics, digital technology, automobile, and textile industries.25 Popular opposition to the FTA has developed quickly, and a general concern over the potential negative consequences of a free trade agreement is now openly expressed in Korean civil society. The disapproval rate of the FTA increased from 29.2 percent on June 7, 2006 to 42.6 percent on July 6 and broke the 50 percent barrier on July 22.26 Popular opposition against the FTA has also been joined by some prominent political leaders. For instance, Chung Tae-In, Presidential Advisor and Minister for Economic Policy from 20002 to 2005, denounced Roh’s push for the free trade pact with the U.S. as a “grave blunder” that would endanger the entire South Korean economy. Chung compared the FTA to the infamous Eulsa Treaty of 1905 that led to the complete loss of Korean independence from Japan in 1910.27 Former Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Kim Sung-hoon told an independent, online news site that an FTA with the U.S. would “not only be political suicide, but also brand Roh as the most incompetent President in the country’s history…and his government as the one that sold out the country’s economy and culture.”28 On the U.S. side, concerns are being expressed by labor unions that fear a repeat of their past experiences with South Korean trade relations.29 The economic development of South Korea that began in earnest in the 1960s was accompanied by a decline of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. as corporate interests took their factories to Asia and other parts of the globe. Then military dictator Park Chung Hee maintained an iron fist over South Korea’s economy, ensuring intense state and corporate-sponsored repression of workers who suffered in some of the worst working conditions in the world. The hyperexploitation of South Korean workers meant that American manufacturers in the early 1960s could calculate that the labor cost saving for firms willing to move to Korea was a factor of 25, since South Korean workers were paid one tenth of American wages but were 2.5 times more productive given, for example, the extraordinary number hours they put in per day, the lack of overtime, and the six day work week.30 Supported by South Korean government subsidies and U.S. willingness to open up key markets, light industries including textiles, footwear, radios, televisions, toys, and small appliances rapidly set up factories in South Korea, and beginning in the 1970s were joined by heavy industries including steel, cars, chemicals, defense, machine-tools, and semiconductors. The loss of American jobs and the concomitant weakening of organized labor in the U.S. is thus inextricably linked to the historical and continuing labor exploitation in South Korea—and paradoxically to the rise of a highly organized working class that has emerged in South Korea.31 South Korean organized labor was particularly strong leading up to its key role in the democratization of South Korea in 1987; it was weakened by South Korea’s economic freefall during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. This crisis afforded the South Korean state and the chaebol an opportunity to reverse the gains of the labor movement, and since then workers have been fighting off declining working conditions, wages, and benefits.32 “Irregular workers,” who possess fewer labor rights and benefits currently constitute over half of all South Korean workers.33 Preconditions to the opening of FTA negotiations In the preceding four months prior to the February 2006 announcement that FTA talks would occur, The Roh Administration unilaterally instituted several policy changes that the Bush Administration demanded prior to the opening of trade negotiations. In October 2005, South Korea suspended pharmaceutical price markdowns that had lowered drug costs. In November of 2005, it relaxed rules on automobile exhaust fume standards that sought to prevent the imports of larger, more polluting U.S. automobiles. Seoul settled sanctions over rice negotiations in December 2005, and followed this in January 2006 with the partial lifting of a ban on American beef imports that had been the result of South Korean consumer concerns about the effectiveness of U.S. beef regulatory policies. Finally, shortly before FTA negotiations were announced, on January 26 Seoul buckled on a longstanding American demand to reduce or halt protection of the South Korean film industry, lowering the mandatory film screen quota for domestic movies to be shown in theaters from 146 days to 73 days of the year. While Washington has suggested that the aforementioned unilateral concessions by the South Korean government were important first steps to help ensure a successful and comprehensive free trade agreement, in South Korea these preconditions have already upset different interests in civil society and given a boost to social movement efforts that stand in opposition to the FTA negotiations. The South Korean government made these concessions without much public dialogue. It did not help the Roh Administration that the concessions were in the sensitive areas of health and public safety, the environment, and the protection (or lack thereof) of Korean culture. Because the concessions were seen as unilateral, public dissent also centered on the weakness of the Roh Administration. The concessions also represented visible targets upon which to manifest a more generalized anti-Americanism that has been building in South Korea and has rapidly accelerated during the Bush Administration. As the last and most visible policy shift before the formal announcement that FTA negotiations were in the offering, the screen quota concession on January 26, 2006 brought the proposed FTA into the immediate foreground. South Korea’s leading directors and actors, many of them globally recognized for their work and religiously followed by their fans in South Korea and abroad, staged a succession of single-person protests against the lowering of the domestic film screen quota. Although the protests were unsuccessful in reversing the concession, the star quality of the single-person protests brought a great deal of mass media and popular attention to the upcoming FTA negotiations.34 Beef Not all the concessions have played out as the U.S. envisioned. In particular, the issue of American beef regulations has become so prominent that a failure to resolve this area may mean the demise of the FTA. In December of 2003, before the discovery of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), (popularly known as “Mad Cow Disease”) in a cow in Washington State, South Korea was the third largest export market for U.S. beef and beef products, valued at $1.3 billion, and was the number one U.S. agricultural export item in Korea despite a 40 percent tariff. In June of 2005, South Korea’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) issued a request for findings concerning the safety of U.S. beef after a second animal in Texas also tested for BSE. South Korean investigations followed by joint discussions led to the relaxing of the ban, and in January of 2006, South Korea declared that it would allow boneless beef from cattle under the age of 30 months or less along with beef expert verification. The partial lifting of the ban appears to be an effort to minimize the likelihood of BSE infected beef and to build consumer confidence in U.S. beef. Although it is not formally part of the FTA negotiations, the U.S. cattle industry is seeking through U.S. FTA negotiators to pressure South Korea to completely end the ban and remove its current 40 percent tariff on imported U.S. beef. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chair of the Senate’s Finance Committee, stressed that he could not support any FTA with Korea until it allowed all of Montana’s beef exports, whether boneless or not, regardless of cattle age.35 In December of 2006, eleven U.S. senators from beef-producing states issued an ultimatum that they would not support the FTA if the beef trade was not returned to the standards in force prior to the discovery of BSE in U.S. cows.36 Two principal objections of the Senators and U.S. negotiators are that the South Korean government has overreacted to the discovery of BSE in the U.S. and that the South Koreans are looking for reasons to reject U.S. beef. The mood among some members of Congress is captured nicely by Senator Byron Dorgan’s (D-ND) remark that the U.S. “should return all 700,000 imported Hyundai cars if any problem occurs during a safety test.”37 Dorgan’s comment was made in response to the South Korean refusal to admit three 9-ton shipments of boneless beef to Korea in late 2006 after inspectors found banned bone fragments. On January 31 of 2007, Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) issued a statement that the refusal of South Korean negotiators to adopt the U.S. position would lead to his active leadership in blocking the trade agreement should it come to the Senate.38 According to Choi Sei-Kyun, a senior director of the Korean Rural Economy Institute, if the 40 percent duty is removed, prices for [U.S.] beef will decrease around 8.7 percent and [Korean] production will drop 4.2 percent, resulting in losses of about 360 billion won (or $373 million) a year.39 However, it is unclear how willing South Koreans will be to buy and consume American beef even if all barriers to U.S. imported beef are lifted. According to a Gallup Korea survey commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, 70.2 percent of housewives age 30-40 said they “won’t buy” or “would not prefer to buy” U.S. beef compared with 10.6 percent who answered that they “have an intention to buy” it. 35 percent of respondents indicated that their image of U.S. beef was of cattle infected with BSE, and a majority described their image of U.S. beef as either infected with BSE, untrustworthy, or of poor quality.40 (Many Japanese consumers, another important export market for U.S. beef, share these perceptions.) In short, the negative image of U.S. beef has made it a highly sensitive issue for ordinary South Koreans, and in the limited time frame before fast-track authority ends, it is very unlikely that their opinions will shift significantly. U.S. opposition to South Korean beef regulations stands in real conflict to the concerns of millions of average South Koreans, putting the Roh Administration in a difficult position. It cannot return to 2003 standards without upsetting the Korean population on a highly sensitive issue. Because of the sensitivity of the issue, South Korean consumers are likely to be aware of American critics who have highlighted potential flaws in the system for vetting cows for BSE. For example, arguments for the safety of U.S. beef were not helped by the U.S. Government Accountability Office conclusion that “the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is overstating [the cattle] industry’s compliance with the animal feed ban and understating the potential risk of BSE for U.S. cattle in its reports to Congress and the American people.”41 The difficulties of the situation are exacerbated by the fact that U.S. testing for BSE follows different standards than that of the European Union. Broadly speaking, the latter has adopted the “precautionary principle” to regulating the health and safety of foods, drugs and chemicals, and intends to apply this principle to its FTA negotiations. This is likely to be more appealing to South Korean consumers of beef than U.S. regulations that apply the “sound science” principle. More extensive testing for BSE disease is widespread among EU states, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has not pushed this solution, believing that its focus on the highest risk animals is at least equally effective. Critics have charged that it is unclear by what methods USDA are identifying and testing “high-risk” targets, and that the USDA has a conflict of interest due to its simultaneous responsibility for both consumer safety and the promotion of American beef. This conflict of interest suggests that the USDA is simultaneously responsible for testing for BSE at the same time that it inevitably recognizes that its discovery in American cows will lead to significant negative financial consequences for the cattle industry.42 It has not helped matters that Seoul has requested access to inspect the hygienic conditions of American slaughterhouses, but has had difficulty getting past U.S. officials.43 Whether or not the beef market is ultimately opened as a condition to the FTA talks, it is clear that controversy will continue in South Korea on this issue. In the long run, in order to successfully open the South Korean beef market, it appears that the U.S. beef industry will ultimately have to focus on changing the image of American beef among South Korean consumers. This will likely require both changes in the inspection and regulation of U.S. beef, and a concomitant publicity campaign to inform South Korean consumers of these changes. Until this occurs, South Koreans are likely to remain suspicious of American beef, especially if American critics of beef regulations continue to be vocal, Japanese consumers of beef share their negative perception, and the EU offers a more palatable alternative. Selected controversial policy areas in the FTA negotiations Agriculture The South Korean agricultural sector is not export-oriented but instead strives to be self-sufficient in rice, horticultural products, and livestock production.44 In the late 1980s, the U.S. threatened to impose sanctions against South Korea under Section 301, a U.S. trade law that sought action against countries protecting domestic industries through various trade barriers. Under pressure, the South Korean government opened its markets to U.S. tobacco, wine, beef, and rice.45 The government also came under pressure due to the U.S.-backed Agreement on Agriculture that came out of the Uruguay Round. Based on neoliberal economic principles, the agreement essentially forced less-developed countries to open their markets to agribusiness in wealthy nations on the basis that it would promote more efficiency in food production and lead to cheaper food for consumers. South Korea was forced to lower import barriers that protected their domestic food production, and this has made it difficult for the agricultural sector to measure up to its current goals of self-sufficiency and parity between farm and urban household incomes.46 South Korea currently has roughly 3.5 million farmers, or about 7.5 percent of the population. All farming in South Korea is done by individual farmers with small to medium-size holdings. The United States has 176 million hectares under cultivation, compared with South Korea’s 1.7 million hectares. The average American farm is 58 times larger than the average Korean farm. Like small family farmers in the United States, South Korea’s farmers cannot compete with large U.S. agribusiness capable of producing low-priced goods with the aid of significant U.S. government subsidies. In order to protect agricultural industries, except for rice which works under a quota system, the average South Korean tariff on agricultural products approaches 50 percent (compared with 7.5 percent tariffs on industrial products).47 South Korea already imports about 60-70 percent of its agricultural products, and South Korean consumers are among the U.S.’s largest markets for agricultural products and beef, representing over a fifth of imports.48 This percentage is certain to rise under an FTA with the U.S., which is seeking to liberalize the trade of 235 items that are currently protected in varying degrees. South Korea’s Trade Minister Hyun-Chong Kim estimates that the South Korean agricultural and livestock industry will suffer losses over $50 million per year, while other analysts are estimating significantly higher annual losses. For example, the Korean Rural Economy Institute conducted an impact assessment study and found that an FTA that excluded rice would result in annual losses of $1-2 billion dollars, and that the inclusion of rice would lead to a annual losses reaching $7 billion.49 Korean farmers who now earn on average $10,000 per year stand to lose on average $8,000 per year. For instance, Jeju Island citrus fruit growers, will not be able to compete with American fruit giants, and this is no doubt an important reason for why interested sectors on the island sought to reject being the host of the 4th round of FTA talks.50 Overall, some analysts are suggesting that Jeju stands to lose up to $2 billion annually from the FTA.51 U.S. statistics estimate that South Korean agricultural production will decrease by 45 percent after the FTA has been implemented. Farming in South Korea has seen significant declines over the past 40 years due initially to South Korean government policies and later due to the aforementioned pressure from the U.S. government and the WTO. Beginning in the 1960s, then military dictator Park kept grain prices below market rates and thus artificially expanded the labor pool in industrial centers as farmers were driven off their land even when they had bumper harvests. South Korea experienced an extraordinarily rapid—and generally unwilling—population shift from rural areas to urban centers, with farmer-turned-worker’s wages kept down as management rationalized that labor could be paid less since the market cost of food fell during this time due to the state’s pricing policies. The negotiation of free trade policies influencing family farms are socially and politically complicated by the fact that so many South Koreans living in cities, only one generation ago, were living on farms. Many South Koreans continue to have strong connections to their rural roots given how recently their personal lives diverged from decades if not centuries of family farming. South Koreans thus often experience the demise of South Korean agriculture as a loss of both national and family history and culture. Should the proposed FTA pass, this sense of loss is likely to be exacerbated by the recognition that the demise of South Korean family farms will come not at the hands of other family farmers, but rather by the entry of subsidized U.S. agribusiness. Inclusion of agriculture in the proposed FTA is likely to obliterate the indigenous base of family farmers. At least half of Korea’s farmers are expected to lose their farms and to enter urban areas in search of work. Farmers and their advocates are adamant that more is at stake for them than a loss in profits, and that beyond cost-benefit calculations, the proposed FTA threatens the fabric of Korea’s rural communities, and will have severe social, cultural and environmental costs. For many South Koreans, the relationship of low prices to the demise of farms is not the theoretical abstraction that it is for advocates of neoliberal policies who have not experienced personal consequences of these policies, including rapid social and geographical dislocation. The perception that an unthinking and relentless search for the lowest possible prices on food staples will actually result in highly