By Christine Ahn
NEW YORK, Apr 28 2015 (IPS)

A century ago, the suffragist Jane Addams boarded a ship with other American women peace activists to participate in a Congress of Women in The Hague.

Christine Ahn

Over 1,300 women from 12 countries, “cutting across national enmities,” met to call for an end to World War I. That Congress became the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), which is now gathering in The Hague under the theme Women Stop War.

Just as Addams met women across national lines to try and stop WWI 100 years ago, from May 19 to 25, a delegation of 30 women from 15 countries around the world will meet and walk with Korean women, north and south, to call for an end to the Korean War.

As WWII came to a close, Korea, which had been colonised by Japan for 35 years, faced a new tragedy. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the United States proposed (and the Soviets accepted) temporarily dividing Korea along the 38th parallel in an effort to prevent Soviet troops, who were fighting the Japanese in the north, from occupying the whole country.

Japanese troops north of the line would surrender to the Soviets; those to the south would surrender to U.S. authorities. It was meant to be a temporary division, but Washington and Moscow failed to establish a single Korean government, thereby creating two separate states in 1948: the Republic of Korea in the south and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north.We are walking on May 24, International Women’s Day for Disarmament and Peace, because we believe that there must be an end to the Korean War that has plagued the Korean peninsula with intense militarisation.

This division precipitated the Korean War (1950-53), often referred to in the United States as “the forgotten war”, when each side sought to reunite the country by force. Despite enormous destruction and loss of life, neither side prevailed.

In July 1953, fighting was halted when North Korea (representing the Korean People’s Army and the Chinese People’s Volunteers) and the United States (representing the United Nations Command) signed the Korean War Armistice Agreement at Panmunjom, near the 38^th parallel.

This temporary cease-fire stipulated the need for a political settlement among all parties to the war (Article 4 Paragraph 60). It established the Demilitarized Zone, two-and-a-half miles wide and still heavily mined, as the new border between the two sides. It urged the governments to convene a political conference within three months, in order to reach a formal peace settlement.

Over 62 years later, no peace treaty has been agreed, with the continuing fear that fighting could resume at any time. In fact, in 2012, during another military crisis with North Korea, former U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta acknowledged that Washington was, “within an inch of war almost every day.”

In 1994, as President Clinton weighed a pre-emptive military first strike against North Korea’s nuclear reactors, the U.S. Department of Defence estimated that an outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula would result in 1.5 million casualties within the first 24 hours and 6 million casualties within the first week.

This assessment predates North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons, which would be unimaginable in terms of destruction and devastation. We have no choice but to engage; the cost of not engaging is just too high.

The only way to prevent the outbreak of a catastrophic confrontation, as a 2011 paper from the U.S. Army War College counsels, is to “reach agreement on ending the armistice from the Korean War”—in essence, a peace agreement—and “giv[e] a formal security guarantee to North Korea tied to nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

Recent history has shown that when standing leaders are at a dangerous impasse, the role of civil society can indeed make a difference in averting war and lessening tensions. In 1994 as President Clinton contemplated military action, without the initial blessing of the White House, former President Jimmy Carter flew to Pyongyang armed with a CNN camera crew to negotiate the terms of the Agreed Framework with former North Korean leader Kim Il Sung.

And in 2008, the New York Philharmonic performed in Pyongyang, which significantly contributed towards warming relations between the United States and DPRK.

Christiane Amanpour, who traveled with CNN to cover the philharmonic, wrote that U.S. Secretary of Defence William Perry, a former negotiator with North Korea, explained to her that this was a magic moment, with different peoples speaking the same language of music.

Armanpour said Perry believed that the event could positively influence the governments reaching a nuclear agreement, “but that mutual distrust and fear can only be overcome by people-to-people diplomacy.”

That is what we are hoping to achieve with the 2015 International Women’s Walk for Peace and Reunification of Korea, citizen-to-citizen diplomacy led by women. We are also walking on the 15^th anniversary of the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for the full and equal participation of women in conflict prevention and resolution, and in peacebuilding.

Women from Cambodia, Guatemala, Liberia and Northern Ireland all provided crucial voices for peace as they mobilised across national, ethnic and religious divides and used family and community networks to mitigate violence and heal divisions among their communities.

Similarly, our delegation will walk for peace in Korea and to cross the De-Militarized Zone separating millions of families, reminding the world on the tragic 70^th anniversary of Korea’s division by foreign powers that the Korean people are from an ancient culture united by the same food, language, culture, customs, and history.

We are walking on May 24, International Women’s Day for Disarmament and Peace, because we believe that there must be an end to the Korean War that has plagued the Korean peninsula with intense militarisation. Instead of spending billions on preparing for war, governments could instead redirect these critically needed funds for schools, childcare, health, caring for the elderly.

The first step is reconciliation through engagement and dialogue. That is why we are walking. To break the impasse among the warring nations—North Korea, South Korea, and the United States—to come to the peacemaking table to finally end the Korean War.

As Addams boarded the ship to The Hague, she and other women peace activists were mocked for seeking alternative ways than war to resolve international disputes.

Addams dismissed criticism that they were naïve and wild-eyed idealists: “We do not think we can settle the war. We do not think that by raising our hands we can make the armies cease slaughter. We do think it is valuable to state a new point of view. We do think it is fitting that women should meet and take counsel to see what may be done.”

