World peace is walking on eggshells. And I am not saying this because terrorism has gripped the world since 9/11. Neither am I saying this because, on the domestic scene, the Philippines has been fighting many wars: the war against communist insurgency, the war in Mindanao, and now, the war against drugs as the rest of the world looks on and assesses how this could affect them.
The precariousness of world peace came to mind when I attended the Global Peace Conference in Seoul, Korea last week. Korea is now the only divided country in the world and it is not by its people’s choice. In fact, if the people had their way, they would rather unify as the separation of the North and South has separated thousands of families who have not seen each other for decades. The continuing division of the Korean peninsula into North and South poses a serious threat to peace, not only in Korea itself, but in the whole of Asia and even the world.
Dr. Inteck Seo, the president of Global Peace Foundation Korea, said that Korea’s destiny is necessarily connected to the world’s destiny. How so? First, the question: how did Korea come to be divided, anyway? Korea was unified as one country for centuries under the Joseon Dynasty. Its people shared the same culture and language. Korea’s troubles began in 1910 when Japan colonized it. As World War II drew to a close in 1945 and with Japan’s defeat, the Allied Powers knew they had to take over Japan including its occupied territories such as Korea and the Philippines. Since the United States was set to take over Japan and the Philippine territory, it was initially reluctant to administer Korea as well. Thus, when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the Soviets declared war on Japan too and sent amphibious troops that landed along the coasts of Northern Korea. Five days before Japan’s surrender, US officials delineated the US occupation zone in East Asia. Without consulting the Korean people, they arbitrarily cut Korea roughly in half, with the capital of Seoul and the Southern portion falling under US administration while the North fell under USSR’s. A nationwide election was supposed to have been arranged by the trust administrators to reunify Korea but neither the US nor the Soviets trusted each other. The US wanted the entire Korea to be under a democracy while the Soviets wanted it to be communist. South Korea declared itself a nation in 1948 while the Soviets appointed Kim Il-sung, a major in the Soviet Red Army, as the leader of the North. Kim quelled political opposition and tried to reunify Korea under a communist regime by invading South Korea. This sparked a three-year war where the Philippines even sent troops to help liberate South Korea from Communist invasion. Since then, with the North firmly held by three generations of the Kim family, peace in Korea has been shaky. North Korea has been flexing its muscles and threatening peace in the region by building nuclear arms and firing nuclear missiles every so often.
Why should the division of the two Koreas and its ongoing war concern us and the world? The Philippines and the nations surrounding Korea are close enough to suffer devastation should a nuclear war erupt. The rest of the world too cannot remain uninvolved as history tells us that World Wars began with seemingly local and isolated events. WWI was sparked by the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in Serbia. Austria demanded that the perpetrator be handed over. When this didn’t happen, Austria invaded Serbia. Then, Serbia’s ally, Russia, ran to its defense. About the same time, Germany invaded Belgium and headed for France. Because Britain, France and Russia had a mutual defense pact, as did Germany and Austria, the hostilities between Austria and Russia drew the other allies in.
In the case of WWII, the Germans invaded first, Czechoslovakia, and then Poland. Britain and France had given guarantees to Poland and had no option than to declare war on Germany. Then Germany invaded Denmark and Norway and attacked France, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg, starting the real world war, with all allies and interested parties participating.
Given history, Korea’s problem is every one’s concern. If war breaks out yet again in Korea, we can all be sure that the world’s superpowers and their allies will again take sides, drawing many nations in. This is an event we—the peoples of the world—should not allow because a nuclear war can eliminate populations and peoples in just hours or even minutes. It is imperative that everyone—nations and peoples—to exert pressure on North Korea and its allies toward reunification.
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