Mennonite
Central
Committee

Korea and the Koreans

Vol. 30, No. 3
July-September 2000

Introduction

When the leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) met in Pyongyang, DPRK June 12—14, it was a historic moment.

There had not been a summit meeting between these two countries—whose people form one nation—since the armistice between them, suspending but not ending the war, was signed at Panmunjom, in the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two countries, on July 27, 1953.

It was a hopeful moment, and while they may not have resolved the largest issues between them, it appears that some momentum toward understanding and relaxation of the 47-year standoff was established.

But the legacy of those years will not be paved over or forgotten in a three-day summit. This looks at some of the issues between the DPRK and the ROK and describes several responses to those issues.

Special thanks to Marilyn Weingartner, who contributed the sidebars to this issue. Weingartner is a consultant on international health, and was formerly medical assistant in the Health and Hospital Unit of the World Food Programme, Pyongyang, DPRK.

—Editor

 

Peace and Reunification in the Korean Peninsula

A Chronicle of the Dialogue between Christians in North and South Korea

The Road to Reconciliation

 

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Peace and Reunification in the Korean Peninsula

Rev. Jung Jiseok

The division of the Korean Penin sula is still going on, even though the Cold War, its main cause, is over. This division, with its evil origin, has made it impossible for both north and south Koreans to live peaceful lives; hence the reunification movement, which has tried to overcome the division, has also been a peace movement.

Korean reunification would mean peace and liberation for all of the Korean people.

Historical Background

Located between China and Japan, the Korean Peninsula was divided into the DPRK and the ROK (commonly referred to as North and South Korea) by two superpowers. The North was temporarily ruled by the Soviet Union and the South by the U.S. according to their Cold War strategies in Northeast Asia after the end of the second World War.

The division brought about the Korean Civil War between North and South for three years, 1950—1953, and this fratricidal war aggravated the conflict between the DPRK and the ROK into emotional enmity.

What is worse is that the fighting stopped only with an armistice, not with actual peace, and a state of war has continued to exist to this day. As a result, the divided Korean Peninsula has been under the cloud of politico-military tension and ideological indoctrination on both sides, at great human cost.

The Korean division line is shaped by the demilitarized zone, which has a width of 4 kilometers (2.5 miles} and a length of 250 kilometers (155 miles), along which one and a half million troops confront each other. People in the two Koreas are un able to contact each other; neither ex changes of letters nor telephone calls nor meetings in foreign countries have been possible since the division.

The suffering of separated family members has been particularly enormous. Since the division, over ten million people have been living separate from mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, wives and husbands, without any contact, for almost a half century. Most do not know whether their family members are alive or dead.

For these reasons, the northern and southern Korean people—though they actually belong to the same nation, which has a 5,000-year history and has maintained a very strong homogeneous identity, tradition, culture, and language—have become the worst relatives in the world.

Relations between North and South in the Post—Cold War Period

Because reunification between countries with different systems usually means an absorption by one side through other side's collapse, as we can see at the case of German reunification, in the post—Cold War period the North has assumed a much more rigorous isolationist policy. That is, the government of the DPRK has assumed a defensive stance in relations with its neighbor to the south.

By the same token, the U.S.'s economic sanctions strike a blow at the North Korean economy, which has lost its economic ties with the Eastern European Bloc. The DPRK's lack of provisions has become generally known and has a continuing deadly impact. The U.S. government has been demanding that the DPRK give up its system as a condition of dissolving economic sanctions. But North Korea has been choosing to keep its Communist system.

Its recent experiments with ballistic missiles, in spite of the economic crisis, seem to display a strong will to keep its own system in the face of international pressure. The ROK, on the other hand, has achieved economic development under the capitalist system and now its economic power is superior to that of the DPRK. And the post-Communist countries are moving toward capitalist market economies. Hence, the South Korean people are convinced that the capitalist system is better than the Communist system and regard reunification under the capitalist system as reasonable.

In the post—Cold War period economic issues are emerging as a key element of the relations between the DPRK and the ROK.

Peace or Reunification?

