hankyoreh

May 19. (by Seong Yeon-cheol

“We want our footsteps to be a comfort to the people who have long suffered under division on the Korean Peninsula, and to open up the possibility of a brighter future toward unification.”

Around 30 prominent women’s rights and peace advocates from 15 countries left Beijing for Pyongyang on May 19 for the Women Cross DMZ Peace Walk event. Their five-day visit will see them staging symposiums and recitals in North Korea on “women and peacemaking” and visiting children’s hospitals. On May 24, they are scheduled to walk across the DMZ and arrive in South Korea at Panmunjeom.

Participants include the leading US women‘s right activist Gloria Steinem, Nobel laureates Leymah Gbowee from Liberia and Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland, and Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Walt.

Just before their departure, participants held a press conference at the Holiday Inn in Beijing to call for peace on the Korean Peninsula and sent a message of comfort to families separated by the peninsula’s division.

“It is an amazing opportunity for us to walk across the DMZ as a delegation of women for peace,” said Maguire. “The DMZ was created against the wishes of many people on the Korean Peninsula, and countless divided families have been suffering.”

“We started this action to comfort those people and support the peace and unification of the Korean Peninsula,” she added.

Gbowee, who led other women in a non-violent struggle to end a civil war in Liberia, said her country also experienced war and severe human rights infringements.

“The Korean Peninsula is the most dangerous place in the world, where conflicts, suffering, and chains runs deep,” she said. “Until every place in the world is peaceful, there can be no true peace.”

“It is our duty as world citizens to take an interest in peace on the Korean Peninsula,” she added.

Gbowee went on to say that peace is “a powerful weapon that can bring happiness to everyone.”

“There is no conflict or enmity that women cannot solve,” she continued.

Gbowee expressed her hope that politics in North and South Korea “will end the war and division during this generation rather than leaving it [for the next].”

Gbowee and Maguire also fielded questions about whether it was safe to visit at a time when inter-Korean tensions are escalating in the wake of recent reports on North Korea’s execution of Minister of the People’s Armed Forces Hyon Yong-chol and test launch of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

The women said they’ve already received North Korea’s approval and will walk to Panmunjeom on May 24.

After unfolding a multi-colored banner with a “W” symbolizing women and peace in South Korea, the participants left for the airport to board their flight to Pyongyang.

By Seong Yeon-Cheol, Beijing correspondent

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