70 years ago today, on June 25th 1950, war broke out on the Korean peninsula. After three years of bloodshed, open warfare ended in an armistice. There were no winners. We must learn the lesson of 70 years ago. With war comes nothing but ruin, sadness, and pain.
We were left with no spoils from the war. Despite the passage of time, we still carry wounds from the conflict, wounds that remain open and unhealed to this day. We remember this tragedy of fratricidal war, its mercilessness and cruelty, which still restrict and regulate our lives.
This unfinished war has left 70 years of tension, hostility and conflict. This war has outlived the Cold War of which it was a product. South and North remain as divided today as ever.
We have made efforts to overcome division and instability. There have been summits between leaders of South and North, where historic agreements professing peace, reconciliation and cooperation were reached. Inter-Korean exchange has flourished in the fields of economic cooperation, tourism, humanitarian assistance, and cultural exchange. The governments and people of the South and North have come together, and strived together, for the purpose of implementing joint projects. However, a combination of domestic and international factors has often stymied our efforts to break down the barriers of tension and conflict.
70 years on, the tragic history of this war must never be repeated. As military tensions have recently increased, we must reflect on what peace on the Korean peninsula means. We must end the Korean War and develop a peace regime now.
After witnessing recent events, the Korean Sharing Movement affirms that peace is not ‘achieved’ with a simple declaration. Peace is not merely the declaration and signing of a treaty. Implementation of a declaration requires the creativity and dynamism of expanding from a single act, to a process, to an encompassing structure. For this to flourish, authorities and ordinary people living on the Korean peninsula, and overseas Koreans, at multiple levels of society must have space to meet one another, increase contact, and therefore develop understanding and acknowledge one another.
The people of South and North Korea need time and a space in which to experience peace. Not an abstract peace, a practical peace that we can feel and experience. Those moments of peace have been all to brief. As we have learnt over the past 70 years, it takes only a second for trust to collapse and tensions to soar. Rebuilding trust, building new relationships, requires time.
The need for a new era of stability and peace in place of pain and volatility is urgent. The Korean Sharing Movement participates in the <Campaign to End the Korean War> with the conviction that we must not return to division and hostility. We stand with the varied domestic and international groups campaigning in the Korean Peace Appeal. We will join with the campaign which continues until 2023, 70 years after the armistice agreement, to collect 100 million signatures from around the world proclaiming ‘Korea Peace Now’. The Korean Sharing Movement asks for the participation of all those around the world who desire and seek peace on the Korean peninsula.