In this politico-ideological conflict, only the ordinary people are suffering. Enormous expenditures of money on armaments, violations of human rights by the logic and apparatus of security, separated family members' suffering, and starvation and the lack of provisions in the North are all human costs from which ordinary people have to suffer. Hence "peace" under the division, though there is not a real war, is built on the suffering of people. Therefore it is not true peace.

There is a tension in peace and reunification between North and South. In the situation of conflict between the two systems, in which reunification means absorption by one side through the collapse of the other, arguing for reunification can produce politico-military tension. Continued division, on the other hand, produces great suffering.

In this situation, what is the way of "just peace"? Briefly speaking, it is to move toward peaceful reunification. That is to say, it is to seek a reunification in which each system can achieve its own goal. Of course, this seems to be a contradiction. Nevertheless, seeking such a mutually beneficial way is the main task facing people living in the Korean Peninsula today.

Improving North-South Relations

Today a way of resolving the complicated relationship between North and South is found in supporting and helping the DPRK out of starvation, economic hardship, and isolation. This is a necessary step toward a peaceful relationship between the two Koreas, although most Koreans remain reluctant to give unconditional aid to North Korea.

We believe, therefore, that the way to realize a peaceful order in today's world is to guarantee the security and peace of North Korea, in its relatively difficult position, to cooperate in economic development, and to help North Korea develop amicable relations with other countries without isolating itself from today's changed world order. To achieve a peace and mutual security order in Northeast Asia, it is imperative for North Korea to establish diplo matic ties with the United States and Japan, and desirable for North and South to enter into peaceful and fraternal relations with neighboring super power nations.

In this situation of the Korean Peninsula, seeking one-sided reunification through the other's collapse can only bring about destruction for both sides. The way of avoiding this, therefore, is to seek reunification based on peaceful coexistence.

The first step toward peaceful co existence is to help the DPRK out of its present economic difficulties and international isolation. This task requires North and South Korea to forge a new orientation toward each other.

Maybe it could start with acceptance of and respect for one another's system. This new orientation would be a brotherly relationship based on mutual trust, and a change from antagonistic rivalry to friendly rivalry.

The most crucial factor here is who takes the initiative for the leading action. Since the division of Korea into the DPRK and the ROK, each has condemned the other's system and each has argued for reunification through its own system. South Korea has insisted that North Korea must abandon its reunification policy of communizing South Korea, while North Korea has argued that South Korea must give up its reunification policy based on the absorption of North Korea.

This is the logic of the vicious cycle. The problem has always been who takes the initiative of breaking the vicious cycle.

In the post—Cold War period the communizing reunification policy seems to have lost its efficacy. The remaining task, therefore, is South Korea's leading action, that is, giving up its policy of reunification through the absorption of North Korea. Now the ROK is pursuing a more friendly relationship with the DPRK through what it calls the "sunshine policy." But North Korea still distrusts this policy, considering it to be just another absorption policy. Hence, another approach is demanded and it already has been emerging from the nonpolitical sphere.

Toward Reconciliation and Peace from the Grass Roots

Nowadays a new type of relation between North and South Korea is happening. For instance, the DPRK is accepting investment from the ROK, and economic exchange is increasing. This is a significant sign in northern and southern relations because economic exchanges necessarily bring about people's exchanges.

And recently, in March 2000, the president of the ROK, Kim Dae Jung, proposed a summit meeting with the president of the DPRK, Kim Jong Il. The meeting can be understood as a positive effort for extending the economic exchange and cooperation, and for facilitating meetings of the separated family members.

Political negotiation is an important process for settlement of peace. At the same time, it is always fragile, especially in the Korean Peninsula. Hence, it is more crucial to develop a people-centered process.

I hope the first summit meeting will prove to be a great step toward an authentic people's reconciliation. The foundation of peaceful reunification is people's reconciliation. This begins with building a culture of peace. Its first step must be free meeting and contact between the northern and southern people under a condition of equality. Because of the deep division, the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula demands patient and diversified approaches, not just depending on a political settlement.

The revolution for reconciliation and peace growing from the grass roots will be the way to true reunification.

