The Amateur
Computerist
Fall 2016 Ten Years: Ban Ki-moon, UN, Tension in Korea Volume 28 No. 1
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Page 1
Security Council Problem Facing the UN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 3
UN Reform: What Role Will Ban Play? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 6
Does Ban Ki-moon Have a UN Vision? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8
North Korea and Banco Delta Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 14
Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16
Status of the Six-Party Talks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 19
UN Resolution Supporting Inter-Korean Summit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 21
UN SC Controversy: North Korea Satellite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 24
UN SC Increases Tension in Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 26
U.S. Policy Toward N. K. Fails to Engage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 27
U.S. Misrepresents Role as ‘UN Command’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 30
United Nations Command As Camouflage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 32
Review: The Hidden History of the Korean War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 38
Introduction
This is the first part of two related issues of the Amateur
Computerist, Vol. 28 No. 1 and No. 2. The two are our effort to look back
over the 10 years that Ban Ki-moon was UN Secretary-General so as to be
able to view with some perspective the achievements and failures of his
time in this high office at the United Nations.
The two issues will explore how the UN has acted to determine an
appropriate response to the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and the result
of such actions.
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/
Page 1
Presenting the Problem
Vol. 28 No. 1 of the Amateur Computerist will look at a set of
articles, many of which were written for and published by the English
language edition, OhmyNews International (OMNI) of the Korean online
newspaper known as OhmyNews. These articles basically cover the period
fall 2006 to summer 2010. OhmyNews ended its English edition in 2010.
Articles written after 2010 appeared on the blog known as netizenblog at
the taz.de website, which is the website of the German newspaper
Tageszeitung. Though the newspaper is published in German, the articles
on the netizenblog covering the UN appeared in English.
The articles in this issue cover a significant set of developments that
it is important to review and examine.
The articles document that when Ban Ki-moon became the new
Secretary-General in January 2007, he had substantial background and
experience from the South Korean perspective to understand and to be
able to make some contribution to the problem of extreme tension on the
Korean Peninsula. The 6-party talks had recently broken down. The U.S.
had immediately sabotaged the September 19, 2005 agreement. Instead of
supporting the agreement that it signed along with the Republic of Korea
(ROK), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the People’s
Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and Japan, the U.S. put
sanctions on a bank that held DPRK funds and made it impossible for the
DPRK to use the international banking system. The DPRK left the 6-party
talks and took other measures in response to this U.S. action.
On October 13, 2006 the UN General Assembly approved the
Security Council recommendation to appoint Ban Ki-moon to the position
of the next Secretary-General. At that time, South African Ambassador
Dumisani Kumalo advised the incoming Secretary-General about the need
to “listen to the views of each and every member state if he is to be able
to act in the interest of the entire membership.”
At the time, Ban pledged to consult widely in his preparations for his
new position. “I will listen to your concerns, expectations and admoni-
tions,” he promised UN member states. The very next day, October 14,
2006, an event took place which demonstrated that for Ban to successfully
carry out his promise, he would have to undertake another difficult task.
Page 2
On October 14, the Security Council held a meeting to approve a
resolution that would impose harsh sanctions on the DPRK to punish it for
the nuclear test it had carried out just a few days earlier, on October 9,
2006.
In response to the Security Council sanctions, the UN Ambassador
for the DPRK stated his objection. He was only called on to speak after the
Security Council members had voted to approve Security Council
Resolution 1718 mandating that all members of the UN implement the
sanctions.
His statement indicated that there was a deep problem in the
functioning of the Security Council. He indicated that the Security Council
members had not done any investigation about the problem that had led
the DPRK to carry out its nuclear test. The DPRK explained that it needed
a nuclear defense against what it explained were hostile acts by the U.S.
against it. The DPRK maintained that it had a sovereign right to seek such
a means of defense.
What this situation demonstrated was that there was a serious
problem at the UN with the workings of the Security Council. If Ban Ki-
moon was to live up to the commitment he made to listen to the views of
each and every member, he would need to find a way to support Security
Council reform that ensured that each member state was invited to make
its position known as part of the consultations and discussion before the
Security Council voted on any action that would affect that member state.
Given that this problem was identified, the question was raised as to what
would happen in the 10 years that Ban Ki moon would preside at the helm
of the UN. Would he make any progress on supporting the expression of
views of all members and of helping to support the needed reform of the
Security Council? If he did that it might have made it possible for the
Security Council to hear such views as required by Chapter V, Article 32
of the UN Charter.
1
The articles in this issue document the challenges Ban Ki-moon
faced as he served his two 5 year terms as Secretary-General. There are
examples of the contending pressures he was faced with as well as the
advice or criticism he received that could have been helpful in his efforts
to negotiate a path through these challenges.
The articles demonstrate that the Secretary-General can be a focal
Page 3
point of communication among the United Nations' various and contend-
ing interests and that his ability to fulfill on this role can be of critical
importance to the organization.
Throughout many of the events documented on the following pages,
however, there was a failure to do the necessary diplomatic negotiation to
support the needed work despite various promises made by the Secretary-
General to help.
For example in 2007 when there was the Roh Moo-hyun and Kim
Jung-il Korean North South summit, Ban Ki moon welcomed the event:
Today, as Secretary-General, I feel a much more personal
obligation to do all I can to encourage and facilitate the
continuing work for peace, security and reunification on the
Korean peninsula. I am convinced that the historic inter-
Korean summit will pave the way for a permanent peace
regime and eventual reunification. It will lead to increased
inter-Korean reconciliation, cooperation, and shared prosper-
ity. I also believe it will act as a catalyst for continued progress
in the six-party talks on the denuclearization of the Korean
peninsula.
2
He concluded his statement: “As Secretary-General, I stand ready to
provide every assistance required, in close cooperation with the interna-
tional community.”
This promise, however, failed to be fulfilled as had many other such
promises that Ban Ki-moon made as Secretary-General. The articles in this
issue document that failure.
The next issue of the Amateur Computerist will shed further light on
this problem by looking at when such efforts were made by forces other
then the UN Secretary-General. Lessons from such efforts are sorely
needed in the future functioning of the UN Security Council.
Notes
1. Article 32 Any Member of the United Nations which is not a member of the Security
Council or any state which is not a Member of the United Nations, if it is a party to a
dispute under consideration by the Security Council, shall be invited to participate,
without vote, in the discussion relating to the dispute. The Security Council shall lay
down such conditions as it deems just for the participation of a state which is not a
Page 4
Member of the United Nations.
2.
http://www.un/org/press/en/2007/sgsm11250.doc.htm
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in
Ohmynews International on October 17, 2006]
The Problem Facing the UN
Can Ban Ki-moon Help Solve the
Problem With the Security Council?
by Ronda Hauben
The official selection on Oct. 13, 2006 of Ban Ki-moon of South
Korea as the new Secretary-General of the United Nations could not come
at a more propitious time. Why, one may ask? Hailing from the Republic
of Korea (South Korea), Ban will have before him the daunting task of
bringing the best possible contributions from the international community
to bear on many of the difficult problems that erupt in the world. Along
with his appointment to the post at the UN this past week, and the
congratulations from diplomats from many regions of the world at a
ceremony held at the General Assembly, was the event that took place the
following day: the imposition of Article 41, Chapter 7 sanctions on North
Korea by the Security Council as punishment for the test of a nuclear
device several days earlier.
Though Ban does not take office for his new position until Jan. 1,
2007, a crisis has already developed that will require the best efforts and
resources he can muster. In congratulating him on his selection, several of
the diplomats noted the great achievements of South Korea in having
transformed itself from “the status of least developed country, to an
industrialized highly developed nation” and “as the 11
th
largest economy
in the world” (in the words of Gambian Ambassador to the UN Crispin
Grey-Johnson). Speaking about Ban, Grey-Johnson, who is chairman of
the African regional group at the UN, “the developments in his own region
Page 5
of the world call for wisdom and cautious diplomacy” in order to be able
to “mediate this very complex security situation that is now unfolding in
the Korean Peninsula.”
In his acceptance speech to the General Assembly upon his
appointment as the eighth Secretary-General of the UN, Ban acknowl-
edged that he was following “in a line of remarkable leaders.” That “each
of the men in his own way, came on board at the UN at a critical juncture
in the organization’s history.” That “each wondered what the coming years
would require as they took over the leadership role of the preeminent
international organization.”
The Secretary-General elect expressed his respect for the role played
by the current Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, and promised to build on
his legacy. Explaining the need to hear the views and concerns of all the
member nations of the UN, Ban pledged to consult widely in his prepara-
tions for assuming his new position. “I will listen attentively to your
concerns, expectations and admonitions,” he promised the 192 member
states.
Congratulating Ban, South African Ambassador to the UN Dumisani
Kumalo proposed that in order for the Secretary-General elect to be able
to act in the interest of the entire membership, he will need to “listen to the
views of each and every member state.”
How the future Secretary-General can help to solve the problems that
come before the UN is not only a critical question for the international
community, but also a critical task in the face of the increased tension
being experienced on the Korean Peninsula.
While several of the speeches at the General Assembly ceremony
spoke to the need for wide-ranging consultations and discussions in order
to diffuse tensions and determine how to solve difficult problems, recent
actions at the Security Council the day after the appointment of Ban
demonstrate that a very different process is practiced by that body.
Only after an agreement was achieved among the five permanent
members of the Security Council and supported by the 10 temporary
members, and voted on, did the Council agree to hear the party to the
problem that was before them. And only after hearing the views of all the
permanent members of the Security Council – the U.S., France, Britain,
China and Russia – and some of the temporary members about why they
Page 6
voted for the sanctions on North Korea did the council allow the represen-
tative from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea),
Pak Gil Yon, to have a few minutes to speak. His talk was followed by a
brief statement from the South Korean ambassador to the UN, who spoke
in support of the sanctions.
In the brief opportunity he had to speak, Pak indicated that his
country felt it was the victim of hostile acts by the U.S. and that it had a
sovereign right to defend itself from such hostile acts. Also, he indicated
that the process of the Security Council in mandating sanctions on his
country was more like the activity of gangsters than an activity represent-
ing a legitimate means of investigating a dispute and determining how to
diffuse a tense situation.
Thus, the speeches supporting discussion and investigation in the
General Assembly on Friday, Oct. 13, and the closed decision-making
process that culminated the following day in the issuing of sanctions
against North Korea, are in stark contrast to each other.
The statements by several of the five permanent members of the
Security Council, the members who have the power to veto Security
Council decisions, emphasized that their resolution imposing sanctions
against North Korea reflected the condemnation by the “international
community” and that all the nations of the UN now had a legal obligation
to carry out the provisions of the sanctions.
While the Security Council does indeed have the power to impose
such sanctions on a country in the name of the UN, the process by which
the sanctions were decided, is a sorry demonstration of power politics that
involves very few of the 192 member countries that make up the UN.
The chairman of the Latin American and Caribbean regional group,
in his comments to the future Secretary-General, explained that there are
important challenges for the UN in the role it plays in “today’s world.”
“International public opinion demands that the Security Council and
other bodies of the organization should perform a much better job. There
is a trend at this time for great and infinite opportunities as well as
unprecedented risks,” explained Ecuadorian Ambassador to the UN Diego
Cordovez.
“The United Nations, it is said, should be a base, a forum, a mode
that would enable the international community to take advantage of those
Page 7
transcendental opportunities and foresee and neutralize potential risks,”
Cordovez added. “For those reasons, it is important to insist on the need
to reform thoroughly and deeply the organization and undoubtedly, that
would be the main task and responsibility of our new Secretary-General.”
(He was referring to the failure of the member countries to reform the
Security Council.)
“It is inconceivable,” he said, “that we are discussing the reform of
the Security Council for decades, preparing infinite numbers of formulas,
doing report after report on that item, and yet it remains – immutable and
impossible to the critics for its lack of representation and its parsimonious
conduct to confront [the] world’s crises.”
The act of bringing sanctions against a member state by the Security
Council, with no investigation into the grievances that motivated North
Korea’s actions, stands as an egregious example of the failure of the
obligation of the UN to hear from each member state and to provide a
place where problems can be heard and discussed to find a solution.
North Korea says its problems are with the U.S. and that it has
developed nuclear devices because of its need to defend itself from the
U.S. That is a serious statement requiring investigation to see who has
caused the problem and who merits the imposition of sanctions.
Another aspect of the current process that ended in sanctions is that
the five permanent members of the Security Council are powerful
countries that possess nuclear weapons. These very countries have failed
to meet their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to
carry out disarmament.
1
Some scholars and diplomats explain that they are not surprised that
North Korea believes it needs to develop a nuclear capacity in order to
protect itself from danger. Given the actions of the U.S. government in
branding North Korea as part of the “axis of evil” and attacking another,
Iraq, which it had similarly branded, is but one of the reasons some
scholars believe the U.S. government provided North Korea with a
legitimate justification to develop nuclear weapons.
2
In its brief talk at the
Security Council meeting, North Korea expressed one of its disappoint-
ments:
It was gangster-like for the Security Council to adopt such a
coercive resolution against the Democratic People’s Republic
Page 8
of Korea while neglecting the nuclear threat posed by the
United States against his country…. The council was incapable
of offering a single word of concern when the United States
threatened to launch nuclear pre-emptive attacks, reinforced its
armed forces and conducted large-scale military exercises near
the Korean Peninsula.
It must be remembered that the five permanent members of the
Security Council possess thousands of nuclear weapons.
Although commentators and scholars who feel there is justification
for North Korea’s actions want to discourage the proliferation of nuclear
weapons, they explain that punishing North Korea, while ignoring those
countries who are in the club of nations possessing nuclear weapons, can
only breed cynicism and hostility to nonproliferation and enforcement
efforts.
That North Korea can claim that it felt compelled to develop a
nuclear device, is a signal that the current regime of power politics is not
working in a way that provides alternatives for a small nation that feels
threatened by the nations that are nuclear powers. North Korea’s situation
is a demonstration that there is need for serious discussion by the 192
member states of the UN to understand the problems that North Korea
claims compel it to develop nuclear weapons as a means of securing its
borders and protecting its sovereignty.
There is indeed an international community, and there is indeed a
serious challenge facing it. The five big nuclear powers who wield veto
power on the Security Council can bring to bear punishment upon a small
nation that endeavors to develop nuclear capability. This, however, will
only compound the problem as it will only increase the hostility and
resentment that the small nation feels from such unequal treatment at the
hands of those who themselves possess nuclear weapons and who use the
power this capability bestows on them in such a self-serving manner.
The two Koreas have brought to the world stage the need for a truly
international organization, one that will consider all its members’ concerns
and needs, and find ways to support serious consideration of the problems
such nations have but are unable to solve themselves.
The urgent problem facing the UN at this juncture in its history is not
whether North Korea has developed and tested a nuclear device. It is the
Page 9
breakdown reflected by the lack of participation and investigation by the
international community into how a crisis will be handled once it
develops, and whether the concerns and problems of those who are
involved in the crisis will be considered as part of the process of seeking
a solution. It is how the UN functions when tensions reach a point where
serious attention is needed to help to understand and solve a problem.
Unfortunately for the world, and for North Korea, there was no such
process in the decision to impose sanctions on North Korea. The decision
to impose sanctions on North Korea was not made by the international
community. It was the decision of a small set of nuclear countries. Who
was responsible for the crisis was not explored before determining blame,
and thus the proclaimed solution is likely only to worsen the problem
rather than solve it. Yet the actual problem exists and the fact that people
of the world recognize it is highlighted by a recent poll taken in South
Korea, which showed that 43 percent of the population blames the U.S.
government for North Korea’s test of a nuclear device, while only 37.2
percent blame the North Koreans.
3
The actions in the Security Council to punish North Korea occurred
without the needed exploration of what had motivated North Korea to turn
to nuclear weapons as a means of self-defense. Can the UN be changed in
the needed ways so that it will be able to handle such problems? This is
the urgent issue facing the UN as the future Secretary-General takes over
the post in January. This is one of the challenges facing Ban Ki-moon,
member nations and people who are part of the UN organization as it
embarks on a new chapter in the history of this needed global organiza-
tion.
Notes
1. See “Pyongyang’s Nuke Test Sparks Fission Over Response.”
http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/140740/1
2. See “What About North Korea’s sovereignty?”
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=518268
3. See “U.S. Most Responsible for Nuclear Test: Poll.”
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200610/kt2006101517230011990.htm
Page 10
The above article can be seen at: http://english.ohmynews.com/
articleview/article_view.asp?no=323351&rel_no=1
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in TELEPOLIS on February
14, 2007]
What Role Will Ban Ki-moon Play?
