WUNRN
https://www.womencrossdmz.org/
Korea – North & South – 2015 Women’s DMZ
Walk for Peace
On May 24, 2015, 30 international women peacemakers from around the world will walk with Korean women, north and south, to call for an end to the Korean War and for a new beginning for a reunified Korea. We will hold international peace symposiums in Pyongyang and Seoul where we can listen to Korean women and share our experiences and ideas of mobilizing women to bring an end to violent conflict. Our hope is to cross the 2-mile wide De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) that separates millions of Korean families as a symbolic act of peace. 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of Korea’s division into two separate states by Cold War powers, which precipitated the 1950-53 Korean War. After nearly 4 million people were killed, mostly Korean civilians, fighting was halted when North Korea, China, and the United States representing the UN Command signed a ceasefire agreement. They promised within three months to sign a peace treaty; over 60 years later, we’re still waiting. Meanwhile, thousands of Korean elders die every year waiting on a government list to see their children or siblings after being separated by the DMZ. In North Korea, crippling sanctions against the government make it difficult for ordinary people to access the basics needed for survival. The unresolved Korean conflict gives all governments in the region justification to further militarize and prepare for war, depriving funds for schools, hospitals, and the welfare of the people and the environment. That’s why women are walking for peace, to reunite families, and end the state of war in Korea.
Image of woman with baby brother on her back during Korean war,
with tank in background
Women Walking Together:
Imagining a New Chapter in Korean History
CHRISTINE AHN - 18
March 2015
The goal of the international women's walk across the
De-Militarized Zone is to help bring peace and reunification to Korea, and to
open a new dialogue marked by understanding, and - ultimately -
forgiveness.
This is the second of three articles on the international women's
walk for peace and the reunification of Korea. Read part one
The Korean War Armistice Agreement in 1953 temporarily halted the
Korean War. It has never been replaced with a peace treaty.
“Contrary to conventional understanding, the armistice has not been
an instrument of maintaining an uneasy peace,” says Rutgers University Korea
history professor Suzy Kim. “In fact, it has been repeatedly
violated, by both sides, most egregiously by the introduction of atomic weapons
into South Korea in 1958 by the United States, violating Article 2 Paragraph
13d of the armistice which stipulated that no new weapons be introduced into
the peninsula.” Suzy argues that the “current tensions and military buildup,
including North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, have been the result of
the armistice, a temporary military cease-fire that saw the need for a
political settlement to achieve peace in Korea, and stipulated exactly that.”
In the fall of 2013, I began reaching out to a network of
prominent women, including the renowned American feminist author Gloria Steinem
asking if she would consider crossing the 2 mile-wide and 155 mile-long
De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea with other women
peacemakers to help bring peace to Korea. Steinem promptly replied, “Yes.
My high school classmates went to war there.” According to
Gloria, one of her classmate’s father had returned from the Korean War deeply
traumatized, and instead of allowing his son who was drafted in the Korean War,
he “killed himself rather than see his son go to war. I never forgot that.”
On the 70th anniversary of Korea’s division, 30 women
peacemakers will walk for peace in Korea. Our delegation includes
two Nobel Peace Laureates, authors, artists, academics, humanitarian aid
workers, faith leaders, mothers and grandmothers from a dozen countries,
including several nations that fought in the 1950-53 Korean War.
Women Demilitarize
the Zone panellists at the UN CSW .
Weare
walking to invite all concerned to imagine a new chapter in Korean history,
marked by dialogue, understanding, and - ultimately - forgiveness.
We are walking to help unite Korean families tragically separated
by an artificial, man-made division.
We are walking to lessen military tensions on the Korean
peninsula, which have ramifications for peace and security throughout the
world.
We are walking to urge our leaders to re-direct funds devoted to
armaments towards improving people’s welfare and protecting the environment.
We are walking to end the Korean War by replacing the 1953
Armistice Agreement with a permanent peace treaty.
We are walking to ensure that women are involved at all levels of
the peacebuilding process, including at the peacemaking table when that
historic peace treaty is negotiated and finally signed.
This women’s peace walk will take place on the 20th anniversary of
the Beijing Conference on Women and the 15th
anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325, ushering in a new set of
global standards ensuring women’s role in peacebuilding.