Rev. Jung Jiseok, a Korean Presbyterian minister, has worked at the National Council of Churches in Korea and is now studying Korean reunification theology in light of the peace church tradition in the Ph.D. program of the Department of Theology, Birmingham University, United Kingdom.

 

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A Chronicle of the Dialogue between Christians in North and South Korea

by Erich Weingartner

The World Council of Churches in 1982 began to embark on a modest attempt to seek lines of communication with North Korean Christians. During this period, South Korea's dictatorial regime used the National Security Law to mete out arrest, imprisonment, and torture for anyone, including church leaders, who promoted any contact with the North.

The WCC tried to convince the South Korean government and churches to see the WCC interest in contacting North Korean Christians in a positive light. The WCC organized an international ecumenical consultation with the theme Peace and Justice in North East Asia: Prospects for Peaceful Resolution of Conflicts.

Invited were representatives of churches in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong as well as both North and South Korea. Although the Korean Christians Federation (KCF) was unable to attend, they sent a cable of greetings to the consultation. Church leaders from ROK, for the first time, encouraged the WCC to "seek to facilitate opportunities where it would be possible for Christians from both North and South Korea to meet in dialogue."

The consultation was held at the YMCA in Tozanso, a small community near Tokyo, thus giving rise to the phrase "the Tozanso Process," an expression that has become inscribed in Korean church history. A WCC delegation visited the DPRK, establishing the first direct contact with the KCF and worshiping with local Christians in a house church. The delegation brought gifts of Bibles and hymn books from the National Council of Churches of (South) Korea (NCCK), and an expression of their desire for a face-to-face dialogue.

The WCC sponsored an international theological consultation at Glion, Switzerland, to provide the opportunity for the first direct encounter between participating church representatives from both North and South. The concluding Eucharist—that powerful symbol of the unity of all children of God—became a celebration that broke down the invisible walls of separation that had tormented the Korean nation for so long. Participants from North and South dissolved into tears and embraces. This meeting became known as "Glion 1."

A delegation from the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCCCUSA) visited both North and South Korea in 1986 and 1987. The NCCCUSA adopted a Policy Statement on the Peace and Reunification of Korea.

A WCC delegation visited North and South Korea with a mandate, in part, to discuss an eventual WCC statement on reunification. The delegation reported to South Korean church leaders what they had learned of the life of Christians in the North.

The "Glion 2" meeting in 1988 included women from both parts of Korea. A Declaration on Peace and the Reunification of Korea was issued at its conclusion. Decisions were made to observe 1995 as the Jubilee Year of Peace and Reunification of Korea, and to designate the Sunday before August 15 each year as a common day of prayer for peace.

A prayer text was adopted for simultaneous worship in both North and South. The August 15 date was chosen because both North and South Koreans celebrate this as the anniversary of liberation from Japan.

A major international ecumenical consultation was convened by NCCK in Inchon, ROK, the first such event in South Korea to deal publicly with the question of reunification of the two Koreas. A delegation of American and Canadian church representatives visited North Korea on the occasion of the inauguration of Bongsu Church in Pyongyang.

The WCC Central Committee, meeting in Moscow, issued a policy statement on peace and reunification of Korea. A North Korean delegation attended the meeting as observers. In 1989, a KCF delegation was hosted by the NCCCUSA, the first time since the Korean War that members of a North Korean group were granted visas to visit the U.S. A KCF delegation also visited the German "Kirchentag" in Berlin.Rev. Moon Ik Hwan was arrested and imprisoned in South Korea under the National Security Law after making an unauthorized visit to DPRK, during which he met President Kim Il Sung.

"Glion 3," in 1990, worked on a five-year plan to prepare for the 1995 Jubilee Year activities, calling for a broadening of contacts between North and South in 1991. North and South Korea received simultaneous membership in the United Nations. In December, both governments signed an Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression, Exchange, and Cooperation.

Unfortunately, the world community gave no encouragement to a negotiated rapprochement. The U.S. used the nuclear inspection issue to apply extreme pressure on DPRK, already weakened by the loss of its economic allies in Eastern Europe. Efforts for reconciliation between North and South suffered a severe setback.