The Struggle Over Reform at the UN
by Ronda Hauben
As soon as Ban Ki-moon took office as the 8
th
Secretary-General of
the United Nations, his comments sparked controversy. A statement about
Saddam Hussein’s execution, namely that capital punishment was a
decision to be made by each nation, drew condemnation from those who
compared it with previous UN statements opposing capital punishment as
a cruel and inhuman practice. Meanwhile it was supported by John Bolton,
the former U.S. ambassador to the UN, who praised Ban’s statement about
capital punishment as the “right instinct.”
Kofi Annan, Ban’s predecessor, had been willing at times to
Page 11
condemn what he deemed violations of the UN charter. For example,
before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Annan warned that such “a military
action would violate the UN charter.”
1
Similarly, during the 2006 Israeli
invasion of Lebanon, Annan stated that Israel’s “‘disproportionate’ use of
force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop.”
2
This
was a means of condemning Israeli actions as illegal.
Such actions earned Annan praise for being willing to tell “the truth
to the powerful,” from Dumisani Kumalo, the South African Ambassador
to the UN, speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 (G-77). These actions,
on the other hand, were condemned by Bolton who criticized Annan as the
UN’s “chief moralizer,” whose activities “were not ultimately helpful to
the world body.”
3
Even before he took office, Ban had said he would be open with the
press, promising that he could be “a pretty straight shooter when I need
to.” Coming to the UN from his former position as the foreign minister of
South Korea, Ban brought with him a reputation for dodging questions
from the press when he deemed that beneficial. This trait led South Korean
journalists to nickname him “slippery eel.”
4
Already during his short term
in office, there have been several instances when Ban praised the powerful
and dodged questions from reporters when asked to explain the basis for
his praise.
One example occurred after Ban met with the U.S. President George
Bush in Washington on January 16, 2007. At the press conference
following the meeting, Ban referred to Bush as “a great leader.” When
Ban returned to the UN, a reporter asked him why he had used these words
to describe Bush. Ban responded:
In diplomacy, it is appropriate to address any Head of State or
Government with due respect and courtesy. I hope you will
understand what this diplomatic practice is.
5
Such comments have earned Ban a reputation as someone who “is
an enigma to media and diplomats alike”
6
and whose “statements” are as
hard to follow as “a Delphic Oracle.” Bolton, on the other hand, has
expressed his approval for what Ban has done or has freely offered his
advice on what to do differently. For example, Bolton characterized as a
“courageous decision”
7
Ban’s call for the resignations of 60 senior-level
officials in the secretariat. Since the contracts of these officials were to
Page 12
expire anyway at the end of February, several reporters wondered why
Ban asked for their resignation. When Ban was asked for his response to
Bolton’s comments, Ban responded that he agreed with some of them. He
did not elaborate.
One of the first promises of the new Secretary-General was that he
would carry out reform at the UN There are different views among the
member nations of the UN on what reform is needed.
For the U.S. government, as Bolton explains, the purpose of reform
is to make the UN a better tool among others “to implement American
foreign policy.”
8
For a number of other nations, the purpose of reform is to foster a
multilateral process
9
to prevent war and hostilities among nations. Nations
which are part of the group known as the G-77 define a reform agenda
quite differently from the agenda promoted by the U.S. and what the G-77
describe as “other developed nations from the North.”
The G-77, originally formed in 1964 when 77 developing nations
signed a Joint Declaration at the end of the UN Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD), has a reform agenda that focuses
10
on develop-
ment issues and on promoting the importance of the UN as the preeminent
international institution. There are now 130 nations that are part of the
G-77. Many of these nations are also part of the Non-Aligned Movement.
During Ban’s first few weeks in his new position, he has appeared
to vacillate between the reform agenda of the G-77 and the reform agenda
supported by the U.S. and other powerful developed nations. The U.S.
wants the UN to be run more like a business, with business processes and
management goals, Bolton said in a talk
11
he gave at Columbia University
in April 2006. Other nations differ.
Describing how the UN differs from a business organization, in a
talk also given at Columbia University, Choi Young-jin, the Ambassador
to the UN from South Korea, explained that there are 192 nations
belonging to the UN and “everyone is on the board of governors.”
12
Choi maintained that you can’t run an organization with 192
members on the board the same way you can run a business. While a
business has a goal of generating profit, “the strongest point of the UN,”
Choi said, “is its moral authority. The focus of any reform has to be on
that moral authority, not on ‘efficiencies.’”
Page 13
Another characteristic of the differences in the reform agenda of the
different nations is the importance with which many nations view the need
for a reform of the Security Council. In December 2006 there was a debate
in the General Assembly about reform of the Security Council that drew
70 speakers and substantial proposals for changing its composition and
working methods.
Subsequently at the first meeting
13
of the new year of the Security
Council on Jan. 8, 2007, several of the nonpermanent members raised
14
the
need for Security Council reform. One nation’s representative explained
that the issues taken up by the Security Council should be more carefully
chosen so they do not to encroach on the mandate of other UN organs.
Similarly, he proposed that the Security Council should not fail to act in
situations consistent with its mandate, situations that pose a threat to
international peace and security, such as in the “Palestine-Israeli issue.”
Other issues raised during the Jan. 8 meeting included the desirability of
involving regional and subregional groups in solving problems when
feasible that diplomatic solutions should be utilized before resorting to
sanctions, and that nations like Iran and North Korea should not be denied
the right to undertake research and development for the peaceful uses of
nuclear energy.
This meeting was also Ban’s first official meeting with the Security
Council. He gave a brief presentation.
15
Though he spoke about UN
reform, he didn’t mention Security Council reform. Later at a press
conference
16
with Ban’s spokesperson, a reporter asked if Ban deliberately
choose not to mention Security Council reform. The spokesperson
responded:
I don’t think it was deliberate. I think he is certainly interested
in the issue – definitely concerned about the issue. He has
talked about it before, but as you know with Security Council
reforms there was a proposal made, and now, it is in the hands
of the Member States.
In general, the mainstream U.S. media provides little coverage of the
controversy over reform at the UN. Allegations of UN mismanagement,
however, are pursued with a vengeance, just as they had been in the “Oil
for Food” scandal.
More recently articles by Fox News
17
and in The Wall Street
Page 14
Journal
18
alleged that tens of millions of dollars of hard currency had been
subverted by the government of North Korea from the United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) and used to fund North Korea’s nuclear
program. Also the press reports charged that the UNDP had kept the scam
secret. Fox News asked if Kim Jung II “subverted the UNDP program”
and possibly stole “tens of millions of dollars of hard currency in the pro-
cess.” In their article “United Nations Dictators Program,” the WSJ alleged
that “the hard currency supplied by the UNDP almost certainly goes into
one big pot marked ‘Dear Leader’ which Kim can use for whatever he
wants.”
These allegations were made without any actual evidence to back
them up, but just in time to coincide with the UNDP Executive Board
meeting that was to approve the programs for 2007 and on. The result of
the articles was to block the approval of the 2007-8 UNDP program in
North Korea, and to exert pressure so that the Secretary-General recom-
mended an external audit of all UN programs, beginning with the North
Korean UNDP program. Headlines alleging North Korean abuse of UN
programs quickly spread in the U.S. and international media.
Subsequently, the UN announced that their audit plans were focused
on North Korea. There is to be an external audit of all UN programs in
North Korea. The audit is “to be completed by the Board of Auditors
within a three-month time frame, as per the Secretary-General’s proposal
of 22 January 2007.”
Both the U.S. and the Group of 77 supported Ban’s candidacy for the
position of Secretary-General. Now that he is in the position, he is faced
with the ongoing struggle of contending forces over the UN’s reform
agenda. How he will handle the different pressures is one of the important
challenges he and the UN face in the coming months and years of his term.
Notes
1. “Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan,” The Guardian, Sept. 16,
2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/ Story/0,2763,1305709,00.html
2. “Kofi Annan Addresses Middle East Violence” (Transcript), The Washington Post,
J u l y 2 0 , 2 0 0 6 .
h t t p : / / w w w . w a s h i n g t o n
post.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/20/AR2006072000912.html
3. “Don’t Ban Your Instincts, Ban Ki-moon,” The Washington Post, Jan. 14, 2007.
Page 15
h t t p : / / w w w . w a s h i n g t o n p o s t . c o m / w p - d y n /
content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011202061.html
4. “Press Conference by Secretary-General-designate,” Dec. 14, 2006.
http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/sg_elect/press_ conf_14dec06.htm
5. “Secretary-General’s press encounter upon entering UN Headquarters following visit
to Washington, D.C.” (an unofficial transcript, New York, Jan. 17, 2007).
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/press-encounter/2007-01-17/secretary-generals-pr
ess-encounter-upon-entering-un
6. “Spinning the Moon,” The Guardian, Jan. 18, 2007.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jan/18/themoonmustspin
7. The Washington Post, Jan. 12, 2007.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR20070112020
61.html
8. “John Bolton: UN Reform Remains Vital But Unlikely,” Human Events, Jan. 22, 2007.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19042
9. UN General Assembly document, Sept. 15, 2005 (pdf file).
http://www.unis.unvienna.org/pdf/A60L.pdf
10. “A Commentary on ‘Renewing the United Nations: A Programme for Reform,’”
policy brief prepared by the South Centre at the request of the Group of 77.
http://www.g77.org/doc/policy%20brief.htm
11. “John Bolton Says Proposed UN Reforms Do Not Go Far Enough,” Columbia News,
May 31, 2006.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/06/05/bolton.html
12. “Conceptual Framework for International Relations,” OhmyNews International, April
24, 2006.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=&no=287732&rel_n
o=1&back_url=
13. UN Security Council document, Jan. 8, 2007.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/sc8933.doc.htm
14. “States Call for Security Council Reform,” OhmyNews International, Jan. 10, 2007.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=7&no=33925
0&rel_no=1
15. “Secretary-General’s remarks at the Security Council meeting on Threats to
International Peace and Security,” Jan. 8, 2007.
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2007-01-08/secretary-generals-remarks
-security-council-meeting-threats
16. UN Spokesperson’s news briefing, Jan. 8, 2007.
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2007/db070108.doc.htm
north-korearsquos-misuse-un-development-program.html
18. “United Nations Dictator’s Program,” WSJ on Real Clear Politics, Jan. 19, 2007.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/ 2007/01/give_top_teachers_a_bonus.html
Page 16
The above article can be seen at:
https://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/24/24577/1.html
[Editor’s note: June 30, 2007 marked the first six months that Ban
Ki-moon had held the position as Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The following article was an effort to look at the role of the Secretary-
General and some of the challenges he faced. The article appeared in two
parts on OhmyNews International, June 30, 2007 and July 4, 2007]
Ban Ki-moon’s Role of UN Secretary-
General
Is There a Guiding Vision in the
Organization?
by Ronda Hauben
Part One
Introduction
Ban Ki-moon’s nomination by the Security Council to be the 8
th
Secretary-General of the United Nations was sent to the General Assembly
on Oct. 13, 2006. Ban succeeded in winning the nomination after a
difficult and contested campaign.
1
But his trial by fire was only just
beginning. Ban had succeeded in winning the votes of China and of the
U.S. Winning the votes of these two nations, who are permanent members
of the Security Council, was seen by a number of commentators as the
critical step needed to win the nomination for Secretary-General.
2
Would this very achievement, especially the achievement of winning
the vote of the U.S. government in the Security Council, become a
handicap that would negatively affect Ban’s ability to succeed in the
position as the 8
th
Secretary-General of the United Nations?
Page 17
Goals Expressed in Hankyoreh Interview
An interview with Ban Ki-moon on Oct. 30, 2006, shortly after Ban
won appointment by the General Assembly as the new Secretary-General,
and in the interval before he would assume the office in January 2007,
offers a rare glimpse of how the soon-to-be-appointed Secretary-General
viewed his hopes and goals for his new position.
The interview was conducted in the offices of the Korean newspaper
Hankyoreh, by Moon Chung-in, a Professor at Yonsei University and an
Envoy for International Stability.
3
The interview was done in Korean, and
translated and published in the English edition of Hankyoreh. The goals
Ban outlined in this interview provide a yardstick to measure how
successfully he is in fulfilling the obligations of his new position.
In the interview, Ban describes a recent visit to the White House
shortly after he won the appointment as Secretary-General. President Bush
greeted him as “Mr. Landslide” congratulating him on his victory. The
plan had been for Ban to see Steve Hadley, the U.S. National Security
Advisor and if time permitted, to briefly meet Bush. Instead he spoke with
Bush for more than 20 minutes.
Ban recounts how he and Bush spoke about UN reform and the
North Korean nuclear program. “Bush,” Ban says, “requested that I drive
forth with UN reforms, assuring me that the U.S. would actively lend its
support.” In the interview, Bush promised to work with the South Korean
President Roh Moo-hyun to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear
problem.
Ban also visited China. He describes his meeting with the Chinese
President Hu Jintao on this visit. Hu told Ban that “the role of a newly
appointed Secretary-General is very important and that China would be of
active assistance.” Ban revealed that during his campaign for the
nomination, China “could not make public its support,” but that it had
“actively helped out behind the scenes.” Though it is not yet apparent how
China’s support for Ban’s nomination affects Ban’s actions as Secretary-
General, U.S. support for Ban’s nomination appears to have a significant
effect on his activity as Secretary-General.
During the Hankyoreh interview Ban expressed a belief he has
reiterated many times since, that the U.S. is “the UN’s most important
member.” Ban proposed that the UN needed the “proactive participation”
Page 18
of the U.S. in order to function properly, just as he believed the U.S.
needed the UN for its interests.
Also during the interview, Ban expressed his commitment as
Secretary-General to work to help resolve the problems with North Korea.
“I will appoint a politician or diplomat,” he asserted, “with the confidence
of the international community, someone who has the trust of both North
and South Korea to actively push the issue forward. This envoy,” he
explained, “must be one to impel the Six-Party Talks to action when they
stagnate, and must be prepared to play a direct role when necessary. I am
ever ready to intervene directly when intervention is called for.” Ban also
proposed that the UN had to find a means to help with transforming the
cease-fire that was signed by the U.S. and North Korea at the end of the
Korean War into a more permanent peace agreement.
Ban promised to present a blueprint for what he hoped to accomplish
in his first 100 days, in his first year, and in his five year term. His
priority, he explained, would be in the appointments he would make for
UN personnel and that these would “raise morale and cultivate profession-
alism.”
Ban’s goal at the end of his five year term or ten years if he were to
win reappointment for a second term, would be “to create a UN reborn as
an organization that enjoys much greater international confidence. I will
make the UN into a body fit for the challenges and themes of the 21
st
century,” he promised. To obtain this objective, he proposed to support
“development,” especially, “development in Africa and the Millennium
Development Plan.” His aim would be to “make certain that the UN has
a role at the center of multilateral diplomacy.”
In the interview, Ban also describes how Roh Moo-hyun and the
South Korean press helped his candidacy to succeed by “campaigning for
me at every opportunity while meeting with foreign heads of state.” The
South Korean media “also helped a great deal,” Ban notes. Ban was aware,
too, that it was a particular source of pride for Korea that the 8
th
Secretary-
General would be from Korea.
Comments on Ban’s 100-day Anniversary
By Ban’s 100 day anniversary, April 10, media commentary on his
accomplishments documented the frustration he had experienced.
Page 19
Comments from several diplomats were testimony to the mistakes made
as he and his advisors rushed to put their reform agenda into effect.
The Chinese Ambassador to the UN, Wong Guangya commented on
how Ban tried to impose changes in the structure of the UN Secretariat,
only to meet opposition from a number of countries. Ambassador Wong
observes, “His intentions are good. He is trying to make the Secretariat
work more effectively. But personally I feel he’s a new comer and he does
not understand the culture and the environment in this house. You have to
identify who are the stakeholders and how to test the temperature before
jumping in. He hasn’t done that and he has felt the heat.”
4
Similarly, South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo is quoted
as being frustrated by Ban’s “‘decide first, consult afterward’ behavior.”
5
Even the American Ambassador, Alejandro D. Wolff, who originally
replaced John Bolton, said that there were those “convinced that Ban was
‘essentially responding to American demands.’”
6
This impression, Wolff
explained, helped to generate distrust in the reforms Ban is trying to
implement.
Role of Secretary-General
The role of Secretary-General has a number of constraints. It also is
a role that carries certain obligations. During his inauguration, Ban took
an oath that he would uphold the interests of the United Nations above any
national interests and “not to seek or accept instructions in regard to the
performance of my duties from any government or other authority external
to the Organization.”
7
In a “Report to the Preparatory Commission of the UN 23 Dec.
1945,” a set of duties and responsibilities are elaborated as a means of
stating what is explicit and implicit in the Secretary-General’s role as
provided for by the UN charter.
