Politically motivated killings became commonplace on the heels of Korea’s 1945 division: The merciless assassinations of Godang Cho Man-sik (1883–1950), Mongyang Yo Un-hyong (1886–1947) and Baekbeom Kim Koo (1876–1949) were the three most fateful.Circa 1945, Cho was “perhaps the most admired political figure in all of Korea” and the “Soviets’ first choice” as proxy leader of the North, owing to his immense popularity and proven ability to guide as well as effectually advocate for the people he s

Viewpoints March 3, 2019

“Among our institutions and customs there are things so atrocious that nobody can legitimately feel himself innocent of this diffused complicity. It is certain that each of us is involved at least in the guilt of criminal indifference.”- Simone Weil (1909-1943)“The death penalty, corporal punishment and public prostitution will be abolished.” - Constitution, Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (1919)Human trafficking is a unique category of evil. Deploying multifarious stratagems --

Viewpoints Nov. 1, 2017

Dear President Trump,Thank you for taking the time to hear my plea for peace on the Korean Peninsula.I was a US prisoner of the Kim Jong-il regime from December 2009 to February 2010. The sole reason why I entered North Korea via Hoeryung city on Dec. 25, 2009 was to call attention to human rights violations that have occurred against innocents in the region and to demand better conditions -- conducive to life -- for North Koreans. On a personal level, I have been profoundly wounded and suffered

Viewpoints Oct. 11, 2017

“Koreans’ own interests in their own united country had been sacrificed to power positions elsewhere -- especially to those in Japan.“- Gregory Henderson, US Foreign Service 1947-64 (1974) “Americans and Russians both must remember that the Koreans did not ask us to divide their country, did not request that we occupy and rule them, did not solicit the governments we unleashed over their heads. Nor, unlike the Germans, had they given us the reasons for doing what we did.” - Gregory Henderson (19

Viewpoints Oct. 1, 2017

“I lived in that system for more than 50 years. ... To be honest, my life in North Korea was nothing but the life of the slave.” - Thae Yong-ho, former Pyongyang ambassador (May 4, 2017)“An American first strike would likely trigger one of the worst mass killings in human history.”- Mark Bowden, The Atlantic (July 2017)In June, three northern soldiers defected across the perilous North-South border within a two-week time frame. Two individuals made the journey on foot — somehow traversing the he

Viewpoints Sept. 25, 2017

“그것들이 남한에 피해를 줄 수는 있죠. 우리는 북한의 모든 미사일을 격추시키지는 못할 것입니다. 하지만 제가 말씀드릴 수 있는 것은 전쟁이 어떻게 끝날 것인지에 대해서입니다. 그것은 북한의 파멸이에요. 우리는 그 지역을 흔적조차 없애버릴 것입니다.” - 린지 그라함 의원 4월28일 인터뷰“한반도를 38선으로 양분한 것은 치명적이었다. 한반도 분단은 본질적으로 1945년 초 얄타회담의 결과물이었고... 지금까지 계속되어 온 일련의 사건들의 원인이었다.” - 로버트 스칼라피노(1976)9월 5일자 코리아헤럴드 논설은 김정은을 멈추기 위해 “군사공격 외에” 완전히 새로운 조치와 모든 가능한 수단을 고려해야 한다고 주장했다. 필자는 여기에 전적으로 동의한다. 영어 원문 참고:[Robert Park] Nation or collateral damage of preventive war?전직 북한수용소 간수와 전직 북한간부들의 증언에 따르면 수용소 경비병들은 군사공격 등 유사시에 정치범들을 모조

한국어판 Sept. 15, 2017

“They could do damage to South Korea; we may not get all of their missiles but I’ll tell you what, I know how that war ends. That’s the destruction of North Korea, we will obliterate the place.”Sen. Lindsey Graham (2017.4.28) “The fateful division of Korea at the 38th parallel, at root a product of the Yalta Agreements of early 1945 ... set in motion a train of events leading to the present.” Robert Scalapino (1976)I cannot agree more with The Korea Herald’s Sept. 5 editorial, which urges for a

Viewpoints Sept. 14, 2017

Two earlier columns (“Baekbeom and NK human rights” & “Baekbeom would free NK’s political prisoners”) maintained -- on the basis of a dispassionate analysis of Kim Koo’s verified words and by weighing the factual trajectory of his life and thought -- that the independence and unification advocate would have exhibited the profoundest concern and compassion toward North Korea’s political captives if he had lived to see the situation develop. In fact, before his assassination, he called for the rel

Viewpoints Sept. 6, 2017

“In every way, I reject dictatorial rules and tendencies. I shout to our compatriots. Be careful lest we find ourselves under a dictatorship. I shout that we should build a nation in which each individual among our people enjoys freedom of speech to its fullest and things are done according to opinions of our entire people. ... A nation that is as wide as the earth and as free as the sky.”- Kim Koo (1876-1949), “My Wish”As evidenced by the above citation from Baekbeom’s 1947 statement of politi

Viewpoints Sept. 4, 2017

“It is definitely not good politics to interfere too much with the individual’s life. ... That it is extremely unnatural and dangerous to drag people along by orders of a single individual or of a few is all too well proven by the misfortunes that befell Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.” - Kim Koo (1876-1949), “My Wish”A “chinilpa” (collaborationist with Imperial Japan) he wasn’t. Neither was he especially fond of the monarchy which antedated Japan’s stealthy routing of Korea, having been judged

Viewpoints Sept. 3, 2017

In a 2001 book on the 1950-53 catastrophe in Korea’s origins, George Washington University professor Richard Thornton analyzed the North and the South’s egregious, bewildering and glaring arms imbalance – which preceded war’s outbreak on June 25. He draws some shocking conclusions, and well-substantiated ones, to boot.　He noted “unambiguous tactical indicators provided by the truly massive Soviet arms supply” over the spring of 1950 “dramatically changed the relative balance of forces” between t

Viewpoints June 25, 2017

Circumstances are ripe for South Korea, the United States, and the international community to adopt a fresh approach to address the North Korean crisis. High-ranking officials in North Korea are disaffected to an unprecedented degree, and granting amnesty to them may ultimately lead to the removal of Kim Jong-un.　In an April 6 analysis, Bruce Bennett, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation, listed ways President Donald Trump could attempt to deal with North Korea, which included conventiona

Viewpoints June 22, 2017

In an April 27 interview, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made plain that a denuclearized Korean Peninsula was the Trump administration’s only goal. Tillerson also clarified that Trump isn’t interested in human rights, nor the anguished yearning of millions of Koreans for a reunified Peninsula.　 He declared, “We have been very clear as to what our objectives are. And equally clear what our objectives are not. And we do not seek regime change, we do not seek a collapse of the regime, we do no

Viewpoints May 15, 2017

There is a frightful interview with Dean Rusk -- the second-longest serving US secretary of state, and one of the two American military officers tasked with dividing Korea on Aug. 10, 1945, using a rudimentary map -- that should be required viewing for every student of contemporary Korean history and of the 1950-53 war.　The decision to bisect Korea was enacted in blatant defiance of expert warnings, disregarded the most basic and most essential needs and wishes of all Koreans and caused catastro

Viewpoints May 7, 2017

Just recently encountered the harrowing accounts of the 1950-53 “Korean War” by Pyun Yung-tai, who served as foreign minister and later acting prime minister of the Republic of Korea during the hellish, cataclysmic conflagration. Inverted commas encompass the most-routinely employed term for the war above – in deference to Pyun’s resolute protestations against what he viewed to be an overly simplistic and thus potentially misleading phrase.He told a UN committee on Nov. 3, 1952, “The struggle in

Viewpoints April 30, 2017