It is only fitting that our women’s peace walk in Korea takes place on this centennial anniversary year of the first international act of defiance of war women ever undertook. I am honoured to be among another generation of women gathering at The Hague to carry on the tradition of women peacemakers engaged in citizen diplomacy to end war.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

By Christine Ahn and Suzy Kim
HONOLULU, Dec 2 2014 (IPS)

On Nov. 18, a committee of the United Nations General Assembly voted 111 to 19, with 55 abstentions, in favour of drafting a non-binding resolution referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Christine Ahn

While there is overwhelming evidence that economic and political conditions in North Korea must improve, missing from debates in U.N. corridors is the fact that the unresolved Korean War (1950-1953) underlies North Korea’s human rights crisis."While there is overwhelming evidence that economic and political conditions in North Korea must improve, missing from debates in U.N. corridors is the fact that the unresolved Korean War (1950-1953) underlies North Korea's human rights crisis"

After claiming up to four million lives with at least one member of every family in North Korea killed by the war, the Korean War was halted by an armistice agreement signed by North Korea, China and the United States representing the United Nations Command.

Suzy Kim

As James Laney, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea during the 1990s explains, “one of the things that have bedevilled all talks until now is the unresolved status of the Korean War” and he prescribes the “establishment of a peace treaty to replace the truce.”

What does the past have to do with the present state of human rights in North Korea?

The continued state of war affects the human rights of North Korean people today in at least two ways. Domestically, the North Korean government prioritises military defence and national security over human security and political freedoms. Internationally, North Koreans suffer due to political isolation and economic sanctions.

The fact that the Korean War ended with a temporary ceasefire rather than a permanent peace treaty gives the North Korean government justification – whether we like it or not – to invest heavily in the country’s militarisation.

According to the South Korean government’s Institute of Defense Analyses, North Korea invests approximately 8.7 billion dollars – or one-third of its GDP – on defence.

Pyongyang even acknowledged last year how the un-ended war has forced it “to divert large human and material resources to bolstering up the armed forces though they should have been directed to the economic development and improvement of people’s living standards.”

Since military intervention is not an option, the Barack Obama administration has used sanctions to pressure North Korea to denuclearise. Instead, North Korea has since conducted three nuclear tests, calling sanctions “an act of war”.

That is because sanctions have had deleterious effects on the day-to-day lives of ordinary North Korean people. “In almost any case when there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer least,” said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on his last visit to North Korea.

International sanctions have made it extremely difficult for North Koreans to access basic necessities, such as food, seeds, medicine and technology. Felix Abt, a Swiss entrepreneur who has conducted business in North Korea for over a decade says that it is “the most heavily sanctioned nation in the world, and no other people have had to deal with the massive quarantines that Western and Asian powers have enclosed around its economy.” 

Whether in Pyongyang, Seoul or Washington, the threat of war or terrorism has been used to justify government repression and overreach, such as warrantless surveillance, imprisonment and torture (“enhanced interrogation techniques”) in the name of preserving national security.

In South Korea, one of the liberal opposition parties, the Unified Progressive Party, is currently on trial in the Constitutional Court on charges made by the Park Geun-hye government that its members conspired with North Korea to overthrow the South Korean government.

Amnesty International says that this case “has seriously damaged the human rights improvement of South Korean society which has struggled and fought for freedom of thoughts and conscience and freedom of expression.”

In the coming days, the U.N. General Assembly will vote on whether the U.N. Security Council should refer North Korea to the ICC, although it is likely to be vetoed by China and Russia. The United Nations vote, while lofty in principle, actually serves to further isolate Pyongyang, which will likely retreat even further behind its iron curtain.

“We’ve said from day one that if North Korea wants to rejoin the community of nations, it knows how to do it,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said, referring to the precondition of denuclearisation for talks.

Instead of relying on the failed Washington policy of “strategic patience” it is time for a bold move that will truly bring North Korea into the community of nations, leaving no excuse to delay addressing human rights – sign a peace treaty to end the state of war. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Christine Ahn and - -
SAN FRANCISCO, Jun 17 2011 (IPS)

Today millions of women workers from across the globe made history. From June 16, domestic workers secured the passage of the ILO Convention on domestic work for governments to ratify into law.

Juana Flores, a domestic worker with Mujeres Unidas Activas in San Francisco says that with this ruling, “domestic workers, for the first time, will no longer invisible and unrecognized.” Under the Convention, domestic workers will have the freedom to associate and to collective bargaining. It abolishes all forms of forced, compulsory and child labor, and protects migrant workers by requiring employers to have written and enforceable contracts. Governments must now take measures towards ensuring that domestic workers receive equal treatment as regular workers, such as overtime pay, breaks, and a minimum wage. “Domestic work will be recognized as work equal to any other,” says Flores. “We all deserve a just wage, vacation and sick days.”

This victory at the ILO is also quite significant in other ways.

For one, it was the result of incredible organizing by the most exploited women workers today who suffer multiple oppressions -as low-wage workers, as women, as racial and ethnic minorities, as indigenous people, and as migrants. Their work is generally viewed as unskilled work, a natural extension of womenÂ’s work in their own homes. Thus, many domestic workers endure very poor working conditions -many work long hours in difficult and unsafe conditions and are underpaid with no social security coverage. Many are vulnerable to trafficking, sexual, physical and psychological abuse, especially migrants. Despite their isolation, they organized at the local level, built alliances with other domestic workers within their countries and across regions, and then formed the International Domestic Workers Network to take their demands all the way to the ILO.

