| Press Release: Briefing Held To Call Upon Obama Administration To Work Towards Ending the Korean War |
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MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, FAITH LEADERS, SCHOLARS AND VETERANS COME TOGETHER MEDIA CONTACT: Monday, July 26, 2010 – Washington, DC – The National Campaign to End the Korean War today held a press conference in partnership with U.S. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (OH-10) and U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-09) calling on the Obama administration to de-escalate the dangerous tensions on the Korean peninsula. Members of Congress were joined by national voices, including survivors of the Korean War from the United States and the Republic of Korea, who shed light on the critical need for the Obama Administration to replace the 1953 Korean War Armistice with a permanent peace agreement. “Too many forget that even upon the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War, the two sides have never signed a real peace accord,” said U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee. “Recent events remind us all that a true peace on the Korean peninsula is far from realized.” Tensions have been further heightened by joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, to which North Koreans have threatened a physical response. Code-named “Invincible Spirit,” the joint naval drills began on July 25, 2010 sparking security concerns in the Northeast Asian region. “If North Korea presents some kind of a limited missile threat to any part of the United States coastline, the obvious solution would be to go to North Korea, and to negotiate with them and to talk to them, and to work with them to avoid any confrontation,” said U.S. Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich. Since 1953, when a ceasefire halted major hostilities, no peace agreement has ever been signed between the U.S. and the DPRK to bring a formal end to this conflict. As a result, the U.S. and South Korea have remained in a deadly and costly standoff with North Korea, leaving the peninsula in an unending state of war with the most militarized border in the world. “The use of military force has never been a solution for Korea, and it never will,” said Rev. Syngman Rhee, Co-chair of the National Committee for Peace in Korea and a Korean War veteran. “I know what it means to be in battlefields and to experience the horrible realities of war. We simply cannot have another Korean War.” “The Korean War resulted in 4 million deaths, majority civilian, left countless homeless and orphaned, and ensured the separation of families,” said Dr. Christine Hong, University of California professor and member of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea. “The Korean War is a war that should never have been fought,” said Peter Bronson, a Korean War era veteran with Veterans for Peace. “It was a war mostly against women and children, and we were duped into it, the same way we were duped into Iraq.” “President Obama is continuing Bush’s hard-line policies of sanctions and military posturing,” said Korea Policy Institute Analyst Christine Ahn. “These policies have been counter-productive and have done nothing to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation.” Since 2008, the National Campaign to End the Korean War has been engaging the U.S. Congress, Department of State, security experts and a host of leading think tanks to promote and advocate for a peaceful resolution to this sixty-year-old conflict. Through public education, community organizing and advocacy, this grassroots-based effort throughout North America has been partnering with local communities in order to encourage lawmakers to find viable solutions for the Korean peninsula. About the National Campaign to End the Korean War |