International Peace Women Call for Breakthrough in Korea

From the “Who We Are” section of Women Cross DMZ’s website.

By Odile Hugonot Haber

In March this year, leaders of WILPF US and Women Cross DMZ (demilitarized zone) had the opportunity to learn much more about each other at the Women's Peace Initiative, sponsored by WILPF US’s fiscal sponsor, the Peace Development Fund. Since that one-day WPI conference, WILPF US President, Darien De Lu, and Christine Ahn, the founder of Women Crossed DMZ, have been in communication to find ways for the two organizations to work together for their mutual benefit.

International WILPF has intersected with Ahn’s group since May 2018, when Women Cross DMZ worked in partnership with the Women’s Peace Walk and a coalition of more than 30 women’s peace organizations in South Korea to convene a delegation of feminist peace activists from across the world.

Held May 23-27, 2018, this landmark event included an International Women’s Symposium and the second DMZ Peace Walk led by Women Cross DMZ in Paju on May 26. Kozue Akibayashi, International WILPF President then, joined the 30 other international peace activists in the Paju Peace Walk across the demilitarized zone between the two parts of Korea.

The delegation issued the 2018 International Women Peace Walk Declaration detailing the actions they call for, including a number of important disarmament measures, such as global nuclear disarmament, the removal of 1.2 million landmines and the barbed wire in the demilitarized zone, a reduction in military budgets, and an end to the arms race.

The US could play a major role in confirming peace in Korea and helping reunite the peninsula. Already, the US House of Representatives has passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020, calling for a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War. Consequently, WILPF US is interested in working with Women Cross DMZ to support these goals.

For Ahn, the recent visit of President Trump with Kim Jong-Un is more than just a photo op, it is an opportunity for peace-seeking women to send their message through op-eds, interviews, and via peace media. Now is the time for breakthroughs in US-North Korea diplomacy, which stalled after the Hanoi summit and ended abruptly in February.

Christine Ahn wrote an op-ed for Newsweek in which she wrote, “Now that high-level trust appears to have been established, we need reliable, sustained diplomacy to end the seven-decade Korean War.”

According to a Reaching Critical Will June 2018 E-News article,  “The aim of the movement is to push forward the commitments outlined in the Panmunjeom Declaration made by South and North Korea at their summit on 27 April, including a peace treaty to formally end the Korean war and denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, and to advocate for the inclusion of women in the peace process.” Reaching Critical Will is the disarmament programme of WILPF International.

“Diplomacy is the only way to achieve peace on the Korean peninsula and begin the process of phasing out North Korea’s nuclear weapons program,” said Win Without War Advocacy Director Erica Fein in an article on the Common Dreams website. “Formally declaring an end to the Korean War is long past due and represents a no-cost, tangible, good faith effort that is essential in these aims.”

In referring to the House amendment to end the Korean War – the first such action by Congress – Ahn was quoted in Yonhap News Agency article where she said, “This vote is a game changer. It’s a clear sign that the American people want an end to the oldest U.S. conflict, and that ending decades of hostilities with a peace agreement is the only way to resolve the nuclear crisis.”

In the last summit in Singapore (June 12, 2019), US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a joint statement in which “DPRK commits towards the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” (DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name). The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), of which WILPF is a steering group, supports such Korean denuclearization.

Please call your representatives and let them know that you support this amendment. Call (202) 224-3121 to ask for your representative and inform them of your support.