Ending the Korean War

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Ending the Korean War

A recent Center for Korean Studies conference brought together a wide range of speakers to reconsider how to end a war that never technically ended.

Podium and first row, left to right: Paul Liem, Korea Policy Institute; Dorothy Ogle, former Methodist missionary to South Korea; Pilju Kim Joo, Agglobe Services International; Indong Oh, M.D.; Jeong Young-Hee, farmer and peace activist from Gangjeong, Jeju Island; Christine Ahn (back turned), Global Fund for Women and Oakland Institute, and daughter. Top row, left to right: Moon Jae Pak, M.D., U.S.-North Korea Medical Science Exchange Committee; historian Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago; Erich Weingartener, CanKor; Rev. Syngman Rhee; James Chun, One Korea Movement; Hosu Kim, City University of New York.
Conference organizers and speakers.* (Photo: Peggy McInerny.)

The UCLA Center for Korean Studies hosted a conference entitled “Ending the Korean War” on May 9, 2013. The meeting brought together a wide range of speakers — historians, sociologists, former missionaries, peace activists, Korean War survivors, and people currently engaged in humanitarian projects in North Korea — to reconsider how to end a war that never technically ended. Instead of a peace agreement, the United States and North Korea signed an armistice agreement in 1953 on behalf of their allies on each side.

Sixty years later, the Korean Peninsula remains heavily militarized, the United States has still not recognized North Korea, and acute tensions between the two states earlier in 2013 threatened to lead to military conflict.

Historian Bruce Cumings of the University of Chicago, where he is Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor and chair of the history department, served as keynote speaker. In his view, U.S. policy toward North Korea over the past 60 years, which has consisted mostly of nuclear threats, has been a complete failure. Not only does North Korea now have nuclear weapons, as well as long- and medium-range missiles, the two nations are no nearer to a peace agreement than they were in 1953.

“We haven’t taken the bull by the horns and figured out a way to make a deal with North Korea that would both allow it to exist and survive and — hopefully — thrive, and allow us to get out of what is really. . . a ridiculous position of threatening a tiny countr

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The National Campaign to End the Korean War

www.endthekoreanwar.org/ - 저장된 페이지유사한 페이지 - 이 페이지 번역하기

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UCLA Center for Korean Studies, the Korea Policy Institute along with groups including the National Campaign to End the Korean War are participating in this ...

Ending the Korean War

Thursday, May 9, 2013
9:30 am - 5:00 pm, Young Research Library - Main Conference Room 11360

A Conference

See below for additional information.

Admission

Free and open to the public. RSVP is suggested.

Contact

Center for Korean Studies
(310) 825-3284
koreanstudies@international.ucla.edu

Website

http://www.international.ucla.edu/korea/events/showeven...

Additional Information

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Korean Armistice, which temporarily halted the fighting, yet failed to officially end the Korean War. This conference will examine key issues surrounding the war and the ongoing division of Korea, such as separated families, Korea's militarization, and the humanitarian crisis in North Korea.

• 9:30 Welcome: John Duncan, UCLA Christine Hong, Korea Policy Institute and UC Santa Cruz
• 9:40 – 10:20 Keynote Address: Bruce Cumings, University of Chicago
• 10:20 – 12:00 Panel 1: Testimonials (moderated by Namhee Lee, UCLA) Moon Jae Pak, MD, Chairman of US-North Korea Medical Science Exchange Committee Syngman Rhee, Reverend, former President of the National Council of Churches USA George and Dorothy Ogle, former missionaries to Korea James Chun, Korean American resident of LA and separated family member
• 12:00 – 12:30 Teaching Initiative to End the Korean War Workshop led by Albert Park, Claremont McKenna and Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea
• 12:30 – 1:15 Lunch
• 1:15 – 2:50 Panel 2: Gender and Militarism (moderated by Sung-ok Lee, United Methodist Women) Young Hee Jeong, peace activist from Jeju Island Hosu Kim, Assistant Professor of Sociology at City University of New York Christine Ahn, board member of Korea Policy Institute
• 2:50 – 3:00 Break
• 3:00 – 4:20 Panel 3: People-to-People Programs /North Korean Humanitarian Assistance (moderated by Christine Hong, Korea Policy Institute and UC Santa Cruz) Pilju Kim Joo, founder of Agglobe Services International Indong Oh, MD, orthopedic surgeon, Los Angeles Erich Weingartner, editor of CanKor
• 4:20 – 4:50 Closing Discussion and Wrap-up Remarks: Paul Liem, Korea Policy Institute

http://happenings.ucla.edu/all/event/98816

It’s time to end the Korean War: Walkom

Forget sanctions against Pyongyang. Until a real peace treaty is signed with North Korea, nothing will be solved.

