11/11/2020
Please share the text below of our letter to President-elect Joseph Biden of the U.S.A. It details the challenges and hopes of the peace movement in Korea:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
November 9, 2020
Dear President-elect Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.,
We send you greetings in the name of Christ from the National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK).
First of all, we wish to sincerely congratulate you on being elected as President of the United States of America. Our hearts are lifted by the hopes that this change in administration will mark a return to decency, and a return to the US leading the world in protecting democracy, human rights, and life-saving responses to the global pandemic.
As we are grateful for the long and storied relationship between the US and the Republic of Korea, we look forward to a more hopeful future of working together.
In this letter, we wish to share with you our hopes for the future of the peace process on the Korean Peninsula and seek your transformative leadership for peace-building.
As you know, since taking office in 2017, president Moon Jae-In has worked to transform the past hostility of inter-Korean relations into a season of rapprochement, dialogue, and trust-building to end more than seven decades’ division. This began with the Pyongchang Peace Olympics in 2018 followed by historic summits thereafter. Furthermore, with a great hope for peace-building in Korea, two leaders of the US and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea met for the first time since the Korean War. But this summit produced only despair as they were not ready to move towards reconciliation and peace.
The Korean Peninsula has been living in a state of war since 1950, and the people in the two Koreas have experienced the physical, psychological, and societal suffering. The Armistice Agreement of 1953 clearly stipulated that a peace treaty would begin soon after, and yet we have been waiting in a state of war since then. We long to break free from these chains of war and conflict, to travel peacefully throughout our peninsula, and to reconnect with families that have been severed for over 70 years.
At a critical juncture of time to Korean people, we the NCCK would like to ask you to take into serious consideration the following challenges we face as your administration sets its policy toward the Korean Peninsula:
First, we ask you to honor the spirit and the environment created with the inter-Korean Panmunjom and Pyongyang Statements made in 2018, especially to forthwith issue an end-of-war declaration. Both North and South Korea have expressed a desire to announce end-of-war declaration, but South Korea needs the US to clarify its intentions as the South Korean military still resides under the Operational Command Authority (OPCON) of the U.S. military. The two Koreas have mutually recognized how an end-of-war declaration will drastically reduce the chance of open war breaking out, and significantly increase the chances of ending hostilities and holding authentic negotiations for a peace agreement.
Second, we ask you to then immediately begin negotiations for a peace agreement to replace the 1953 Armistice Agreement in accordance with the Armistice itself. While a treaty would face difficulty in congressional ratification, at least a formal agreement between your administration and the two Koreas would provide the legitimacy necessary to cultivate a sustainable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. Earlier this year we gathered hundreds of partners among secular and religious organizations throughout Korea in addition to partners in the US and more than 40 countries around the world to declare for ourselves a People’s Korea Peace Agreement. This declaration was a testament that the people of the world and especially in Korea are ready for a formal peace agreement to end the war. Polls in Korea consistently show that over 65% of Koreans want the war to end so that their lives are no longer threatened.
Third, we ask you to follow the lead of the two Korean administrations who agreed to mutually end hostility and military threats against each other. We are still waiting for the US to join this initiative, ending the joint military exercises, stopping the sale of new advanced weaponry to Korea. It is logically impossible to expect the DPRK to denuclearize while at the same time the US and South Korea increase their ability to destroy them. Denuclearization can only follow if all parties agree to corresponding gradual steps of disarmament and denuclearization. To this end we also urge the US to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons finally bringing an end to the threat of nuclear destruction around the world and paving the way for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. We believe now is the time for thoughtful and gradual trust-building negotiations.
Fourth, we ask you to re-open the doors for humanitarian exchanges and visits to the DPRK through lifting the seven decade-long sanctions against the DPRK. Seventy years of sanctions and threats have only ever exacerbated conflict on the Korean Peninsula. The humanitarian exchanges and visits have been a key for cultivating reconciliation and hospitality among the hearts and minds of Korean people as well as others around the world. Our visits to our partners in the DPRK have changed the hearts of countless people on both sides helping us all to embrace the transformative power of reconciliation. However, US sanctions and the US travel ban have brought our projects and the projects of our partners to a complete halt and have led to the preventable death of thousands in the DPRK. The US sanctions are also currently blocking trust-building projects created by South Korea and North Korea, such as the joint railroad project created at the inter-Korean summit. The sanctions are further blocking the emergent humanitarian cooperation such as sending medical supplies to the DPRK in the midst of a global pandemic. Therefore, we ask you to stop blocking the humanitarian and peace-making projects between two Koreas.
We all believe that peace-building on the Korean peninsula is a key to peace and stability in Northeast Asia. For this, we will continue praying and advocating along with our partners in solidarity around the world. We also pray that God will grant you a new vision and mission that will build peace on the Korean peninsula as well as the entire world.
Peace and Solidarity in Christ,
Rev. Lee Hong Jung
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in Korea