Also significant is how with the ILO convention, domestic workers have succeeded in gaining the recognition of their contributions to the economy and to society. They have sought recognition as workers -not “maids” or “daughters of the family”- who have the right to the same protections as those won by the working class.

Domestic work is among the oldest and most important occupations for women worldwide. It is an industry that has roots in the global slave trade, colonialism and other forms of servitude. In todayÂ’s globalized economy and feminized international migration, several factors make domestic work indispensable for the economy outside the household to function. More women are joining the labor force and working longer and more intense hours. Fewer governments have public policies that help workers reconcile work and family life as more and more child and family care services have been slashed, posing serious problems for rapidly ageing societies. All these factors have increased the demand for domestic workers who maintain vital household routines, thereby allowing millions of others to go out to work.

The recognition of domestic work as labor is the result of over three decades of organizing by domestic workers associations, networks and coalitions, particularly through the Americas where there are more than 10 million domestic workers. In 1988, domestic workers groups from 11 countries met in Colombia to form the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Household Workers. Since then, they have lobbied their governments; the most successful so far has been in Uruguay, which currently has the most advanced legislation on domestic employment. The law, passed in 2006, puts domestic workers’ rights on an equal footing with those of the rest of the country’s labor force. Uruguayan domestic workers have been able to negotiate wage increases and improvements in working conditions and rights. In 2009 Chile passed a law to regulate and gradually make domestic workers’ wages equal to the national minimum wage. Guatemala also created a special program to protect women employed in private homes and to provide domestic workers with maternal and health care for their children and hospital care in the case of accidents. Although nearly every country in the Americas has a minimum wage for domestic workers, it tends to be lower than the minimum wage for other workers, and in most cases it is not even implemented.

Even in the United States, domestic workers have won significant victories. According to Robert Shepard of the U.S. Department of Labor, “the majority of domestic workers are women and girls -oftentimes from predominantly migrant populations who work in isolated workplaces… are vulnerable to many forms of exploitation, from nonpayment of wages to trafficking.” In 2010, the Domestic Workers United in New York led successful advocacy efforts to pass a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in New York, the first such U.S. law. Their success has sparked similar efforts in other states, such as in California.

As effective as the international campaign led by domestic workers to adopt the ILO Convention has been in changing the legal framework, the impact of the process of organizing and alliance building has been equally important. Domestic workers across the globe have successfully organized to create their own spaces of popular resistance to their conditions of oppression, exploitation and violence. They have inspired millions around the world that indeed, despite the multiple barriers they face, women can achieve social, economic and political transformation through collective movements. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Erika Guevara Rosas is the Regional Program Director of the Americas and Christine Ahn is the Senior Policy and Research Analyst at the Global Fund for Women.

Excerpt:

By Christine Ahn and - -
SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 28 2011 (IPS)

On April 28, former US President Jimmy Carter and three former European heads of state landed in Seoul after travelling to Pyongyang to help reopen dialogue between the two Koreas. Known as the Elders, they carried this message to the leaders of South Korea and the United States: “Chairman and General Secretary Kim Jong-il said he is willing and the people of North Korea are willing to negotiate with South Korea or with the United States or with the six powers on any subject any time and without any preconditions.”

Also on their agenda was North Korea’s current food crisis. According to a recent UN report, up to 6 million people are facing food shortages. This has raised concerns among many in the international community that the situation may grow into a full-blown famine like that of the mid-1990s which claimed the lives of up to one million North Koreans.

While many global leaders have returned from North Korea with similar messages regarding North Korea’s desire for engagement, the difference this time is the Elders’ understanding that North Korea’s food crisis stems from the unending Korean War, including over half a century of sanctions against the North.

“In almost any case when there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer least,” Carter said. “We believe that the last 50 years of deprivation of the North Korean people of adequate access to trade and commerce has been very damaging to their economy.” Mary Robinson, former Irish president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that North Korea is facing a “matter of life-and-death urgency” as a result of food shortages.

Pyongyang has reached out to Washington and Seoul for food aid, but not much food is forthcoming. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak says Seoul won’t send food to fellow hungry Koreans until political and military matters are resolved. And the Obama administration, which has been blindly following Seoul’s lead, says it’s still assessing the need, despite the major cross-team UN report which found that a quarter of North Koreans were in urgent need of food. Carter rightly held Washington and Seoul accountable by stating that “to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people because of political or military issues not related is really indeed a human rights violation.”

There are several causes of North Korea’s food crisis, some unique to North Korea, others not. North Korea, like Pakistan, experienced unprecedented rains last August and September, which led to severe flooding and reduced their harvest by 44 percent compared with that of 2009. Like other countries, North Korea’s purchasing power of commercial food imports was significantly weakened by rising global food and fuel prices. In 2007, Pyongyang spent USD 62 million on 192,000 metric tons of grain. But because of rising food prices, despite doubling this amount in 2008, they could only buy and import 30 percent more grain.

Tensions over North Korea’s testing of missiles and a nuclear weapon and their alleged sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan ushered in more rounds of UN sanctions and a nearly complete halt in trade with two of its significant trading partners, Japan and South Korea. But more than trade has been cut.

Before the Lee regime came into office in 2008, South Korea sent 400,000 metric tons of rice to the North. That year, under Lee, rice aid dropped by 70 percent and then food aid was completely halted. Following Seoul’s lead, the Obama administration also stopped aid to North Korea. Although China, Russia, India and other countries have been sending aid, it has not closed the gap previously filled by US and South Korean aid.