negative consequences for South Korea has been enhanced by the rise of a middle-class environmental movement that has become increasingly powerful since the opening of civil society following the 1987 democratization movement. Together with the farmer’s movement and other urban-based allies, they have been able to sway popular opinion in South Korea in decisive ways. In a particularly powerful example, the three largest department store chains in South Korea—Lotte, Hyundai, and Shinsegae—have each independently decided against purchasing imported rice and offering it to consumers for fear of a public backlash against their chains that will influence their ability to sell other products offered at their stores.52 Rice Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules established during the Uruguay Round, South Korea designated rice as a sensitive product that required “special treatment.” Instead of fully liberalizing its rice imports by establishing a tariff-rate quota, South Korea committed to import a specific level of rice imports for a period of 10 years. The WTO rules provided that South Korea’s market access quota for rice could continue for an additional length of time, but only after individual WTO members had the opportunity to negotiate with South Korea. The ten-year period ended in 2004, but South Korea renegotiated its WTO commitment and received another 10-year extension on tariffs of rice imports after agreeing to double the percentage of foreign imports to 408,000 tons by the end of 2014. Additionally, until 2006 all imported rice was used by food processors to make secondary rice products such as rice crackers, but by 2010, imported rice will be marketed to consumers directly. Rice exported to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan generally comes from California. In 2003, U.S. rice comprised 28 percent of all imported rice. From 1990-1997, the South Korean government bought an average of 26 percent of total Korean rice production, but external pressures imposed by the WTO cut government rice purchases to 17 percent in 2000. In 1995, South Korea imported 51,307 tons of rice and by 2004 it imported 205,228 tons of rice. South Korea has one of the most quality-conscious rice markets in the world, and rice holds a particularly powerful symbolic role in South Korean society. The government separates imported rice from domestic rice, controls the purchase and distribution of all imported rice, and currently imposes a quota system rather than a tariff system. Consumers pay more for domestic rice than they do for foreign rice. Opponents of liberalizing rice in South Korea are likely to harbor concerns that should U.S. rice flood the South Korean market, that in the long run not only will Korean rice farmers lose out, but so will Korean consumers. A quick comparison to the case of Haiti is instructive in understanding South Korean anxieties. Haiti was largely self-sufficient in rice, a staple for its population. In 1986, under pressure Haiti was forced to lift trade barriers and rice flooded in from the U.S. Within a decade, Haiti was importing 196,000 tons of rice at $100 million per year, and Haitian rice production essentially disappeared, after which import prices began to rise, creating a significant burden on Haiti’s working poor.53 Taken together, the high degree of organization among rice farmers, the experiences of other countries that have dealt with U.S. rice imports, the cultural significance of the food, the relationship of many South Koreans to farmers and farm land, and the possibility of reunification with North Korea—which has experienced dramatic shortages of rice—have made rice perhaps the single issue where South Korea is least likely to move from its initial position during the FTA talks.54 Indeed, the South Korean government has yet to budge from its position of excluding a discussion of rice markets in FTA talks. Kim Young Mo, director of the Ministry of Finance and Economy, indicated that, “given the sensitivity of the full liberalization of the rice market and the significant impact the rice market has on Korea as it is directly linked to the nation’s food security and livelihood of Korea’s farming community, we will endeavor to protect the local rice market to the end.”55 U.S. rice producers through their advocates at the American Farm Bureau and the USDA are seeking the removal of South Korea’s rice import quotas through the FTA negotiations. Richard Crowder, head of agricultural negotiations at the office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), has reaffirmed that America’s FTAs “are to be comprehensive…rice in Korea would be included in the FTA with Korea… our policy and philosophy is, ‘no exclusions.'” A comprehensive FTA would lift the quota system, establish a low tariff, and make rice generally available for direct sale to Korean consumers. Comparison of U.S. rice farms with South Korean rice farms Key differences between U.S. rice farms and South Korean rice farms are in the scale of land cultivation, the importance of rice to domestic consumers, the production for domestic consumption versus export, and the likely impact of the FTA. Rice is typically ranked eighth among all U.S. crops in terms of value of production and planted area. According to the U.S. Census of Agriculture, in 2002, of the 2.1 million farms only 8,046 farms (0.4 percent) produced rice. In 2002, the average rice farm size was 397 acres. Comparatively, in 2002, 1.1 million of 1.8 million hectares (61 percent) of cultivated land in South Korea was allocated to rice farming. 787,451 of 1,383,468 farm households (56.9 percent) grow rice. Of these 787,451 households, 65 percent are full-time rice farmers.56 Most of South Korea’s farmers are small family farmers, and over 60 percent of the family farms are smaller than one hectare.57 Farmers make up 8 percent of the South Korean population, and their numbers equal the combined numbers of farmers in Germany, France and Great Britain. Half of the South Korean farmers are now over 60 years old, which significantly circumscribes their possible professional options should their farms disappear. Many of these farmers have no other choice but to farm. Rice is overdetermined to be their agricultural product both because advances in labor saving 11 technology in rice production have cut 70 percent of their labor needs and because Korean rice farmers are the repositories of centuries of knowledge accumulated in Korea about rice farming in ideal conditions. Unlike many developed countries where most farmers derive most of their income from off-farm jobs, most South Korean farmers still derive most of their income from farming. Half the rice production cost goes to rent in South Korea. Although the South Korean government has pledged to allocate billions of dollars to initiate programs that will provide jobs to South Korea’s farmers, the money that would finance these programs would be drawn from funds currently spent on farm subsidies and rural development, meaning that the government is not offering anything to farmers beyond what it already spends to support them. As many as 140,000 South Korean farmers are projected to lose their farms under the proposed FTA. U.S. rice subsidies Rice is the most heavily subsidized American crop, and this allows the U.S. rice industry to offer rice at prices significantly lower than those offered by rice farmers around the world. From 1995 to 2005, the rice industry received $10,502,000,000 in government subsidies.58 From 1995-2004, subsidy payments averaged $140,000 per farmer, more than the income of the average South Korean rice farmer.59 In 2003, the U.S. government increased rice subsidies by $200 million dollars from the previous year, handing over $1.3 billion to rice growers, with the lion’s share going to the largest agribusiness firms. From 1995-2004, 25 percent of all subsidies went to the largest one percent of rice producers while the bottom 80 percent received 16 percent of the subsidies. Farmers in 14 U.S. states receive rice subsidies, with 95 percent of the subsidies going to Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. As suggested earlier, heavily subsidized California rice producers stand to gain significantly if South Korea opens up its rice market; huge rice farms supported by large federal subsidies are key reasons why the U.S. can sell lower cost rice to South Korea.60 The cost of U.S. rice production is very high compared with other row crops grown in the United States due to the high costs of fuel, fertilizer and irrigation expenses. In 2005, rice production costs for fuel, lubricants and electricity cost $110 per acre, a significant increase from 2004 when they averaged $78. However, most U.S. rice farms do not appear to need government subsidies. For example, a 2000 study showed that 78 percent of rice farms were able to cover their cost of production without the support of subsidies.61 American-based critics of American farm policies have argued non-rice agricultural producers have moved into the crop in order to take advantage of the subsidies, and that this has in turn led to more rice on the market. The resultant overproduction of rice depresses market prices and perpetuates the cycle of increased government payments for rice producers, increased production, and increased costs to the taxpayer.62 The overproduction caused by heavy subsidies reproduces rice surpluses which then put pressure on the U.S. government to negotiate trade agreements to export rice not being consumed by the domestic market. U.S. rice farming depends on the global market for about half its annual sales.63 The United States produces about 2 percent of the world’s rice, but its exports account for 12-14 percent of the annual volume traded globally. Half of U.S. rice is exported annually, mostly to Mexico, Central America, Northeast Asia, and the Middle East. (The U.S. also imports rice, mostly from Thailand (75 percent of imports), India and Pakistan.) The South Korean peninsula has maintained a domestic agrarian economy for (at least) centuries, and the significance of farming goes beyond the economic into every aspect of South Korean society and culture, and especially in ordinary South Koreans connection to the land. Because Korean society was—and continues to be—so intimately tied to agricultural society, much of Korean culture as a whole is intimately based upon customs that have emerged through the cultivation of land. Consequently, much of the South Korean population finds it appropriate to protect indigenous agriculture and support measures that they view as preserving South Korea’s national heritage. If what happened to rice farmers in Haiti stands as a warning to South Korea, the actions of the Swiss government are suggestive of a different approach that takes Korean concerns about their culture and land into account. In the mid-1990s, the Swiss government decided that planning its economy must incorporate the twin goals of preserving its countryside and maintaining the long-term sustainability of its natural eco-systems. The Swiss designed subsidies in order to protect and revitalize its agricultural communities, and later suspended FTA negotiations with the U.S. South Korean farmers are heavily mobilized in opposition to neoliberal economic policies, and have taken center stage in dramatizing the potential negative consequences of free trade policies to indigenous small and mid-sized farms around the world. For example, at the 2003 WTO Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico, South Korean farmers captured international media and the world’s attention when Lee Kyung Hae, a farmer and social movement leader, committed suicide while straddling a metal fence that had been erected to keep protestors away from talks of the WTO. Lee was caught on tape stabbing himself in the heart while wearing a sign that read, “WTO Kills Farmers,” as he led the 300-member delegation of Korean farmers, peasants and trade unionists to the metal fence that kept civil society several miles away from the talks. His suicide contributed significantly to the global community’s understanding of the agricultural crisis caused by the WTO and trade liberalization schemes, not just on Korean peasants, but on the world’s farmers. Before his death, Lee circulated a statement that read “uncontrolled multinational corporations and a small number of big WTO Members are leading an undesirable globalization that is inhumane, environmentally degrading, farmer-killing, and undemocratic.” Pharmaceuticals Pharmaceuticals represent a major area of conflict in the FTA negotiations, and should be understood in the context of South Korea’s nationalized health care system. Universal health coverage was established in 1987 and access to health care has been significantly expanded with the successful establishment of the National Health Insurance System (NHI). The Korean government followed a policy of low contributions, low benefits and high co-payments to ensure universal coverage at low cost. Care itself is largely administered by the private sector, with 90 percent of doctors and the majority of hospital beds being private. South Korea is the world’s 15th largest pharmaceutical market and imports 30 percent of its needs. The South Korean system faces large fiscal challenges, especially in its continued efforts to provide universal coverage. Managing the high cost of pharmaceuticals is an essential measure for dealing with the rising deficits in the health care system. South Korea has a very large pharmaceutical share of health expenditure (around 30 percent) compared with other OECD countries.64 Specifically innovative new drug prices are comparable to average factory prices in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Switzerland. The Korean government has enacted cost containment measures in the area of pharmaceuticals—lowering the reimbursement costs for drugs and supporting the production of domestically produced generic drugs. As a result, per capita spending on pharmaceuticals in Korea averages $115 annually, less than half the OECD average. The Korean Health Insurance Review Agency has a goal of reducing pharmaceutical costs from more than 29 percent of the national insurance payments to less than 24 percent by 2011.65 South Korea relies on the provision of generic drugs to control pharmaceutical costs in their public health care system. Before the second round of talks, the South Korean government introduced plans to implement a “positive list” of reimbursable prescription drugs by the end of 2006.66 A “positive list” system creates a list of drugs with proven efficacy and price-competitiveness that will be reimbursed within the national health care system. This would replace the existing “negative list” system that only lists drug exclusions. The positive list system is not a unique intervention by the South Korean government that is typically labeled an unfair trade practice. Indeed, it has been adopted in many OECD countries and is an effort towards keeping the high cost of health care expenditures down. Many U.S. states and HMOs are taking a similar approach of scrutinizing prescriptions drugs, encouraging the use of generics, and limiting reimbursements on brand name drugs. U.S. negotiators came out strongly against the positive list system when it was announced by the Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare. Wendy Cutler, the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative and chief negotiator on the American side, stated that, “we don’t believe this proposed change in the Korean system toward a ‘positive list’ will achieve the objective that Korea has stated for itself.” Cutler claimed that, “the proposed system would end up discriminating against and limiting the access of Korean patients and doctors to most innovative drugs in the world.”67 The U.S. negotiation team contended that the proposed system in South Korea would restrict multinational pharmaceuticals from bringing in newly invented drugs and discourage them from developing new drugs.68 However, by the beginning of the fourth round of talks, the U.S. indicated its partial willingness to accept a positive list system, and linked their apparent concession on this issue to demands that South Korea extend the patent period for new drugs, increase drug prices, include certain expensive new drugs, and establish a review board to hear U.S. objections to the South Korean government’s process of screening new drugs for the list.69 The shifting U.S. demands confirmed the suspicions of civic groups in South Korea that the U.S. was using their disagreement with the “positive list” system as a bargaining chip to win more concessions from the South Korean government.70 U.S. negotiators continue to push for extending the expiration date for patents on new drug beyond what is currently allowed within the U.S., and South Korean negotiators have already conceded on a maximum five-year extension on drug patents as well as giving pharmaceutical companies exclusive rights to drug data. The latter is significant because without this data, South Korean drug companies will find it more difficult to produce generic drugs. Major U.S. pharmaceutical companies are far less threatened by the development of a positive list system than the development of generic drugs that become available when the patent period on a drug runs out. As long as a drug company holds the patent, they can keep drug prices as high as they want, a virtual monopoly on the drug. Lee In-Suk, an official of the Korea Pharmaceuticals Manufactures Association asserts that, “it’s obvious that when the patent period of new drugs made by the United States is extended, prices of the drugs will soar, which will damage domestic clients’ access to drugs.”71 The U.S. pharmaceutical industry argues that the high costs of research demand that patent regulations allow them to turn a profit on the drugs they invent. Recent trends suggest this claim is not fully justified. Pharmaceutical companies report very high rates of profits in comparison to what they spend on research and development. Far from increasing the number of innovative drugs on the market, research and development has led to an increase in the development of variants of drugs already on the market. The increase in variants—and not an increase in genuinely innovative drugs—has been accompanied by massive promotion campaigns, including costly TV commercials, to attract the attention of potential consumers. Consequently, pharmaceutical multi-nationals spend two to three times as much on marketing and administration as they do on research and development.72 The high cost of drugs and excessive patent regulations that restrict the development of generic drugs are the key variables that limit the access of drugs for people all around the world. The impact of generic drug competition in driving down the high cost of drugs has been well documented and is widely recognized, particularly in the area of HIV/AIDS. It has widened the access of life saving medications to women, children, the elderly, and the poor all over the world. However, recent FTA agreements have contained several provisions designed to limit generic access, thus promoting drug monopolies by multi-national pharmaceutical companies. For instance, in November 2004, the Guatemalan Congress repealed a law that gave brand-name prescription drugs protection from generic competition by allowing drug companies to hide data that generic companies would use to bring their own versions to market. Four months later, in order to become a part of CAFTA, the Guatemalan Congress was forced to reverse its decision.73 Peru’s Health Ministry forecasts that their FTA agreement with the U.S. will more than double their medicine spending. