Nodutdol | News | February 2010

NEWS | February 2010

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

APPLICATIONS FOR KEEP 2010

Nodutdol is now accepting applications for Korea Education and Exposure Program 2010!

The mission of this annual summer program is to increase awareness of and strengthen the global movement for peace and justice on the Korean peninsula. Through building relationships and communities, KEEP seeks to broaden our understanding of and participation in the liberation struggles and unification of the Korean people. KEEP was created in 1994 by activists in NYC, LA, and Seoul who wanted to help build solidarity and learn from the struggles for peace, social justice, and unification taking place in Korea. We felt that these types of experiences are an important step toward understanding the history and role of Koreans here in the United States. We continue to hope that such knowledge will be a catalyst for a new generation of progressive activism and community leadership. For more information, please contact

*Please visit our Facebook page and become a fan of KEEP: http://www.facebook.com/nationalkeep#!/nationalkeep?v=wall
*To read about past KEEP 2008 trip through the group blog: http://www.keep2008.blogspot.com

ECHOES OF THE “FORGOTTEN WAR” IN AFGHANISTAN

By Hyun Lee and Sukjong Hong

When President Obama announced his decision in December 2009 to send additional troops to Afghanistan, arguing that more troops would end the war faster, he must have forgotten about the lessons of the Korean War. In 1950, when President Harry Truman deployed U.S. troops to Korea, he too vowed to “bring the war to a speedy and successful conclusion.” Yet sixty years later, the United States still maintains 28,000 troops and close to one hundred military bases and installations in Korea.

As long as the Pentagon and the military establishment remains at the helm directing U.S. foreign policy, it is clear that war isn’t a tactic of last resort; it is practically a way of life. Afghanistan now and 1950s Korea are obviously not the same. But looking at U.S. conduct in the two countries, it’s not too difficult to see some clear parallels, and to see that not much has changed when it comes to rationalizing US wars at home.

N Korean Collective Farm

HANKYOREH
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/402830.html

Venerable Jaseung, secretary-general of the Jogye Order of South Korea, listens to a plan to construct a collective farm as explained by an official of the Deokdong Collective Farm located in Pyongyang during a tour of sites around North Korea’s capital, Feb 1.
During Venerable Jaesung’s visit to North Korea, the Jogye Order reached an agreement with North Korea that will allow four thousand of monks from this order to visit Shingyesa Temple located on Mt. Kumgang in March.

Photo courtesy of Jogye Temple

‘Korea’s Berlin Wall’

KOREA POLICY INSTITUTE I Paul L. Liem
(Originally published December 2, 2009 in the KoreAm Journal)
http://www.kpolicy.org/documents/policy/091230paulliemkoreasberlinwall.html

As we watched the Berlin Wall tumble down, “we wept from the heartbreak of sorrow mixed with joy,” recalls Jungran Shin, a financial advisor in Los Angeles. Separated from relatives in North Korea, Shin felt a longing to “break down into pieces...the barbed-wire fences that block the 38th parallel.” Rev. Syngman Rhee, co-chair of the National Committee for Peace in Korea, says the fall of the Berlin Wall ignited among Koreans new hope for peace and reconciliation, “even though we fully realized that the German situation was quite different from the Korean situation.”

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