While the Report specifies administrative and executive functions for
the Secretary-General, it also states that “He is the channel of all
communication with the United Nations in any of its organs. He must
endeavor, within the scope of his functions, to integrate the activity of the
whole complex of United Nations organs and see that the machine runs
smoothly and effectively.”
8
Along with the obligation for internal smooth functioning of the UN,
Page 20
the report proposes an external function. It says, “the Secretary-General,
more than anyone else, will stand for the United Nations as a whole. In the
eyes of the world, no less than the eyes of his own staff, he must embody
the principles and ideals of the charter to which the organization seeks to
give effect.”
9
Elements for Creating a Vision
Shashi Tharoor, one of the other candidates for the nomination by
the Security Council for the position of Secretary-General maintained that
emanating from the job description for the Secretary-General that each
Secretary-General wrote for himself, “must shine the vision of the
incumbent of the office,” a vision which transcends the more practical
aspects of the job.
10
Describing the nature of the job, Tharoor proposed that what was
needed was a person with the ability and talent to respond to a wide range
of issues “and to know where to go for expert judgment when he or she
feels unqualified or uninformed on specific issues. Somebody who
recognizes he does not have all the answers but trusts himself to ask the
right questions.”
11
Tharoor, who had worked at the UN for almost 28 years, said that for
him the UN was more than a job. “It has always been a cause…. For me
the UN is far more than an institution…. It represents the vision and
foresight of the leaders of the world who wanted to make the second half
of the twentieth century better than the first.”
12
He described how the UN
was formed in response to a world that had experienced two world wars,
a number of civil wars, several instances of mass population displace-
ments, genocide, the holocaust, and Hiroshima. “The UN was part of an
attempt to genuinely make a better world and I believe for all its limita-
tions and failures, it did succeed in doing so,” he noted.
13
When Ban outlined the beginning elements for the new role he was
to assume in the Hankyoreh interview, he planned for the UN to play a
constructive role in helping to facilitate the Six-Party Talks between North
Korea, South Korea, China, the U.S., Japan, and Russia. He had expressed
his determination to appoint an envoy to help overcome obstacles that
might impede the Six-Party process. This provided an example of a goal
he was bringing to his new role at the UN. How he would carry out this
Page 21
goal would be a concrete sign of whether he could be guided by a vision
for his role as Secretary-General.
Part Two
Impact of the Press
How has the role of the press affected the actions of the new
Secretary-General? There is an important example that has developed
which helps to demonstrate the impact that the press has had on Ban
Ki-moon.
In the interview with Hankyoreh before he took office,
14
Ban
described how he would act to support a solution to the problem of
relations between North Korea and the Northeast Asia region, and the
disarmament of the Korean peninsula.
On January 19, 2007, just a few weeks after Ban became Secretary-
General, there were news reports of a breakthrough in negotiations
between the Christopher Hill for the U.S. and Kim Kye-gwan for North
Korea.
15
The International Herald Tribune reported:
16
The movement toward a possible breakthrough came during
the talks in Berlin between Hill and Kim, Chosun Ilbo re-
ported, citing unidentified officials in Seoul and Beijing.
Timed, it appeared, to coincide with the breakthrough, however, was
the publication in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of an article “United
Nations Dictator’s Program” by Melanie Kirkpatrick. A similar article was
published by Fox News. These articles alleged that North Korea was
manipulating funds from the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) in North Korea. These press accounts reported that UNDP funds
were being used by Kim Jong-il, for whatever he wanted, including “his
weapons program.”
17
No proof was provided for this accusation. The
articles included other unsupported allegations.
While most of the press reports in the U.S. just repeated or exagger-
ated the original allegations, a few Korean publications provided a
different perspective. The Korean newspaper Voice of the People pointed
out that the allegations of UNDP mismanagement appeared just as the
North Korean and U.S. representatives had productive negotiations in
Berlin.
18
The Voice of the People asked why the U.S. Mission to the UN
Page 22
was raising these issues “at this time.”
“Despite the totally unfounded allegation by the hawks,” the editors
write, “it has a political effect for freezing (the) bilateral relationship
between Washington and Pyongyang.”
19
Ban Ki-moon’s response to the WSJ and Fox News articles was to
call immediately for an audit of all UN programs. The audit was to start
with an audit of all programs in North Korea. A few days later the call for
an audit of all UN programs was dropped. The audit was to be only of
North Korea’s UNDP program.
20
Some Background
A difficult period for Ban’s predecessor, Secretary-General Kofi
Annan was caused by the “Oil for Food Scandal.” Annan had refused to
support a U.S. backed Security Council resolution authorizing an invasion
of Iraq. Annan held that such an invasion would be a violation of the UN’s
charter. Reports say that in response, right wing neo-conservatives in the
U.S. government brought forward accusations that there had been
corruption in the UN’s administration of the “Oil for Food” program.
21
This program had been created by the Security Council supposedly to
alleviate some of the harmful effects on civilians of the Security Council
sanctions against Iraq.
While the “Oil for Food Scandal” investigation recommended
systemic reforms, there was little evidence of corrupt activity by members
of the UN Secretariat. The investigation created, however, a difficult
environment for Annan and other UN officials.
When the WSJ articles appeared in January 2007 alleging corruption
in the UNDP program, they brought up memories of the difficult situation
created for the UN during the “Oil for Food Scandal.”
South Korean Press Responses to Allegations
Several articles appeared in the South Korean press which analyzed
rather than just repeating the allegations of mismanagement in the UNDP
program in North Korea. One article in JoongAng Ilbo on January 22, for
example, described what happened after the news reports appeared on
January 19. Ban met with the Associate Administrator of the UNDP, Ad
Page 23
Melkert, and “vowed a thorough investigation.”
22
The JoongAng Ilbo
article, in addition, however, noted that this accusation came at a
“sensitive time in negotiations” between the U.S. and North Korea.
The article also noted that this action by the UNDP “might be
considered another financial sanction by Washington against North Korea
just as the six party anti nuclear talks were expected to resume.” The
reporters reminded readers that the “financial sanctions brought by the
U.S. treasury office on Banco Delta Asia which led to freezing $24 million
of North Korean funds” had become a “major sticking point” causing a
deadlock in the Six-Party Talks.
Similarly, the article in Voice of the People on January 30, 2007,
asked, “Now we have to see who’s intriguing against whom because
somebody is suffering from pain for it. We should not listen to the
shameless and unscrupulous who are trying to curtail humanitarian aid for
those who are in need of food.”
23
An article in OhmyNews International (OMNI) and a report by the
Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea (Peacekorea) explain that UNDP
administrators had denied that there were violations of UNDP policy in the
North Korean program.
24
Both articles referred to the fact that the Resident
Coordinator of the UNDP Program in North Korea had the authority to
decide the financial practices to follow. Another report by Peacekorea
noted many people think that Ban is “kind of pro American.”
25
Peacekorea advocated support for restarting the Six-Party Talks and
not letting the U.S. accusations against North Korea divert from support
for the unification of the Korean peninsula. Such a policy is presented as
a long term vision. Also the report explains that development aid to North
Korea is preferable to humanitarian aid, as development aid sets a basis for
self sufficiency, while humanitarian aid is expended after it is given.
26
The Six-Party Talks did resume and came to an agreement on
February 13, 2007. Peacekorea offered a critique of the conservative South
Korean newspapers which “made comments devaluing the agreement.”
27
The report explained, “Korea’s major newspapers spread a hostile
perspective of North Korea on the Korean peninsula. This is not helpful
toward gaining denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” The report
proposes that “Under Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship, North Korea, a weak
nation, has developed nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the threat of
Page 24
an American attack, as exemplified by the Iraq war, and as a diplomatic
tool for bilateral contact with the U.S.”
28
Alternative Approach to Ban’s Policy on Korea
Such accounts in the South Korean press demonstrate an alternative
approach to the policy that the Secretary-General is implementing
regarding the North Korean situation. For now Ban is not carrying out the
policy he had proposed in the Hankyoreh interview with regard to the
Korean peninsula. To the contrary, coinciding with pressure from the U.S.
press and the U.S. government, he has adopted a policy which has allowed
the politicization of the UNDP program that was in North Korea. This has
resulted in an audit of previous UNDP programs in North Korea and the
ending of the current UNDP program in North Korea.
Similarly, for more than four months, from February through the end
of June, the Six-Party Talks hit a deadlock over the decision by the U.S.
government to find a small bank in Macau in violation of provisions in the
U.S. Patriot Act. The bank complained that it never saw the evidence
against it nor did it have a chance to refute the evidence.
29
Yet by using
Section 311 of the Patriot Act against this bank, the U.S. Treasury
Department was able to freeze $25 million of North Korean funds and
impede North Korea’s access to the international banking system.
Much of the U.S. press has been promoting a hostile policy toward
North Korea.
30
Some of the South Korean press echo what appears in the
U.S. press, or reprint articles from the conservative interests who are
trying to impede further negotiations. Other South Korean publications,
however, provide a critique of the hostile attitude of the U.S. press toward
North Korea. For example, an article by Tim Savage in OMNI documents
the internal struggle within the U.S. government between the interests
which are hostile to negotiations with North Korea in contrast to the
efforts at negotiations by Christopher Hill.
31
Though he has occupied the office of Secretary-General for more
than six months, Ban has yet to implement the program he proposed
before taking office, the program of active UN support for a negotiated
agreement in the Six-Party Talks. Ban’s original plan was to appoint a
diplomat or politician who would be available to intervene when needed
to keep the negotiation process on track. Instead the UN’s Secretariat has
Page 25
become embroiled in the controversy generated by unsubstantiated
charges from the U.S. mission to the UN about the funding of North
Korea’s UNDP program.
‘We Can’t Prove a Negative’
The U.S. press continues to echo the U.S. government’s unsubstanti-
ated charges against North Korea and the UNDP, in a way reminiscent of
how the same press supported the unsubstantiated and inaccurate U.S.
government claims that Iraq possessed “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”
The unsubstantiated allegations being spread by the U.S. press about the
UNDP, have the effect of politicizing the UNDP program rather than
providing the public with the accurate information that is needed to
understand the problems and challenges faced by such a program.
David Morrison, the press spokesman for the UNDP, explained that
“the point I’m trying to make is we can’t prove a negative,”
32
at a press
conference held to answer the June 2007 set of unsubstantiated allegations
made by the U.S. mission against the UNDP program in North Korea. This
set of allegations appeared in the U.S. press just before the beginning of
the June UNDP Executive Board meeting in a way reminiscent of how the
previous set of allegations first appeared in the U.S. press just before the
January UNDP Executive Board meeting.
Just as the impossibility of proving a negative created a media
environment in which the U.S. government could falsely claim they had
a justification for a war against Iraq, so a hostile environment is being
created to impede the Six-Party Talks by the unsubstantiated allegations
against North Korea and the UNDP.
33
Ban’s original plan for the region provided a means to counter those
interests which might impede a negotiated solution to the North Korean
conflict. Much of the U.S. press has maintained a hostile attitude toward
North Korea, even though there are signs that within the U.S. government
there are forces interested in pursuing a negotiated settlement. The South
Korean media landscape, however, presents a broader spectrum of opinion
on what should be done with regard to North Korea, a spectrum of views
which includes support for the policy that Ban originally proposed to
implement for the region when he became Secretary-General.
Page 26
Conclusion
There are many people in Korea and elsewhere, who are watching
Ban Ki-moon and are hopeful that he will do well as Secretary-General.
As the experience of former Secretaries General demonstrates, however,
there is a need for a vision to guide him if he is to be able to fulfill on
these expectations.
Notes
1. See for example: Ayca Ariyoruk, “Korean Minister Likely Candidate” Global Policy
Forum, https://www.globalpolicy.org/ component/content/article/228/32548.html
Ban was chosen as Secretary-General in a process that is basically secret with
voting by the members of the Security Council that is not public. The five Permanent
members hold the ability to veto a candidate at a certain stage in the process. Questions
have been raised about what criteria are used. What is traded with whom is left as an open
question.
Also there were allegations that the South Korean government used grants and
various financial rewards to gain support for its candidate from several of the nonperma-
nent nations that were on the Security Council at the time of the voting for the next
Secretary-General. See for example:
Richard Beeston, Richard Lloyd Parry, and James Bone, “Millions of dollars and
a piano may put Korean in UN’s top job,” Times Online, September 29, 2006.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article654479.ece
Tran Van Loi, “ROK Buying UN Post: Times, Millions of dollars have been spent
in lobbying for Ban Ki-moon, says British newspaper,” OhmyNews International. October
1, 2006.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=32070
0&rel_no=1
2. See for example, “Restoring the Vitality of the United Nations”
http://www.cfr.org/publication/10833/restoring_the_vitality_of_the_united_nations_ru
sh_transcript_federal_news_service_inc.html
3. [Interview] Next UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. in conversation with Moon
Chung-in, translated by Daniel Rakove, The Hankyoreh. November 3, 2006.
http://www.hani.co.kr/popups/print.hani?ksn=169339
4. Maggie Farley, “New Secretary-General Is Still Finding His Footing at the UN,” LA
Times, April 9, 2007.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/secgen/ban/2007/0409footing.htm
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ronda Hauben, “Ban Ki-moon Inaugurated, Pledges to uphold the interests of the
United Nations above all else,” OhmyNews International, December 15, 2006.
Page 27
http://english.ohmynews.com /articleview/article_view.asp?no=334916&rel_no=1
8. “Report to the Preparatory Commission of the UN 23 Dec. 1945,” in Secretary or
General: The UN Secretary-General in World Politics?, Edited by Simon Chesterman,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, p. 243-244.
9. Ibid., p. 245.
10. Shashi Tharoor, in Secretary or General: The UN Secretary--General in World
Politics?, Edited by Simon Chesterman, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007,
p. 46.
11. Lydia Swart, “Shashi Tharoor Sees his 28 Years at the United Nations as an Asset,”
Center for UN Reform Education, interview done 12 July 2006.
http://www.centerforunreform.org/node/61/print
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. [Interview] Next UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. in conversation with Moon
Chung-in, translated by Daniel Rakove, The Hankyoreh. November 3, 2006.
http://www.hani.co.kr/popups/print.hani?ksn=169339
15. “U.S.-DPRK talks end, no comments on resuming 6-party talks,” CCTV.com Jan. 19,
2007.
http://www.cctv.com/english/20070119/101358.shtml
16. “U.S. envoy confident in North Korea nuclear talks,” International Herald Tribune,
January 22, 2007.
http://www.cctv.com/english/20070119/101358.shtml
17. Melanie Kirkpatrick, “United Nations Dictator’s Program,” WSJ, January 19, 2007.
18. “The U.S. Stands in the Way of Pyongyang,” Voice of the People, January 30, 2007.
19. Ibid.
20. Ronda Hauben, “Hardliners Attack UNDP Aid to North Korea: Allegations of
corruption seen as attempt to undermine engagement,” OhmyNews International,
February 7, 2007.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=344001&rel_no=1
21. Thalif Deen, “Will the New UN Chief Stand Up to Big Powers,” Inter Press News
Agency, December 12, 2006.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35814
22. Nam Jeong-ho and Lee Sang-eon, “Report Says Kim Jong-il Cashed in on UN
Office,” JoongAng Ilbo, January 22, 2007.
23. Ibid., note 18, Voice of the People.
24. Ronda Hauben, “Hardliners Attack UNDP Aid to North Korea Allegations of
corruption seen as attempt to undermine engagement,” OhmyNews International,
February7, 2007. See also: Soohyun Lee, “UNDP’s aid toward North Korea,” peacekorea,
J a n u a r y 2 3 , 2 0 0 7 .
h t t p : / / e n g l i s h . o h m y n e w s .
com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=2&no=344001&rel_no=1
25. Soohyun Lee, UNDP’s aid toward North Korea, peacekorea, February 13, 2007.
26. Ibid.
27. Ji-Hyun Lee, “The Ghost of Anti-communism Reflected in South Korean Media,”
Page 28
peacekorea, May 7, 2007.
28. Ibid.
29. Ronda Hauben, “North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta Asia: Another abuse
under the U.S. Patriot Act (2001),” OhmyNews International, March 21, 2007.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=3&no=35152
5&rel_no=1
30. The McClatchy Newspapers have been an exception. See for example articles like
“Bank owner disputes money-laundering allegations” Kevin G. Hall about the BDA
affair.