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health is openly concerned that intellectual property provisions in the U.S. FTAs will result in unaffordable medicines.74 If previous FTAs are any clue, then U.S. pharmaceutical industries will investigate how to file lawsuits against the Korea government through investor-government dispute and/or non-violations provisions in the FTA. Furthermore, it is not inconceivable that pharmaceutical companies will use the FTA provisions to seek the abolishment of the positive list system. The high cost of health insurance is the primary factor limiting access to basic health care in the U.S. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans that go without health care coverage increased from 45.3 million people in 2004 to 46.6 million in 2005, and the number of Americans that are underinsured is comparable. This means that over 90 million Americans lack basic health care coverage, even as the U.S. spends the most money for health care per capita while reporting some of the worst health outcomes within the developed nations. Health care spending growth in the U.S. is the slowest in six years, and the greater reliance on generic drugs has been a key factor.75 Similarly, bringing down the cost of drugs is critical to maintain South Korea’s universal health care system. However, because the proposed FTA is poised to result in greater restrictions on generic drugs through extending its patent expiration and limiting drug information, the FTA is likely to drive up the cost of health care in South Korea, and thus provide a critical entryway for those who seek to privatize the entire South Korean health care system. Anti-dumping Regulations The practice of an exporting country selling a product at a price below the cost of production in the importing country is referred to as dumping in international trade law. Some argue that below-cost imports may lead to depressed domestic prices, narrowed opportunities for affected industries, and, even, an elimination of certain markets. Others, however, argue that dumping is a peripheral issue in trade policy debates—international markets will adjust to price dynamics and consumers will benefit by paying a lower price for purchased goods. Anti-dumping measures serve as a mechanism for those states aiming to protect their domestic industries from liberalized trade and, especially, an influx of cheap imports. States may file suit to the government to protect disaffected industries from foreign competition that they believe are engaged in price discrimination.76 Protection may include duties, tariffs, or taxes placed on imported goods. Modern international trade law, however, promotes liberalized trade with limited barriers to entry. Anti-dumping regulations challenge those norms by placing restrictive duties on targeted ‘unfair’ trade practices. The U.S. feels that certain South Korean imports threaten injury to domestic counterparts by selling at prices below the cost of U.S. production. Steel, for example, is the most heavily effected import from South Korea in the U.S. Steel related complaints were mainly filed after the Asian financial crisis, when demand for steel fell along with the Asian economies. Steel makers in South Korea, then, turned to the U.S., where demand continued to be strong and steel manufactures could earn more against the stronger U.S. dollar. The surge of imported South Korean steel had a chilling effect on many U.S. based steel companies. Since 1998, more than 20 U.S. steel companies have sought bankruptcy protection. In 1999, Curtis Barnett, CEO of U.S. steel manufacturer Bethlehem Steel, reported that steel imports caused considerable financial losses, forced Bethlehem to close plants, and led to 540 workers being laid off.77 Due to these consequences, Congress will not accept South Korean demands to amend antidumping laws in a bilateral free trade agreement. However, just as the U.S. advocates protectionist policies to prevent job-losses, South Korea would like to see anti-dumping provisions removed to promote natural competition and to protect the labor force in South Korea. If, for example, steel is restricted, the employees whose depend on steel for their livelihood will be jeopardized, including those that work in the steel industry (Posco alone, a Korean steel manufacture, has 28,853 employees78) and those that work in the industries that are steel dependent. Since 2003, for instance, there have been 23 U.S. antidumping orders against South Korean exporters. Moreover, the U.S. anti-dumping laws encourage South Korean companies to sell their products for higher prices or risk being hit with a dumping penalty. So, while the U.S. government is protecting domestic producers, they are doing so at the expense of South Korean workers as well as consumers who then pay higher prices. The USTR has argued that anti-dumping measures are necessary to protect U.S. industries and, in essence, ‘level the playing field.’ However, U.S. anti-dumping laws come into direct conflict with what then-U.S. Trade Representative, Rob Portman, had laid out as the main purpose of a U.S.-South Korea FTA. According to Ambassador Portman, a U.S.-South Korea FTA aims to remove “trade and investment barriers between [the] two nations… [and] increase market access.”79 If a more open market system is desired, then restrictive policies placed on South Korean goods, particularly steel, textiles, and electronics, would be in contravention to this objective. Anti-dumping regulations, moreover, are inconsistent with WTO regulations, of which both South Korea and the U.S. are signatories. South Korea had approached the WTO in 1999 and 2000 over U.S. anti-dumping measures, and won both of the steel cases that were filed.80 Given the outcome of the WTO cases and the intention behind a South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, U.S. negotiators should be willing to revise, if not entirely remove, inhibiting anti-dumping regulations if they truly wish to open markets and ‘level the playing field.’ If the USTR acknowledges that anti-dumping measures are deemed necessary to create ‘fair’ trading practices, then the U.S. should accept safety valves that have been put in place by Korea. However, restrictions on the import and sale of goods in the auto sector, agriculture, and semiconductors in South Korea have given rise to a litany of complaints in the U.S. The U.S. is eager to curb South Korean imports that threaten domestic markets, but is unwilling to consider lifting anti-dumping regulations that effect foreign industries. The contradiction between a free trade agreement and protectionist policies highlights the lack of objective measures that can determine the difference between ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ trade. Automobiles South Korea is the fourth-largest producer of automobiles in the world, and has enjoyed significant access to the U.S. market over the past twenty years, with manufacturers such as Hyundai and its subsidiary Kia exporting over 730,000 cars and light trucks to the U.S. in 2005, capturing 4.3 percent of the U.S. market. American automakers, on the other hand, exported about 5,800 vehicles in 2005, or a little over 3 percent of total car sales in the South Korean market. Detroit’s “Big Three” auto companies—Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler—have long complained of this imbalance and have cited Korea’s “discriminatory” use of tax, tariff, and non-tariff barriers to protect its automobile industry. Through FTA negotiations, the Big Three, along with most House Democrats and Congress Members from Michigan, are pushing the South Korean government to lower or eliminate its 8 percent tariff on imported cars and change from an engine displacement taxation to a value-based taxation system, thus allowing more large-sized vehicles to be imported. On the other hand, AFL-CIO and the United Auto Workers (UAW) are opposing the proposed FTA due to concerns about worker’s rights and benefits as well as labor conditions. U.S. demands on autos are a continuation, and not the beginning, of an American effort to open the South Korean auto market. In 1998 the two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on foreign access to South Korea’s auto market. Under the MOU, South Korea agreed to reduce tariffs on foreign vehicles from 80 percent to the present percentage, address anti-import activity, lower or eliminate many automobile taxes, create a new financing system to make it easier to purchase foreign cars, and streamline its standards and certification procedures. Many of these steps have already been implemented. The National Tax Service commented in February of 2006 that no penalties, official or otherwise, are imposed on Koreans who own or buy foreign cars. The Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association reported that March sales of foreign cars were up by 75 percent year-on-year.81 Furthermore, GM purchased Daewoo Motor Company in 2002 in a controversial move that was met with heavy protests by striking Daewoo autoworkers. Two other smaller vehicle companies, Samsung and Ssangyong, are now under the control of foreign investors. The South Korean auto industry and market is clearly not insulated. As noted earlier, in order to start the FTA talks, in November of 2005 South Korea’s Ministry of Environment announced that it would relax rules on automobile exhaust fume standards that the Big Three saw as impediments to South Korean market share. Ford, GM, and Chrysler ranked fourth, fifth, and sixth behind Toyota, Honda, and Nissan in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2004 report on the environmental performance of the six-largest automakers in the U.S. market. Ford had the worst heat-trapping gas emission performance of all the Big Six automakers, and it publicly walked away from its commitment to improve the fuel economy of its SUVs, which are now at 2000 levels. Chrysler was noted to frequently abuse regulatory loopholes that allow its fleet to remain below federal fuel economy standards. And General Motors was the only company whose vehicles emitted more smog-forming and global warming pollution per vehicle in 2003 than in 2001. GM’s trucks were also the worst among the Big Six in fuel economy, despite a public commitment to lead the Big Three in that area.82 The ubiquitous use of Ford, Chrysler, and GM automobiles would undoubtedly increase both gas consumption and pollutants that would damage Korea’s environment and create additional public health hazards. In short, South Korea has made several concessions on automobiles, including cutting taxes and imposing regulations meant to accommodate the U.S. auto industry. Assuming these concessions lead to more American cars on South Korean roads, the FTA’s provisions on U.S. autos will add to environmental degradation and health problems in South Korea. U.S. regulators are likely to achieve most of their goals in this area, but in return, the South Korean side hopes if not expects that American car and truck tariffs will receive similar treatment, and that the 2.5 percent U.S. tariff on imported cars will be eliminated along with the 25 percent tariff on light trucks and SUVs. This may be a significant stumbling block because the Big Three’s “opposition to the FTA is grounded in fears of further inroads into the U.S. market,” and not in their hopes of expanding into the South Korean market.83 More importantly, the U.S. auto industry, while foundering economically, remains politically potent in the U.S. Congress and may have the ability to block the FTA. Public Services The FTA negotiations are following a “negative list” rule that allows both governments to exclude specific public services for protection. The South Korean side has listed electricity, water, education, and healthcare. Consequently, the public service sector of South Korea is not officially included in the FTA negotiations, but there is little doubt that the proposed FTA will have a significant impact in this area given the overall trend in South Korea toward privatizing the generation and distribution of energy and gas distribution. Within the context of FTA negotiations, investment clauses that eliminate “discrimination” against foreign investors in competition with public utilities and enterprises, rules of competition that outlaw state monopolies, requirements to reduce government procurement contracts, and other related clauses are the some of the most likely ways that the public provision of energy and water will be influenced, or perhaps even controlled, by private entities. Although the negative list rule is in effect with regard to public services, the U.S. side requested during the 5th round of negotiations that South Korea allow private competition from U.S. corporations seeking to design and maintain public services in South Korea. This is a sensitive issue given that South Korea’s hefty investment in its energy industry over the past thirty years has been enormously successful in building a public service that is globally respected for its operational efficiency. Should the South Korean side make this concession, energy production costs are likely to fall, but the South Koreans are unlikely to believe that an energy industry that is not broken should be fixed. Similar to the provision and maintenance of education, South Korea has also seen attempts to liberalize its educational system. South Korea is rife with private after-school and tutoring programs geared toward an intensely competitive college admissions process that ordinary South Koreans agree is heavily determinative of one’s structure of career opportunities. Not surprisingly, the result has been growing inequality in access to higher education and job opportunities that correlate closely with who can afford these private services and who cannot. U.S. negotiators are seeking the introduction of private, American-based testing services to the South Korean admissions process, and there is concern among critics of the existing system that an American-based test will further entrench or even exacerbate this economic bias by driving more parents to private school programs while poor students remain left behind. Because of the importance of the college admissions test, critics argue that the American basis of the test will lead wealthy parents to send their children to the U.S. for an American education appropriate to an American test. The FTA is also poised to open university and adult education to private corporations, and several institutions of higher education based in rural areas are expected to close. Protection and promotion of cultural diversity In theory, the proposed FTA can be seen as an opportunity to consider new thinking about cultural trade policies such as how to support creativity and cultural diversity through copyrights, patents, and related intellectual property. The outcome of talks could set an example of how to achieve a bi-national balance in considering what are essential cultural rights, as well as how to ensure that knowledge and cultural goods are available for the broadest possible public. However, maintaining the stability of any bi-national agreement between the U.S. and South Korea is unlikely given the ability of the U.S. to stand virtually alone in its approach to the trading of cultural expression. Consider, for example, the U.S. ability to withstand international pressure stemming from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions. Passed in 2005 by 148 countries, the convention generally proposes that cultural and trade policies should be developed and implemented as a limited exception, underscoring the importance of the freedom to use and share knowledge, the cultivation of diversity of cultural expressions, and preserving conditions respecting basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. The U.S. was one of two governments along with Israel that objected to the convention. All 28 amendments proposed by the U.S. were rejected by UNESCO’s member nations.84 The South Korean film industry was hopeful that the UNESCO Convention would help prevent the reduction or elimination of the film quota.85 However, the U.S. has not ratified the convention and thus is not bound by it. In applying political pressure on the South Korean government to reduce or abolish the film quota, the U.S. side essentially ignored the convention. The reduction of South Korea’s quota on domestic films was a clear economic gain achieved by the U.S. side; South Korean opponents of the concession estimate that a single day’s reduction equaled the loss of $1.6 million, and project a minimum loss of about 20 percent of South Korea’s gross film market. Hollywood films with significantly larger production and marketing budgets are expected to make significant gains over South Korea’s smaller film industry. Opening up the South Korean market any further will likely lead to similar gains and losses for the respective national industries, and thus the incentives to revisit the film quota are simultaneously clear and not going away. Finally, perhaps of greater concern to those genuinely interested in the preservation and protection of cultural diversity is that the reduction of the screen quota will not impact all South Korean film production companies equally. Larger commercial companies are more likely to survive, especially because of the global competitiveness of South Korean films. On the other hand, the change in the screen quota is likely to devastate smaller, independent film producers. Whether or not the FTA passes, it appears unlikely that the film quota concession will be reversed. This does not mean that the proposed FTA is irrelevant to the South Korean film and television industry. Workers in these sectors are already vulnerable, beset by persistent worry over lay-offs, frequent overdue payments, no collective agreement on insurance and worker security, no overtime pay for extended shooting, no guarantee of appropriate rest for workers, and no pay during pre-production. The economic pressure that the FTA is likely to bring on the film and television industry is likely to negatively impact its labor standards given the already difficult environment for the industry’s rank-and-file. While it is relatively clear that Hollywood production companies have made significant gains, it is undetermined as to whether their gains will trickle down to rank-and-file American workers in the industry.