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The ceasefire of 1953 called for all foreign troops to be withdrawn from the Korean peninsula. The Chinese withdrew, as did the Canadians, British and most other UN forces. But the Americans, at the behest of the South Korean government, stayed.

By: Thomas Walkom National Affairs, Published on Wed Mar 13 2013

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There is a way to defuse the standoff with North Korea. It will not be easy. But short of going to war again in the Korean peninsula, it is probably the only solution.

That solution is to negotiate and sign a real peace treaty with Pyongyang.

The great secret of the Korean War is that it has never ended. An armistice was signed in 1953 to halt the fighting and let belligerents begin talks on a final peace treaty.

But those talks never occurred.

This history — of what happened and what did not happen in 1953 — is crucial for an understanding of North Korea’s almost pathological approach to the world.

It also helps to explain why North Korea announced Monday that it is, in effect, tearing up the armistice.

The ceasefire of 1953 was not a deal between North and South Korea. South Korean president Syngman Rhee refused to sign on.

Rather it was an arrangement signed by commanders of the main military forces at war in the peninsula — the Americans on behalf of the United Nations Command (which included Canadian troops) and the North Koreans on behalf of their own soldiers and so-called Chinese volunteers.

The armistice set the demarcation line between territory controlled by the North Koreans and territory controlled by the UN Command.

That dividing line was supposed to be temporary. The armistice called for negotiations to begin within three months on a comprehensive political settlement for the peninsula.

And it called for all foreign troops — UN and Chinese — to be eventually withdrawn.

The Chinese did withdraw, as did the Canadians, British and most other UN forces. But the Americans, at the behest of the South Korean government they had set up, stayed. They are still there.

In violation of the armistice, the U.S. arbitrarily set the maritime boundary between the two Koreas. Between 1958 and 1991, the U.S. armed its forces in South Korea with nuclear weapons, another violation.

So when Pyongyang says, as it did this week, that the terms of that armistice have been breached by the UN side, it is not entirely inaccurate.

To assign blame for the standoff on the Korean peninsula is a mug’s game. Most historians agree that the Northern troops did invade the South in 1950. But they also agree that both North and South had been conducting raids into one another’s territory during the months before.

During the war, both sides committed unspeakable atrocities. Both lost hundreds of thousands of civilians although, thanks to UN bombing raids, the North lost markedly more.

The North has been a dictatorship since its inception. The South, while a military dictatorship for most of the post-war period, embraced democracy in 1987.

The UN side may have broken the armistice by keeping U.S. troops in the South. But the North broke the ceasefire in even more outrageous ways — from its assassination forays to its 2010 shelling of South Korean civilians.

The real question now is what to do next.

Washington’s insistence that the North give up its nuclear weapons is almost certainly a non-starter. The North’s leaders saw what happened when Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Moammar Ghadafi abandoned their nuclear programs. They are unlikely to make the same mistake.

Sanctions against the North haven’t worked. And even with China agreeing to enforce them, they are unlikely to work in the future. North Korea has proven itself both stubborn and resilient.

Only two choices are left: Reignite the war that never ended or make peace. War against a nuclear-armed North Korea is madness. Peace talks on the basis of the 1953 armistice would surely make more sense.

North Korea has long insisted it wants normal relations with the U.S. and others. Why not call Pyongyang’s bluff?

As a country that, in a roundabout way, was a party to the 1953 armistice, Canada is in a good position to make the case.

Thomas Walkom’s column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Read more about: North Korea

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/03/13/its_time_to_end_the_korean_war_walkom.html