31. Tim Savage, “Six-Party Talks Resume: Expectations high for progress in Beijing,”
OhmyNews International, February 8, 2007.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=34424
5&rel_no=1
32. David Morrison, Press Conference, June 11, 2007, See Minutes: 38:46.
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/pressbriefing/brief070611.rm
33. Ronda Hauben, “Weapons of Mass Destruction Syndrome and the Press [Analysis]
How does one prove a negative?,” OhmyNews International, June 24, 2007.
http://english.ohmy news.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=368433&rel_no=1
The above article can be seen in two parts at:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=36957
7&rel_no=1
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=36957
7&rel_no=2
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in Ohmynews International
on March 21, 2007]
North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco
Delta Asia
[Opinion] Another Abuse Under
the U.S. Patriot Act (2001)
by Ronda Hauben
Page 29
A little known provision in the U.S. Patriot Act (2001) has been used
by the Bush administration against North Korea to freeze $25 million of
its funds and to deny it access to the international banking system and to
hard currency. Actions under this provision of the Patriot Act effectively
stymied progress in disarmament talks between the U.S., North Korea,
South Korea, China, Russia and Japan for over 18 months. North Korea
says that only when the seized $25 million and access to the international
banking system are restored is it willing to continue negotiations under the
Six-Party agreement concerning security and denuclearization of the
Korean peninsula.
The little known provision of the Patriot Act is Section 311. It is also
known as the “International Money Laundering Abatement and Financial
Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001.”
1
The original purpose was allegedly related to the prevention,
detection and prosecution of money laundering connected to the financing
of terrorism. The law has rarely been used for its original purpose. Instead
it has been used by the Bush administration as a means of unchecked
political power against financial institutions like the Banco Delta Asia.
This case has an impact on those nations or institutions who used the bank,
like North Korea.
Two other sections of the Patriot Act currently under scrutiny, the
use of the Patriot Act to illegally obtain personal information on U.S.
citizens, and the use of a provision in the Patriot Act to replace U.S.
Attorneys, have been identified as being used by the Bush administration
for expanding and abusing executive power. Section 311 provides another
means for sidestepping international and national legal practices and
substituting an ad hoc set of processes that leave the victims with no
means of due process or defense.
Section 311 has been called by its supporters “a diplomatic
sledgehammer that gets results” and by its critics a provision that denies
the accused “due process and presumes guilt.”
Critics say that this provision of the Patriot Act applies U.S. law to
the financial institutions of other countries. In a proceeding under Section
311 of the Patriot Act (2001) the U.S. Treasury Department acts as accuser
and judge, in international jurisdictions. Also, often the evidence used by
the Treasury Department is classified and thus not available for examina-
Page 30
tion by the accused so that it can’t be refuted.
This provision gives the U.S. Treasury the ability to use an Execu-
tive Branch administrative procedure rather than a legal proceeding as a
way to accuse a financial institution that is part of another nation’s
regulatory system of wrong doing, and then to find it guilty. Under this
provision of the Patriot Act, the accused is denied knowledge of the
evidence against it and is denied the right to speak in its own defense.
Section 311 of the Patriot Act (2001) was used against the BDA, a small
bank in Macau, to freeze substantial financial assets of North Korea and
also to deny North Korea access to the international banking system.
2
The
case against the BDA was instituted in September 2005 just after the U.S.
had signed the Six-Party agreement.
The accused under Section 311 is presumed to be guilty and the
burden falls on it to prove its innocence without being able to know the
evidence or charges.
3
Invoking Section 311 against the BDA effectively sabotaged the
implementation of the Six-Party agreement of September 2005 for 18
months as BDA did not have a process to challenge the Treasury
Department action, nor did those whose accounts at the bank had been
frozen, like North Korea. It was only after North Korea conducted a
missile test in July 2006 and the test of a nuclear device in October 2006,
that the Bush administration was willing to agree to negotiations over the
Treasury action.
Negotiations in Berlin between the U.S. government and North
Korea in January 2007 and then in Beijing in February 2007 with the U.S.,
South Korea, China, Russia and Japan, resulted in the Six-Party agreement
announced on Feb. 13, 2007.
The difference that most analysts point to in comparing the Feb. 13,
2007 Six-Party agreement with the Six-Party agreement of September
2005 is that the more recent agreement includes a series of processes and
a time table. The critical difference that has been overlooked, however, is
that a requirement of the Feb. 13 agreement was that the U.S. restore the
funds that were frozen by the actions of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Also North Korea’s access to the international financial system was to be
restored.
These requirements caused “intense friction” in Washington between
Page 31
officials in the State Department and “officials in the Treasury Department
and in the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney who were said to favor
maintaining maximum pressure” on North Korea.
4
There were reports of
urgent telephone calls between officials in the State Department and the
Treasury. Assistant Secretary of State John Negroponte finally got a
decision from the Treasury Department by Friday, March 16. The Trea-
sury Department had ruled against the BDA. U.S. banks would not be
allowed to do business with it. The U.S. government announcement said
that it would be up to the Macau authorities to decide if they would
unfreeze and restore some or all of North Korea’s funds.
By the weekend of March 17, a behind the scenes drama continued
to unfold. China announced that it regretted the U.S. action. The owner of
the Macao bank said he would go to court to attempt to challenge the
decision. Getting off the plane in Beijing on Saturday to attend the next
stage of Six-Party Talks, Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea’s lead negotiator
for the Six-Party Talks, told reporters that all of the $25 million had to be
returned if North Korea was to go to the next step of the Six-Party Talks.
Hill announced that he would explain the settlement to the Chinese
and North Korean negotiators. China announced that a settlement had been
reached but that the details of it couldn’t yet be revealed. Subsequently,
there was an announcement that all of the $25 million in funds would be
returned to North Korea and deposited in China in an account held by the
North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank at the Bank of China in Beijing. U.S.
Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser, in a press conference held with Hill,
confirmed the U.S. government decision. It was unknown he said, when
the funds would actually be put in the North Korean bank account.
Subsequently, diplomats who were in Beijing to continue the
Six-Party Talks told reporters that North Korean diplomats said the funds
had to be in the bank account for them to continue with negotiations.
Though there have been many newspaper articles reporting the
standoff in the Six-Party Talks caused by the dispute over the use of
Section 311 against North Korea, few of the articles provide an under-
standing of the underlying issues involved. A commentator on BBC, for
example, demonstrating a serious lack of understanding of the use of
Section 311 and the abuse of power it represents said this is an example
of the high price that North Korea will extract for its cooperation in the
Page 32
talks.
It is not without cause then, that in describing the process of the
Six-Party Talks, Hill compared the process to a video game. He warned:
This process, not unlike a video game gets more and more
difficult as you get to different levels.
5
Notes
1.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/Section301.html
2. “Treasury Casts a Wide Net Under Patriot Act.”
http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/69267:treasury-casts-a-wide-net-under-
patriot-act
3. “The U.S. government has never publicly detailed evidence behind its charges. Nor has
it sought to initiate legal action, relying instead on Section 311 of the Patriot Act, which
critics say extends U.S. laws to cover other countries.” “Bush Administration Plan May
Unfreeze North Korean Funds.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/latest-news/article24461644.html
4. “Administration Reconsiders Some North Korea Restrictions.”
5. “U.S., North Korea Move to Open Ties.”
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=348974&rel_no=1
The above article can be seen at:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=35152
5&rel_no=1
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in Ohmynews International
on May 19, 2007]
Page 33
Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta
Asia
Is the Policy Aimed at Targeting
China as Well as North Korea?
by Ronda Hauben
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, speaking at the
Korea Society’s 50
th
Anniversary dinner in New York City on May 15,
2007, said that he was determined not to “allow $26 million or $25 million
get between us and a deal that will finally do something about nuclear
weapons on the Korean peninsula.” He promised that Kathleen Stephens
at the Korea desk at the State Department was working on the problem and
that “we are going to keep after this problem till we solve it.” His
statement didn’t give further details about how this problem was to be
solved, a problem that had interrupted the progress that seemed at last
possible in the Feb. 13 Six-Party agreement.
1
Just two days later, on May 17, the U.S. Wachovia Bank announced
that it is exploring a request from the State Department to transfer the
funds from the BDA (Banco Delta Asia) to North Korea. Wachovia Bank
reported that it would require the necessary approvals from bank
regulators to do the transfer.
Until this latest announcement, banks have been unwilling to do the
transfer because of the legal action that the U.S. government took against
the BDA, by ruling that it was involved in criminal activity under Section
311 of the U.S. Patriot Act. Banks which deal with a bank that has been
found guilty of such illegal acts risk losing their access to the international
financial system. North Korea has said that the denuclearization and other
aspects of the Six-Party agreement that it has been part of can only go
forward when the BDA situation is resolved. “To make the money transfer
possible freely just like before has been our demand…from the begin-
ning,” a spokesperson from North Korea said.
2
In his daily press briefing on May 17, Scott McCormack at the U.S.
State Department said, “We all want to see the BDA issue resolved,
Page 34
obviously resolved within the laws and regulations of the United States as
well as the international financial system, and we’d like to move on and
get back to the business of the Six-Party Talks, which is really focused on
the issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.”
3
Whether this latest development with Wachovia Bank will provide
the needed breakthrough, it is too soon to tell. But there are other
developments which may provide the needed pressures on the U.S.
government to decriminalize the $25 million it has frozen of North Korean
funds and restore North Korea’s access to the international banking
system. Their access was severely impeded by the action that the U.S.
Treasury Department took against the BDA.
The developments I am referring to are the release in the public
domain of several documents related to the U. S. Treasury Department’s
actions against BDA. One of the documents is a sworn statement by the
owner of the BDA, Mr. Stanley Au, in support of his petition to revoke the
rule imposing the special measures taken by the U.S. Treasury Department
against his bank. Another document is the petition in support of his case.
Also the Treasury Department finding against the bank has been put
online. These documents have been made available on the blog “China
Matters.”
4
In his statement, Au explains the history of his bank’s relations with
North Korea and how there was only one experience, which occurred in
June 1994, when there was a problem with counterfeit U.S. dollars. At the
time, the bank reported this incident to the U.S. government. Agents from
the U.S. government came to the bank and questioned Au. He answered
their questions and asked if the agents recommended that the bank “desist
from doing business with North Korean entities.” The agents said “they
would like us to continue to deal with them as it was better that we
conducted this business than another financial entity that may not be so
cooperative with the United States government.”
Au explains that there was no further experience with counterfeit
money showing up in the transactions of the bank. All “large value
deposits of U.S. dollar bills from North Korean sources” were sent to the
Hong Kong branch of the Republic National Bank of New York (which
became HSBC) to be certified that they were authentic via advanced
technology possessed by that bank. Smaller quantities of bills were
Page 35
examined in accord with common banking practices by the bank itself.
Au also explains that he had not been approached by U.S. govern-
ment agents alerting him to any problem or illegal activity. The first he
learned that his bank was being charged as a bank engaged in “illicit
activities” came when he saw a report in the Asian Wall Street Journal in
September 2005 that his bank was a candidate for a U.S. money launder-
ing blacklist. He tells how “this news came as a bolt out of the blue – the
Bank had never been informed by the United States that its practices were
a cause of any money laundering concern, and the counterfeiting event
that the media reported as the basis for the designation had occurred more
than ten years earlier and had been promptly reported to the authorities by
Banco Delta Asia.”
5
Stanley Au’s statement is in sharp contrast with the account in the
U.S. government’s Federal Register of the finding against the bank by the
U.S. Treasury Department.
6
The Federal Register finding states that the bank had provided
financial services for more than 20 years to multiple North Korean-related
individuals and entities that were engaged in illicit activities. It provides
no specific details of what such illicit activities were. It claims that the
entities paid a fee to Banco Delta Asia for their access to the bank. The
finding claims that the bank facilitated wire transfers and helped a front
company.
In his statement, Stanley Au maintained that the BDA did not charge
a fee for its services nor did it conduct illicit services for North Korea or
any other customer. The bank was only one of the banks in Macau that did
business with North Korea. The business his bank had with North Korea
began in the mid 1970s and was to assist North Korea with its foreign
trade transactions. Also Au described North Korea as a gold producing
country and that in the late 1990s the bank had acted as a “gold bullion
trader on behalf of the North Koreans.” Also the BDA bought or sold
foreign currency notes for North Korea, including U.S. dollars, because
North Korea had a limited banking system and so it couldn’t do such
transactions itself (see Statement, pp. 3-4).
The petition submitted to the U.S. Dept. of the Treasury to challenge
the finding against BDA proposes that BDA was targeted not because of
any “voluminous” evidence of money laundering but “because it was an
Page 36
easy target in the sense that it was not so large that its failure would bring
down the financial system.”
7
In the substantial and prolific analysis of the BDA problem that has
been developed on the blog “China Matters,” there is the assessment that
North Korea has legitimate financial activity and that the BDA was
legitimately serving as one of the banks for that activity. Even with the
UN’s sanctions, it was not appropriate to target for blacklisting the
legitimate financial activities of North Korea. The sanctions that the
UN-imposed against North Korea were to be aimed at its activity that was
related to nuclear weapon development, not to normal financial transac-
tions.
The author of China Matters blog writes:
8
The alternative view…is that legitimate North Korean finan-
cial activity does exist, BDA had a right to solicit North
Korean accounts and handle North Korean transactions, and
Stanley Au should be allowed to run his bank as long as he
conforms to the laws of his jurisdiction--and (the bank) not be
used as a political football in Washington’s dealings with
Pyongyang.
To put it more succinctly, the blog China Matters quotes David
Ascher, who had been the coordinator for the Bush Administration
working group on North Korea and a senior adviser in East Asian affairs
in the State Department, in testimony to the U.S. House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade on April 18,
2007, explaining why Banco Delta was chosen to be blacklisted from the
international banking system:
9
Banco Delta was a symbolic target. We were trying to kill the
chicken to scare the monkeys. And the monkeys were big
Chinese banks doing business in North Korea…and we’re not
talking about tens of millions, we’re talking hundreds of
millions.
The purpose of the action against the BDA appears not only to have
been to target North Korea and its access to the international banking
system, but also to send a message to China.
Therefore it would appear that the action against BDA is a carefully
crafted political action and that it will be necessary that there be public
Page 37
understanding, discussion and debate about what is behind this action in
order to find a way to have the policy that gave rise to the BDA action
changed.
Instead of the U.S. mainstream press carrying out the needed
investigation about why BDA has been targeted and what is behind this
action, there have been continual condemnations of North Korea.
Fortunately there are journalists like those who work with the McClatchy
News Service who have made an effort to probe what is happening
behind-the-scenes in the BDA affair and blogs like China Matters which
have taken the time and care to begin uncovering what the BDA affair is
really all about. This is but one of the stories of what is really going on
behind the scenes within the U.S. government that has been hidden from
the public. This is one of the stories yet to be unraveled by bloggers, and
citizen journalists.
10
Notes
1. See an earlier article “North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta Asia.”
http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=3515
25&rel_no=1&back_url=%3Cbr%3E
2. “North Korea says work to transfer bank funds under way,” AFP, May 15, 2007.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/ afp_asiapacific/view/276391/1/.html
3. Scott McCormack, Daily Press Briefing, Washington, D.C., May 17, 2007.
4. “Bank owner disputes money-laundering allegations.”
http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/05/stanley-au-makes-his-case-for-banco.html
5. Statement of Mr. Stanley Au in Support of Petition to Revoke Rule Imposing Special
M e a s u r e s A g a i n s t B a n c o D e l t a A s i a , p . 7 .
h t t p : / / w w w . n c n k . o r g / r e s o u r c e s / p u b l i c a t i o n s / J o n e s _ D a y _ P e t
ition_Rescind_BDA_Rule.pdf
See also Kevin G. Hall, “Bank owner disputes money-laundering allegations,” McClatchy
Newspapers, May 16, 2007.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24463246.html
6. Department of the Treasury, 31 CFR Part 103/ RIN 1506-AA83, Federal Register/ Vol.
72, No. 52/ Monday, March 19, 2007/ Rules and Regulations.
https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/shared/bda_final_rule.pdf
7. Petition of Mr. Stanley Au and Delta Asia Group (Holdings) Ltd. to Rescind Final
Rule, p. 12.
http://www.ncnk.org/resources/publications/Jones_Day_Petition_Rescind_BDA_Rule.pdf
8. “Stanley Au Makes His Case for Banco Delta Asia,” Tuesday, May 15, 2007.
http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/05/stanley-au-makes-his-case-for-banco.html
Page 38
9. “David Asher’s Dead End,” Saturday, April 28, 2007.
http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2007/04/david-ashers-dead-end.html
See also “China’s Proliferation to North Korea and Iran, and its role in addressing the
nuclear and missile situations in both nations,” Hearing, Sept. 14, 2006, Nov. 2006, p.
115-116.
http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006hearings/transcripts/sept_14/06_09_14_trans.pdf
10. Ronda Hauben, “Bill Moyers and the Emergence of U.S. Citizen Journalism: Power
of government creates need for investigative news.”