Just three hours south of the De-Militarized Zone, the South Korean government is waging alarming levels of violence and repression against villagers in the city of Pyongtaek near the U.S. base Camp Humphrey. For over four years, residents have refused to hand over their homes and farmland to the U.S. military. Over Thanksgiving, I traveled to Pyongtaek with 18 Americans, including U.S.-mom-turned-peace-activist Cindy Sheehan. Two hundred police in riot helmets and shields stopped our bus at the first of two heavily fortified checkpoints. Fortunately several camera crews and journalists were on hand to capture Cindy Sheehan’s grand entry. The National Human Rights Commission ruled the checkpoints illegal and in violation of the villagers’ human rights, but police are still routinely harassing residents and denying visitors access. We joined villagers for their 811th consecutive vigil and heard from elders about the destruction and ongoing violence and harassment. Starting in May, over 20,000 armed riot police have repeatedly marched into the village with heavy machinery to bulldoze homes and to destroy the farmland. In defense, villagers and their supporters have used just their bodies, with some tying themselves to their roofs to save their homes. Since the clashes began, the authorities have injured over 1,000 people and demolished 68 homes and the primary school that the villagers themselves built. The government plans to destroy the remaining 147 homes by 2007. To further drive away the villagers, police have built trenches, poured concrete in irrigation canals, and laid miles of razor wire fencing to keep farmers from getting to their fields. The authorities have levied over $500,000 in fines and arrested 828 people, including village leader Kim Ji-Tae on charges of obstructing civil affairs and for his leadership in the demonstrations. On November 30, Amnesty International designated Kim a prisoner of conscience and launched an international campaign for his release. As our delegation toured the village, we saw half-demolished homes like the one pictured. Roof tiles, electrical wiring, and a blue plastic toy car were mixed in the pile of rubble. The ruins serve as a visible scar and a constant message to the residents: leave now or witness more destruction. The base expansion is part of the Pentagon’s 2003 Global Posture Review, which shifts the U.S. forces in Korea from their historic role of defending South Korea to a new capacity as a launching pad to strike regional enemies. In effect, the U.S. military will downsize its troops from 37,000 to 25,000 but spend $11 billion dollars in new military hardware and technology in South Korea. It plans to consolidate some 90 bases in Korea, relocating troops and equipment to Pusan and Pyongtaek. Many South Koreans view this amplified U.S. military presence in Korea as both fueling tensions with North Korea and standing in the way of reunification.

In September 2005, the parties to the 6-party talks—the United States, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia—agreed on a basic trade: North Korean denuclearization in return for something approaching normal relations between the U.S. and North Korea. In plain language, North Korea would stop its nuclear defense program and the U.S. would stop attempting to isolate North Korea and start up official diplomatic relations with it. Everyone immediately declared that the key issue was whether or not the two countries could build trust in each other, and those interested in making the agreement stick began to plan a progressive series of steps—trust-building measures that would compel each side to live up to its part of the agreement before moving on to the next step. However, almost immediately after the agreement was made, neoconservative forces in the Bush Administration, fearing that real diplomatic progress would be made, went after North Korea’s banking arrangements in an effort to ensure the premature death of any budding diplomatic trust. North Korea not surprisingly demanded that these sanctions be dropped. The Bush Administration, rather than re-focusing on enacting the September 2005 agreement, not only stepped up sanctions, but also pressured other nations to join them in putting the squeeze on North Korea. Quite predictably, these neoconservative-inspired actions inflamed North Korean negotiators and strengthened the position of those in North Korea arguing that the Bush Administration could not be trusted to follow through on any agreement. If this neoconservative maneuver had been a stand-alone action, then North Korea would not have tested its nuclear capability. However, since the Bush Administration came into office, it has, at times openly, at times quietly, relentlessly pursued a policy of regime change toward North Korea. President Bush publicly marked this policy’s launch in his 2002 State of the Union address by including North Korea in an “axis of evil,” a political phrase designed to vilify North Korea and the other nations so designated, while also erasing the space for diplomatic negotiation by invoking an absolutist, all-or-nothing framework. The Bush Administration put North Korea on a list of potential first-strike nuclear targets. It promoted John Bolton as its Ambassador to the United Nations—a man who had declared that the U.S.’s North Korea policy was the “end of North Korea.” Bush himself took the time to openly discuss his hatred for the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il. In October 2002, Administration officials finally acted on their unconcealed contempt for the 1994 Agreed Framework to end North Korea’s independent nuclear program, an agreement negotiated by the Clinton Administration, by accusing North Korea of having a secret uranium program—an accusation that has still not been confirmed to anyone’s satisfaction except for the Bush Administration’s—and using this accusation as an excuse for why the U.S. had not moved forward in building the two light-water reactors promised to North Korea by the 1994 Agreed Framework. It halted oil supplies to North Korea that had been part of the Agreed Framework. It rejected the policy of controlling military armaments through international treaties. It accused North Korea of failing to follow the obligations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty despite the fact that NPT’s Article X provides for withdrawal if a country considers its “supreme interests” to be threatened—and this after the Bush Administration unsuccessfully sought funding for nuclear “bunker-busters” designed to burrow deep into the ground before explosion. North Korea, with its extensive underground system specifically designed to withstand military attack from the air—a legacy of U.S. bombing during the Korean War—undoubtedly saw this effort as directed toward attacking it. Most importantly, perhaps, the North Koreans watched as the Bush Administration failed to pursue in good faith the diplomatic possibilities and preemptively invaded Iraq—an aggressive military action that has led to untold misery and severely damaged U.S. credibility throughout the world. Those who are beating the drums for a pre-emptive, illegal military attack on North Korea are not surprisingly members of the very same neoconservative cabal that got the U.S. into Iraq in the first place. North Korea is often portrayed in commercial media as being irrational and unknowable, yet it is worthwhile to note that the North Koreans have been, in many ways, remarkably straightforward about their goals and intentions. For example, during the second Clinton Administration, Kim Jong-Il famously told then Secretary of State Madeline Albright that North Korea would stop research, development, and testing of its missile program with the understanding that this would move the two governments closer to normalizing relations with each other. The North Korean government made it clear to the Bush Administration that it would continue its self-imposed ban if the Administration would get serious about negotiations as the Clinton Administration appeared to be in the late 1990s. The Administration did not get serious, and so the rockets flew this past July. Faced with the reality that the U.S. pressured Iraq to disarm, and then invaded it once their defenses were weakened, North Korea openly declared that the lesson they had learned was that rather than disarming, they needed a strong deterrent against U.S. aggression. (What other lesson could we have expected them to have learned? Should we have expected North Korea to unilaterally give up its defenses before serious diplomacy was allowed to begin, as the Bush Administration believes that North Korea should do?) Those who claim that North Korea’s nuclear test is the result of a failure of U.S. diplomacy are wrong because this claim presupposes that the Bush Administration has actually engaged in good-faith efforts to negotiate with North Korea. On the contrary, ever since it came into office, the Administration has avoided being drawn into meaningful negotiations with North Korea. Tellingly, Congressmember Curt Weldon (R-PA), Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, recently commented on the Bush Administration’s policies toward North Korea that, “while we’re tough with the North Koreans, you have to have dialogue and discussions as well.” Weldon, a prominent Republican who has taken the lead on the North Korean issue, is essentially admitting that the Bush Administration has not engaged in this necessary dialogue and discussion. Indeed, given the tenor of current conversation about the supposed threat of an irrational nuclear North Korea, what is so ironic about North Korea’s recent actions is how rational they are. Faced with a Bush Administration that has never committed itself to genuine diplomacy—not only in North Korea but almost everywhere else in the world—and has gone even further by taking active steps to torpedo North Korean diplomatic efforts to normalize relations with the U.S., the North Koreans are deeply skeptical that talking with a U.S. government unwilling to negotiate in good faith can lead to genuine progress. If the Bush Administration truly wanted North Korea to come to the table, it would naturally need to treat diplomatic negotiation as a starting point, rather than a reward for unilateral concessions. Nothing that the Bush Administration has done over the past six years suggests that Bolton’s policy “to end North Korea”” is not Bush’s policy—a fact that cannot be lost on the North Koreans who are responsible for charting its foreign policies and building relationships with other nations. North Korean leaders obviously knew that testing their nuclear capability would bring worldwide condemnation, yet they went ahead anyway. Given the efforts North Korea has made, efforts that have been expanded in recent years, to forge relations with other nations, one can only conclude that they felt themselves under a threat worse that the extremely costly effects of worldwide disapprobation—that under the threat to their very survival posed by the Bush Administration, they calculated that having an effective deterrent was necessary. There are those who argue that North Korea is not a reliable negotiating partner. However, their actions on the very issues that currently bedevil U.S.-North Korea relations suggest that this is simply not true. The North Koreans voluntarily imposed a ban on themselves on the research, development, and testing of its missile program—a ban they followed for eight years. The claim that the North Koreans violated the terms of the 1994 Agreed Framework always glosses over the stark reality that North Korea stopped processing weapons grade plutonium, and did not restart its plutonium-based nuclear program until after the Bush Administration in 2002 made an unverified accusation about a uranium-based nuclear program to claim that the North Koreans had not lived up to the Agreed Framework. In plain language, people ignore that the diplomacy during the Clinton Administration succeeding in curtailing the development of the North Korean nuclear program for eight years. (No doubt some North Koreans are kicking themselves for believing that the U.S. government would abide by the Agreed Framework and move forward on normalizing relations—a key aspect of the Agreed Framework.) Moreover, the reality that the North Koreans did not process plutonium in the years that the Agreed Framework was in force suggests that those painting North Korea as an impoverished and desperate state willing to do anything—including sell its plutonium—to survive are flatly wrong. From roughly 1993 to 1998, years labeled the “Arduous March” in North Korea, everything went wrong for North Korea. The fall of the Soviet bloc, the worst floods in a century followed by intense drought, continuing U.S. economic sanctions, and an inadequate agricultural policy led to intense suffering that reached both broadly and deeply into the North Korean population. The food situation was far, far worse than it is today, yet at the very moment that North Korea was the most impoverished and the most desperate—so desperate that it significantly opened up its borders to outsiders who could provide assistance—the North Koreans did not violate the Agreed Framework and start processing plutonium for use or for sale. Rather, when it became unmistakably clear to the North Koreans that the Bush Administration was not planning to abide by the Agreed Framework any more than it was going to abide by the Kyoto Protocols, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or any other international treaty, the North Koreans saw no point in not processing its plutonium, especially in the context of U.S. activities in the Middle East. All of this suggests that the North Koreans are, if anything, intensely watchful of the United States, and that they are willing to make trade-offs about the very things that neoconservatives and other opponents of an enduring peace on the peninsula claim that they are unwilling to trade away. That things have come to this point are deeply unfortunate, especially given that six years ago this June, then-President of South Korea Kim Dae Jung and Secretary General Kim Jong-Il of North Korea met at a historic summit that brought great hope to Koreans on the peninsula and Korean Americans that the unification of divided Korea was a very real possibility. Since June of 2000, the North and South have engaged in literally hundreds of formal cultural, social, economic, military, and political exchanges at every level. Over a million South Koreans have visited the North since the historic summit, and there has been a sea change of public opinion in the South about the North, and about the possibility of unification. Over a half-century after when the Korean nation was unnecessarily and artificially divided by the United States and the Soviet Union, unification was not just a far off dream, but rather, a present-day process propelled by meetings and events, little and big, all threading together to bind the two Koreas down a single path. North Korea’s relations with Japan were also moving forward, with then Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi openly speaking of Japan’s plan to normalize relations with North Korea and his historic visit to Pyongyang. China, Russia, and South Korea were busy beginning to invest into the infrastructure of North Korea as a means to propel their own respective economies. And since the fall of the communist bloc, North Korea had reached out to a number of capitalist countries and was slowly but surely building diplomatic and economic relations with them. Indeed, what is perhaps most tragic about this situation is that it ensures, for some time at least, that the global and domestic headlines about North Korea will be about men with power and weapons, and not about the hopes and dreams of Koreans in the North, South, and all over the world to achieve a peaceful unification. It will be about U.S. troop movements and strength in Korea and nuclear bases in Guam, and not about finally and formally ending the Korean War and bringing U.S. troops back home. It will be dominated by popular depictions of North Koreans caricatured as either ignorant innocents or evil monsters and South Koreans framed as inexperienced children incapable of understanding the threat that the North supposedly poses, and not about reuniting the millions of family members that heartbreakingly remain divided from each other.