In addition to halting government aid, the Lee regime has thwarted efforts by South Korean humanitarian aid groups, like the Korean Sharing Movement. Among South Korea’s largest and most influential humanitarian aid groups, the Korean Sharing Movement has for years sent food, medicine, construction materials to North Korea. They not only view North Korea’s development as a human right, they view exchanges between Koreans as crucial to building trust and fostering understanding towards peace and reconciliation. Yet their valiant efforts and others like them in the South have been stymied since the Lee regime took power. In 2007, the Korean Sharing Movement organised 2,962 South Koreans on 65 trips to North Korea. By 2009, only 84 South Koreans went on 25 humanitarian aid trips. And by 2010, the Lee administration began interrogating aid workers to threaten and deter others from reaching out to North Koreans.

As Carter noted, North Korea’s deprivation is also the result of “some problems they may have brought on by themselves”. Indeed, like all governments, the Kim regime is responsible for ensuring that its people have access to adequate food. They are also responsible for perpetuating an ecologically and economically unsustainable system of industrialised agriculture, which depends heavily on inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides, which they must import. But as Carter and the Elders noted, sanctions and restricted trade are severely undermining the North Korean people’s development, which is a result of the unending Korean War.

Yes North Koreans need aid, but what they need more than food is an end to hostilities, the lifting of sanctions, and a genuine engagement plan that includes a formal resolution to the Korean War. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Christine Ahn is the Executive Director of the Korea Policy Institute and a member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War.

Excerpt:

By Christine Ahn
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 25 2010 (IPS)

One year after U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration, how has his administration fared in terms of advancing an agenda for women’s rights around the world?

Charlotte Bunch Credit: Nick Romanenko

Q: Now that we’re one year into the Obama presidency, how is the administration faring on advancing women’s rights around the world? A: So far the Obama administration has done pretty well in advancing women’s rights through their foreign policy. The most substantial evidence of this is the increase in money that the State Department is now allocating to women’s concerns.

According to a recent report by Women Thrive Worldwide, the budget for women’s rights has dramatically increased from the Bush years. Their analysis of the State, Foreign Operations budget for FY10 found an increase of 1.66 billion dollars more than FY09 to the tune of nearly 8.0 billion dollars for global development.

Also important to note is the focus on women’s empowerment and gender integration across the foreign aid programmes which will be applied to 16.5 billion dollars in funding. The Congressional bill also included 3.1 million dollars for the newly created Office for Global Women’s Issues at the State Department.

Of course, the State Department budget still pales in comparison to the Defence Department, but the allocation of more dollars does signal clear intention of U.S. foreign policy to empower women and improve their rights.

Within the first few weeks of taking office, President Obama implemented some very important and symbolic policies. On his first day in office, he overturned the global gag rule, which the Bush administration had reinstated preventing U.S. government dollars from supporting any form of reproductive healthcare or family planning overseas.

The administration also immediately restored funding to the United Nations Population Fund and later pushed for the “gender architecture” reform that will create a new super women’s agency at the United Nations. President Obama also created the White House Council on Women and Girls to coordinate at the federal level all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies to consider how their policies and programmes impact women and families.

There was some discussion about whether this would be a commission, similar to what President [John F.] Kennedy set up in 1963. The difference is that the commission was public and included the perspective of civil society as a major component. Granted, in the 1960s there were few women in high level appointed federal positions so women in civil society played a big role, whereas today there are many.

Certainly times are different, but it still would have been good to have representation from civil society perspectives shaping the agenda of the White House Council. And most recently, Secretary of State Clinton renewed the U.S. government’s support for the program coming out of the U.N. International Conference on Population and Development, in 1994 in Cairo that linked women’s empowerment and reproductive rights with development goals.

Q: Do you see any negative moves? A: As for disappointment, escalating the war in Afghanistan isn’t improving the situation for Afghan women, men or children. And although they have made development in Afghanistan a priority, it still doesn’t balance the damage and destruction that will be wrought from more militarised violence. Similar questions could be raised about continuing U.S. military activity in Iraq and other places.

Another moment of disappointment for women was Obama’s speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last year. Although it was heralded in many parts of the world for its cross-cultural outreach from a women’s rights perspective, it was a low point. In that speech, he stressed the need to reach out to Muslims, but he didn’t give much attention to the state of women’s rights in that part of the world beyond the need to improve women’s access to education.

He missed an important opportunity to challenge the discriminatory practices of all religions in subjugating women by calling upon all Christians, Muslims and people of all faiths everywhere to improve women’s human rights.

President Obama could have borrowed a few words from The Elders, a council of retired leaders including Nelson Mandela, Mary Robinson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Ela Bhatt, and Jimmy Carter who are calling on religious leaders of all faiths to change discriminatory practices and traditions that oppress women.

Whether or not the Obama administration views women’s rights as a priority in a larger geopolitical and military context is questionable. For example, the White House has talked of working with “moderate” Taliban-despite its abhorrent record of abusing and oppressing women-as acceptable to achieving their objectives in Afghanistan.

I’m not as cynical as during the [George W.] Bush administration when all efforts for women’s rights seemed manipulative. I do believe that there is a genuine concern for advancing a women’s rights agenda, but when that comes into conflict with their broader goals, I doubt that it will not trump other priorities.

Another measure of how much political capital the Obama administration is going to wage on advancing women’s rights will be whether they are going to pursue the ratification of the Convention the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). There are 186 signatories to the international treaty, but the United States, along with Sudan and Iran, are among the very few countries that have not ratified it.