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=360069&rel_no=1
The above article can be seen at:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=36219
2&rel_no=1
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in Ohmynews International
on October 4, 2007]
On the Status of the
Six-Party Talks
‘It’s Never Been an Easy Sell
in Washington,’ Says Chris Hill
by Ronda Hauben
At a press conference held in New York City on Tuesday, Oct. 2,
2007, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill answered
questions and outlined some of his concerns regarding the recent session
of the Six-Party Talks
1
held in Beijing, Sept. 27-30.
Hill said that originally there was not to be a formal statement of
agreement, but that on Sunday morning before the session was to end, the
Chinese hosts distributed a draft of a short statement for the six parties to
consider [See page 18 below “Full Text of the Joint Document”]. Hill said
that each of the parties took the statement back to their capitol to seek
approval. For Hill, this meant flying to New York City to meet with
Page 39
Secretary of State Rice who had been attending UN related events. Then
the proposal was brought to President Bush for his approval.
When Hill was asked how difficult was the process of getting an
agreement from Washington, he said “It’s never been an easy sell in
Washington.” Hill explained the agreement in general terms, as the press
conference was held before the statement was officially released.
By Dec. 31, 2007, Hill said North Korea agreed to disable its
Yongbyon nuclear facilities. Also by that date, there was an agreement to
provide an accurate accounting for how much fissile material was
produced by North Korea. In 2008, the Six-Party Talks will move toward
the issue of dismantling the plutonium producing facility. As an outcome
of the talks, Hill hoped for the creation of a North East Asian Peace
structure, but he felt there was still a long way to go to get to that goal.
When asked about whether the U.S. had agreed to remove North
Korea from the U.S. government’s State Sponsors of Terrorists list, Hill
said that was something “we are working on with the DPRK.” He said that
“from our point of view any time we can work with a country to get them
off the list, that’s what we want to do.” Hill also said that North Korea was
being encouraged to improve DPRK-Japan relations. He did not say
whether efforts were being made to encourage Japan to improve Ja-
pan-DPRK relations.
In response to another question about removing the designation of
North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, Hill said that the U.S. wanted
to “work through the past history that had led to the DPRK being put on
that list.”
A reporter asked what it would take to move from the armistice of
the Korean war to a peace agreement ending the war.
“From the U.S. point of view if the DPRK is prepared to
denuclearize, we are prepared to reach a peace agreement,” replied Hill.
There would need to be a number of issues considered, he explained, to
reach a peace settlement. When questioned about North Korea’s concern
that there be an end of hostility by the U.S. toward it, Hill said that the
U.S. was hostile to proliferation and that there was no hostile policy of the
U.S. to North Korea.
When asked about the problems that had existed regarding the U.S.
Treasury Department’s action freezing North Korean assets in the Banco
Page 40
Delta Asia,
2
Hill said that that situation related to the need of the U.S. to
protect its financial system and its currencies. “We would like them (North
Korea-ed) to have access to the international financial system,” he
explained, “but they have to play by the rules everyone else plays by.”
He didn’t elaborate further on this issue or on whether North Korea’s
regaining access to the international banking system was a matter being
considered in the negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea.
In response to a question about why it seemed negotiations were
entering a sensitive stage, he explained that what was happening was to
have the U.S. on the ground involved in disabling the nuclear facility. It
was “not just paper anymore,” he observed.
Another reporter asked Hill what problems he saw in the future that
he was concerned about. Hill responded that what keeps him awake is that
they are focusing on the step to be taken but that “the process won’t be
successful unless we reach the goal.” The DPRK will need to give up its
fissile material and weapons, explained Hill, so he was concerned that
there were those in the army in North Korea who might not want to get to
the last step.
“When we finish this job,” Hill said, the parties will have come to
understand what it means to come together and solve the problems. In this
process, Hill felt that North Korea would get the sense of “what it means
to be part of a community.”
Notes
1. For an earlier press conference by Hill about the talks, see “U.S., North Korea Move
to Open Ties Christopher Hill and Kim Kye-gwan hold meeting in New York on first
steps.”
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=34897
4&rel_no=1
2. While the $25 million of North Korean funds have now been returned to North Korea,
the problem of North Korea being denied access to the international banking system has
not yet been resolved. Describing some of the problems that the U.S. Treasury
Department action against the Banco Delta Asia posed as an obstacle to the progress of
the Six-Party Talks, see for example: North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta Asia,
Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia, Weapons of Mass Destruction Syndrome
and the Press?
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=36219
2&rel_no=1
Page 41
Full Text of the Joint Document
The Second Session of the Sixth Round of the Six-Party Talks was held in Beijing
among the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,
Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States of America
from 27 to 30 September, 2007.
Mr. Wu Dawei, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PRC, Mr. Kim Gye Gwan,
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK, Mr. Kenichiro Sasae, Director-General
for Asian and Oceanian Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Mr. Chun
Yung-woo, Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs of the
ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr. Alexander Losyukov, Deputy Minister
of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Mr. Christopher Hill, Assistant
Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Department of State of the United
States, attended the talks as heads of their respective delegations.
Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei chaired the talks.
The Parties listened to and endorsed the reports of the five Working Groups,
confirmed the implementation of the initial actions provided for in the February 13
agreement, agreed to push forward the Six-Party Talks process in accordance with the
consensus reached at the meetings of the Working Groups and reached agreement on
second-phase actions for the implementation of the Joint Statement of September 19,
2005, the goal of which is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a
peaceful manner.
I. On Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula
1. The DPRK agreed to disable all existing nuclear facilities subject to abandonment
under the September 2005 Joint Statement and the February 13 agreement.
The disablement of the 5-megawatt Experimental Reactor at Yongbyon, the
Reprocessing Plant (Radiochemical Laboratory) at Yongbyon and the Nuclear Fuel Rod
Fabrication Facility at Yongbyon will be completed by December 31, 2007. Specific
measures recommended by the expert group will be adopted by heads of delegation in line
with the principles of being acceptable to all Parties, scientific, safe, verifiable, and
consistent with international standards. At the request of the other Parties, the United
States will lead disablement activities and provide the initial funding for those activities.
As a first step, the U.S. side will lead the expert group to the DPRK within the next two
weeks to prepare for disablement.
2. The DPRK agreed to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear
programs in accordance with the February 13 agreement by December 31, 2007.
3. The DPRK reaffirmed its commitment not to transfer nuclear materials, technology,
or know-how.
II. On Normalization of Relations between Relevant Countries
Page 42
1. The DPRK and the United States remain committed to improving their bilateral
relations and moving towards a full diplomatic relationship. The two sides will increase
bilateral exchanges and enhance mutual trust. Recalling the commitments to begin the
process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state sponsor of terrorism and
advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act
with respect to the DPRK, the United States will fulfill its commitments to the DPRK in
parallel with the DPRK’s actions based on consensus reached at the meetings of the
Working Group on Normalization of DPRK-U.S. Relations.
2. The DPRK and Japan will make sincere efforts to normalize their relations expedi-
tiously in accordance with the Pyongyang Declaration, on the basis of the settlement of
the unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern. The DPRK and Japan
committed themselves to taking specific actions toward this end through intensive
consultations between them.
III. On Economic and Energy Assistance to the DPRK
In accordance with the February 13 agreement, economic, energy and humanitar-
ian assistance up to the equivalent of one million tons of HFO (inclusive of the 100,000
tons of HFO already delivered) will be provided to the DPRK. Specific modalities will be
finalized through discussion by the Working Group on Economy and Energy Cooperation.
IV. On the Six-Party Ministerial Meeting
The Parties reiterated that the Six-Party Ministerial Meeting will be held in Beijing
at an appropriate time.
The Parties agreed to hold a heads of delegation meeting prior to the Ministerial
Meeting to discuss the agenda for the Meeting.
The above article can be seen at:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=38057
5&rel_no=1
UN Passes Resolution
Supporting Inter-Korean
Summit
Document A/62/l4 Entitled ‘Peace,
Security and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula’
Page 43
by Ronda Hauben
Just a little over a year ago I began covering the United Nations as
a featured writer for OhmyNews International. My first day was when Ban
Ki-moon’s nomination for Secretary-General of the UN was approved by
the General Assembly. For South Korea this was an exciting event.
The next day, however, the Security Council imposed sanctions
against North Korea.
1
The dilemma of a Korea divided North and South
was a glaring contradiction facing the international community with the
appointment of a Secretary-General from the Korean peninsula. Similarly,
however, this was a challenge to the international community to support
unification on the Korean peninsula.
A little more than one year later, the General Assembly held an event
to provide needed support for Korean reunification. In the General
Assembly on Wednesday, Oct. 31, the international community approved
a resolution supporting the motion toward reunification of the two Koreas
and applauding the 2
nd
Inter-Korean Summit held October 2-4, 2007, and
the joint Declaration issued by the presidents of the two Koreas.
2
The event was held during the afternoon session of the UN’s General
Assembly. The UN delegate from North Korea, Pak Gil Yon introduced
the resolution, saying “Mr. President, I have the honor to introduce a draft
resolution contained in document A/62/L4 entitled ‘Peace, security and
reunification on the Korean peninsula.’”
He described the Oct. 2-4 summit and the declaration that resulted,
explaining that the UN resolution being proposed “welcomes and supports
the inter-Korean summit including the Declaration and encourages both
sides to implement it faithfully and in good faith, inviting member States
to support and assist the current positive process.”
The UN delegate from South Korea, Kim Hyun Chong was the next
speaker. As joint sponsor of the resolution with the delegate from North
Korea, Kim described several aspects of the peace accord that the two
parties agreed to in their declaration ending the Inter-Korean Summit.
“Through its various provisions,” he explained, “the Declaration points the
way forward for common prosperity, eventual peaceful reunification on
the Korean peninsula, and the resolution of longstanding regional
Page 44
concerns.”
Among those speaking in support of the resolution were Portugal on
behalf of the European Union, China, Vietnam, Japan, the U.S., New
Zealand, Yemen, Germany, Indonesia, Thailand, Canada, Guatemala,
Belarus, Russia, Chile, Poland, Mongolia, Mynmar, Benin, Brazil, Italy,
Bangladesh, Egypt, and Cuba.
Yemen and Germany spoke about the difficulties they had experi-
enced as divided nations, and offered whatever support they could provide
to the Korean reunification efforts. The German ambassador said that
“what we have learned from our own experience is: the separation of a
nation is not irreversible. The two Koreas will have to find their own way
of tackling these issues, but Germany stands ready, upon request, to share
its own experience from the years of German-German relations.”
The ambassador of Yemen said that they had had a long history of
division, which was changed with the unification in May 1990. He
explained that the unification was difficult and not without defects. He
understood the suffering of the divided families and duplication of
resources that the division represented and said that his country would do
what it could to support the efforts of the two Koreas to implement fully
the declaration they had issued.
The ambassador from Vietnam noted that the Summit and the
resulting Declaration were of “great historic significance.” He said that
Vietnam “welcomes and highly appreciates the encouraging outcomes of
these developments.” He noted that the events of Oct. 2-4 represented an
important milestone in the process of the improvement and development
of relations between the two Koreans which would bring them “closer to
their long-held dreams of national reunification and prosperity.” The
ambassador from Vietnam noted that his country had good relations with
the two Koreas.
The ambassador from Thailand also noted the historic nature of the
recent Summit and concluded that “this historic resolution has called for
many countries to readjust the attitude and the policy toward the situation
in the Korean peninsula.”
Indonesia’s UN ambassador similarly noted that his country has had
close ties with both North and South Korea. He, too, saw the Summit of
October 2007 as a “major milestone in inter-Korean relations.” He called
Page 45
for support from member nations to the process of “inter-Korean dialogue,
reconciliation and reunification.”
The UN ambassador from Portugal said that the EU stands ready to
contribute to the efforts.
Several nations spoke about having been part of KEDO, the Korean
Peninsula Energy Development Organization in 1996 and wanting to
continue to help in the ways they could. The ambassador from Italy said
that his country had worked to support Inter-Korean dialogue. Also Italy
was offering to provide the help it could, and had established a way to
provide aid to North Korea shortly before the Summit. Italy had been a
supporter of KEDO, as had Chile.
Benin’s UN ambassador explained that his country, too, had friendly
relations with the two sister republics on the Korean Peninsula. He
described how Benin had been working to promote peaceful reunification
of the Koreas for a number of decades. He endorsed the current develop-
ments and said that reunification would “put an end to one of the most
painful relics of the Second World War.”
Brazil expressed his support for the resolution and reminded those
in the General Assembly that Brazil had been a co-sponsor for the General
Assembly Resolution 55/11 seven years earlier supporting the first Inter-
Korean Summit of June 15, 2000.
The U.S. ambassador to the UN said that the U.S. was pleased with
the draft resolution being discussed by the General Assembly. He stressed
that dialogue between the two Koreas was essential for better relations. He
explained that this dialogue process was supportive to and complementary
to the six-party talks going on.
The Japanese ambassador also expressed his nation’s strong support
for the draft resolution. In his talk he referred to some of the specifics of
the six-party talks.
The ambassador to the UN from Chile expressed his sentiments that
Korea had one past and one destiny. The declaration from the Inter-
Korean Summit was the outcome of a difficult and sensitive process. He
explained that no state should fail to join the noble effort to support the
Korean people’s desire to become one nation.
The ambassador from Cuba to the UN was the final speaker in the
discussion before action was to be taken on the resolution. He explained
Page 46
that “Cuba has always supported and will continue to support the peaceful
reunification of the Korean peninsula.” Also he explained that the Summit
Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) held last year in
Havana stressed the importance of peace on the Korean peninsula.
Similarly the NAM Summit “expressed its support toward efforts to
reunify the Korean peninsula through the genuine aspirations and
concerted efforts of the Korean peoples themselves.”
The resolution was approved by acclamation. Ban Ki-moon was
present in the General Assembly during the discussion of the resolution.
After it was approved, he made a statement congratulating the representa-
tives of the two Koreas.
3
“Today’s date,” he explained, “coincides exactly with the date seven
years ago when the General Assembly adopted resolution 55/11, following
the June 2000 summit of the DPRK and the ROK. I welcome this
coincidence. In my homeland of Korea, it is an ancient custom to choose
an auspicious day for any celebration or new endeavor.”
“Today,” he continued, “I feel a personal obligation to do all I can
to encourage and facilitate the continuing work for peace, security and
reunification on the Korean peninsula. I am convinced that the historic
inter-Korean summit will pave the way for a permanent peace regime and
eventual reunification.”
“As Secretary-General, I stand ready to provide every assistance
required, in close cooperation with the international community,” he said,
concluding his statement.
During the press encounter he had outside of the General Assembly,
Ban was asked, “[Y]ou just said that you would like to do everything to
support peace on the Korean peninsula. Do you have any special plan in
mind, as head of the United Nations, and if so, can you please give me the
details?”
In response, Ban said, “At this time I do not have any detailed or
specific plans, but in principle, as Secretary-General, I have a broad
mandate and duty to assist any parties to the problems for smooth and
harmonious resolution. For that matter, since I served as Foreign Minister
of the Republic of Korea in the past, and I have expertise and knowledge
and experience, whenever I am needed, I will do whatever I can.”
The UN resolution supporting the movement toward reunification of
Page 47
the two Koreas, passed on the last day of October 2007 by the General
Assembly, may not seem particularly significant, but it is actually an
important event. It reflects the support of the international community for
the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula, which is one of the
important outstanding problems of our times. As the ambassador from
Benin profoundly noted, the reunification of the two Koreas would “put
an end to one of the most painful relics of the Second World War.”
The UN was created to facilitate such events. Passing this resolution
supporting the recent Inter-Korean Summit is a fitting way for the UN to
mark the one year anniversary since the General Assembly appointed a
new Secretary-General. The challenge is now for the people of the two
Koreas, the Secretary-General and the member nations to do what is
needed to support the continuing motion toward peaceful reconciliation
and Korean reunification.