Kang Ki Kap, Member of Parliament from the Korean Democratic Labor Party Whereas, this joint statement is made nearing the conclusion of the first round of talks regarding the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (hereinafter Kor-US FTA), which will impose hardships on peoples of both the U.S. and South Korea, particularly workers and farmers, Whereas, in response to these negotiations, United States Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D) and Parliament Member Kang Ki Kap from the Korean Democratic Labor Party are issuing this joint statement opposing the Kor-US FTA to adequately represent the interests of their constituents, because it will not benefit peoples of either country, particularly workers and farmers, but instead will only benefit large corporations and the status quo of both countries, Therefore, in order to oppose Kor-US FTA, both Congressman Kucinich and Parliament Member Kang will take various actions with both non-governmental organizations and each respective government’s Parliament and Congress, Therefore, in response to the second round of talks scheduled to take place in South Korea in July of this year, both Congressman Kucinich and Parliament Member Kang will seek both action and joint statements from other elected officials of their respective countries, and Therefore, in September, when the third round of talks in Washington, D.C. will take place, the Democratic Party of the United States and the Korean Democratic Labor Party will jointly hold congressional hearings to discuss the effects of free trade agreements (FTAs) on peoples of both countries, in addition to measures to counter FTAs, with the assistance of non-governmental organizations from both countries. Dennis J. Kucinich (D) of the United States Congress Kang Ki Kap, Member of Parliament from the Korean Democratic Labor Party

Oakland Institute Fellow | Korea Policy Institute Board Member Good morning and thank you for attending this press conference. My name is Christine Ahn and I am a fellow with the Oakland Institute and a board member of the newly formed Korea Policy Institute. The Oakland Institute is a policy think tank whose mission is to increase public participation and promote fair debate on critical social, economic and environmental issues in both national and international forums. That is why we felt it was urgent that the Korean delegation before you—the member of Parliament, farmers, and trade unionists—have an opportunity to voice their concerns to Members of Congress and the American people how a Free Trade Agreement between the U.S. and South Korea will impact their lives. They will tell you how the South Korean government has not provided any meaningful public forum for debate on the FTA, just as ordinary Americans in the U.S. have not been privy to any public hearings. Co-organized by the Korea Policy Institute and the Oakland Institute, prominent Korean leaders representing labor, farm and parliament will speak on the impact that the proposed trade agreement will have on Korean society and economy. What we do know, from over a decade of NAFTA, is that the real drivers of so-called free trade agreements are multinational corporations. The irony in all of this is that the very governments that promote the free-flow of capital prohibit the entry of the very people whose lives are at stake. As many of you know, over 100 Korean delegates had their visas denied by the U.S. State Department. Although their voices will not be heard, thankfully some 50 Koreans, including those addressing you today, managed to travel thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean and across the United States of America to address you all today. These delegates have earned the trust of the Korean people because they have been on the forefront of social movements that brought democracy to South Korea 20 years ago. Today, they are engaged in a deep political and economic struggle not only for the human and labor rights of all Koreans, but also for worker, farmer, and peasant movements throughout the world. They deserve our utmost respect for making this voyage and having the courage to speak up and fight for the human rights of their fellow citizens and their fellow workers and farmers here in the United States. Thank you.

Anuradha Mittal, 510-469-5228, amittal@oaklandinstitute.org WASHINGTON—June 1—As trade negotiators from the United States and South Korea begin free trade talks on June 5, American and Korean workers, farmers and legislators will voice their opposition to the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) at a congressional press conference on June 7, 2006, 10 AM at the Cannon Terrace, Washington, DC. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), sponsor of the briefing, says, “Once again Washington is ready to pass another trade agreement that benefits multinational corporations at the expense of workers and the environment. It is urgent that we end this race to the bottom and work for trade agreements that respect workers’ rights, human rights and environmental principles. I look forward to the briefing and working to stop this bad trade agreement.” Reps. Marcy Kaptur (OH) and John Conyers (MI) are also slated to address the bi-national delegation. Co-organized by the Korea Policy Institute and the Oakland Institute, prominent Korean leaders representing labor, farm and parliament will speak on the impact that the proposed trade agreement will have on Korean society and economy. “The proposed FTA will dramatically expand the failed model of NAFTA,” says Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute and trade expert, “wreaking havoc on American and Korean workers, farmers, and their families. We have come together to form a unified front to stop the free trade agenda from moving forward without people’s consent.” “Unless the proposed FTA includes significant labor, agriculture, and environmental protections, it is difficult to imagine how the FTA could possibly benefit workers and family farmers in either nation” says Dr. Thomas Kim, Executive Director of the Korea Policy Institute. “Extensive and organized opposition is already building in Seoul, and they are finding willing partners to take up the fight in Washington.” Koreans will be joined by U.S. representatives from the 35,000-member United Electrical Workers Union and the National Family Farm Coalition. The Korean delegation to address Congress, which is still awaiting U.S. visas to be issued includes: Young Koo Heo, Vice President, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions; Jai Kwan Choi, Policy Chair, Korean Peasants League; Jeong Ok Yi, General Secretary, Korean Women Peasants Association; Ki Kab Kang, Member of Parliament, Korean Democratic Labor Party. For more information, visit the Oakland Institute at www.oaklandinstitute.org or the Korea Policy Institute at www.kpolicy.org. ###

Lost in the flurry over North Korea’s detention of U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee is the story they sought to cover: the plight of North Korean women refugees in China. Eighty percent of recent North Korean migrants in China are women. According to “Lives for Sale,” a recent report by Lee Hae-Young based on interviews with 77 North Korean women living in China, most of these women fled North Korea in search of a better life, only to find themselves sold to Chinese farmers and laborers. Possessing few or no legal rights in China and faced with the prospect of prostitution, forced marriage, and sexual slavery there, the freedom of these Korean women is directly related to what is happening in North Korea, and what might happen should they be able to return home. North Korean women in China are highly vulnerable to exploitation, yet what consistently fails to be covered is “why are they leaving their home country?” The Washington Post found that Lee’s report, mentioned above, “is a part of a growing body of research conducted inside China that shows that North Korean defectors are mostly women from working-class and rural backgrounds who fled because of hunger and poverty, not political oppression.” This finding is corroborated by a 2004 South Korea government (Ministry of Unification) survey of over 4,000 North Koreans living in South Korea. The survey found that 75% left North Korea for economic reasons or to join their families in the south, and only 9% left because of political repression. A similar survey conducted by Refugee International in 2005 found that only two of the 63 defectors they interviewed left North Korea for political reasons. Historically, we can observe that people leaving North Korea was largely unheard of for the first four decades of its existence, until the 1990s, when the state had difficulty delivering basic economic and social goods. This is not to say there is no political oppression in North Korea. There are numerous stories of refugees who endured experiences unimaginable to most of us. However, the evidence indicates that it was the economic decline North Korea began to experience in the 1990s, not political oppression that is the main factor driving North Koreans over the border. The notion that the flight of North Koreans to China is due to political oppression has been asserted as a rational for discontinuing aid to North Korea since it would only prolong the existence of the regime and therefore the suffering of the population. But if indeed economic hardships are the primary reasons for the migration, as the evidence suggests, then the discontinuation of aid will only exacerbate the suffering of the population and encourage more to leave. This would be a terrible mistake. If we are serious about addressing the conditions of North Koreans and supporting their increased access to a wide range of political, economic, and social rights, we have to understand the root causes of North Korea’s famine and poverty. Like most industrialized countries of all political stripes around the world, the North Korean government spent decades over-relying on chemical inputs in agriculture and paying insufficient attention to soil replenishment. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist trading bloc in the late 1980s dealt a heavy blow to North Korea’s industrialized, petroleum-dependent agricultural sector. Tractors had no gas, and farmers lost a key compound in fertilizer. As North Koreans struggled to recalibrate their economy in the 1990s, the country found itself at the epicenter of devastating, once-in-a-century droughts and floods. But even before agricultural policy mistakes, Soviet collapse, and El Nino, the country of Korea was divided by the postwar Truman Administration, leaving most of the nation’s agricultural lands in the South while the North is faced with a mere 14% arable land. Nevertheless we persist in attributing the cause of North Korea’s famine to an “evil dictator” who must be dislodged before the country can get back on its feet. But this is far from the truth according to Theodor Friedrich, Senior Agriculturalist for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. In Pyongyang, in 2004, one of us asked him if an “evil dictator” was the cause of the famine. He responded that, to the contrary, what he observed was that because of North Korea’s exceptional centralized food distribution system and collective spirit, a great many lives were saved. Agricultural expert Urs Wittenwiler, who spent five years in North Korea with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, says that in most parts of the country, the food situation has stabilized and what North Korea needs is development aid and investment. Recognizing their limited options for economic recovery under the political status quo, North Korea has, since at least the early 1990s, been actively seeking to normalize relations with the United States. In response to the collapse of its state-centered economy, the government introduced economic reforms to attract foreign investment. Veteran Korea scholar John Feffer tells his audiences that “markets have become a dominant feature in North Korean society,” and that contrary to the assertion that North Korea is trying to suppress them, the government acknowledges their importance and seeks to control them through taxation and staffing. Feffer believes that “the North Korean government appears today to have no fundamental ideological opposition to markets or capitalism.” Long-time North Korea specialist Kathi Zellweger of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation says, “I feel very strongly that [the North Koreans] are trying to open up the country. They are trying to attract business. They are trying to send more delegations outside to do business, to learn about business.” Yet despite North Korea’s efforts to liberalize, “no investor is interested in North Korea as long as there are sanctions.” Many human rights groups have joined the U.S. State Department in calling for greater sanctions against North Korea, pointing to its success in South Africa and Burma. But there are huge differences between North Korea and those countries. Feffer and Martin Hart-Landsberg point out that “no domestic group within North Korea supports sanctions, as did the African National Congress in South Africa and the National League for Democracy in Burma, both of which saw the sanctions as strengthening their respective domestic struggles for democratic transformation.” This brings us, of course, to the round of U.N. sanctions imposed on June 12th as a “punishment” for North Korea’s second nuclear test. Like Cuba after its revolution, North Korea has never experienced a time when it has not been heavily sanctioned by the United States. As with Cuba, the impact of U.S. sanctions on the average North Korean has varied depending on global events, weather conditions, and political alliances. U.S. sanctions have probably had a greater negative impact on the average North Korean since the 1990s when the state was seeking more direct aid, development aid, technical assistance, and opportunities for meaningful trade. And make no mistake—the North Koreans know what the sanctions are for. According to respected Korea scholar and reporter Selig Harrison, “the North Koreans understandably see them as a regime-change policy designed to bring about the collapse of their regime through economic pressure.” While sanctions may not be “intended to restrict legitimate activity and trade and should not have an adverse affect on the already hard-pressed people of North Korea,” as British Ambassador Philip Parham claimed with the announcement of more U.N. sanctions, research clearly demonstrates that economic sanctions do indeed hurt the most vulnerable populations. For example, according to a 2000 Lancet article, during the decade-long United Nations-imposed sanctions on Iraq, the mortality rate of Iraqi children under age five more than doubled. When Barack Obama was elected President, Korean Americans, Koreans on the peninsula, and all advocates for the reunification and economic justice on the Korean peninsula dared to dream that decades of enmity between the U.S. and the North Koreans would end. Sadly, the Obama administration is, so far, at least as bad as the one it replaced. Just last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the administration was considering placing North Korea back on the State Department’s terrorist list. This ignores the point that there is no credible reason to put them on the list. In a recent interview with the Korea Policy Institute, longtime Korea expert Leon Sigal said, “I know of no evidence of recent terrorist acts by North Korea nor have I heard of anybody making such an allegation credibly.” On June 12th, the U.S. succeeded in pressuring the U.N. Security Council to place even more sanctions against North Korea, including restricting new loans, grants, and export credits. Tightening the noose around North Korea via sanctions and further isolating it has not worked before and will not work this time to improve the human rights of the people living in North Korea. What sanctions may do is force more Koreans, especially Korean women, to cross a dangerous border to face a highly exploitative system that has developed in the area to take advantage of these vulnerable people. North Korea has been tarred with the label of human rights abuser. Those of us in the U.S. who care about the human rights of North Koreans might ask ourselves what role the U.S. has played over the course of six decades in the suffering of North Koreans and in the current cross-border movement. And rather than wring our hands about a mysterious man half-way around the world, we might take responsibility for our country’s foreign policy and work to help change it. * Christine Ahn is a policy analyst with the Korea Policy Institute and member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War. Thomas Kim is the executive director of the Korea Policy Institute.