Our tentative plan is to meet with North Korean women in Pyongyang
for an International Peace Symposium and to walk with them to the DMZ. On May
24,International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament,
we hope to cross the DMZ and to be greeted by South Korean women.Together, we
will walk for peace and hold a second International Peace Symposium in South Korea.
Our delegation hopes to hear from both North and South Korean women on how the
division and state of war has impacted their lives and their dreams for a
united Korea. Two Nobel Peace Laureates, Mairead Maguire from Northern
Ireland and Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, will share how they galvanized women to
bring an end to violent conflict within their countries.
We realize that crossing the most militarized border in the world
is no simple task. We are seeking approval from both Korean governments and the
UN Command. We received a letter of intent last year from Pyongyang supporting
our event, with a stern caveat: if conditions are ripe. Given this tense moment
on the Korean peninsula, they may not be. However, we are in the process of
negotiating with organizers who have conveyed to us that they “understand the
significance of this occasion and the important peacemaking role that women
have played throughout history.”
On Christmas Eve, we received the best gift we could have imagined
through our advisor Governor Bill Richardson, when we were informed by the UN
Command that, upon receiving confirmation from South Korea, they would be
prepared to faciliatate our DMZ crossing. We hope to have favourable news soon
from both Korean governments; however, we are prepared to make alternate plans
to ensure that women walk for peace in Korea this year. We remain hopeful
because in addition to the five New Zealanders who crossed the DMZ by motorbike
in 2013, thirty two Korean Russians also crossed the DMZ by motorcade in 2014 -
with both President Park's and Chairman Kim's blessing.
At a press conference on 11th March at the United
Nations Correspondents Association earlier this month, several women
peacemakers participating in the peace walk spoke about why they were walking
for Korea’s peace and reunification. Hyun-Kyung Chung, a South Korean citizen who
is a professor of Interfaith Engagement at Union Theological Seminary in New
York City, said the division of Korea has “produced a divided psyche and
personality, which makes it so easy to accuse our opponent as the enemy.” She
said that she grew up in South Korea with an “enemy making mentality” which has
been institutionalized from both sides of the DMZ. Ending the Korean War with a
peace treaty, Hyun-Kyung said “will bring deeper democracy, sustainable peace,
and flourishing Salim (life giving) culture on the Korean peninsula and with
neighboring countries.”
Ann Wright, a retired US Army Reserve Colonel
who served for 29 years, and as a U.S. diplomat and deputy ambassador in eight
countries, said that she is participating in the women’s peace delegation to
Korea because “I believe my government should support the peaceful
reunification of the two Koreas by de-escalating military tensions.” In 2013, former
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta admitted that the United States was “within
an inch of war” with North Korea. Wright said of the joint U.S.-South Korean
military exercises and North Korea’s nuclear programme, “although both sides
claim defense, when there is no communication and just a show of force, the
chances for 'miscalculation' are unimaginably high and very dangerous.”
Filmmaker Abigail
Disney, who produced the award-winning documentary Pray the
Devil Back to Hell about Liberian women whose nonviolent direct
action stopped civil war in their country and ushered in democratic elections,
said that “American women have a very important role to play in this... because
of the role our country played in drawing the line and now very aggressively
plays in enforcing it. We have a very important obligation to step forward and
take responsibility for what our ancestors have done and for what we now
actively do in terms of filling the world with more weapons and bringing
countries around the world closer and closer to conflict.”
Suzuyo Takazato, of Okinawan Women Act Against Military Violence from
southern Japan, said that she is walking for peace in Korea because “the
Japanese government uses the unresolved Korean conflict and possible threat of
North Korea to justify the continued U.S. military presence in Okinawa.” She
said that Okinawan people “have suffered numerous cases of accidents and
crimes, violence against women, and environmental destruction by the U.S. military
stationed in Okinawa. Without a peace treaty ending the Korean War, the
Asia-Pacific region is plagued by insecurity, which underlies this military
build-up.”
Gloria
Steinem, who has visited the DMZ from South Korea says of the DMZ, “There is no
other strip of land more symbolic of long-term division.” We hope to cross the
DMZ to renew Korean people’s hope that the DMZ can and must be crossed to
reunify families and to begin to heal the divided peninsula.