[Column]Hopes for the summit, and for President Roh

Posted on : 2007-08-16 12:13 KST Modified on : 2007-08-16 12:13 KST

Father Moon Kyu-hyun, Executive Chairperson, Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea

The second inter-Korean summit is about to begin. Having participated in the Pyongyang World Festival of Youth and Students and then crossed from the North to the South at Panmunjeom together with Im Su-kyong on August 15, 1989, the summit is all the more moving for me. It had been the first time civilians had passed through Panmunjeom since Korea was divided into North and South, so, at the time, it turned South Korean society inside out. I had to spend three years and six months in prison for violating the National Security Law.

At long last I got to watch with great emotion the first inter-Korean summit in June 2000 and the announcement of the June 15 Declaration. Now there is a second summit. For me, the ways in which I suffered personally are now an honor and a blessing. How many people have put themselves on the line for peaceful reunification, to reconnect North and South since the division of Korea? It is like the Bridge of Magpies, the bridge made through the self-sacrifice of those many magpies and ravens so that Altair and Vega could meet.

The government seems to think that the building of mutual confidence through economic cooperation is what will be important about the summit. However, that is something that, provided it has the will, could be done by the relevant ministries. Having not come easily, the summit should be an epoch-making event becoming of its name and stature. This summit’s significance is that it carries on and strengthens the July 4, 1972, Joint Statement, the Basic Agreement, and the June 15 Declaration (the last of which emerged from the first summit, in 2000).

I looked up the word “confidence” (silloe, in Korean) in the dictionary, and it says: “firm trust and dependence.” Something that changes according to external conditions or situations is not confidence. What is needed to fundamentally remove the wall of distrust between North and South is agreement and implementation. Are we not still unable to get to the root of the issues at hand, despite the fact we have had various historic declarations?

Before I walked through Panmunjeom to the South in August 1989, I called for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea and the signing of a peace agreement. This was because I had clearly confirmed that the owner of Panmunjeom, which defends the South, was the American military. And also, unbelievably, because we are living in a state of war that we take for granted as we aim guns at each other, all while standing on the thin ice that is the armistice agreement, we are also living through a momentary cease fire. Even now, when the leaders of North and South meet for only the second time in 62 years of Division, the fact that this status quo remains unchanged is a shame before the world and an utterly clear presentation of the mutual distrust that still exists. Therefore I hope that this time around, President Roh Moo-hyun is bold about acting on the mindset he once had when he said that he would say what needs to be said to the United States. I want to see him make a historical grand accomplishment for the independence, peace, and reunification of the Korean peninsula. To do this, he needs to bravely declare that he is going to realize the independence of the peninsula by making U.S. troops withdraw gradually when a peace agreement is signed and in the course of its implementation, and that Seoul will remove the American nuclear umbrella that hangs over the South to denuclearize the peninsula and build a new peace. I also ask that he make progress on a proposal for reunification and the formation of a national reunification organization.

If he accomplishes these things, I will send great big, heartfelt applause to President Roh. The National Security Law that twice put me in prison is still alive in all its fury, and even now I have to watch in pain as a parishioner in the church I am at, who is a teacher, suffers at the hands of the law for teaching his students about unification. One is forced to watch the summit take place in this extremely contradictory situation. For the time being, anyway, I plan on setting this outrageous situation aside, in the earnest hope that President Roh will go to the summit with a firm desire for peaceful reunification, and an independent country, and that he will find agreement on how to achieve both.

Editor’s note:
Father Moon Kyu-hyun was arrested in 1989 with three other Catholic priests for violating the National Security Law, which prohibits citizens from visiting North Korea without prior authorization from the South Korean government. Father Moon, along with (Susana) Im Su-Kyong, had attended the World Festival of Youth and Students, a regular international forum for progressive youth which has been held since 1947, and were attempting to cross from North to South when they were denied re-entry. The events followed an escalation in government-sponsored crackdowns on those crossing the North-South border and led to mass protests in Seoul and the arrest of Father Moon.