The General Secretary of the NCCK made a historic visit to the DPRK in January, 1992, and was received at a luncheon by President Kim Il Sung. Later that year, a delegation from NCCCUSA visited the DPRK where they also met with President Kim Il Sung. For the first time a KCF delegation attended a WCC World Assembly in Canberra, Australia. A KCF delegation visited Canada.

The "Glion 4" meeting took place at the end of March, 1995, in Kyoto, Japan. As a result of the 1995 summer floods, churches in Europe and North America began to respond to appeals by DPRK for assistance. An international ecumenical consultation on Solidarity for Peace in North East Asia was held in Macau at the end of January, 1996. This was the first time that the international partners of the KCF, including NCCK, met with KCF specifically to discuss the issue of resource sharing. It was also the first opportunity for KCF to report directly about the natural disasters, using videotaped recordings of the flood damage.

Erich Weingartner was founding head of the Food Aid Liaison Unit of the United Nations World Food Programme in Pyong yang, DPRK, and is now Canadian Food Grains Bank Consultant on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

 

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The Road to Reconciliation

by Erich Weingartner

Most historians have already written the Cold War into the past tense. The collapse of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union seem ample proof that the bipolar world of the past half century has come to an end. In one corner of the globe, however, the anachronism of division persists unabated, a stark reminder that the twentieth century's major ideologi cal conflict continues to persecute its victims.

Division and Devastation

The insanity of the divided world we have lived in for half a century is nowhere more apparent than at the thin line that runs through the middle of four pale blue barracks in a place called Panmunjom. Almost invisible, this line continues to be the world's most impenetrable. It separates two systems, two ideologies, two worldviews. It fortifies two governments and justifies two of the world's largest military machines. It divides a people who have shared the same culture, language, and history for thousands of years.

Few have crossed this line in either direction and lived to tell about it. For 50 years, all communication has been severed. Neither electric wires nor telephone cables connect the two sides. Radio and television broadcasts are jammed both ways. Highways that were once bustling with traffic are overgrown with weeds. Tall trees decorate rusting railway links. Large, ominous signs warn would-be trespassers of mines.

The pale blue barracks house offices and meeting rooms used by the guardians of an uneasy truce that has held for close to five decades. The line bisecting the central conference table is the military demarcation line, which runs through a 4-kilometer-wide (2.5 mile) strip of land known as the DMZ, the demilitarized zone that extends across the entire Korean Peninsula at the thirty-eighth parallel.

Panmunjom, the place where this "Joint Security Area" is located, has been deceptively misnamed "Peace Village." It is not peace that is main tained here. The Korean War, having claimed millions of lives between 1950 and 1953, was frozen in time with the signing of an armistice agreement, a cessation of hostilities.

Technically the war never ended. The military of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) sits on the northern side. Troops of the U.S. and its ally the Republic of Korea (ROK) are arrayed under the flag of the United Nations Command on the southern perimeter. These are still technically at war, content in the conviction that the price of security is readiness to resort to arms, and that justice is irrelevant to peace.

For the sake of this false peace, 60 million Koreans on both sides continue to long for genuine freedom and justice. In the name of security, 10 million Koreans are prevented from knowing the fate of mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, children, and grandchildren, from whom they have been separated for close to 50 years.

Although the pain of this tragedy is borne primarily by Koreans, the illness that caused it is global. Korea has been the victim of geopolitical greed and manipulation since the nineteenth century. The U.S., Russia, China, and Japan not only share the guilt but continue to benefit from Korea's division.

Running through the southern strip of the DMZ is a barrier whose dimensions dwarf those of the infamous Berlin Wall. The U.S. constructed it as a bulwark against invasion from the North. It is reported to be the largest reinforced-concrete structure ever built. Ten meters (10 yards) high and five meters (five yards) thick at the base, it stretches more than 200 kilometers (120 miles) across the Korean peninsula.

As much as we may fear the "rogue state" DPRK, in the eyes of North Koreans the threat of aggression comes from the other side. Annual military exercises by their chief enemies, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, underline their vulnerability. The DPRK therefore feels completely justified in developing its own military might, including the production, use, and export of missile technology.