The ratification of CEDAW will certainly improve the status of women in the United States, but it is also an important symbol of the United States commitment to being part of this historic women’s rights convention and the international human rights regime.

Q: Can you talk about U.N. Security Council Resolution 1888 and its significance? A: UNSC 1888 builds upon two previous resolutions: UNSC 1325 on women, peace and security, which was passed ten years ago and UNSC 1820 passed in 2008. The Bush administration built upon 1325 by promoting UNSC 1820 which advocated for more protection of women facing sexual violence in conflict zones.

Last September, the UNSC passed 1888 which put real teeth into implementing1820 by authorising a U.N. special representative of the secretary general to monitor it and report to the Security Council.

During the Bush administration, women rights advocates very ambivalent about the U.S. proposing 1820 because we felt like it was a cover for their clearly egregious anti-women’s rights agenda (as seen in their objection to family planning and reproductive rights and promotion of abstinence-only programmes).

The Obama administration deserves credit for getting 1888 passed, which will enable more reporting and put pressure for more progress on the protection of women in conflict areas.

Q: Why was restructuring the U.N. women’s units into one larger agency so important? A: Work on women’s rights at the U.N. has been important, but its structures have been fragmented and under-resourced and its leadership has lacked access to key decision- making. In 2006, women’s civil society groups initiated a campaign to demand a stronger U.N. agency and this became the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR), a coalition of over 300 organisations from 80 countries.

Last September, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution to create a stronger women’s rights and gender equality agency that is to be led by an under secretary general. The four existing women’s units at the United Nations will be combined to create this new agency and the goal is for it to have the heft of UNICEF and be able to raise the profile of women’s rights globally and advance their implementation.

UNICEF has an approximately three-billion-dollar annual budget, whereas the four women’s units collectively have only 221 million dollars, less than one percent of the 27-billion-dollar budget of the United Nations and all its agencies. Our goal is to double or triple or quadruple the money put into gender equality.

The Obama administration has become very supportive of gender architecture reform at the United Nations, whereas the Bush administration was an obstacle or indifferent at best. The real test will come with what kind of money the U.S. will invest in this new agency in the coming years.

*Christine Ahn is the Policy and Communications Analyst at the Global Fund for Women.

Excerpt:

By Christine Ahn and - -
OAKLAND, Feb 2 2007 (IPS)

The US and South Korea are working around the clock to sign the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KorUS FTA), which would become the second largest trade deal after NAFTA, writes Christine Ahn, a policy analyst with the Korea Policy Institute and Oakland Institute and a member of the Korean Americans for Fair Trade coalition. In this article, Ahn writes that Wall Street corporations and South Korean chaebols are salivating at the opportunity to increase their portion of 72 billion dollars in business the two countries trade annually. Normally, such a trade deal would breeze through the halls of the US Congress and the Korean National Assembly. But times have changed. The public discourse on free trade is no longer just about the ability of corporations to move their capital freely across borders. It\’s about the anger and frustration of middle and working class people who see their security dwindling to further line the pockets of white-collar business executives. That anger can then express itself during elections, ousting officials mired in the rhetoric of the last century. Free trade is over, and hopefully the social justice movements in the United States will unite with the energising movements in South Korea to stop this antiquated regime.

Trade representatives will meet from February 11 to 14 in Washington, DC, in a frenzied attempt to smooth over colossal differences in order to come up with an agreement by April 2. That is a hard and fast deadline if the KorUS FTA is to be passed under the 2002 Trade Promotion Authority, which expires on July 1, 2007. This ”fast track” law allows the President to speedily negotiate trade agreements, which Congress, with just 90 days to review, must vote up or down.

Normally, such a trade deal would breeze through the halls of the US Congress and the Korean National Assembly. But times have changed since the free-trade regime rolled into town in Washington, DC, and in Seoul. In the 2006 US mid-term elections, 30 new members of the House of Representatives and seven new members of the Senate were elected on a fair-trade platform. After the president’s State of the Union address, newly-elected Senator Jim Webb gave the Democratic response, saying that America’s workers should ”expect, rightly, that in this age of globalisation, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.”

And now the critics of free trade can point to over a decade of devastating results for the working poor in the United States and in Mexico caused by NAFTA. Since NAFTA took effect, over one million workers in the US lost their high-paying manufacturing jobs, which were sent across the border, and forced to take lower-paying service jobs where they now earn 23% less than they took home before. US workers without a college education (73%) saw their wages drop by 13% since NAFTA.

But those most hurt by the agreement are workers and farmers in Mexico, where real wages dropped by 80% and unemployment rose from 9 to 15% in the past twelve years. This is partially because 1.5 million Mexican farmers were forced off the land by the flood of cheap, highly-subsidised corn from the US Undersold, Mexican farmers sought low-wage work in the maquiladoras, which forced down wages and pushed unemployment upwards.

Seeing the devastation that a US FTA has wreaked on Mexican peasants, Korean farmers are not about to wait for US rice –the most subsidised crop in the world– to flood the Korean market and force 140,000 of them to lose their livelihoods under the KorUS FTA. And they’re not alone. Since negotiations began in February 2006, over 1 million South Koreans have protested the FTA, organising hunger and general strikes.

In response, the South Korean government has used secrecy and severe repression to silence the majority of South Koreans now opposed to the FTA. As a pre-condition to even beginning negotiations, South Korean president Roh Moo-Hyun unilaterally accepted to amend four Korean laws to allow US markets access to Korea. When the Korean government finally held a hearing on whether to pursue the FTA, it stopped public comment after 20 minutes because so many people were opposed to it.

