KOREAN WAR

peace education project

Why Might the DPRK

Not Trust The US?

(Or you think we don’t have an exit strategy from Iraq!)

The armistice agreement signed at the DMZ in which Article IV promised, “within three months higher level meetings would be held to settle through negotiation the question of withdrawal of all foreign forces and peaceful settlement.”

This was not accomplished because the U.S. refused to meet, despite requests over the years by the North Koreans to meet anywhere and anytime. Over fifty years later the troops remain and no peace treaty has been signed. South Korea never even signed the armistice agreement. The 1953 cease-fire agreement provided that both sides “shall not engage in any blockade of any kind of Korea.” This binding agreement appears to be violated by the U.S. conduct to intercept and discourage the transport of goods, food and other materials to the DPRK.

A lack of good faith in discussions, sometimes referenced in the law of contracts as a covenant of good faith and fair dealing, appears violated in many situations. Wendy Sherman, Clinton’s advisor on North Korea, had indicated that when they entered into the famous Agreed Framework of 1994, wherein the North Koreans would be trading their nuclear capability for two light water reactors and fuel oil, and in exchange for working toward normalizing political and economic relations, the Administration had no intention of complying with the agreement. The Clinton Administration believed the Kim Jong Il administration would collapse long before the U.S. had to provide the reactors. This lack of good faith in international relations surrounding a matter of such importance to the world would be against the common law if the breach of promises were between private parties.

Couple this with the Bush administration declaration of North Korea as a member of the “axis of evil,” its call in the Nuclear Posture Review of 2002 for a Nuclear Attack on the DPRK, and advocating regime change, and we realize that the U.S. must be held accountable for its failure to deal fairly and in good faith with the DPRK.

The Barbaric War

In the Korean War, the U.S. demonstrated its willingness to attack Korean civilians in order to injure unidentified military partisans. In doing so, it violated international humanitarian law and provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Among illegal actions engaged in by U.S. soldiers and the U.S. command during the Korean War 1950-53 war were:

Destruction of clearly marked hospitals

and destruction of irrigation dams at Kusongand Toksan that provided water for 75% of North Korea’s food production. The Air Force at the time reported that the “subsequent flash flood scooped clean 27 miles of valley below”, noted the flood waters wiped out supply routes as well as villages, and acknowledged that the loss of the rice crop will mean “starvation and slow death.”

Napalm attacks more widespread than those ultimately banned in Viet Nam 16 and carpet bombing destroyed 75% of North Korea’s cities and villages.

The North Koreans and international delegations have documented introduction of chemical, biological weapons and infestations of plague-ridden insects, although the U.S. has not acknowledged these. Further, General MacArthur proposed using atomic weapons to decimate the whole of the Korean peninsula.

From the 2003 Delegation Report:

“The American planes had bombed the entire city multiple times in the Korean War and obliterated virtually everything in it.

Indeed U.S. reports cite a general ordering a stop to the bombing of Pyongyang since “nothing worthy of a name” was left standing. A 1951 international women’s delegation reported U.S. bombers shooting fleeing civilians in the North Korean countryside.

The Delegation questions why such carpet-bombing of civilian urban areas is rarely prosecuted as a war crime. Clearly in light of the photographs we saw, the leveling of entire cities and civilian targets stands as a heinous act equivalent to the bombing of London, Coventry, Rotterdam, Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, and Hiroshima.

What we Never Learned in School and Why?

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South Korea Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigates Mass Graves of more than 100,000 killed by ROK Forces with U.S. knowledge. See interactive presentation.