Notes
1. Ronda Hauben, “The Problem Facing the U.N. Can Ban Ki-moon help solve the
problem with the Security Council?,” OhmyNews International, October 17, 2006.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?article_class=3&no=32335
1&rel_no=1
2. The Resolution reads:
United Nations A/62/L.4
General Assembly
Sixty-second session
Agenda item 167
Peace, security and reunification on the Korean peninsula
Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea: draft
resolution
Peace, security and reunification on the Korean peninsula
The General Assembly, Recalling its resolution 55/11 of 31 October 2000,
in which it welcomed and supported the inter-Korean summit and the joint
declaration adopted on 15 June 2000 by the two leaders of the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea,
Reaffirming the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United
Nations regarding the maintenance of international peace and security,
Convinced that inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation are essential for
Page 48
consolidating peace and security on the Korean peninsula and also
contribute to peace and stability in the region and beyond, in conformity
with the purposes and principles of the Charter,
Recognizing that the summit meeting held in Pyongyang from 2 to 4
October 2007 between the two leaders of the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea and the Republic of Korea and their Declaration on the Advance-
ment of North-South Korean Relations, Peace and Prosperity represent a
major milestone in improving inter-Korean relations and in advancing peace
and common prosperity on the Korean peninsula and in the wider region as
well,
Recalling the statements welcoming the inter-Korean summit made on 1
October 2007 by the Secretary-General and the President of the General
Assembly, and recalling also the statement welcoming the adoption of the
Declaration made on 4 October 2007 by the Secretary-General,
1. Welcomes and supports the inter-Korean summit held from 2 to 4
October 2007 and the Declaration on the Advancement of North-South
Korean Relations, Peace and Prosperity adopted on 4 October 2007 by the
two leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic
of Korea;
A/62/L.4
2 07-55752
2. Encourages the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic
of Korea to implement the Declaration fully and in good faith, thereby
consolidating peace on the Korean peninsula and laying a solid foundation
for peaceful reunification;
3. Invites Member States to continue to support and assist, as appropriate,
the process of inter-Korean dialogue, reconciliation and reunification so that
it may contribute to peace and security not only on the Korean peninsula
but also in northeast Asia and the world as a whole.
A/62/L.4
3. Ban’s statement:
http://www.un.org/press/en/2007/sgsm1120. doc.htm
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in OhmyNews International
on April 10, 2009]
UN Security Council
Page 49
Controversy over North
Korean Satellite Launch
Reconvening Six-party Talks or
Penalizing Pyongyang?
by Ronda Hauben
There has been a controversy among the members of the UN
Security Council (UNSC) over how to react to the April 5 launch of a
satellite by North Korea. The Security Council met for emergency
consultations on Sunday, April 5, while the P-5 and Japan have met in
other consultations after the Sunday meeting.
Japan and the U.S. have encouraged the UNSC to take strong
measures against North Korea to punish it for launching the satellite. The
Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly I. Churkin warned against a “knee
jerk” reaction and proposed that the crucial goal was to ensure the
continuation of the six-party talks toward the denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula. These talks broke down during the Bush administration
and have not yet been resumed.
The Chinese Ambassador to the UN, Zhang Yesui said that the
reaction of the Security Council had to be “cautious and proportionate.”
He said that his delegation would be most willing to consider constructive
responses.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, called the launch by North Korea, “a
clear-cut violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1718.”
She said that it is the view of the U.S. government “that this action
merits a clear and strong response from the United Nations Security
Council.”
Her position was that S.C. Resolution 1718 “prohibited missile
related activity and called on the DPRK to halt further missile related
activity.”
Vietnam, one of the elected members of the Security Council, called
for a “prudent reaction.” A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said that
Vietnam “hopes the relevant parties have a prudent reaction, find a
Page 50
reasonable solution and do not complicate the situation and affect peace
and stability in the Northeast Asia region.”
1
While Vietnam said that it was opposed to the proliferation of
nuclear weapons, an earlier statement indicated that Vietnam supports “the
rights of countries to use science and technology for peaceful purposes.”
The Japanese Ambassador to the UN, Yukio Takasu requested an
emergency consultative session of the Security Council on Sunday, April
5. His position was that North Korea’s launch of a satellite was banned by
S.C. Resolution 1718 which demands that North Korea suspend all
activities “related to its ballistic missile program.”
While S.C. Resolution 1718 explicitly demands that North Korea not
conduct any “launch of a ballistic missile,” the members of the Security
Council disagree about whether S.C. Resolution 1718 forbids the launch
of a communication satellite.
Countries advocating the position that North Korea violated S.C.
Resolution 1718, point to parts five and 8(a)ii of the resolution as the parts
violated.
Part 5 reads that the Security Council:
Decides that the DPRK shall suspend all activities related to its
ballistic missile program and in this context reestablish its
pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launch.
(S.C. Resolution 1718, p.2)
Section 8(a)ii is about member states preventing the sale or transfer
to North Korea of “materials, equipment, goods and technology as set out
in the lists…which could contribute to DPRK’s nuclear-related, ballistic
missile-related or other weapons of mass-destruction related programs.”
(S.C. Resolution 1718, p. 2-3)
North Korea was not invited to participate in the emergency
consultations of the Security Council, despite the fact that Article 32 of the
UN charter requires that a “party to a dispute under consideration by the
Security Council shall be invited to participate, without vote, in the
discussion relating to the dispute….”
Speaking to reporters at the UN on Tuesday, April 7, the Deputy
Ambassador to the UN from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
(North Korea), Pak Tok Hun said:
2
Every country has the right, the inalienable right to use the
Page 51
outer space peacefully. Not a few countries, many countries,
they have already launched satellites several hundred times.
Does it mean it would be OK for them to launch satellites but
we are not allowed to do that? It’s not fair. It’s not fair.
This is a satellite. Everyone can distinguish (a) satellite with a
missile. It’s not a missile. I know most of the countries now
recognize it’s not a missile.
A reporter asked, “But you use ballistic technology. You need
ballistic technologies.”
Pak responded:
Those countries who launch satellites use similar technology
and if the Security Council, they take any kind of step what-
ever, this is infringement on the sovereignty of our country and
the next option will be ours and necessary and strong steps will
follow that.
Along with the dispute in the Security Council over whether or not
the North Korea’s action is an actual violation of S.C. Resolution 1718,
there is a controversy over whether the thrust of the Security Council
action should be toward getting the six-party talks reconvened, or toward
penalizing North Korea in some way.
The resolution of this controversy depends predominantly upon the
U.S. because it can be argued that the U.S. was responsible for the current
breakdown of the six-party talks.
In a talk at the Korea Society in NYC last Fall, Leon Sigal of the
Social Science Research Council (SSRC) explained how the six-party
talks broke down over the issue of verification. The U.S. government had
changed the terms of the agreement unilaterally, imposing a condition on
North Korea that was not part of the original agreement.
3
The second phase of the six-party February 2007 agreement required
disabling the reactor, and other processes at Yongbyon and declaring the
nuclear material and equipment which were to be eliminated in Phase 3 of
the agreed actions.
The Bush administration was obligated to provide ‘action for action’
in response to North Korea’s disabling the reactor and other steps.
The verification was to occur only later in the six-party talk process,
in Phase 3 “when the dismantling of the North’s nuclear facilities and
Page 52
elimination of any plutonium or weapons it has would be taken up.”
Instead the U.S. continued to press for a verification agreement during
Phase 2 of the agreement.
Most of the mainstream U.S. media, with the exception of an
important article in the Washington Post, failed to explain the reason for
the breakdown in the talks.
4
The Washington Post article which docu-
mented how the hostile U.S. State Department environment eroded the
process of negotiation between the U.S. government and North Korea, was
only carried on page 20 of the newspaper. It described how U.S. govern-
ment hardliners fashioned a verification procedure to be imposed on North
Korea which was in the words of an expert in nuclear disarmament akin
to “a license to spy on any military site they (North Korea) have.”
By launching a satellite rather than a ballistic missile, North Korea
has avoided violation of the ballistic missile sections of S.C. Resolution
1718. This gives the U.S. a chance to respond by returning to the
six-party-talks and seeking to finish Phase 2 before requiring verification
in Phase 3 of the process.
The Security Council has this opportunity to call for all parties to
cease any obstruction and to return to the six-party talks and to intensify
their efforts to complete Phase 2 and enter the next phase of the agreed
path to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Notes
1. Vietnam calls for ‘prudent’ reaction to DPRK rocket, April 5, 2009.
2. Pak Tok Hun, Deputy Ambassador from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
(North Korea) to the UN, speaking to reporters at the UN on Tuesday, April 7, 2009.
http://webcast. un.org/ramgen/ondemand/stakeout/2009/so090407pm2.rm
3. Ronda Hauben, “U.S. Media and the Breakdown in the Six-Party Talks,” OhmyNews
International, Sept. 29, 2008.
4. Glenn Kessler, “Far reaching U.S. Plan Impaired N. Korea Deal: Demands Began to
Undo Nuclear Accord,” Washington Post, Friday, Sept. 26, 2008; Page A20.
Page 53
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in OhmyNews International
on April 17, 2009]
Security Council’s Ad Hoc Actions In-
crease Tension on Korean Peninsula
[Analysis] North Korea Responds by Withdrawing
from Six-Party Talks as Promised
by Ronda Hauben
On April 13, 2009, the UN Security Council (UNSC) issued a
presidential statement condemning North Korea’s satellite launch on April
5. The Security Council statement declared the launch “in contravention”
of UNSC Resolution 1718 (2006), even though there was no wording in
the 2006 statement against satellite launches. In the 2009 statement, the
Security Council demanded North Korea not conduct further launches,
including of satellites. The presidential statement also mandated that new
sanctions would be added to the sanction’s list in the 2006 resolution.
Usually, a presidential statement issued by the Security Council is
considered a non binding statement. Suddenly, the Security Council has
changed its processes, using a presidential statement to deny North Korea
the right to launch satellites, and to impose a new set of sanctions.
South Korea has recently noted that the trajectory of the North
Korean launch was indeed the trajectory for a satellite launch.
1
Lee
Sang-hee, the South Korean Defense Minister, in response to a question
asked during a hearing held in South Korea’s National Assembly, replied
Page 54
that “The rocket launched by the North followed the trajectory of a
satellite and later separated in its final two stages before crashing into the
Pacific Ocean.” South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported the
minister’s remarks, adding that these remarks were an official acknowl-
edgment that the rocket was the effort to launch a satellite, not a ballistic
missile.
UNSC resolution 1718 (2006) demands North Korea not conduct any
launch of ballistic missiles, but does not refer to satellite launches.
2
Pak Tok-hun, the North Korean Deputy Ambassador to the UN,
referred to the fact that his country is being denied a right that other
countries have, and that this treatment is not “fair.” In an interview with
Aljazeera, the Ambassador said that if the Security Council acted against
his country for its satellite launch, North Korea would respond with harsh
measures.
3
The Ambassador noted that Japan has launched satellites more than
100 times and other countries like the U.S. has launched satellites and the
Security Council has not taken up the issue. He complained that North
Korea is being treated in a way that is different from how other countries
are treated.
Some of what is striking about the action by the Security Council is
the closed process used to consider the issue. There was no public
discussion. There were several closed meetings, called consultations,
among the P-5 members and Japan. During these meetings journalists
were told the P-5 and Japan discussed what the response of the Security
Council should be to North Korea’s launch.
After there was agreement among the P-5 and Japan on what was to
be contained in a presidential statement on the launch, the statement was
presented to the other elected members of the Security Council for their
approval. Despite the obligation specified in Article 32 of the UN Charter
that a nation that is a party to an issue being discussed by the Security
Council be invited to the Security Council for the discussion, no such
invitation was made, according to sources on the Security Council.
Similarly, though several of the nations on the Security Council
indicated that they favored the resumption of the six-party talks as a way
to deal with the launch by North Korea, there was no indication that there
was any consideration by the Security Council of what led to the
Page 55
breakdown of the six-party talks. The U.S. government’s effort to require
verification in Phase 2 of the six-party Feb. 2007 agreement, rather than
in Phase 3, as had been agreed to by the six-parties was not discussed in
the Security Council.
Instead of the Security Council members considering the problem
which derailed the talks, they agreed to impose new sanctions on North
Korea. Since no new Security Council resolution was being issued, there
was no appropriate means of issuing new sanctions. They resorted to
acting in an ad-hoc manner when they announced they would use a
presidential statement to add new sanctions to Security Council resolution
1718 issued in 2006.
One journalist, at the press stakeout after the Security Council
meeting issuing the presidential statement, asked:
4
Mr. Ambassador, Does this presidential statement set a
precedent whereby in the future, if you want to adjust the
sanctions, supposedly for example for Iran, you can issue
another presidential statement to change the content of the
sanctions in a resolution? Is this legally speaking, a precedent?
Baki Ilkin, Turkey’s Ambassador to the UN, who is the head of the
UNSC Resolution 1718 sanctions committee, responded:
I am a newcomer. I wish you had asked the previous speakers
(Several Security Council Ambassadors had spoken before
Ambassador Ilkin at the stakeout-ed).
After the Security Council issued its presidential statement, North
Korea announced it is leaving the six-party talks. It announced that it does
not recognize the actions of the Security Council condemning its satellite
launch. There is justification for North Korea’s actions. Yet much of the
mainstream media in the U.S. frames North Korea’s reasonable response
as but an indication of how unreasonable it behaves.
North Korea has asked that the IAEA and U.S. inspectors leave
North Korea. It says it will resume its nuclear deterrent development, as
North Korean Deputy Ambassador Pak Tok-hun promised would happen
if the Security Council acted to condemn North Korea. The Ambassador
told Aljazeera and other media that the Security Council could expect
strong measures in response to any action against North Korea. “We don’t
say empty talk. What we say is what we do,” the Ambassador told
Page 56
journalists.
Notes
1. “S. Korean govt. admits DPRK rocket followed satellite trajectory,” Xinhuanet, April
14, 2009.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/ english/2009-04/14/content_11185140.htm
2. Ronda Hauben, “Every country has the inalienable right to use the outer space
peacefully: UN Security Council Controversy over North Korean Satellite Launch,”
Telepolis, April 8, 2009.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/30/30099/1.html
3. Aljazeera Interview with North Korean Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Pak Tok-hun,
April 14, 2009.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjEIvw7I5Ow
4. “UN Media Stakeout: Informal comments to the Media by the Permanent Representa-
tive of Turkey, H. E. Mr. Baki Ilkin, on Non-proliferation/Democratic People’s Republic
of Korea. April 13, 2009.”
http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ondemand/stakeout/ 2009/
so090413pm7.rm
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in OhmyNews International
on June 12, 2009]
U.S. Policy Toward North
Korea Fails to Engage
[Opinion] UN Security Council Should be Neutral in
its Dealings with North Korea
by Ronda Hauben
U.S. policy toward North Korea since Barack Obama assumed the
U.S. presidency is very different from the promises of engagement which
he made during his election campaign. This policy presents a striking
example of the disparity between pre election promises and the action
taken thus far during the Obama presidency.
On the first day of the new administration, sanctions were authorized
against three North Korean firms under the Arms Export Control Act,
Page 57
along with several nonproliferation executive orders. The three firms were
KOMID, which had been sanctioned by other administrations, Sino-Ki and
Moksong Trading Company, which were being sanctioned for the first
time.
1
The hostile direction of Obama’s policy, however, has been signaled
most clearly by the change made when the new administration failed to
reappoint Christopher Hill to his position as Assistant Secretary of State
for East Asia and the head of the U.S. negotiation team for the six-party
talks with North Korea.
Not only was Hill not reappointed, but the role of U.S. negotiator
with North Korea was downgraded and split among several different
officials. A part time position was created for an envoy. Another person
would be the U.S. representative to the six-party talks. And still another
official was to be appointed to the position of Assistant Secretary of State
for East Asia, which was Hill’s former position.
Stephen Bosworth accepted the position as envoy. His official title
is Special Representative for North Korea Policy. Bosworth did so on a
part time basis. At the same time, he maintained his full time position as
Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University
along with his new part time job.
There has been little public discussion about why the Obama
administration made such significant changes. The Boston Globe, in an
article about Bosworth’s appointment, refers to the concerns expressed by
Leon Sigal, the director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project
at the Social Science Research Council in New York. The article quotes
Sigal saying that there are officials in the new administration, “who don’t
think we can get anywhere, so they don’t want to do the political heavy
lifting to try.”
2
In contrast to the loss of Hill as a negotiator with North Korea, the
Obama administration reappointed Stuart Levey, as the Under Secretary
of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. Levey’s office
in the Treasury Department, was created in 2004 under George W. Bush.
This office was used to impose economic sanctions on North Korea. One
such action was the freezing of funds that North Korea had in a bank in
Macao, China, the Banco Delta Asia (BDA).
North Korea was not only denied access to U.S. $25 million, but it
Page 58
was also denied the use of the international banking system. This freezing
of North Korean funds was announced shortly after North Korea and the
five other nations who were part of the six-party talks signed the Septem-
ber 19, 2005 agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
3
The
announcement by the Treasury Department sabotaged the implementation
of this important agreement which would have gone a long way toward the
goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. North Korea withdrew from
the six-party talks until the $25 million was returned.
4
It is significant here to note that Levey and his office briefly came
under public scrutiny in 2006 when the New York Times published an
article exposing how the office has access to and uses the SWIFT Data
Base to do intelligence work targeting people and transactions that it
claims are in violation of U.S. law.
5
The SWIFT Data Base contains the
transactions and identification information for the hundreds of thousands
of people and entities that do electronic banking transactions using the
SWIFT system.