The state-run Korean Advertising Review Board blocked an ad by farmers and film makers opposing the FTA from being aired, saying that it was unfairly biased against the South Korean government. Meanwhile, President Roh’s Committee to Support the Conclusion of the Korea-US FTA 3.8 million-dollar propaganda ad has been aired frequently. After over 100,000 peasants, farmers, and workers took to the streets last November in protest, the government instituted a ban against public FTA protests. They have deployed thousands of police to use physical violence and water cannons against protestors, raided local offices of civic organisations, detained 19 leaders of farmers’ and workers’ organisations, and issued summons and warrants for 170 leaders.

Advocates of the FTA are promoting the FTA talks as an opportunity to mend sour relations between the US and South Korea, strained since President Bush assumed office. But instead the Kor-US FTA is fuelling more anti-Americanism there.

The public discourse on free trade is no longer just about the ability of corporations to move their capital freely across borders. It’s about the anger and frustration of middle and working class people who see their security dwindling to further line the pockets of white-collar business executives. That anger can then turn into action in elections, ousting officials mired in the rhetoric of the last century. Free trade is over, and hopefully the social justice movements in the United States will unite with the energising movements in South Korea to stop this antiquated regime. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

By Christine Ahn and - -
SEOUL, Dec 12 2006 (IPS)

The government of South Korea is waging alarming levels of violence and repression against its people to help the US enlarge its military presence, writes Christine Ahn, policy analyst with the Korea Policy Institute, fellow with the Oakland Institute, and a member of KAWAN, Korean Americans Against War and Neoliberalism. In this article, Ahn writes that under the Pentagon\’s 2003 Global Posture Review, the US Forces in Korea are changing their historic role of defending South Korea to having more \’strategic flexibility\’ to deal with conflicts in the region while handing back responsibility to South Korea to defend itself, while using the peninsula as a launching pad. Last September 22,000 riot police marched into Daechuri to bulldoze 68 homes and the village human rights centre. This was the second demolition after the one in May when 20,000 police brutally attacked several hundred villagers who used only their bodies to prevent them from destroying their rice paddies and homes. To many Koreans the struggle in Pyongtaek has become a part of its ongoing history of invasion and occupation by foreign forces and a symbol of Korea\’s division. Many South Koreans view the US\’ amplified military presence in South Korea as fuelling tensions with North Korea and an obstacle to reunification.

Welcome to Daechuri, a small rice-farming village 50 kilometres south of Seoul, in the city of Pyongtaek near the US base Camp Humphrey where residents are refusing to hand over their homes and farmland to the US military.

Under the Pentagon’s 2003 Global Posture Review, the US Forces in Korea is changing its historic role of defending South Korea to having more ‘strategic flexibility’ to deal with conflicts in the region. In a sweet deal for the US, it will hand back responsibility to South Korea to defend itself, while using the peninsula as a launching pad. By 2009, the number of US troops will be cut from 37,000 to 25,000.

Why is the US military expanding when it should be downsizing?

The US plans to spend USD 11 billion dollars in new military hardware and technology in South Korea and to consolidate some 90 bases, relocating troops and equipment to Pusan and Pyongtaek. Camp Humphrey will expand by three times and occupy 2,470 acres of prime farmland.

Ever since relocation plans were drawn up, Daechuri residents have had virtually no say. In March 2005, after a series of closed hearings, the Korean Defense Ministry announced its plans for land compensation. Within a month, the government started buying land from some willing owners. By November, the Central Land Tribunal began to expropriate land residents refused to sell using eminent domain. Although the 241 residents appealed, their request for due process was ignored. The government promised to dialogue, but has instead used violence and repression to silence the remaining families who refuse to leave their homes, land, and livelihoods.

Last September 22,000 riot police marched into Daechuri to bulldoze 68 homes and the village human rights centre. This was the second demolition after the one in May when 20,000 police brutally attacked several hundred villagers who used only their bodies to prevent them from destroying their rice paddies and homes. Last month, in another effort to drive out the residents, the military built trenches, poured concrete in irrigation canals, and laid miles of razor wire fencing to keep the farmers from getting to their fields.

To further demoralise the villagers, the government sentenced the village chief, Kim Ji-Tae, to two years in prison on charges of obstructing civil affairs and for his leadership in the demonstrations against the base expansion. Last week, Amnesty International designated Kim Ji Tae a prisoner of conscience and announced plans to carry out an international campaign for his release.

A native of Daechuri and rice farmer for 38 years, 50-year old Kim Ji Tae has emerged as one of Korea’s most charismatic leaders. When asked by the Defense Ministry for the price of his land, Kim Ji-Tae replied,

”The price must include every grain of rice grown and harvested here. It must include all of our efforts to grow them, as well as our whole life here, including our sighs, tears and laughter. The price must include the stars, which have witnessed our grief and joy, and the wind, which has dried our tears. ”

During Thanksgiving week, I travelled to Daechuri with 18 Americans, including US mom turned peace activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004.

As we approached Daechuri, our bus was stopped at the first of two heavily fortified checkpoints where 200 police in riot helmets and shields awaited us. Luckily several camera crews and journalists appeared out of nowhere waiting to capture Cindy Sheehan’s grand entry, otherwise we, like most visitors, would have been denied entry.

The National Human Rights Commission ruled the checkpoints illegal and in violation of the villagers’ human rights, but police are still routinely harassing residents and visitors.