Introduction North Korea’s detonation of a nuclear device and firing of short range missiles on May 25, 2009 is a direct result of the collapse of the six-party talks, in which the United States, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Republic of Korea (South Korea), China, Russia and Japan sought to negotiate the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The six-party talks fell apart last December over disagreements between the U.S. and North Korea on verification procedures. As President elect Barack Obama took office North Korea was willing to return to the six-party talks on the condition that denuclearization would be pursued on the basis of normalized relations with the U.S. However the new administration embraced the position that North Korea must first dismantle its nuclear programs as a precondition for normalization. Relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate. In his first direct engagement with North Korea, President Obama warned in April that Pyongyang would face serious consequences if it went through with its planned satellite launch, on the theory that it was a veiled ballistic missile test. North Korea warned that should the U.S. oppose its right to engage in the peaceful exploration of space, it would never return to the six-party talks nor continue to observe any agreements made by the six parties. North Korea did indeed conduct a launch on April 5, 2009. True to their positions the U.S. sought tougher United Nations sanctions against North Korea, and North Korea declared subsequently that it will never return to the six-party talks and that it will restart its nuclear reactors and testing of missiles and nuclear devices in response to what it perceives as U.S. hostility. North Korea is now following through with its stated intentions. No one knows when the next showdown will occur. But there is no doubt that it will come, and that the “consequences” will be more severe. It could be another missile test or detonation of a nuclear device by North Korea, an escalation of joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, an incident at the DMZ, a skirmish at sea, or worse. The clock is ticking and there is no clear path back to dialogue at present. As the U.S. and it allies prepare to seek ever tougher sanctions on North Korea, and as North Korea prepares to square off against any efforts to pressure it to disarm, millions of Koreans everywhere demand an end to the hostility and the pursuit of nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula on the basis of peaceful relations between the U.S. and North Korea and Seoul and Pyongyang. The Case for a Peace Treaty to End the Korean War examines the successes, frailty, and eventual loss of faith in the six-party talks by the U.S., as well as North Korea. It thus provides historical context critical to understanding the current crisis in U.S. – North Korea relations, and it also points to solutions which are even more relevant and urgent today. This policy brief was originally prepared for Korea Peace Day, March 18th, 2009, during which numerous Korean American, human rights and American veterans’ organizations gathered in Washington DC to urge Congress and the President to end Cold War hostilities between the United States and North Korea. It is an approach that remains unexplored, and we continue to urge Congress and the Obama administration to pursue it in earnest. May 29, 2009 The Case for a Peace Treaty to End the Korean War Key points: The Korean War never ended. After three years of fighting, a cease-fire agreement was signed at the 38th parallel on July 27 1953, by the United States, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the People’s Republic of China. The signing was boycotted by the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Today the U.S. has diplomatic relations with China, but remains locked in a state of war with North Korea. Korea remains divided. For the past fifty years, the primary rationale for maintaining U.S. troops in South Korea and for sheltering South Korea under the U.S. nuclear umbrella has been to provide a deterrent against any attempt by North Korea to unify Korea by force. In light of North Korea’s willingness to normalize relations with the U.S. and accept a continuing U.S. military presence in South Korea, this rationale is an anachronism. Failure to end hostilities with North Korea stemming from the Korean War is the foremost obstacle to addressing nuclear proliferation by North Korea, ensuring peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, and maintaining long-term U.S. strategic influence in the Northeast Asia region. It is time to end the Korean War. A New Era of Opportunity For the administration of President Barack Obama to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea, it must succeed, foremost, as a peacemaker. That is the lesson of both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Returning from a visit to Pyongyang as part of a civilian delegation in February 2009, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Stephen Bosworth, now U.S. envoy to the six-party talks, reported that North Korea was willing to restart discussions on ending its nuclear programs, indicating that the door to denuclearization remains open. But North Korea is not the North Korea of eight years ago, a country enraptured in the belief that peace with the U.S. was at hand. Today, after eight years of bitter discord between the Bush administration and North Korea, results may not come easily or quickly. While visiting Pyongyang, also in February, Selig Harrison, Asia Program director of the Center for International Policy, asked North Korea’s lead negotiator on nuclear issues, Li Gun, if his country would be willing to hand over its plutonium in exchange for a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War and long-term economic aid. “The north’s rebuff was categorical and explicit. Its declared plutonium ‘has already been weaponized,’” reported Harrison. “Pyongyang is ready to rule out the development of additional nuclear weapons in future negotiations, but when, and whether, it will give up its existing arsenal depends on how relations with Washington evolve,” he emphasized. Relations in the present moment are teetering once again toward a state of crisis as evident in the recent clash over North Korea’s stated intention to launch a satellite, which Washington fears is a missile test. Still in the early stages of engaging Pyongyang, the Obama administration needs to decide very soon which course of action has a better chance of ending the threat of nuclear proliferation by North Korea, continuing to fight the Cold War in Korea, or ending it. Fortunately, after nearly two decades of U.S. diplomatic engagement with North Korea, the administration has a wealth of experiences from which to draw. Background On June 15, 2000, President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea flew to Pyongyang and met with General Secretary Kim Jong Il of North Korea. This inter-Korean summit was a historic event, transforming relations between the two governments and irrevocably shaping public opinion in South Korea toward a more peaceful and reconciliatory orientation toward North Korea. The date is celebrated on both sides of the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean people. Less than four months after the inter-Korean summit brought together the two heads of state, Jo Myong Rok, Vice Marshall of North Korea’s armed forces met with President Bill Clinton in the White House, the highest-level contact ever established between the U.S. and North Korea, and was followed three days later by an even more historic event. After over half a century of unmitigated hostility, the U.S. and North Korea formally agreed in a joint communiqué to cease the enmity. The joint communiqué stated that “neither government would have hostile intent toward the other and confirmed the commitment of both governments to make every effort in the future to build a new relationship free from past enmity.” Negotiations led to plans to send Clinton to Pyongyang to sign off on a deal that would end the North Korean missile program and provide a hugely symbolic close to decades of a Cold War begun on the peninsula in 1945. After 52 years of division, the reunification of North and South Korea never felt closer. The prospect of peace on the peninsula seemed quite real. A summit between Washington and Pyongyang would consolidate the gains for peace on the peninsula, and make it much harder, regardless of who became President in 2000, to turn back the clock. But the electoral controversy of Florida laid to rest the possibility of Clinton going to Pyongyang, and finally, late in December, the President reluctantly conceded that time had run out in his bid to end the Cold War in the place of its birth, Korea. Thereafter, the administration of George W. Bush reversed Clinton policy, cut off bilateral dialog with Pyongyang, and declared North Korea to be part of an “axis of evil.” For the next several years, the Bush administration repeatedly tested the thesis that the way to denuclearize North Korea was by exerting pressure, while relying upon China to do the talking with North Korea. Eventually, North Korea went nuclear. The basis for recent progress Only after North Korea detonated a nuclear device in October 2006 did the Bush administration engage in bilateral talks with Pyongyang in earnest. Starting in 2007, in the six-party talks, U.S. and North Korean diplomats sat down together and with representatives from Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan, revived their commitment to the September 19, 2005 landmark six-party agreement. The 2005 agreement begins by stating that “The six parties unanimously reaffirmed that the goal of the six-party talks is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner.” The agreement also notes that, “The DPRK and the United States undertook to respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies.” In their 2007 meetings, the six parties also reaffirmed their commitment to section 5 of the 2005 agreement which states that the denuclearization of the “Korean peninsula” would take place in “a phased manner in line with the principle of commitment for commitment, action for action.” In the first stage of the denuclearization process, which lasted from March 2007 to July 2007, North Korea shut down its nuclear reactors after the U.S. agreed to release North Korean assets frozen in a Macao bank. By June 2008, North Korea had fulfilled its obligations in the second stage of denuclearization, as set forth in the six-party talks of October 2007, including the provisions to declare its nuclear programs and disable its nuclear reactors. However, in the waning months of the Bush administration, tensions erupted over the issue of how to verify North Korea’s compliance with its denuclearization pledges. The long step backwards In exchange for North Korea’s fulfillment of its second-stage obligations, the U.S. was to remove it from the “Trading with the Enemy Act,” which it did promptly. The U.S. was also to remove North Korea from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list to pave the way for the third stage of denuclearization. But it did not. Instead, the U.S. demanded that North Korea submit to extensive inspection measures not negotiated in the October 2007 six-party talks as a precondition for removal from the list of terrorist states. In response, North Korea announced that it would re-enable its nuclear reactors. The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the inspection demands reported, September 26, 2008, that the measures “sought ‘full access to any site, facility, or location’ deemed relevant to the nuclear program including military facilities.” Nuclear weapons expert and former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq, David Albright, who reviewed the inspections measures for the Post, described them as “completely unacceptable to any country’s sovereignty” and amounting to “a license to spy on any military site they have.” Ultimately, Washington negotiated a partly written, and partly verbal agreement on verification with North Korea, and removed it from the list of terrorist states on October 11, 2008. However, the agreement, which was to be formally adopted at the December 2008 six-party talks, unraveled over the issue of taking samples at nuclear facilities and removing them from the country — a procedure which would yield information about how much plutonium had been processed in past activities. North Korea contends that in negotiations with Washington last October on verification, it agreed only to those measures set forth in writing, including the inspection of facilities, review of documents and interviews with technical people, but not sampling. North Korea’s official news agency (KCNA) carried a statement on November 12, 2008, describing the sampling procedure required by the U.S. negotiators as “an act of infringing upon sovereignty, little short of seeking a house-search.” The Bush administration maintained that North Korea acceded to every verification measure the U.S. had previously demanded, including sampling. Unable to overcome this difference, the third stage of denuclearization was stillborn as the Bush administration exited the scene. There has been speculation that North Korea reversed its position and decided to dig its feet in over the issue of sampling as a tactic to gain leverage in negotiations with the new administration. However, the dispute is not new. The insistence on the part of the U.S. to be able to independently verify the amount of plutonium previously processed by North Korea, and Pyongyang’s refusal to allow it, is a point of contention that goes back fifteen years to negotiations leading to the Agreed Framework of 1994. The need for verification – a case for peace During the negotiations of the 1994 Agreed Framework, the U.S. engaged in direct negotiations with North Korea because of the latter’s refusal to allow the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) to conduct tests — sampling — that might reveal the amount of plutonium it had processed in the past. North Korea contended that such information was a matter of national security and such testing was an infringement upon its sovereignty. That the Clinton administration did not demand verification of previously processed plutonium as a precondition for entering into the Agreed Framework is one of the key reasons why the agreement was opposed by the Republican-dominated congress of the 1990s and even up until this day. For those who have followed U.S. – North Korea relations over the past two decades, the collapse of the six-party talks last December over the issue of sampling should come as no surprise. The dispute over sampling is emblematic of the stark incompatibility of Washington’s aim of achieving the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement (CVID) of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs as a precondition for trusting it, with Pyongyang’s aim of maintaining a “nuclear deterrent” to countries it perceives as hostile to it, mainly the U.S. At the heart of this impasse over CVID is the unresolved Korean War. That the U.S. and North Korea would ever enter into a meaningful arms-control agreement while locked in a state of war, eyeing each other with mistrust, strains the limits of reason and the imagination. If war is the stumbling block, let it be removed. Is peace with North Korea possible? “Above all, [North Korea] wants, and has pursued steadily since 1991, a long-term, strategic relationship with the United States. This has nothing to do with ideology or political philosophy. It is a cold, hard calculation based on history and the realities of geopolitics as perceived in Pyongyang. The North Koreans believe in their gut that they must buffer the heavy influence their neighbors already have, or could soon gain, over their small, weak country,” write Stanford scholars John Lewis and Robert Carlin (Washington Post, 1/27/2007). Seasoned negotiators with North Korea during the Clinton years, Lewis and Carlin published an account of lessons learned in “Negotiating with North Korea: 1992 — 2007,” published in January 2008, much if it based on first-hand knowledge. North Korea’s interest in engaging the U.S., according to the account, was based on a “strategic decision by Kim Il Sung in the early 1990s to press for engagement with the United States and even accept a continuing U.S. military presence on the Peninsula as a hedge against expanded, potentially hostile, Chinese or Russian influence.” At the height of tensions with the U.S., a North Korea official provided an elaboration of this theme to Lewis and Carlin in 2003. It presents an outlook of the North Korean leadership that is largely unacknowledged, or simply unknown, in the west and is worth quoting in full: The basic strategic fact for us is rooted in history. We have been victimized by all our neighbors from Qing times on. This is why we want closer relations with the U.S. Do you know the Chinese saying, ‘Keep those far away close, and those close to you keep at a distance’? This is our strategic reality, and this is why we want closer relations with the U.S. It is time for us to become friends. We have learned a lot about each other in the last fifteen years, and we have come to know each other. For over a century the countries around us have competed to control us for their own strategic security and economic reasons, and we became their battlefield. You must look at the strategic picture – the big picture – as we have in order to survive. (Lewis and Carlin, 2008) Most of the lessons we have learned about what North Korea wants resulted from negotiations during the time period reviewed by Lewis and Carlin. Prior to that, there was no diplomatic contact between the two countries. U.S. State Department officials were routinely instructed not even to acknowledge the presence of North Korea diplomats at social functions. However, the historical record reveals that North Korea’s interest in peace with the U.S. dates back nearly four decades. New York Times editor Harrison Salisbury and Selig Harrison were the first U.S. journalists to interview Kim Il Sung, in 1972. At an October 2008 conference sponsored by the Korea Policy Institute (KPI) at the University of California at Berkeley, Harrison related Kim’s message: [Kim Il Sung] said, “We are being smothered by military expenditures,” and he made an appeal to the U.S. to take a new approach toward North Korea. And he said, “Look, we see you” — this was 1972 — “we see you talking about détente with the Russians and the Chinese. Where is that going to leave us? And so we need to reduce our defense expenditures or we won’t be able to survive, and we need your help, in order to do that through arms control.” He mentioned it again in 1994. (Selig Harrison, KPI conference presentation, 2008) By the mid 1970s, small numbers of Korean Americans began trickling into North Korea to reunite with long-lost relatives. They brought back the same message. By now, thousands of Korean Americans have visited North Korea, and have heard this same message from practically everyone they’ve met, as if echoing down through the years. In brief, the message is that North Korea wants and needs peace with the U.S. The need for peace now The desirability of a long-term U.S. strategic relationship with North Korea based upon pragmatic considerations should be considered by the new administration in the years ahead. But the immediate objective of achieving complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program requires a new approach that replaces enmity with peaceful co-existence as the basis for negotiations. A peace treaty with North Korea was on the agenda for serious consideration at the end of the Clinton administration. In a recent statement made in Seoul, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea James Laney updated the case for a peace treaty this way: One of the things that have bedeviled all talks until now is the unresolved status of the Korean War. A peace treaty would provide a baseline for relationships, eliminating the question of the other’s legitimacy and its right to exist. Absent such a peace treaty, every dispute presents afresh the question of the other side’s legitimacy. Only with a treaty in place will both sides be relieved of the political demand to see each move as conferring approval or not. After more than a half century, it is time for us to come to terms with existence [of North Korea] simply as a fact, and not see it as a concession. Further, a treaty would reduce the uncertainties about future policy which inevitably accompany changes in administration, in either South Korea or the US, since it is based upon ratification by the respective legislatures. (James T. Laney, “The New U.S. Administration and Peace on the Korean Peninsula,” December 2008) After eight years of futile efforts to pressure North Korea into agreeing to CVID as a precondition for normalization of relations, it is time to put peace first. The Korea Policy Institute therefore offers the following recommendations to the administration of President Obama upon which to base a new U.S. policy toward Korea and the six-party talks: Sign a peace treaty with North Korea formally ending the Korean War. Normalize relations as a basis for seeking practical ways to resolve differences pertaining to arms control, for engaging in dialog for the improvement of human rights in North Korea, and to facilitate the provision of humanitarian and development assistance needed to help ensure the economic security of the North Korean people, many of whom regularly cross the border into China in search of food as refugees with no legal protection. Encourage North and South Korea to pursue reconciliation and disarmament in accordance with their Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression, Exchanges and Cooperation and Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula of 1992, and agreements reached in the North-South summit meetings of 2000 and 2007. Provide leadership in orienting the six-party talks towards the goal of creating a nuclear-free zone in Northeast Asia and of ensuring mutually beneficial economic relations among all countries in the region. Treat the complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs as an ongoing process linked to progress made in denuclearizing the entire Korean peninsula as agreed in the September 19, 2005 six-party agreement, and in progress made in North-South and regional nuclear disarmament as described in recommendations 3 and 4, above. Pursue “direct and aggressive diplomacy with North Korea that can yield results” as pledged by President Obama in his campaign for the presidency. Convene a summit meeting between President Obama and General Secretary Kim Jong Il in which the two leaders may engage in a candid exchange of ideas leading to the realization of mutual goals.

