South Korea’s embattled president, Yoon Seok-yul, faces almost as severe hostility in America’s biggest cities as he does in Seoul.
At least two major American organizations, called “pro-North” for their pleas for reconciliation with North Korea, are demanding Mr. Yoon resign before Korea’s National Assembly votes on his impeachment.
Members of the most vociferous, a New York-based group called Nodutdol, have taken to the streets hefting signs saying Mr. Yoon “must resign” while denouncing the American-Korean alliance that dates from the end of the Korean War.
“South Korea’s working masses have made a truly admirable display of heroism, successfully defeating Yoon’s bid for a return to military rule,” Nodutdol said in a statement purporting to represent the views of 60 groups after the National Assembly voted down his martial law decree. “The struggle,” the statement made clear, “has not ended.”
Founded in New York 25 years ago for the ostensible purpose of fostering “Korean community development,” Nodutdol, meaning “stepping stone home,” pillories American policy toward Korea and the Korean-American alliance. Echoing North Korean propaganda, Nodutdol wound up its call for Mr. Yoon’s resignation with two demands – first, “the full and permanent withdrawal of US troops and weapons systems from Korea” and, second, “an end to all US-South Korea alliances.”
The alliances it wants to end include trilateral cooperation among Japan, Korea, and America, “as well as all US-South Korea joint command structures — the Combined Forces Command, and the UN Command.” Nodutdol has gained traction especially among younger Korean-Americans with no direct memories of the horrors of the Korean War.
Nodutdol, though, is far from the only group that wants the Korean-American alliance to end with the departure of America’s 28,500 troops. Among the most prominent is “Women Cross DMZ,” named for a walk by 30 women, including Gloria Steinmen, across the western end of the demilitarized zone from North to South in 2015.
The leader of the walk, Christine Ahn, has declared, “Our goal is a peace treaty” under which Washington and Pyongyang would agree to exist in peace more than 72 years after signing the armistice that ended the Korean war in July 1953.
Ms. Ahn charges that America “is the main obstacle to a peace treaty,” but she neglects to mention that North Korea would demand withdrawal of American troops and shutdown of American bases as well as the end to the Korean-American alliance. Nor, of course, does she hint at what the North Koreans should be doing to live up to their end of the bargain, including denuclearization.
At the American Enterprise Institute, Nicholas Eberstadt, a leading Korean scholar, author of books and studies, describes the influence of the pro-North groups.
“The Kim family regime has its own pro-North Korea movements in a number of foreign countries — most specifically including the United States,” he has written. “Although few pay much attention to it or know much about it, the pro-Pyongyang movement in America is alive and well today.”
Mr. Eberstadt credits “an operative” in the North Korean mission to the UN as assisting in the launch of the “Women Cross DMZ” gambit that began with the women meeting in Pyongyang with carefully selected North Koreans. Ms. Ahn’s “ostensibly feminist organization,” Mr. Eberstadt noted, “always seems to come down on Pyongyang’s side in any Korean question.”
“As bizarre as it seems,” writes a Los Angeles attorney, Lawrence Peck, who has studied the movement extensively, “the hardcore ….includes many Korean American clergymen.” He goes on to say that they “maintain that North Korea, which ruthlessly persecutes and murders Christians, is actually the embodiment of the teachings of Jesus, and that North Korea’s founding dictator Kim Il-sung, whom these activists worship, was the Jesus of the Korean race.”
Ms. Ahn goes on energetically lobbying members of Congress for an end-of-war agreement if not a treaty. Mr. Eberstradt cited a North Korean defector, now in Mr. Yoon’s party in the National Assembly, as responding, Ms. Ahn and her “phony Korean peace movement only want Americans to stop defending the South rather than genuine denuclearization or détente.”
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Publish date : 2024-12-05 23:00:00
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