After passing through the second checkpoint, we were guided to a barn where we joined 100 or so villagers in their 811th consecutive vigil.

Since the clashes began, over 1,000 people have been injured, 828 people arrested, and an estimated half a million dollars in fines have been charged. These figures don’t even capture the emotional trauma the villagers have endured, many in their 70s and 80s, who have witnessed bulldozers tearing down their homes and the village’s only primary school they built with their own hands. Many salvaged their homes by tying themselves to their roofs, but the remaining 147 homes are scheduled to be destroyed by the end of this year.

Half of the residents have relocated with some government assistance. The barrage of violence and harassment, daily sight of barbed wires and rubble, and the constant ringing of helicopters and planes would drive anyone away. But to the villagers who have been struggling together for years, naturally, they were disappointed. Some of the residents say sour relations have developed between them and their former neighbours, calling it yet another division caused by the United States.

And that is what the struggle in Pyongtaek has become to many Koreans: a part of its ongoing history of invasion and occupation by foreign forces and a symbol of Korea’s division. Many South Koreans view the US’ amplified military presence in South Korea as fuelling tensions with North Korea and an obstacle to reunification.

The villagers’ struggle has not been in vain. They have captured the hearts and minds of people around the world who see the resistance in Pyongtaek as part of the global struggle against US global domination. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Christine Ahn and - -
OAKLAND, Dec 12 2005 (IPS)

Last month, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution led by the US and the EU condemning North Korea for its human rights violations. While North Korea needs to address allegations of torture and prison camps, impeding its development will not improve the human rights of 22 million North Koreans, writes Christine Ahn, a Fellow with the Oakland Institute and author of the 2005 Food First Report, \’\’Famine and the Future of Food Security in North Korea\’\’. In this article, the author writes that the North Korean government met opposition from the US and many western nations when it asked the UN to transition from humanitarian assistance, such as food aid, to supporting development projects. It says it has enough food, but instead needs concrete aid in developing its agricultural and industrial sectors. Ongoing humanitarian assistance, largely in the form of food aid, has not helped advance the security of North Koreans. The difference between sending food aid versus development assistance is the difference between sending one kilogram of corn versus one kilogram of maize seeds that can yield 180 kilograms of corn. Development assistance, such as ensuring proper seed production and crop-growing technologies, is the most efficient way to improve agriculture and implement lasting solutions to North Korea\’s food crisis.

The North Korean government met opposition from the US and many western nations when it asked the UN to transition from humanitarian assistance, such as food aid, to supporting development projects. It says it has enough food, but instead needs concrete aid in developing its agricultural and industrial sectors, both still reeling from external shocks of a decade ago.

According to FAO figures, North Korea needs 4.5 million tons of cereal to provide a basic ration through its Public Distribution System (PDS) to feed its entire population. Yields have significantly increased in recent years, and in 2005, North Korea harvested an estimated 6 million tons of rice. As a result, the government recently announced that the PDS has returned to rations levels of before the food crisis struck in the mid 1990s.

However, the US and many western nations oppose shifting to development assistance, arguing that the real reason North Korea wants development assistance is because it is more difficult to monitor than food aid. Whether North Korea has enough food or not, the US State Department advocates for food aid because it gives the US leverage to negotiate, and also profits American grain giants.

The US, the largest donor to the World Food Programme, provides most of its relief aid as food in-kind, which helps explains the bias toward food aid in the design of relief responses. The EU procures 90 percent of its food aid locally because it requires less transport, is swifter and cheaper, and supports agriculture and development in the recipient country. In contrast, only 1 percent of US food aid is procured outside the US because it provides markets for large American agribusinesses. In the past two decades, one-third of dry milk powder, 15 percent of rice, and 12 percent of wheat were exported as US food aid.

The point is that ongoing humanitarian assistance, largely in the form of food aid, has not helped advance the security of North Koreans. The difference between sending food aid versus development assistance is the difference between sending one kilogram of corn versus one kilogram of maize seeds that can yield 180 kilograms of corn. Development assistance, such as ensuring proper seed production and crop-growing technologies, is the most efficient way to improve agriculture and implement lasting solutions to North Korea’s food crisis.

North Korea’s slide towards famine began with diminishing food production in the late 1980s due to depleted soils caused by their heavy reliance on external inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides. North Koreans were hit hard with food shortages because they developed one of the most sophisticated intensive monoculture systems in the world and because of the sudden cuts in farm inputs and fuel with the collapse of the socialist-trading bloc. Global advances in agriculture now show this system destroys the soil, which has prompted the world’s leading scientists and policymakers to create alternative farming systems which preserve soil fertility and allow sustainable production. The solution to North Korea’s food crisis is to help farmers and institutions apply these new farming methods based on existing resources and infrastructure.

The North Korean government recognises that just giving farmers rice or tractors only reinforces the dependence that created the crisis in the first place. And countries like Sweden and Switzerland and UN Development Agencies have switched their approach by prioritising ecologically-sustainable food production and substantially cutting food aid since 1998. North Koreans are ready to change, but can the US and the western world see that advancing human rights in North Korea means ensuring genuine security achieved through food, health, development, and ultimately peace?

