Technically ROK and DPRK are in a State of War. There never was a Peace Treaty concluded between them and DPRK withdrew from the Armistice. Under these circumstances, the resumption of propaganda broadcasts into DPRK by ROK make the towers legitimate targets for attack.
ROK should stand down on the propaganda broadcasts. In addition, there is a procedure under Additional Protocol I to the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 for establishing an outside, objective International Commission of Investigation on the mines.
We should all be demanding that ROK and DPRK invoke it.
The below sounds like a reasonable compromise:
- ROK must stand down on the propaganda broadcasts.
- Invoke Geneva Additional Protocol I to investigate the mines incident.
Without an Armistice, under the Laws of War, full scale hostilities can resume at any time. Hence my proposals submitted below for de-escalation of this crisis:
- ROK must stand down on the propaganda broadcasts.
- Invoke Geneva Additional Protocol I to investigate the mines incidence.
On Behalf Of Institute for Public Accuracy Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 11:10 AM
To: Institute for Public Accuracy
Subject: * Korea Armistice “Dead” * Why Military Exercises
FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle@illinois.edu
Boyle is a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and author of Tackling America’s Toughest Questions. The New York Times wrote on Friday: “The North said this week that it considered the 1953 armistice agreement that halted the Korean War to be null and void as of Monday because of the joint military exercises. The North has threatened to terminate that agreement before, but American and South Korean military officials pointed out that legally, no party armistice can unilaterally terminate or alter its terms.” [sic]
Boyle said today: “Nonsense. An armistice agreement is governed by the laws of war and the state of war still remains in effect despite the armistice agreement, even if the armistice text itself says additions have to be mutually agreed upon by the parties. Termination is not an addition. Under the U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 and the Hague Regulations, the only requirement for termination of the Korean War Armistice Agreement is suitable notice so as to avoid the charge of ‘perfidy.’ North Korea has given that notice. The armistice is dead.” See Army Field Manual: “In case it [the armistice] is indefinite, a belligerent may resume operations at any time after notice.”
CHRISTINE HONG, cjhong@ucsc.edu
Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Hong recently co-wrote “Lurching Towards War: A Post-Mortem on Strategic Patience.”]
Hong said today: “The military exercises that the U.S. and South Korea just launched are not defensive exercises. As of last year, in the wake of Kim Jong Il’s death, they escalated in size, duration, and content, enacting regime change scenarios toward North Korea. The North Korean government continually refers to these war games as being extremely provocative.
“The Obama administration’s ‘strategic patience’ policy toward North Korea boils down to non-engagement at the same time that it implemented its forward-deployed ‘Asia pivot’ policy, which has the U.S. concentrating its military resources in East Asia. The goal is to contain China. In retrospect, Bush made more diplomatic overtures to North Korea than Obama.
“People in the U.S. need to understand that the 1953 armistice agreement called for talks to begin three months after its signing regarding the peaceful settlement of the Korean War and withdrawal of all foreign troops. Chinese troops left soon after. U.S. troops remain six decades later, and the Korean War has never ended.
“In Korean culture, 60 years represents one life cycle. We’ve had a full life cycle of war so Korean activists are dubbing 2013 “Year one of peace.” Hong was recently interviewed on FAIR’s radio program CounterSpin.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Urgent Need for Diplomacy in Korea
Paul Liem | August 21, 2015
Dear President Obama:
We at the Korea Policy Institute urge you to act swiftly to seek a peaceful resolution to current hostilities on the Korean peninsula. Avenues exist to replace saber-rattling with diplomacy.
The United States-led United Nations Command in Korea and the South Korean military have concluded that injuries suffered by two South Korean soldiers on August 4, 2015 were due to a mine planted by North Korea. North Korea, however, denies the allegation and has called for a joint investigation of the incident.
The South Korean military fired artillery rounds into the northern side on August 20, 2015, alleging that North Korea had fired first at a propaganda loudspeaker in the southern side yet North Korea has denied firing the first shots.
North Korea has set a deadline of 5:00 p.m., August 22, 2015 (KST) for South Korea to turn off its propaganda loudspeakers. Crucially, however, it has also offered to open a channel for the improvement of inter-Korean ties.
North Korea has placed its military on a “quasi-war” status. Statements by North Korea indicate that it intends to direct its military strikes at South Korea’s loudspeakers if they are not silenced by the aforementioned deadline and will engage in all-out war, depending upon the nature of South Korea’s response.
Opportunities to diffuse the crisis are available. Thus far, however, South Korea has announced that it will not silence its loudspeakers and that it will meet North Korean force with even greater force. And although ongoing U.S. -South Korea joint war exercises were momentarily placed on hold, they have resumed and U.S. troops are reportedly mobilizing near the DMZ. These responses are akin to throwing gasoline on a fire.
Mr. President, we urge you to act swiftly to take advantage of all opportunities at hand to engage in dialogue with North Korea and work for peace in Korea, lest tragedy ensue.
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| Crossing Borders: a feminist history of Women Cross DMZBy Suzy Kim | August 17, 2015 Originally published jointly by the Asia-Pacific Journal and the Nautilus Peace and Security Network (NAPSNet)On May 24, 2015, thirty women peacemakers from fifteen nations, including American feminist activist Gloria Steinem and two Nobel Peace laureates, Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland and Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, walked with Korean women of the North and South to call for an end to the Korean War and the peaceful reunification of Korea on the seventieth anniversary of its division. The arbitrary division of the peninsula in 1945 by the United States and the Soviet Union led to the creation of two separate states, setting the stage for an all-out civil war in 1950 that became an international conflict. After nearly 4 million people were killed, mostly Korean civilians, fighting was halted when North Korea, China, and the United States representing the UN Command signed a ceasefire agreement in 1953, which called for a political conference within three months to reach a peace settlement. Over 60 years later, we are still waiting. more>
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| Korean A-Bomb Survivors of Hiroshima Speak Out at the United Nations KPI | May 10, 2015
The 2015 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is meeting at the United Nations in New York from April 27 to May 22, 2015. The conference in which NPT member states “review the progress of the Treaty” towards achieving nonproliferation is hosted every five years by the United Nations. This year’s conference coincides with the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule and the onset of its cold war division at the 38th parallel.
Civil society groups from Korea and Japan also visited New York to speak at the NPT review conference and to participate in the Peace and Planet Conference, April 24- 25, a parallel conference of non-governmental organizations convened in part to call upon the NPT member states to immediately establish a timetable to ban all nuclear weapons. A new voice among those heard at both conferences was that of Korean survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombings. =============== |
| “Reframing North Korean Human Rights”, thematic issue of Critical Asian Studies “Reframing North Korean Human Rights”, a thematic issue of Critical Asian Studies (45:4:2013 and 46:1:2014), drew on the research and involvement of many members of the KPI community, and was co-edited by Christine Hong, KPI Board member and Hazel Smith, KPI adviser. Download the entire Reframing North Korean Human Rights Collection from the Korea Policy Institute site.=============== |
| Launching the Legacies of the Korean War Online Archive Project On Saturday, October 17th 2015, in Berkeley, California, there will be a launch event for this new Oral History website in a program entitled: Korean Americans Recall the “Forgotten War”
Open and free to the public, there will be panel presentations by Professors Namhee Lee (UCLA) and Ramsay Liem (Boston College) and filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem and others, including testimonies by community members. The new website will be unveiled with screenings of some of the short video documentaries. This event is being sponsored by the Center for Korean Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Saturday, October 17th, 2015 3 – 6 PM David Brower Center 2150 Allston Way Berkeley, California 94704 |