The action by the U.S. Treasury using a section of the Patriot Act
against the Banco Delta Asia Bank, however, demonstrated that the U.S.
government has the ability to use this data base information against those
it wants to target politically, rather than those who have committed any
actual illegal acts. Testimony by former U.S. government officials to the
U.S. Congress, and documents submitted to the U.S. government by the
bank owner and his lawyer, demonstrated that there was never any
evidence offered of any illegal acts. Instead the Patriot Act had been used
to allow the U.S. government to act against this bank for political
objectives. (See “Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the
policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?”)
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c104
00&no=362192&rel_no=1
The new positions, designated to negotiate with North Korea, are at
a lower administrative level than was Hill’s former position. In addition,
the Obama administration, by not reappointing Hill, has lost his valuable
expertise. Hill had effectively countered the sabotage to negotiations
caused by Levey’s office during the Bush administration.
Hill was met with opposition from some in the Bush administration
at each step along the way. Remarkably, Hill effectively countered much
Page 59
of this opposition, making progress in the negotiations. In August 2008,
however, the Bush administration unilaterally changed what it claimed
North Korea’s obligations were as part of Phase 2 of the six-party Feb.
2007 agreement, and falsely declared that North Korea was in violation.
6
With Hill gone from the North Korean desk at the State Department,
and Levey reappointed to his position at the Treasury Department, it is
significant that Obama sent an inter-agency group to visit the capitals of
Japan, South Korea and China to discuss punishments for North Korea.
Levey was featured as one of the U.S. government officials on the trip.
But is punishment appropriate? There has been no similar effort to
open negotiations with North Korea.
Instead, the U.S. administration has given its support to Levey and
others whose actions have sabotaged the success of the six-party talks.
This failure of the Obama administration is similar to previous U.S. policy
on North Korea.
Robert Carlin, part of the U.S. government negotiation team with
North Korea under the Clinton Administration, documents that there were
significant and successful negotiations on 22 issues carried out in the
period between 1993 and 2000.
7
These achievements, however, could not
survive into the transition to the Bush Administration.
Similarly, Mike Chinoy, a former CNN journalist, in his book
Meltdown, documents both the Clinton years and much of the Bush years.
He chronicles how negotiations were torpedoed not by North Korea, but
by forces within the U.S. government itself.
8
In addition, the U.S. conducts frequent military maneuvers close to
North Korea which North Korea has claimed as a threat to its peace and
security.
On April 5, 2009, North Korea test launched a communications
satellite using a rocket of advanced design. This test broke no international
law or treaty to which North Korea is a party.
9
Still the launch was
condemned by the UN Security Council in a Presidential Statement. Also
new sanctions were imposed on North Korea, stating as authority, a
previous Security Council Resolution 1718.
10
North Korea has been the target of hostile acts by the U.S. North
Korea has tested rockets and has done tests of two nuclear devices, which
it claims it needs as a deterrent. The U.S. has military agreements with
Page 60
Japan and South Korea, including them under the protection of the U.S.
nuclear umbrella. There is only an armistice ending the fighting of the
Korean War. The U.S. as the head of the UN command has not been
willing to negotiate a treaty ending the Korean War.
The failure of the UN Security Council to explore North Korea’s
problems in trying to check U.S. hostility demonstrates its failure to carry
out its obligations under the UN Charter. The failure of the Security
Council to protect Iraq from U.S. invasion is a warning that the Security
Council should reform its processes so that it doesn’t just become a
vehicle for the political targeting of a nation as happened with Iraq.
11
In his comments to journalists in response to the sanctions put on
North Korea in April 2009, the Deputy Ambassador to the UN from North
Korea, Pak Tok Hun said, “The recent activity of the security council
concerning the peaceful use of outer space by my country shows that
unless the security council is totally reformed and democratized we expect
nothing from it.”
12
The challenge to the nations of the UN is to provide a more neutral
and considered investigation of the problem it is trying to solve rather than
just carrying out the punishment a P-5 nation may endeavor to inflict on
another nation.
Notes
1. Karin Lee and Julia Choi, “North Korea: Unilateral and Multilateral Economic
Sanctions and U.S. Department of the Treasury Actions, 1955-April 2009,” National
C o m m i t t e e o n N o r t h K o r e a , p . 2 6 .
http://nautilus.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/09035Lee Choi.pdf
2. James F. Smith, “In role as envoy, Tufts dean carries hard-earned lessons,” The Boston
Globe, May 26, 2009.
http://archive.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2009/05/26/in_role_as_envoy_tufts_de
an_carries_hard_earned_lessons/
3. Ronda Hauben, “North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta Asia: Another Abuse
under the U.S. Patriot Act,” OhmyNews International, March 3, 2007.
http://english.ohmynews.com/ articleview/article_view.asp?no=351525&rel_no=1
4. Ronda Hauben, “Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the policy aimed at
targeting China as well as North Korea?,” OhmyNews International, May 18, 2007.
http://english.ohmy news.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=362192&rel_no=1
5. Erick Lichtblau and James Risen, “Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block
Terror,” New York Times, June 23, 2006.
Page 61
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/washington/23intel.html?_r=1
6. Ronda Hauben, “U.S. Media and the Breakdown in the Six-Party Talks,” OhmyNews
International, September 28, 2008.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=383769&rel_no=1
7. Robert Carlin, “Negotiating with North Korea: Lessons Learned and Forgotten,” Korea
Yearbook 2007, Edited by Rudiger Frank et al, Brill, 2007, p. 235-251.
8. Mike Chinoy, Meltdown, St. Martin’s Press, 2008.
9. Ronda Hauben, “Controversy at UN Over North Korea’s Launch: Reconvening
six-party talks or penalizing Pyongyang?,” OhmyNews International, April 10, 2009.
http://english.ohmy news.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385061&rel_no=1
10. Ronda Hauben, “Security Council’s Ad Hoc Actions Increase Tension on Korean
Peninsula: [Analysis] North Korea responds by withdrawing from six-party talks as
promised,” OhmyNews International, April 17, 2009.
http://english.ohmynews.com/
articleview/article_view.asp?no=385093&rel_no=1
11. Seumas Milne, “After Iraq It’s Not Just North Korea that Wants a Bomb,” Guardian
Comment Is Free, May 29, 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/27/north-korea-nuclear-weapons-us
12. Pak Tok Hun, Informal Comments to the Media at the UN Media Stakeout, April 24,
2009. http://webcast.un.org/ramgen/ ondemand/stakeout/2009/so090424pm2.rm
[Editor’s note: The following article first appeared on the netizenblog on
June 26, 2013 at:
https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/06/26/us-misrepresents-its-role-as
-un-command/]
U.S. Misrepresents its Role in Korean
War and in
Armistice Agreement as UN Command
Page 62
by Ronda Hauben
July 27 of this year will be an important anniversary. It will be the
60
th
anniversary of the Armistice Agreement which provided the means to
end the hostilities of the Korean War.
The armistice was recognized as a temporary means to stop the
military action. It included a recommendation that it be followed by a
political conference three months later to hammer out a political agree-
ment which would serve as a peace treaty ending the Korean war. The
political conference has never been held. And no means has yet been
created to settle the unresolved issues of the Korean War.
At the UN on Friday, June 21, the permanent mission of the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), more commonly known
as North Korea, held a press conference.
1
Sin Son Ho, DPRK’s Ambassa-
dor to the United Nations, presented journalists with a statement outlining
the background of a serious problem remaining from the Korean War, a
problem that needs to be resolved if the tension on the Korean Peninsula
is not to escalate.
He documented how the United States, without any authority from
the United Nations, changed the name of the Unified Command it was to
direct, to the name ‘UN Command’. This change falsifies the nature of the
U.S. role in the Korean War and in the Armistice, making it appear that
the U.S. is acting under the authority of the United Nations. The decisions
made by what is called the ‘UN Command’ are made by the U.S. The U.S.
is not acting as a subsidiary or representative of the UN when it acts under
the name of the “UN Command.” Yet the false appearance given is that
the U.S. is acting under the authority of the UN.
The DPRK Ambassador explained how this misrepresentation was
accomplished by the U.S. in July 1950. On July 7, a Security Council
Resolution (S.C. 84, 1950) was passed putting the U.S. as the head of what
was called in the resolution the Unified Command, but with no oversight
obligations by the UN for the actions of the U.S. On July 25, 1950, the
U.S. submitted a report to the Security Council in which it replaced the
name Unified Command with the name ‘UN Command.’
Subsequently, the U.S. uses the designation UN Command despite
Page 63
the fact that this creates a false impression that there is a role played by the
UN in Korean Armistice activities. The U.S. even uses UN Command as
its designation in the actual Armistice Agreement.
The DPRK has at various times tried to get the U.S. to drop its
misleading use of the title UN Command. In November 1975, Resolution
3390 (XXX) B was passed by the UN General Assembly calling for
negotiations between the relevant parties so that the U.S. would no longer
use the misleading designation ‘UN Command’ to represent the U.S.
military role. The U.S. has not fulfilled on the obligation to carry out these
negotiations. Instead the U.S. at the time argued that changing its
designation as the UN Command would affect the oversight provisions
provided for in the Armistice Agreement.
Subsequently, the DPRK points out that in the 60 years since the
Armistice Agreement was signed, any oversight provisions it may have
included no longer exist and the actual decisions regarding the agreement
currently are made through negotiations between the Korean People’s
Army (KPA) and the U.S. military authority.
In view of the facts, Ambassador Sin said, the existence of the UN
Command is an “anachronism.” Instead of agreeing to dissolve it,
however, he explained, the U.S. is projecting that it can serve as a
“multinational force command” which would constitute the “matrix of an
Asian version of NATO.”
Two former UN Secretary-Generals have spoken out against the
continuing use by the U.S. military of the name ‘UN Command.’
Ambassador Sin noted that both Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan
have gone on record confirming that there is no UN military activity
related to the U.S. claim that it is the UN Command.
At the June 21 noon press briefing by the Deputy Spokesman for UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a question was raised asking for Ban Ki-
moon’s views on the issue. The journalist asked:
2
As I am sure you know, just now, Sin Son Ho, the Permanent
Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,
held a press conference in which he said he called for the
dismantling of the “UN Command” uh, in South Korea, and he
said it is not really a UN body at all, and quoted Boutros
Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan to that effect. So what I wonder
Page 64
is as, as, the office of the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, as
the head of the UN system, has, does he, what is his position
on the legal status in terms of the UN of the ‘UN Command’?
And separately, does he have any, what…would be, what’s his
response to a call to, to dismantle this entity?
In apparent agreement with the DPRK, Deputy Spokesperson for the
Secretary-General, Eduardo del Buey responded:
But the United Nations has never had any role in the command
of any armed forces deployed in the Korean peninsula. In
particular, the United Nations did not at any time have any role
in the command of the forces that operated in Korea under the
Unified Command between 1950 and 1953.
In response, to the part of the question relating to Ban Ki-moon’s
view on the U.S. representing itself as the UN Command, the Deputy
Spokesperson promised a future reply. He noted that:
Well, first of all, as you know, the Secretary-General is just
getting off the plane from China now, so he is going to be
reading the transcript of the statement by the Permanent
Representative of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,
and we’ll have something later on to say.
To an e-mail asking for further clarification of the Secretary-General’s
view about the DPRK’s call for the dissolution of the ‘UN Command,’ the
Deputy Spokesperson answered by referring to the Secretary-General’s
view that with respect to an issue related to the Armistice Agreement:
3
This is a matter for the parties to the Agreement. The United
Nations is not party to the Armistice Agreement.
Does this mean Ban Ki-moon believes that the misuse of the UN
name by the U.S. is an issue to be solved by the parties to the Armistice
Agreement, and is not a concern for the UN?
In his press briefing Ambassador Sin said that if the U.S. did not
dissolve the UN Command, the DPRK is considering once again pursuing
this issue at the UN General Assembly, which in November 1975 had
already urged the U.S. to dissolve the UN Command (See 3390(XXX)B
1975).
Ambassador Sin explained that “due to the existence of the ‘UN
Command’, the security mechanism on the Korean peninsula has become
Page 65
war-oriented not peace-oriented.”
“In other words,” he elaborated, “the existence of the ‘UN Com-
mand’ is not serving the peace building efforts on the Korean peninsula.
On the contrary, it is the root of evil or tumor laying a stepping stone for
the U.S. armed forces of aggression toward the DPRK and the realization
of the America’s Pivot to Asia strategy.”
Ambassador Sin proposed that “If the United States has real
intention to put an end to hostile relation with the DPRK, it should make
the right decision to dissolve the ‘UN Command’ and replace the
Armistice Agreement with a peace regime as proposed by the DPRK this
year when we mark the 60
th
year since the Armistice Agreement was
signed.”
Notes
1. Press conference June 21, 2013, Ambassador Sin Son Ho at the UN.
http://webtv.un.org/media/press-conferences/watch/ ambassador-sin-son-ho-the-
permanent-representative-of-the-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea-to-the-un-press-
conference/2498682301001
A text version of the statement presented is online at:
http://www.4thmedia.org/2013/06/26/illegitimacy-and-injustice-of-the-un-command-in-
south-korea-dprk-calls-for-its-immediate-dissolution/ For an earlier version of the
statement, see: KCNA, “DPRK Foreign Ministry Issues Memorandum” January 14, 2013.
2. Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General June
21, 2013.
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/db130621.doc.htm
3. E-mail from Eduardo del Buey on June 25, 2013.
[Editor’s note: The following article first appeared on the netizenblog on
August 31, 2013 at:
Page 66
http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/08/31/united-nations-command-as-
camouflage/]
United Nations Command As Camou-
flage:
On the Role of the UN in the Unending
Korean War
by Ronda Hauben
I – Some Background
The story of the Korean War is a story not often told. Yet sixty years
after the agreement to end the military hostilities on July 27, 1953, there
is not yet a peace treaty to end the war. This article on the occasion of the
60
th
Anniversary of the Armistice Agreement is intended as a contribution
to the body of research and study needed to find the underlying cause of
the bottleneck impeding the negotiation of a peace treaty so a break-
through can be made.
Korea, which had been one nation for over 1000 years, had been
forcibly divided at the end of WWII. By the UN legitimating an election
in the South of Korea in May 1948 which was boycotted by many Koreans
and from which all North Koreans and many South Koreans were
excluded, a formal structural division was created which continues until
today.
1
The significant aspect of the UN supported election was that it led
to an official government structure for only the southern part of Korea,
thus solidifying the division of Korea. The government structure created
in the South by the election was a repressive government structure. One
view of the military conflict that became known as the Korean War was
that it was a civil war that was trying to restore Korea as one country.
The U.S. Government response to the fighting which broke out in
June 1950 in Korea was to perpetuate support for the repressive govern-
ment that the U.S. and UN had put in place as the Republic of Korea
(more commonly known as South Korea). This is the context in which the
Page 67
United Nations Security Council resolutions of June and July 1950
authorizing UN participation in the Korean War took place.
The question that led me to begin this study was:
What Was the Role of the UN in the Korean War and What Should be the
Role of the UN in Bringing an End to the War?
It is important to take into account that before any action was taken
on the part of the UN on June 27, 1950 authorizing intervention in the
Korean War, the U.S. had decided and began to send military support to
the South Korean side of the conflict. The independent journalist, I.F.
Stone in his book, “The Hidden History of the Korean War,” describes this
U.S. action as forcing the UN Security Council to support the U.S.
Government action in Korea.
2
Stone writes:
When Truman ‘ordered the United States air and sea forces to
give the Korean Government troops cover and support’ he was
in effect imposing military sanctions before they had been
authorized by the Security Council. The Council had to vote
sanctions or put itself in the position of opposing the action
taken by the United States. For governments dependent on
American bounty and themselves fearful of Soviet expansion,
that was too much to expect, though again Yugoslavia had the
courage to vote ‘No,’ an act of principle for which it got no
credit from the Soviet bloc while antagonizing the United
States to which it owed its Council seat.
By acting before the Security Council could act, the U.S. was in
violation of Article 2(7) of the UN Charter which requires a Security
Council action under Chapter VII before there is any armed intervention
into the internal affairs of another nation unless the arms are used in self-
defense. (See Article 51 of the UN Charter. The U.S. armed intervention
in Korea was clearly not an act of self defense for the U.S.) Also the
actions of the UN have come to be referred to as the actions of the “United
Nations Command”(UNC), but this designation is not to be found in the
June and July 1950 Security Council resolutions authorizing participation
in the Korean War.
3
What is the significance of the U.S. using the UN in
these ways?