As the global movement for human rights in North Korea gains momentum, we must advocate for development assistance because it is the sure way to promote the security of the people. The other route, articulated in the 2003 UN Consolidated Appeals Process, says, ”The absence of an acceptable resolution of the 1950 to 1953 conflict on the Korean peninsula remains the main problem faced by people in North Korea.” Development and peace then are vital steps to ensuring the security and human rights of all North Koreans. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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By Christine Ahn and - -
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 1 2004 (IPS)

On July 22, 2004, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act (NKHRA), writes Christine Ahn, who coordinates the Economic and Social Human Rights Programme at the Institute for Food and Development Policy and is a member of the Korea Solidarity Committee of the San Francisco Bay Area. In this article, the author writes that the bill was backed by a coalition of right-wing evangelical Christian groups and pro-war thinktanks that believe the collapse of the regime will usher in freedom for North Koreans. It demonstrates US policymakers\’ complete ignorance of North Korea, the conditions that have caused famine there, and the ensuing human rights crisis. The NKHRA is based on the assumption that the famine in North Korea was a result of Kim Jong Il\’s mismanagement of the country. Most experts, on the other hand, agree that the main causes of famine were a series of catastrophic events beyond North Korea\’s control: the collapse of the Soviet Union, which brought an end the shipments of oil needed to run tractors and other agricultural machinery, and a series of the historic droughts and floods. A letter signed by over 100 NGOs states that the bill would not improve human rights but would further hinder international humanitarian aid and negotiations for peace on the Korean peninsula.

From the mid 1990s to early this century, the famine in North Korea displaced over 5 million people and ravaged 17 percent of the population. A documentary filmmaker who travelled the country extensively said it was impossible to describe what he saw, that ”it was worse than war.”

Today, the arduous march appears to have finally passed. Even the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reports that 2003- 2004 was the best harvest North Korea had in nine years. But they are still facing a food deficit of 944,000 tons of food, meaning that at least 6.5 million North Koreans will go hungry this year.

Washington, however, has a different idea for what North Koreans need.

On July 22, 2004, the House of Representatives unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act (NKHRA) to ”improve” the human rights conditions of North Koreans. The bill was introduced by Iowa Republican Jim Leach and backed by a coalition of right-wing evangelical Christian groups and pro-war thinktanks, including the Defense Forum Foundation, that believe the collapse of the regime bring freedom to North Koreans. Its Senate counterpart, the North Korea Freedom Act, has been said to read like a manual to topple the North Korean regime.

This bill will make USD 24 million dollars in taxpayer funds annually available to US-based NGOs working on improving the human rights of North Koreans. It will also expand radio service to North Korea, strengthen monitoring of humanitarian aid to North Korea, and permit North Korean defectors to apply for asylum in the US.

This bill demonstrates US policymakers’ complete ignorance of North Korea, the conditions that have caused famine there, and the ensuing human rights crisis.

The NKHRA is based on the assumption that the famine in North Korea was a result of Kim Jong Il’s mismanagement of the country. However, most experts agree that the main cause of famine was a series of catastrophic events beyond North Korea’s control. The first was the collapse of the Soviet Union, which brought an end the shipments of oil needed to run tractors and other agricultural machinery. The second cause was the historic droughts and floods that destroyed 300,000 hectares of agricultural land and devastated 1.9 million tons of grain.

Ironically, the most vocal opposition to the NKHRA has come from a wide spectrum of South Korean human rights groups, including Sarangbang for Human Rights, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, and Good Friends, a respected humanitarian organisation that has worked mostly with North Korean refugees.

A letter signed by over 100 NGOs states that the bill would not improve human rights but rather would further hinder international humanitarian aid and negotiations for peace on the Korean peninsula. According to the widely-respected March 2004 report by Good Friends, ”We cannot separate the problem of human rights from the food shortage. The human rights improvement that North Korean residents want most is large-scale humanitarian food aid before anything else.”

Although food aid should not come with strings attached, the NKHRA stipulates that before more aid is given, the US government would need assurances about the North’s improvements in human rights.

Since 1995, the United States has provided about 1.9 million tons of food aid to North Korea. When the Bush administration took office, food aid to that country dropped from 500,000 to about 100,000 tonnes per year, clearly as a result of it political agenda. Undersecretary of State John Bolton characterised the Bush administration’s aim as follows: ”the end of North Korea”.

The monitoring of humanitarian aid, strangely, seems less of an issue to the relief agencies providing the aid. In 2003, James Morris, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations: ”It would be wrong for me to depict the regime in Pyongyang as totally uncooperative,” he said, noting that the WFP staff have access to 85 percent of the population and that they ”believe that most food is getting through to the women and children who need it”.

A recent study by UNICEF showed that food aid is reaching the most vulnerable North Koreans. From 1998 to 2002, the number of underweight children dropped by two-thirds, acute malnutrition was almost cut in half, and chronic malnutrition dropped by one-third. Caritas International, the largest private humanitarian network in North Korea, is confident that food aid is reaching the most needy.

On a recent trip to North Korea, I expected to find a depressed society completely devoid of foreigners, but this was not at all the case. I met many conservation agriculturalists from around the world who were working with the government to move their food production to a more sustainable, less energy-intensive model. In fact, Theodor Friedrich, a senior agriculturalist with FAO who has visited North Korea five times, said: “I always compare DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea) with countries in Africa and Latin America. In any African of Latin American country, malnourishment is much more visible and omni-present than in DPRK”.

Friedrich also said that food security for an isolated DPRK would always be a very difficult challenge. Once North Korea reunifies with South Korea, historically the country’s breadbasket, food security will be less of an issue. But in the meantime, if Americans truly care about the human rights of North Koreans, we should first understand that underlying the crisis is the food shortage and then demand the US government sign a permanent peace treaty and end 50 years of economic sanctions. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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