Los Angeles, May 29, 2009— A policy brief from the U.S. based Korea Policy Institute is being released just as the recent nuclear test by North Korea and resulting condemnation by the international community demonstrate how rapidly tensions in Northeast Asia can escalate. The U.S. is once again seeking ever tougher sanctions against one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, as North Korea threatens to restart its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. How did this come about and is there any way to pull out of this downward spiral of posturing and brinkmanship? The policy analysis, The Case for a Peace Treaty to End the Korean War, addresses these questions, and includes recommendations for the Obama administration. This policy analysis was developed from the presentations of Korea scholars, policy experts, and community advocates at a U.C. Berkeley conference this past October. It posits that for the past fifty years the primary rationale for sheltering South Korea under the U.S. nuclear umbrella and maintaining troops there has been to deter a potential North Korean invasion. Conditions globally and on the Korean peninsula, however, have changed a great deal, but U.S. policies in dealing with North Korea have not. Further, “It is evident that the U.S. and North Korea never shared a common understanding of the purpose of the Six Party talks,” said Paul Liem, President of the Korea Policy Institute. “Washington regarded them as a means to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear programs, whereas Pyongyang viewed them as a way to normalize relations with the U.S.” Says Liem, in summarizing the brief, “this failure to end hostilities with North Korea stemming from the Korean War is the foremost obstacle to addressing nuclear proliferation by North Korea, ensuring peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, and maintaining long-term U.S. strategic influence in the Northeast Asia region. It’s time to end the Korean War.” The brief concludes with several recommendations for the Obama administration as it continues to develop its Korea policy. Click here for the full report.

Selig S. Harrison is director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy and a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the former director of the Century Foundation¹s Project on the United States and the Future of Korea. Specializing in South Asia and East Asia for fifty years as a journalist and scholar, he has visited North Korea over ten times and on two occasions, met with the late Kim Il Sung. He is the author of six books on Asian affairs and U.S. relations with Asia, including Korean Endgame: A Strategy For Reunification and U.S. Disengagement, published by Princeton University Press in May 2002. Dr. Harrison serves as an advisory board member of the Korea Policy Institute (KPI). With the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) preparing to launch a satellite and the Obama administration preoccupied with reviving the moribund U.S. economy, KPI caught up with Dr. Harrison on March 27 to gather his assessment of current conditions. [Paul Liem]: Before we talk about current events, I’d like to gather your thoughts on Pyongyang’s outlook on the denuclearization issue when you visited North Korea—last January, was it? [Selig Harrison]: I visited North Korea from January 13 to 17, 2009. [Paul Liem]: In your [February 2009] Washington Post op-ed, you wrote that “Pyongyang is ready to rule out the development of additional nuclear weapons in future negotiations, but when, and whether, it will give up its existing arsenal depends on how relations with Washington evolve.” For this to happen, in their view how would they like to see relations with the U.S. evolve? [Selig Harrison]: Well they would not like the approach that has been defined by the U.S. all along and that has been first denuclearization and then normalized relations. What North Korea is now saying is that normalized relations must come first and then they will consider denuclearization at that time in the light of what the relations are with the U.S.—whether they continue to feel threatened from the U.S. So I think that it’s in the interest of the U.S. and South Korea and Japan to work toward normalized relations with North Korea because that will open up North Korea to more outside influences and strengthen all the pragmatic humane elements in North Korea. Strengthening the pragmatic elements in the leadership will improve the chances that we will get complete denuclearization at some point. [Paul Liem]: Regarding the issue of taking samples at their nuclear facilities do you think this is something that they’re willing to negotiate if conditions do normalize between the two countries or is this forever going to be off the table? [Selig Harrison]: Well no. I think they have outlined in the next phase of negotiations a place for verification—for taking samples from the nuclear waste sites. This issue goes back to 1994 when the U.S. was afraid that before the Agreed Framework North Korea had already accumulated some hidden nuclear material, hidden in nuclear waste sites, and we’ve been trying to get at those sites ever since. What North Korea is saying is that they are prepared for verification of inspections at these nuclear waste sites, but of course that was only on certain conditions. And now the conditions have become stricter. They want in return for access to those waste sites inspections in the south, of U.S. bases in South Korea, and if necessary, South Korean facilities to make sure that there are no nuclear weapons in South Korea. The U.S. of course said in 1991 that it had withdrawn all nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula but North Korea is saying how do we know that? We want reciprocity in inspections. So that’s made things much more difficult. Now, of course, they don’t want to do the inspections themselves in South Korea. What they’re saying is that the six-party denuclearization working group should conduct inspections in accordance with their July 12, 2008 declaration that denuclearization should cover the entire Korean peninsula. So they envisage a six-party working group of some kind coming in and maybe making pro forma investigations in South Korea, in U.S. air bases in South Korea, or maybe they’re more serious about it, we don’t know. But anyway, that is the price they’re now asking, and they also want a declaration, they want the U.S. to make a declaration of all the nuclear weapons it brought into South Korea, what they were and whether they were removed—a detailed declaration just like North Korea has been expected to make of its own nuclear program. So, they imposed these terms for inspections and verification. And it should be noted that the 38 kg of plutonium that they declared in the previous denuclearization negotiations, they told me on my visit to Pyongyang in January, have now been weaponized, already weaponized. So that plutonium, which was originally intended for inspection, can no longer be inspected because it is now military weapons. So all they’re talking about inspecting now is the nuclear waste sites where we fear more plutonium than they have declared may be hidden. [Paul Liem]: From the points of view of the U.S., China and Russia how do you think these three countries would respond or have responded to this idea of reciprocity on inspections throughout the peninsula? [Selig Harrison]: Well, all of the six parties have said in the July 12, 2008 statement, as announced by the Chinese chairman of the working group, that they accepted the principle of denuclearization of the entire of Korean peninsula as being the goal. Therefore I think that they would certainly accept the need to do something consistent with the statement. How much they would want to do, how serious the inspections process in South Korea and of U.S. bases in South Korea would be – a lot would have to be negotiated. But it would be difficult in light of that July 12, 2008 statement not to accept the principle of denuclearization in the entire Korean peninsula. [Paul Liem]: Did you have an opportunity to talk with officials in North Korea about how they see getting beyond this issue of the uranium enrichment program? This has been a real point of contention with the U.S. [Selig Harrison]: Well of course there’s a big problem here. The U.S. still suspects that they might have a secret uranium enrichment program however they completely deny that they’ve ever attempted to ever do any uranium enrichment. And the military in North Korea, I’ve learned on my visits there, thinks it’s a good idea to keep the U.S. guessing because they see this as a deterrent, part of the deterrent. If we think they might have a uranium program, then we’re more likely to be deterred from any attack. Don’t ever forget that North Korea views the danger of a military attack by the U.S. as real. So they think keeping us guessing about uranium is good for their deterrent. However there’s no evidence that they had imported enough significant equipment to put together an actual enrichment program. So when the CIA in 2002 predicted that by mid decade North Korea would have a weapons grade uranium enrichment facility it was really making a wild exaggerated projection and that of course has caused a lot of trouble. And of course the U.S. has backed off from accusing them from having weapons grade facility. The U.S. still demanded an accounting for what the North Koreans had done with the equipment they were known to have imported. We confronted the North Koreans with evidence that they had imported aluminum tubes just like the famous aluminum tubes in Iraq. The North Koreans were forced to answer because there was specific evidence. So they took American inspectors to factories and showed them that the aluminum tubes had been used for non-military, not for nuclear reasons, not for nuclear purposes. But for the other equipment that the U.S. is accusing North Korea of having imported for uranium enrichment, there’s no concrete proof with which to confront them. For example Pakistan has said, President Mushariff said in his memoirs that Pakistan transferred nearly two dozen prototype centrifuges to North Korea. Well, there’s no evidence provided, just a bald assertion, and the North Koreans deny this. So that’s one of the reasons why this issue is still alive. And the U.S. is afraid that if it gets evidence to put in front of North Korea proving that these centrifuges were transferred, then they would have to take sanctions against Pakistan as a nuclear proliferator. But we’re in bed with Pakistan against Al Qaeda. On the denuclearization issue, to be clear what North Korea is offering, they’re now saying that they have weaponized the 38 kg of plutonium that they declared. That’s enough for 4 or 5 weapons. And they said that’s off the table now. They’ve weaponized it already. But they are now offering to draw the line there, and to cap their program at the 4 or 5 nuclear weapons which that plutonium could be used for. So the next stage of the denuclearization negotiations should focus on capping their nuclear arsenal at 4 or 5 weapons, by negotiating the terms of the Yongbyon reactor dismantlement as was envisaged in the previous negotiations. But of course the whole future of the six-party talks are up in the air because we’re threatening sanctions for this satellite launch that’s expected. The North Koreans are saying if you do that, the whole thing is off, we’re no longer bound by the 2005 denuclearization agreement. [Paul Liem]: Do you feel that if the U.S. and North Korea actually concluded a peace and normalized relations and actually denuclearization was proceeding across the entire peninsula as envisioned in the six-party talks, that there is still a possibility North Korea would disarm its nuclear weapons, the 4 or 5 it has produced? [Selig Harrison]: Yes, I believe so. I believe that the development of nuclear weapons was a response to what they considered a threat from the U.S. If we really have normalized relations, they trust us and no longer fear us, and we’re working very close together, I think the more moderate leaders would grow stronger and as part of the process of tradeoffs, in which they get things for being good boys, that they would gradually give them up. [Paul Liem]: Before we talk more about missiles or satellites or whatever it is, I want to ask you about how the new administration’s North Korea policy is evolving. President Obama alluded in his campaign a new willingness to engage bilaterally with adversaries. Now it doesn’t appear on the surface that this approach has really been developing in terms of U.S. – North relations. I was wondering if you have any knowledge on how U.S. policy is developing in this area. [Selig Harrison]: The Obama administration is preoccupied with other things, the financial crisis, Middle East, Iran. And so they really haven’t given much attention yet, in high levels, as to what to do with North Korea, and would just as soon not have this missile, this satellite launch, confronting them making it necessary to adopt policy responses. They haven’t even gotten their team together. They have appointed Stephen Bosworth as the negotiator but they haven’t appointed a new Assistant Secretary for East Asia even though there’s talk of Kurt Campbell in that job. So they don’t really have a full policy process in play. They haven’t given real attention to this. They’re improvising in the face of developments and it’s going to be many months before there’s a real Obama administration North Korea policy. We just have to hope that events don’t close the door on many options – that the satellite issue does not lead to a break in the six-party process. [Paul Liem]: In terms of laying the groundwork for future U.S.-North Korea relations, as you say, the administration appears to be developing its policy as it goes. But the Secretary of State did make some statements last month during her trip to Asia, one which appeared to indicate that the U.S. wanted North Korea to dismantle its programs as a precondition to normalization, and also some comments she made indicating concern for how the health of the North Korean leader might effect prospects for negotiating with the North Koreans. How do you see the effect of these statements on shaping U.S.