The division of Korea is the incarnation of a divided world. The two parts of Korea embody the best and the worst of the twentieth century's social, political, and economic systems.

Rapprochement and Reconciliation

The churches have expended great efforts to foster an atmosphere of reconciliation, with visible results. Humanitarian agencies have channeled hundreds of thousands of tons of aid since 1995 to mitigate North Korea's natural disasters. Bilateral and multilateral agreements have been forged. A major crisis over the suspected development of a nuclear capability by the North in the early 1990s resulted in an agreement to dismantle North Korea's nuclear power reactors in exchange for oil from the U.S.

But not all observers of these attempts at rapprochement are convinced that progress has been genuine. Skeptics both inside and outside Korea are numerous and influential. This goes also for Chris tian attempts to foster reconciliation. When a delegation from the (North) Korean Christians Federation (KCF) visited the U.S. in 1989, dissenting Korean-American pastors protested, demonstrated, and collected thousands of signatures to oppose the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA's plans to host the delegation.

Analysts are quick to point out that North Korea is using Christian channels to create a positive image for the sake of attracting Western business and technology. Doubters have been eager to put North Korean Christians through a test of faith, to the absurd extreme of inspecting whether they pray before meals.

Thankfully, the process of reconciliation does not depend on the certification of true believers. Reconciliation is a two-way street, as the National Council of Churches of (South) Korea (NCCK) recognized in its 1988 declaration, which includes a "Confession of the Sin of Hatred within Division." Reconciliation is a process of confidence-building, of tearing down fabricated enemy images, of daring to love—and to trust that God can manage the final judgment without our help.

The ecumenical family has contributed to the unraveling of the rationale for the division of Korea. But this may well produce more distress in the short term. The realization that healing is possible includes the devastating awareness that long years of suffering could have been avoided.

Development and Decline

The North was devastated by carpet bombing during the Korean War. Cities like Pyongyang were left a sea of rubble. but the rapoid rise of the DPRK surprised all outside observers. Under the banner of its jucheideology, the DPRK became an industrial power to be reckoned with. By the early 1970s North Korea was economically more advanced than South Korea and the envy of Chinese neighbors.

Of course, despite the self-reliant claims of juchethe North Korean development miracle was not accomplished without significant help from friends. The Soviet Bloc and China were DPRK's main allies. Kim Il Sung was very clever at playing one against the other, thus reaping the benefit of the Sino-Soviet conflict. Russia and China still have the largest embassies in Pyongyang. The massive construction of heavy industries, especially on the northeastern coast, would have been unthinkable without Russian oil acquired under very favorable barter terms.

Mines and industrial production facilities became the backbone of DPRK's economic development. The mountainous north has a wealth of natural resources and a highly trained and motivated labor force. A countrywide system of child- care and health-care facilities was built; a network of universities educated scientists and technicians in a vari ety of modern disciplines; vaccine-preventable diseases were prac tic ally eliminated; an electrical grid reached out to every small community; water treatment and distribution systems were built; agriculture flourished, with sufficient yields to feed the entire nation. Pyongyang became a modern city, with wide boulevards, elegant theaters, high-rise apartment buildings, a subway system, and monuments to rival Paris.

What is more, adherence to the ideology meant that resources were equitably distributed among the population. Salaries are among the most egalitarian in the world. Citizens are guaranteed work and receive free housing, food staples, education, and child and health care.

Unfortunately, this "paradise," as Northern propaganda has called it, came at the price of isolation from the rest of the world. It was sustainable only as long as geopolitical Cold War structures remained intact. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of Eastern European Communist governments in and around 1990 were a major blow for the DPRK. So was China's recognition of the ROK—a triumph of economic over ideological relations.

All of this has left the DPRK more isolated than ever. Without Soviet inputs, progress began to falter. Technology remains at levels comparable to what was "top of the line" 15 or more years ago. Shortages of fuel, energy, and raw materials have reduced industrial production to 20 or 30 percent of former capacity.

