Visitors use binoculars to look towards the North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone from the Odusan Unification Tower in Paju on April 15. (Photo: AFP)
July marks the anniversary of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement which ended “all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved.”
Although 69 years have passed since the agreement was signed, a peace treaty is yet to become a reality and technically the war between South and North Korea continues.
Why does war persist in the Korean peninsula after causing unspeakable suffering, widespread destruction, and endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge?
In a sense, the war helped South Korea to prosper with its close alignment with the US, but it has turned North Korea into a rogue terrorist-totalitarian state.
During the 1950-53 hostilities, Koreans went beyond the bounds of human sanity to use modern weapons of destruction. If political leaders of the Koreas were adamant about finding a military solution, it is high time Koreans moved on to new ways of finding peace.
The socially powerful Christian community, the Catholic Church, in particular, has been pressing for a non-military solution and unification of Korea. And the efforts and campaigns continue.
"Stalin succeeded with Korea in creating more vassal states in Europe while US president Harry Truman kept on bombing the entire Korean peninsula"
"The South Korean and North Korean governments must find alternative ways of peace for the Korean peninsula: strengthening military power will never be the right option,” said Archbishop Peter Chung of Seoul and Apostolic Administrator of Pyongyang, while presiding over a Mass for Peace and Reconciliation on June 25.
For seven decades, Korea has been misused by the superpowers to further their political ends.
Starting with Soviet Union leader Josef Stalin during the Cold War, the communist tyrant used North Korea to his advantage with the active backing of China and kept the powerful US military bogged down on the Korean peninsula to get a free run in Eastern Europe.
Stalin succeeded with Korea in creating more vassal states in Europe while US president Harry Truman kept on bombing the entire Korean peninsula.
The US reduced Korea to ashes by dropping nearly 600,000 tons of bombs. An estimated 428,000 bombs were dropped on the North Korean capital Pyongyang, more bombs than the total Pyongyang population at the time.
During the three-year war, more than 3 million people died, including more than 36,000 Americans. An armistice agreement was signed, which created a heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) to separate the two Asian nations.
Despite the armistice, the border remains one of the most militarized zones in the world and tensions often escalate between the two neighbors.
The US picked up where Stalin left off. To prevent South Korea from flirting with the communist North, the US installed puppet dictators like Syngman Rhee and Park Chung-Hee between 1948 and 1987, who killed, tortured and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of South Koreans after branding them dissidents.
The US used a permanently divided Korea to derive undue benefits by perpetuating a perpetual war. Thus, America’s military, comprising the Air Force, Navy and Marines, and the most powerful warplanes like stealth F-35s, Lightning II fighters, and B1-B Lancer bombers were stationed in the South, targeting the North.
The US military has become a permanent fixture in Korean society since the cessation of hostilities in 1953. As a legacy of the war, the US maintains nearly 28,000 troops in South Korea, which North Korea views as an occupation.
"The confrontation that exists on the Korean peninsula is one of the greatest sufferings of humanity today … nearly 10 million Koreans live in forced separation due to the division”
After the disintegration of the USSR, US president George Bush declared North Korea a charter member of the "axis of evil” in a State of the Union address in January 2002. Later in September, Bush called for pre-emptive attacks against North Korea for developing weapons of mass destruction.
However, peace unexpectedly got a chance in 2018. The two Korean leaders, Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, adopted the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, and President Moon went for a second time to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, who was firming up his plans to visit North Korea.
Both the Vatican and the Church in Korea have long focused on the need to achieve inter-Korean reconciliation.
“Aren’t you brothers who speak the same language?” the pope poignantly asked Moon.
In the words of Archbishop Lazzaro You Heung-sik, the first South Korean to be appointed Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy: “The confrontation that exists on the Korean peninsula is one of the greatest sufferings of humanity today … nearly 10 million Koreans live in forced separation due to the division between the South and the North.”
As far as the Church is concerned, unifying a nation of divided families is the most important component for peace. The Holy See has repeatedly stressed that there is more at stake than maintaining a permanent US military presence on the Korean peninsula.
Set up in 1995, the Committee for National Reconciliation of Seoul Archdiocese promotes reconciliation and peace between the South and North. For the past 27 years, the committee has offered humanitarian aid to the population of North Korea.
"The US has roped in South Korea as a force multiplier in military confrontations with North Korea and China, stoking a dangerous arms race between the two Koreas"
All 16 dioceses in South Korea have been holding Masses on the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1950-53 conflict. Every year, the Church in South Korea sends its faithful to participate in the Day of Prayer for National Reconciliation and Unification, set for the anniversary of the war.
With the Ukraine crisis and the election of a hardline president in South Korea in May, peace has proved elusive for the two Koreas once again.
There is no reason for the Koreas to start hostilities because people still hold on to the dangerous memory that they rebuilt their nations from ruins. However, the key to peace is the US which alone makes military decisions, including direction-giving to the South Korean armed forces.
On the 69th anniversary of the armistice agreement, the US has roped in South Korea as a force multiplier in military confrontations with North Korea and China, stoking a dangerous arms race between the two Koreas and provocative military exercises near the DMZ.
Now that both Koreas, China and the US are more interested in finding a military solution, the Church has a bigger role to play in its decades-long efforts for Korean unification.
*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