-North Korea relations at this point? [Selig Harrison]: Well, they certainly reaffirmed that they haven’t acceded to the North Korean idea that normalization should come first. They reaffirmed the standing existing policy that denuclearization should come first. However, I don’t think they’ve closed the door to anything. When I learned last January that they had weaponized their declared plutonium, I raised the question of the missile negotiations reopening. As you know missile negotiations had been taking place in the last days of the Clinton administration. In reply the North Koreans said okay we can have missile negotiations, and there have been some indications from the new administration that it’s interested in such a dialog. The administration has made statements that have basically kept U.S. policy right where it has been. But they haven’t made statements talking about regime change as the Bush administration did. So I would say they’ve kept the door open and we’ll see what happens. And we just have to hope that the satellite launch doesn’t lead to military action by Japan or sanctions in the United Nations and that the North Koreans declare that the six-party process is over. [Paul Liem]: Regarding this satellite or missile launch, why do you think the North Koreas are making this launch at this time and what do you think would be the best way for the administration to respond to this impending launch? [Selig Harrison]: Well the way this is being presented in Japan and in the U.S. in particular is that it is a sort of a military move on the part of North Korea, a very provocative threatening military move. In fact I think the reasons for the launch have very little to do with the potential of a military missile program. I think North Korea is in bad economic shape. One of the main ways for it to get cash is to sell missiles and missile technology. So I think this launch, I think there are 5 reasons they’re doing it. First the launch is kind of an advertisement. There probably will be Syrians and Iranians there watching and they’re hoping to drum up some business. Secondly I think that this is timed in a very interesting way. It’s right on the eve of the Supreme People’s Assembly which is going to be the first time that the Supreme People’s Assembly, the highest body in North Korea, will have been convened in 6 years. And so the launch of the satellite is a big prestigious show for the Kim Jong Il regime. And we say all politics is local. It’s true in North Korea too. The regime will try to bask in the glory of this launch if it comes off. Of course they failed in 2006 and 1998 wasn’t much of a launch. The third reason is that it is an attempt to redeem failures of the unimpressive launches of the past and the people who are running the satellite launch program really have to deliver this time, or I think there are going to be some generals in difficulty in Pyongyang. I think it is true, the 4th reason, that they do want to get the attention of the U.S. This is a way of trying to counter the preoccupation of the U.S. with other foreign policy issues – to remind it that North Korea is there. So there is that element of it. Lastly, something that is generally not noticed is that South Korea has been planning a launch of its own satellite in July, the so-called KSLV Korean Space Launch Vehicle 1 – they spent a billion dollars on it. A satellite launch by North Korea, this month, would be a way to neutralize the prestige impact of South Korea coming up with a very successful launch of its own. Previous South Korean launches have been in connection with European space agency and I guess the U.S. but this time South Korea is trying to do it on its own. And Japan of course has had 25 satellite launches that are very similar to what North Korea is doing. So North Korea’s launch is not really a threatening move at all. And they’ve observed all the rules this time. They’ve notified all the relevant agencies, and have done this by the rules, the same rules that South Korea and Japan observe when they have satellite launches. So I think this picture of the satellite launch as a threatening military move is very misleading. Of course it will demonstrate North Korea’s capabilities to develop a missile program, but considering the military threats that they face, it’s not surprising that they want to have a missile program. [Paul Liem]: I was going back through my records and I noticed that the first time there was some kind of report of the North Koreans entering the space frontier was back in November 2008. They made an announcement to the effect that they were going to launch a satellite. I was wondering was there any response from the administration, the Bush administration, or anything, at that time? Was this viewed as a threat back then or is this something that just became a problem this year? [Selig Harrison]: I don’t think it was taken too seriously. I think however of course the U.S. has from the beginning warned this would be a mistake, a provocative thing to do, and it’s the wrong way to go, and they always warned that there would be sanctions. And that is the great danger. If we go to the United Nations for sanctions and are able to get them enacted, in spite of Chinese efforts to block them, then North Korea has said it will consider the 2005 six-party denuclearization agreement ended. We’d really be back to square one. But I think the Bush administration didn’t get into this in a very serious way. [Paul Liem]: If sanctions were to be on the table at the United Nations in the near future would it come before the Security Council? Or… [Selig Harrison]: Yes, I think so. Well, it depends on the way it’s introduced. [Paul Liem]: At this point if a resolution was put before the Security Council then Russia and China would also have to go along with this? [Selig Harrison]: That is right. [Paul Liem]: The last question I have for you is do you feel that at this point it would be appropriate for the President to get personally involved in this issue either by means of making a public statement or perhaps privately sending a message to the North Koreans? If so what do you think that message should be? [Selig Harrison]: I think the most important thing for President Obama now is to not say anything provocative to North Korea. If he’s not in a position to take a personal initiative by offering to meet the leaders of North Korea or get into these issues in a serious way, I think the best thing to do is not to stir up the waters. At a certain point I would hope that Obama himself would get into the North Korea issue and make overtures to North Korea. But first I think it has to be at the level of the Secretary of State and then at the Presidential level. But we’re way ahead of ourselves because the administration still has to get past this satellite launch, and see how things go. I hope that the U.S. will not push sanctions at the United Nations and not make more than what have so far been rather pro forma statements of alarm about the launch. Then we have to see what’s possible as the year progresses. But I think that the important thing is not to overheat this satellite launch issue and so far it’s been Japan that’s been most provocative I think, in that it has threatened to take military action, hitting the satellite on the launching pad and so forth. [Paul Liem]: Well we’ll be watching the news with great anticipation and hoping that we get past this without any military incidents. I look forward to talking with you about this issue in the near future. [Selig Harrison]: Very good to hear from you. Paul Liem is the President of the Korea Policy Institute.

(This interview was conducted on March 27, 2009. The interview took place in Korean and was translated by the interviewer. For Dr. Dong-Choon Kim’s accompanying paper, click here. For a video of the U.C. Berkeley conference on the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, click here. For the announcement of the TRC conference, click here.) South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the first of its kind in northeast Asia. The establishment of the TRC represents a dramatic change from the silence that was imposed by past authoritarian regimes in South Korea about massacres committed by U.S. forces and the South Korean police and military before and during the Korean War. But the four-year mandate of the Commission is set to expire in April 2010, if it is not renewed to continue its important work. The work of the TRC was introduced recently to the American public in a speaking tour organized by the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea to various American college campuses, which included events at Lewis & Clark College, UC Berkeley, UCLA, NYU, Columbia University, and Boston College, culminating in a panel presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Chicago on March 27, 2009. After the panel, I caught up with Professor Dong-Choon Kim, one of the Standing Commissioners of the TRC, to learn about his involvement with the TRC and his reflections upon his work as his term is coming to an end in November of this year. He is also Professor of Sociology at SungKongHoe University in Seoul, Korea, and has authored numerous books on the Korean War and social movements in South Korea. Among them, The Unending Korean War (Korean title: War and Society) has been translated into English, published by Tamal Vista Publications in 2000. [Suzy Kim]: How did you get involved with this kind of work? [Dong-Choon Kim]: The year 2000 was the 50th anniversary of the Korean War and a conference was organized on the theme of war and human rights, which led to legislative activities on behalf of victims of the Korean War. I became the Secretary-General of the non-governmental organization that was organized at this time, the Pan-National Committee for Truth Concerning Civilian Massacres Before and After the Korean War (한국전쟁전후 민간인학살 진상규명 범국민위원회). In February 2004, we submitted legislation to clear the records of those convicted as “leftists” before and during the Korean War, but it failed to pass the National Assembly. However, during his presidential address on the anniversary of Korea’s independence from Japanese colonial rule on August 15, 2004, then President Roh Moo-hyun addressed the need to set the record straight on Korea’s contentious past. This came at a time when the mandate of the Presidential Commission on Suspicious Deaths (대통령소속 의문사 진상규명위원회) investigating the mysterious deaths during the democracy movement of the 1960s through the 1980s was coming to an end, which resulted in the coming together of those interested in shedding light on the mysterious deaths with those investigating civilian massacres during the Korean War through the formation of the Pan-National Committee for the Clarification of the Past (과거청산범 국민위원회). I was working as the Executive Committee Chairperson of this organization when legislation establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Korea was passed on May 3, 2005. I was nominated by President Roh as one of the commissioners, and the Commission was officially established on November 2, 2005. [Suzy Kim]: How has this work with the TRC affected you personally and professionally? [Dong-Choon Kim]: Because there had never been a commission with such a broad mandate instituted by the government to look at its own past mistakes, I really had to start from scratch in terms of setting up guidelines for methods in investigations as well as administrative procedures, which were enormously challenging. While those coming into the commission as civil servants saw the commission as part of the administrative branch because that was where our funding came from, those of us without civil service backgrounds really saw the commission as a special, independent instrument created for the purpose of examining the governments in the past. For many providing oral testimonies, this really is their last chance because they are now quite elderly. Feeling situated at a very historic moment, I have presided over the collection of oral testimonies from approximately 20,000 people, but I’m not so sure yet how best to preserve these materials for the future. [Suzy Kim]: How widely does the South Korean public know about TRC’s work? How are the South Korean people reacting to TRC’s work? [Dong-Choon Kim]: There isn’t much interest in South Korea, especially with the current economic crisis, and our mandate doesn’t include public education. So, there is little funding to publicize and distribute the public reports of the commission. There’s been some media coverage based on our press releases, but generally you don’t see the kind of public rage that we saw with the prosecution of former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, in 1996, for the Kwangju Massacre. There may be a sense of fatigue among ordinary Koreans about the successive projects of uncovering the past, although such attitudes have been largely instigated by the conservative press. Ideally, there should be documentaries, educational materials, scholarly publications, artistic and cultural productions as a way of coming to terms with the past uncovered by the TRC, but we don’t see that. [Suzy Kim]: Could you tell us about your experience of engaging with the American public during the speaking tour in the US? [Dong-Choon Kim]: I think the tour has been generally quite successful, and the events have been attended very well. As the Korean War itself has been relatively unknown to the public in the U.S., let alone the civilian mass killings during the war, people were generally very surprised by my presentation. [Suzy Kim]: What is the most important message you would like the American public to take away from the work of the TRC? What is the role of the American public, if any? [Dong-Choon Kim]: The TRC is an institution set up by the South Korean government, and therefore makes recommendations to the South Korean government. The TRC has uncovered many cases of civilian massacres committed by American forces during the Korean War, and has urged the South Korean government to address the U.S. government with its findings related to civilian victimization by the U.S. troops. But ultimately, the American government must conduct additional investigations and provide redress concerning such crimes when it receives our recommendation. There was just too much damage to simply dismiss as “collateral damage.” In that sense, the Korean War wasn’t just a “Korean” War but was also an “American” War. In Vietnam, the Vietnam War is called the “American War” and yet the American people don’t recognize this American War as American. The Korean War was the prelude to the Vietnam War, and to the current wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. The American public has a responsibility to have historical awareness of the Korean War to be able to put subsequent conflicts into perspective. The work of our commission may provide a chance for the public in the U.S. to reflect on what the U.S. has done to the Third World in the name of liberty and democratization. [Suzy Kim]: What are the ways in which the investigations of the TRC challenge the main narrative of the Korean War? [Dong-Choon Kim]: The main narrative of the Korean War describes the hostile North Koreans invading the peaceful South in an attempt at a communist take-over with the support of the Soviet Union, thereby prompting a potential Third World War, until the United States came to rescue Korea’s freedom. However, what you see through the detailed and rich cases investigated by the TRC is that practices deployed during the Korean War originated in the [Japanese] colonial period, and were reinstituted by the American occupation in the ensuing Cold War. Summary executions, preventative detentions, peremptory inspections, and martial law were mechanisms used during the colonial period. Although such practices were abolished by law upon liberation, this was only on paper and the practices continued to be used by the military and police under the US occupation. The massacres were not the result of antagonisms between the left and right, but were the result of fostering pawns and agents [among the Korean population], which began under colonial rule. Those who worked with the Japanese colonial police and military became the South Korean police and military, and some of them acted as perpetrators of massacres, in addition to those who fled the North. Anti-communism brought these disparate elements together in common cause as many of those who fled the North became chiefs of police and military personnel in the South hunting down alleged communists. [Suzy Kim]: Most of the emphasis on the TRC’s work seems to be on finding the truth. So, what about reconciliation? How is the TRC pursuing reconciliation? [Dong-Choon Kim]: To be honest, we have not yet been able to devise concrete measures or tools to achieve reconciliation. But reinstating the victims’ honor and performing memorial services for the dead as part of reconciliation can happen only after truth is uncovered. One possibility is that the TRC can provide a forum to bring together the victims and perpetrators once they are identified, and to offer official government apology to the victims and their families. In that way, the confirmation of the truth and the official recognition of the victims may provide the first steps for reconciliation. But true reconciliation can only be reached when perpetrators can provide heartfelt apologies to their victims. [Suzy Kim]: How would you like to see the issue of massacres before and during the Korean War resolved? How should the work of the TRC be continued and concluded? [Dong-Choon Kim]: The primary role of the TRC should remain to verify what really happened at the time of the incidents that have been filed with the commission. Like Chief Joseph says “It does not require many words to speak the truth.” Unfortunately, Korea has not seen this applied often in past years under authoritarian rule. No arbitrarily imposed political agenda should hinder these stories from coming out any longer. The victims and their families have already suffered enough, and we cannot simply keep on veiling them and leaving them out of history. What we do, hopefully, can provide an initial step towards the truthful reconciliation between the victims and perpetrators, thus achieving social justice in the long term, and I hope history will be able to reflect this in the future. Suzy Kim is a Fellow at the Korea Policy Institute. She is currently a visiting professor of history at Boston College. Before joining academia, she worked at MINKAHYUP Human Rights Group as the international secretary in Seoul. She continues her human rights advocacy work as the Korea Country Specialist for Amnesty International USA. Her current research focus is North Korean social history, particularly mass mobilization in everyday village life from 1945 to 1950.