by Gerry Condon
One could be forgiven for wondering how these comic book villains – Trump, Bolton and Pompeo – could be trusted to pursue peace with North Korea, when they killed the Iran Nuclear Deal, pulled out of the Intermediate range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty with Russia, and are staging a coup d’etat in Venezuela. Apparently they could not. The “troika of tyranny” insist on maintaining a punishing economic war against the people of North Korea until they can achieve a lopsided deal that amounts to a unilateral surrender by North Korea. The neocon hawks that Trump has gathered around himself are scary and dangerous dudes, arguably psychopaths. The bipartisan nature of U.S. foreign policy was on full display, however, as Democratic Party leaders complained that Trump might make peace, and applauded when he did not.
To its credit, the U.S. peace movement has maintained a cautious optimism. Realizing this may be a unique window of opportunity to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula, knowledgeable activists have been meeting weekly for over a year-and-a-half and initiating actions to proactively shape the conditions for peace. Women Cross DMZ has organized multiple international women’s delegations to visit their counterparts in both South and North Korea. The Korea Peace Campaign of Veterans For Peace took the lead in authoring the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea, which was shared by many peace groups and signed by tens of thousands.
The Korea Peace Network is organizing 2019 Advocacy Days in Washington, DC., March 13-14. Peace activists will be encouraging their congressional representatives to sign on to the bill introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna that encourages diplomacy and calls for a peace treaty finally ending the Korean War.
The failure of the latest round peace talks in Hanoi is certainly a deep disappointment to many, especially on the Korean Peninsula, but also in the U.S. and around the world. Expectations were high that President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un would take a big step by signing a peace treaty finally ending the Korean War. Arguably, the elephant in the room is the huge U.S. nuclear arsenal and its increasingly threatening posture worldwide. It will take a huge leap of faith for North Korea to give up a nuclear program which has served as a deterrent to U.S. aggression. Aside from “sanctions relief” (an end to the U.S. economic war), North Korea must be assured they will not face U.S. military aggression after they give up their nukes, as happened in Libya, that the U.S. will not betray them and back out of the deal later on, as it has done in Iran, and that the U.S. will not foment internal opposition in an effort to overthrow the North Korean government, as it is attempting to do in Venezuela. “Denuclearization” begins at home. The stronger and more active the peace movement, the greater the prospects for peace, in Korea and around the world.