Coal mines are running out of coal. Thirty percent of the power currently produced is estimated to be lost in the antiquated wiring of the electrical grid. As a result, communities lack energy for cooking and heating in homes and institutions such as nurseries, kindergartens, schools, and hospitals. People have resorted to cutting down trees for fuel, leading to large-scale deforestation.

Agriculture suffers from soil exhaustion due to monoculture and over-dependence on chemical fertilizers. To augment food production, farming has expanded to ever steeper hillsides, increasing soil erosion. Trucks, tractors, and farm machinery stand idle for lack of spare parts. Transport by road is hampered by poor road conditions and vehicle breakdowns. Rail transport is unreliable due to erratic electrical power supplies.

Domestic production of medicines and vaccines has all but ceased. Treatment and distribution of clean water has not kept up with population needs. Energy outages and leaking pipes result in recontamination of treated water.

From Hunger to Hope

The death of "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung in 1994 left important organs of state and government in political limbo during a three-year period of mourning. Then came the natural disasters: a series of hail storms in 1994, devastating floods in 1995 and 1996, drought in 1997.

A nutritional survey carried out in 1998 established that 62 percent of children under seven years are stunted in their growth, a sign of long-term malnutrition. Even more frightening, 16 percent of children under seven years show signs of wasting, or acute malnutrition. This is the highest percentage in Asia, except for India and Bangladesh. It surpasses the malnutrition rate of all African countries except Eritrea. Estimates on the number of deaths due to famine range from 250,000 to over 3,000,000.

For the first time in its history, the DPRK appealed to the international community for help. United Nations agencies began to assess the nature of the emergency. The latest of the annual UN Crop Assessments re vealed a shortfall of more than one million metric tons—a quarter of the country's requirement for the year 2000.

The response was timid at first, with churches and faith-based organizations taking the lead. The DPRK has shown a good deal of ambivalence about aid agencies residing there and roaming the countryside on monitoring trips. This is understandable, since the largest donors apart from China are the country's arch enemies: the U.S., South Korea, Japan, and the European Union. It is clear to the DPRK that assistance is often politically motivated. Aid workers have labored under many restrictions imposed by the country's security apparatus.

Some nongovernmental agencies found they could not operate in such a climate of suspicion. MSF (Doctors Without Borders), MDM (Doctors of the World), Help Age International, Oxfam UK, ACF (Action Against Hunger), and CARE—USA are among those who have ceased operations, sometimes with great moral fanfare.

Church-related agencies who have a longer history of involvement have taken a different approach. They see the restrictions as a challenge: the Christian impulse is compassion with and relief to those most in need, regardless of the political environment.

Christians see the current difficulties as a unique opportunity for what might be called "peacemaking by example." In fact, significant changes occurred during our two years' residence in Pyongyang. There was a mutual learning process. Relationships with government counterparts improved remarkably during this period.

The organs of propaganda continue to issue dire warnings of "ideological penetration" by foreigners bent on the people's destruction. But we found a willingness on the part of North Korean colleagues to understand theirs as a complex emergency, requiring long-term solutions.

The government has risked self-exposure through the UN Development Program roundtable process for Agricultural Rehabilitation and Environmental Protection (AREP).

There is a demonstrated willingness to experiment with agricultural innovations, double-cropping, small animal husbandry, and alternative power generation. Medical, agricultural, economic, and technical professionals have shown an eagerness to learn through exchange visits to a variety of countries including the U.S. and Canada.

Even in the international realm, the various fora of negotiation have lately reaped modest results. North and South Korea have concluded a record number of agreements. South Korean business enterprises are engaging in record levels of trading partnerships. These changes have been fostered by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine" policy.

The U.S. and the DPRK have also reached agreement on a number of levels. In September 1999, the DPRK promised to suspend missile tests, while the U.S. lifted some of the sanctions that had been in place for decades.

In addition to continuing the provision of aid to the most vulnerable, churches should promote and undergird such developments. By fostering a reduction of the tensions on the Korean Peninsula, churches will demonstrate to the people of the DPRK that nonbelligerent mutual respect is an acceptable alternative to isolation. After half a century of isolation, it is high time to expend our energies building the basis for peace.

 

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