By SHELTON BUMGARNER
Marmot’s Hole Guest Blogger
This week had all the makings of a Tolstoy novel, with “big issues” like peace and human rights being addressed head on.
Two events dominated the news — the DPRK’s announcement that it wanted the issue of a official peace treaty to be added to the agenda of Tuesday’s six-party talks, and the continuing drum beat of media attention focusing on the DPRK’s human rights record.
While an official shot has not been fired between the DPRK and ROK in just over 50 years, to date there is no official piece of paper ending the 6.25. The DPRK announced near the end of the week that such a peace treaty would ???automatically result in the denuclearisation of the peninsula.????
The IHT adds this.
“To the North Koreans, the nuclear issue has never been solely about building atomic bombs,” said Paik Hak Soon, of the independent Sejong Institute. “It uses the nuclear card to get out of diplomatic and economic isolation, and the key is to win a peace treaty and eventually normalize relations with the United States.”
The other big news, which could be seen as a “tipping point” vis-a-vis the issue of human rights in the DPRK and the West, was Freedom House’s conference on the issue held Tuesday.
Just in the last few months, it’s the the DPRK’s problems with people, not A-bombs that appears to have begun to get traction in the United States. It’s an issue that the American Left has to date totally ceded to the American Right, or as Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times recently wrote:
“The biggest scandal in progressive politics,” Tony Blair told The New Yorker this year, “is that you do not have people with placards out in the street on North Korea. I mean, that is a disgusting regime. The people are kept in a form of slavery, 23 million of them, and no one protests!”
Actually, some people do protest. Conservative Christians have aggressively taken up the cause of North Korean human rights in the last few years, and the movement is gathering steam. A U.S.-government-financed conference on North Korean human rights convened in Washington last week, and President Bush is expected shortly to appoint Jay Lefkowitz to the new position of special envoy for North Korean human rights.
The problem with the conservatives’ approach is that it’s great at calling attention to the issues, but some of its methods are flawed and counterproductive. There’s talk, for example, of proposing a 25 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless China protects Korean refugees - but a tariff wouldn’t help Koreans and would undermine the world economy. Likewise, a campaign by well-meaning activists to help North Korean refugees in China has so far only set off a Chinese crackdown that forced some 100,000 refugees back to North Korea. The conservative approach has generally been a mix of fulmination and isolation, which hurts ordinary Koreans, amplifies Korean nationalism and cements the Dear Leader in place.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has yet to name a cabinet level point-man on the issue, as recently mandated by Congress.
WASHINGTON - North Korean human rights advocates yesterday expressed concern that the White House is dragging its feet on naming a human rights envoy to the country, a position expected to be filled by a former White House adviser, Jay Lefkowitz.
Lastly, Yi Gu, the last Joseon Dynasty crown prince, died this week at the age of 73.
Writer’s Note: This is a bit late ’cause I was here, doing this.
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15 Comments
I agree that Nick Kristof has functionally ceded the issue (a shame, because you’d expect better from him after his writing on the Sudan and Zimbabwe). I’d extend that to some segments of the American and Korean left, too. To be completely fair, however, I think it’s overbroad to say that the entire left has ceded the issue. Clinton’s former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake and the proudly liberal Rabbi David Saperstein both addressed the conference, and were every bit as passionate about the issue as the right-wingers. In fact, Saperstein’s speech was the best of the day, and it was received enthusiastically by lefties, righties,and miscellaneous. Another liberal activist for human rights is Rep. Tom Lantos.
I’m not sure if I’d call Assemblyman Kim Min-Soo a part of the left, since he’s in the GNP now, but he’s a fierce advocate for human rights up North and for other values we’d consider “liberal.” He is a former labor union leader who was jailed during the bad old authoritarian days. He might be one to watch as a future leader of Korea’s “new right.”
What is the difference between an “official shot” and an “unofficial shot”?
I’M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!
you’ll hear from me soon.
nulji
I?M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!
you?ll hear from me soon.
nulji
Forget it. There are way better trolls commenting here than you (dont try to imply it is me).
Nulji dude! Is it really you? Where were you hiding–in Iraq? I mean, Iraq: http://img273.imageshack.us/my.....7499mo.jpg
It was only a couple days ago that I wondered what happened to that weird guy with the fetish for all things Stalin and Jongil had gone… Nulji Maripipakdianda, nice to have your half wit back online. I don’t feel stupid or uninformed when I read your beautiful, childlike prose.
-(had gone). I do feel stupid now, though.
Don’t be hatin’–hahahhah
Marmot’s Hole is dead now, right?
Korea is drunk and passed out on a stool in a pojangmacha, and Mr. Marmot is at the Chosun translating some story about the latest metrosexual trend. We’ve just got the “guest blogger” telling us shit we already know. Damn it’s boring at work tonight….
“Official shots” would be various projeciles of whatever caliber, exchanged between the two sides (from 5.56 mm rifle bullets, all the way up to a descending NoDong missile or GPS guided bomb).
Of course the smaller ones have been exchanged on an irregular (but sometimes very intensive) basis for the last 50 or so years, so what’s the big deal?
Answer: They would become “official” only if they followed a theoretical “denouncement” (by either side) of the armistice concluded on 27 July 1953. (I think “denounce” is the correct technical term; I’ll have to check the dictionary, but I believe this usage is one of the lesser-known variants from how we usually use the word).
The official US Army history is full of mind-numbing detail, yet for me parts of it can still make a compelling and indeed hair-raising read:
“…Surrounded by his top military advisors, including a ROKA representative, General Clark countersigned the bluebound copies on the afternoon of 27 July at Munsan-ni. In the speeches that followed, the U.N. commander cautioned that the armistice was only a military agreement to cease fire while the opposing sides sought a political solution to the conflict. Until the diplomats negotiated a permanent conclusion, Clark warned, there could be no UNC withdrawal from Korea nor any lessening of alertness and preparedness.
While Clark was speaking, the guns along the front continued to bellow out their lethal salutes. Ground activity had come to a halt, but artillery and mortar fire lasted until the end. In the air the UNC planes pounded North Korean airfields, rail lines, and road systems in a last-ditch effort to curtail Communist activities until the supervisory commission and its inspection teams could begin to function. The air program, carried out by Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft, had been intensified during the last week of the fighting, but unfortunately, inclement flying weather had permitted the enemy to bring a number of airplanes into Korea before the armistice was signed. On the sea naval warships bombarded Kosong and finally ended the longest naval siege in history by shelling Wonsan for the last time. When the clock hands reached 2200 the guns fell silent across Korea and the shooting war was over…”
If you go to http://www.army.mil/cmh/books/korea/truce/ch22.htm, and scroll down, you’ll find this quote toward the end of the long chapter. And if you read on further, you’ll read about how the ROK forces under President Rhee were very unwilling parties to the armistice and wanted to fight on! (Indeed if I remember correctly, the ROK did not officially sign the armistice: not sure how this stands now. I’ll have to research the diplomatic history of the succeeding 52 years: I’ve been meaning to educate myself in the details of the history of the ROK’s “official” stance toward the armistice).
Even magazines and magazines of small arms ammunition, expended by suicidal DPRK infiltrators from a midget submarine, will remain “unofficial shots”, until either side decides as a result of them to march into Panmunjon and tell the other one that the armistice is over and the war is on again.
For compelling geo-political reasons both sides have found it convenient not to do this, even in the face of the most blatant provocations over the years.
And this has gone on for so long that now the word “armistice” has evolved into basically a synonym for “permanent peace” (at least for young guys like you Dogbert, or perhaps it’s simply that young people don’t even realize the Korean War is still “officially” ongoing).
But the traditional meaning of armistice is an “official”, but temporary, cessation of hostilities by both sides — until such time as a peace treaty is concluded, or the war starts again.
(I presume you are a “young guy” compared to me, Dogbert; at least I hope so for your sake).
Thank you very much for the clear and detailed explanation, Paul H. Much appreciated.
Writer?s Note: This is a bit late ?cause I was here, doing this.
Haha… Shelton, I’m not falling for that. It’s probably a link to either one of your own personal sites… not going there again, thanks.
What is the difference between an ?official shot?? and an ?unofficial shot???
If I give ya a shot in the nose that’s unofficial, and Brendon assures me you can’t do much about it!
If I give Brendon a shot in the nose it’s official -cauz he knowz da dings ta do.
You’re confusing “shot” and “snot”.