The current U.S. military command in South Korea claims to wear
Page 68
three hats: Command of U.S. troops in South Korea, Combined Forces
Command (U.S. and South Korean troops), and “United Nations Com-
mand” with responsibilities with respect to the Armistice. The United
Nations, however, has no role in the oversight or decision making
processes of the “United Nations Command.” The U.S. Government is in
control of the “United Nations Command.” The use by the U.S. of the
designation “United Nations Command,” however, creates and perpetuates
the misconception that the UN is in control of the actions and decisions
taken by the U.S. under the “United Nations Command.”
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (more commonly
referred to as North Korea) has called for disbanding the “United Nations
Command”(UN Command). At a press conference held at the United
Nations on June 21, 2013, the North Korean Ambassador to the UN,
Ambassador Sin Son Ho argued that the actions of the U.S. Government
using the designation “United Nations Command” are not under any form
of control by the United Nations.
4
Since the UN has no role in the decision
making process of what the U.S. does under the title of the “United
Nations Command,” North Korea contends the U.S. should cease its claim
that it is acting as the “United Nations Command.”
II – UN Authorized “Unified Command”
Looking at the Security Council resolutions related to Korea that
were passed in June and July 1950, it is clear that the content of these
resolutions supports North Korea’s argument. During this period the UN
Security Council passed four resolutions. They are:
S.C. 82 (V)-S/1501 on June 25, 1950
S.C. 83 (V)-S/1511 on June 27, 1950
S.C. 84 (V)-S/1588 on July 7, 1950
S.C. 85 (V)-S/1657 July 31, 1950
None of these resolutions refers to a “United Nations Command” or
gives the United States permission to call itself the United Nations
Command.
The last two of these resolutions refer to a “Unified Command.” S.C.
Resolution 84 of July 7, 1950 is the first Security Council resolution to
refer to the creation of a “Unified Command.” The language of the
resolution says that the Security Council, “Recommends that all members
Page 69
providing forces and other assistance pursuant to the aforesaid Security
Council resolution make such forces and other assistance available to a
Unified Command under the United States of America.”
The resolution states that the Security Council requests the United
States to designate the commander of such forces, and it authorizes the
“Unified Command” at its discretion to use the United Nations flag
“concurrently with the flags of the various nations participating.”
S.C. Resolution 84 also made the request that “the United
States…provide the Security Council with reports as appropriate on the
course of action taken under the Unified Command.”
In subsequent action by the Security Council during this period, the
members of the Security Council, were careful to refer to the U.S.
command of the Korean War forces related to the United Nations as the
“Unified Command.”
Therefore, when reviewing the action by the U.S. to designate itself
as the “United Nations Command,” the question is raised as to how, why
and by whom the designation “United Nations Command” was substituted
for the Security Council designation of a “Unified Command.”
S.C. Resolution 84 was passed on July 7 using the designation
“Unified Command.” The following day, on July 8, the U.S. President
Harry Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur to head this
Command. A Memo referring to this appointment, states that with this
appointment, General MacArthur was designated as the Commander of the
“Unified Command.”
5
In the period immediately following the passing of UN Security
Council Resolution 84, U.S. Ambassador Warren Austin refers to the U.S.
government command as the “Unified Command.”
For example, “A Letter to the UN Secretary-General from Warren
Austin, U.S. Ambassador to the UN,” on July 12, says:
(…)I have the honor to inform you that the President of the
United States, in response to the Security Council resolution of
7 July 1950, has on 8 July designated General Douglas
MacArthur as the Commanding General of the military forces
which the Members of the United Nations place under the
Unified Command of the United States pursuant to the United
Nations effort to assist the Republic of Korea.
Page 70
Similarly the “Unified Command” was the designation used in a
letter dated 24 July 1950 transmitting the first Report from General
MacArthur to the Security Council. The Report is titled, “First Report to
the Security Council by the United States Government on the course of
action taken under the Unified Command (USG).”
III – U.S. Substitutes “United Nations Command” as
Camouflage
It appears that it was in a U.S. Government communiqué dated July
25 that the designation “UN Command” was first officially used in a U.S.
Government communication to the UN. This document was titled,
“Communique Number 135 of the Far East Command S/1629 25 July
1950.” It states:
The United Nations Command with Headquarters in Tokyo
was officially established today with General Douglas MacAr-
thur as Commander-in-Chief. The announcement was made in
General Order No. 1, General Headquarters, United Nations
Command. The order reads:
1. In response to the resolution of the Security Council of the
United Nations of July 7, 1950, the President of the United
States has designated the undersigned Commander-in-Chief of
the Military Forces this date the United Nations Command.
Pursuant thereto, there is established this date the United
Nations Command, with General Headquarters in Tokyo,
Japan.
According to this communiqué dated July 25, 1950, it is the
President of the United States not the United Nations that was responsible
for creating the designation “United Nations Command,” as a replacement
for the UN authorized “Unified Command.” The communiqué alleges that
this was done to fulfill the obligations of S.C. Resolution 84 of July 7. It
is evident, however, from reading the resolution of July 7 that there is no
reference in that resolution to a “United Nations Command.”
Why did the U.S. government substitute the designation “United
Nations Command” for the Security Council designation “Unified
Command” after initially referring to the designation of “Unified
Page 71
Command,” language which was actually provided for in the Security
Council resolution of July 7?
There are accounts that are helpful in understanding what was going
on behind the scenes at the time that can give clues to solve this puzzle.
One such account is provided by an article by James W Houck titled, “The
Command and Control of United Nation Forces In the Era of Peace
Enforcement.”
6
At the time he wrote this article in the early 1990s, Houck
was Force Judge Advocate for the Commander of the U.S. Naval Forces
Central Command in Bahrain.
Houck writes that UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie and some of the
countries on the Security Council, namely the U.K., France and Norway
were in favor of creating a structure to provide for a United Nations role
in the Korean operations.
Houck describes how, “During the negotiations preceding authoriza-
tion of the unified command, Secretary-General Trygve Lie had proposed
a ‘committee as coordination of assistance for Korea’ consisting of troop
contributing states and the Republic of Korea.”
7
While the explicit purpose of the committee, Secretary-General Lie
explained, was, “to stimulate and coordinate offers of assistance, its deeper
purpose was to keep the United Nations ‘in the picture’,” as Lie himself
writes in his recollections of his seven-year term as UN Secretary-General.
He explains that his purpose was, “to promote continuing United Nations
participation in and supervision of the military security action in Korea of
a more intimate and undistracted character than the Security Council could
be expected to provide.”
8
The U.S., however, was opposed to the idea of such a supervisory
committee and had the power to turn it down. This effectively left the U.S.
in control of the decisions regarding what was to be done in the UN
authorized operations of the Korean War.
“From the start of the Korean conflict,” Houck explains, “the United
States exercised both political control and strategic direction over the
operation.”
9
Though the Security Council authorized the U.S. intervention
in the Korean War, the Security Council failed to fulfill its obligation
under the UN Charter to act as the political authority for military actions
taken under the authority of the UN Security Council.
10
Implicit in Chapter
7 of the UN Charter is that it is the Security Council that can exercise
Page 72
force not that it can cede its authority to others.
Instead of the United Nations fulfilling its charter obligations,
however, as Houck documents, “The United Nations, did not interfere at
all in the purely military aspects of the operation and even in political
matters it confined itself to making recommendations.”
Corroborating Houck’s account, a military historian, James Schnabel
in his account of the first year of the Korean War, describes why the U.S.
government was opposed to the Committee favored by Trygve Lie and
several Security Council members. Schnabel explains that the response of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff was to oppose such a project. They were hostile
to the potential of such a committee to try to control military operations.
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Schnabel writes, “wanted a command
arrangement in which the United States, as executive agent for the United
Nations, would direct the Korean operation, with no positive contact
between the field commander and the United Nations.”
11
Though the U.S. Government had turned down the political oversight
committee proposed by the Secretary-General, there was, according to
Schnabel, a recognition that the unilateral political and military control the
U.S. Government exercised over the “Unified Command” was problem-
atic. The Chiefs of Staff directed MacArthur “to avoid any appearance of
unilateral American action in Korea.”
As Schnabel writes,”For worldwide political reasons,” the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, directed that, “it is important to emphasize repeatedly the
fact our operations are in support of the United Nations Security Council.”
According to Schnabel, “this led General MacArthur to identify
himself whenever practicable as Commander-in-Chief, United Nations
Command (CINCUNC), and whenever justified, would emphasize in his
communiqués the activities of forces of other member nations.”
Noting that the State Department proposed to the Secretary of
Defense that reports be sent to the Security Council each week, Schnabel
writes, “These would keep world attention on the fact that the United
States was fighting in Korea for the United Nations, not itself.” But these
reports were not required and were not a mechanism for UN supervision
over the U.S. activities or decision making processes.
Decisions on the operations of MacArthur’s command were made by
the U.S. Government, writes Schnabel. The United Nations at no time in
Page 73
the Korean War sought to interfere in the control of operations which were
the responsibility of the United States. As MacArthur later testified to a
Senate investigating committee, “…my connections with the United
Nations was largely nominal…everything I did came from our own Chiefs
of Staff…. The controls over me were exactly the same as though the
forces under me were all Americans. All of my communications were to
the American high command here.”
12
IV – “United Nations Command” as
Achilles Heel
UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie, however, points out that the
insistence on unilateral control of the conduct of the War waged in Korea
by the U.S. had its Achilles heel. Lie wrote, “As the Korean War
developed, Washington complained, and had reason to complain, that the
United States was carrying too much of a burden; but its unwillingness, in
those early days, when the pattern of the police action was being set, to
accord the United Nations a larger measure of direction and thereby
participation no doubt contributed to the tendency of the Members to let
Washington assume most of the responsibility for the fighting.”
13
So an interesting anomaly emerges. The UN resolution authorizing
military action in Korea spoke about a “Unified Command” and the
original resolution the UN Secretary-General proposed included a
mechanism for the UN to supervise the military action. This control was
rejected by the U.S. government, and it appears, the UN never pressed to
exert its supervision over the conduct of the Korean War. This control was
thus ceded to the U.S. government.
While the U.S. government had total control over the Korean
campaign it was waging, it appears that it also needed a means to
camouflage the unilateral nature of this operation. The designation
“United Nations Command,” which the U.S. government assigned to its
operation, replaced the designation of the “Unified Command” described
in Security Council Resolution 84. This change of name provided the
camouflage to hide the unilateral nature of the U.S. command and control
and of its conduct of the war against North Korea.
The U.S. Government needed the appearance that its unilateral
Page 74
actions were on behalf of and under the United Nations. This was provided
by changing the designation of the Command from the “Unified Com-
mand” to the “United Nations Command.” The change of name helped to
create the needed misleading appearance. Similarly, the reports that the
U.S. Government voluntarily submitted to the UN Security Council were
titled, “Reports of the United Nations Command.” This made it appear that
the U.S. was conducting the war on behalf of the UN and under its
supervision.
This misleading designation continues to exist today over 60 years
after it was created, thereby continuing to give the world the false
impression that the campaign waged by the U.S. in Korea was and
continues to be a United Nations operation and that even today the UN has
a presence on the Korean Peninsula.
While the UN did not participate in the decision making process of
the military campaign carried out in its name, it played a role then and
continues to play a role by allowing the U.S. Government to appropriate
the United Nations name as a camouflage cover for the actions of the U.S.
Government. What is the UN responsibility in such a matter for what was
done, and for what continues to be done in its name? That is the essence
of the question raised by North Korea’s call that the “United Nations
Command” be dissolved.
V – Conclusion
The research represented in this paper presents a curious, but
significant irony. The UN authorized Member States to intervene in the
Korean War, to form the “Unified Command,” to use the UN flag along
with the flags of the member states participating in the “Unified Com-
mand,” and it authorized the U.S. to appoint a Commander in Chief for the
“Unified Command.”
According to the obligation required under the UN Charter, and to
the original efforts of Trygve Lie, with support from three Security
Council members, namely, the U.K., France, and Norway, there was an
effort to set up a political entity that would oversee the Korean War
operation for the Security Council.
The U.S., however, rejected the proposal and succeeded in control-
ling the political and the strategic direction for the Korean War. After
Page 75
rejecting the UN proposal for UN supervision over U.S. actions and
decisions, the U.S. put itself forward as the “United Nations Command.”
Thus assuming the cloak of the United Nations, by referring to itself as the
United Nations. This mechanism served as a means to misrepresent the
U.S. Government’s unilateral actions and decision making processes in the
Korean War.
Recently several UN Secretary-Generals, including Secretary-
General Boutros Boutros Gali, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have acknowledged that the U.S. was in
charge of the Command structure of the Korean War activity taken under
the authority of the “Unified Command,” and that the United Nations had
no role in overseeing the actions undertaken in the name of the UN. The
statement is made that the UN “never had any role in the command of any
armed forces deployed in the Korean peninsula.”
The difficulty raised by such a claim, however, is that it evades the
salient fact that the Security Council authorized the U.S. to assume this
role in violation of the obligations implicit in the UN Charter that the UN
exercise supervision over the political, and strategic decision making
processes of an action approved under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter.
Therefore, there is some truth to the statements of Boutros Boutros
Ghali, Kofi Annan, and Ban Ki-moon that the UN had no role in the
command of the military activity carried out under its name in Korea.
Specifically as the Spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon stated recently,”The
UN did not at any time have any role in the command of the forces that
operated in Korea in 1950-1953.”
14
But what this leaves out is that the UN authorized the U.S. to
designate the Commander of the “Unified Command.” Then, however,
under pressure from the U.S., the UN failed to exercise its obligation to
supervise the actions of the “Unified Command.”
Subsequently, the UN continues to evade fulfilling its obligations by
continuing to allow the U.S. to claim that it is the “United Nations
Command” in Korea and in failing to provide its political supervision over
what the U.S. has done and continues to do in Korea in the name of the
UN.
The DPRK proposal is that the U.S. cease to call itself the “United
Nations Command.” It is important to include a recognition of how the
Page 76
U.S. Government activity represents a continuing violation of the UN
Charter.
Recently, in response to a question, the Spokesperson for Ban Ki-
moon said that the issues of the Korean Armistice are issues that do not
concern the United Nations as the United Nations is not a party to the
Armistice.
15
Why then has the United Nations allowed the U.S. to continue
to use the designation, “United Nations Command” to misrepresent itself
as acting under the control of the UN in the Armistice?
Unless the UN takes responsibility for allowing the U.S. to claim the
authority of the United Nations in its continuing actions as part of the
Armistice, the UN is continuing to allow actions in violation of the UN
Charter. If there is a “United Nations Command” that is part of the Korean
Armistice Agreement, such a command must be under the political and
strategic direction of the UN Security Council. Otherwise, the authority of
the UN Charter is being treated as a charade to justify U.S. Government
unilateral activity under the camouflage of the UN name. It is as if the UN
is but a set of words to hide the illegal acts of one of the Great Powers.
VI – Epilogue
There is another significant aspect of the conduct of the U.S.
government with respect to its initiating and intervening into the Korean
War. This has to do with the role played by the U.S. Government in
bypassing not only the requirements of the UN Charter, but also the
requirement of the U.S. Constitution.
The UN Charter specifies that all military action taken to intervene
in another country requires a resolution of the Security Council under
Chapter 7. Yet the U.S. government made the decision and began to act on
that decision to intervene in the Korean conflict before there was any such
action by the UN Security Council. This represented a violation by the
U.S. Government of the UN Charter.
16
Similarly, the U.S. Executive Branch violated the provision of the
U.S. Constitution requiring that no decision to go to war can be made
without a Congressional Declaration of War. There was no such declara-
tion with respect to the U.S. Government waging war on the Korean
peninsula.
There is a provision in the UN Charter, Article 43(3) which states
Page 77
that member states participating in military actions under Chapter 7 of the
UN Charter are obliged to have such actions “subject to the signatory
states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes,”
In his article “The Korean War: On what Legal Basis Did Truman
Act?” Louis Fisher who is a specialist in Constitutional Law, points to the
constitutional violation represented by Truman’s sending U.S. troops to
the Korean War.
Truman used as an illegitimate excuse that the act had been
authorized by the UN Security Council. Fisher’s article describes the
extensive debate in the U.S. Congress before joining the UN to consider
if it was appropriate for the U.S. government to claim that a Security
Council resolution justified bypassing U.S. Constitutional obligations.
In his appearance before the House Committee on Foreign Relations
then Under Secretary of State Dean Acheson explained that “only after the
President receives the approval of Congress is he ‘bound to furnish that
contingent of troops to the Security Council’.”
17
Not only did Truman commit troops and aid to South Korea before
the Security Council called it a military action, but more importantly, no
action of the Security Council authorizes the U.S. government to violate
the U.S. Constitution. For the U.S. government to wage war, the U.S.
Constitution requires that the U.S. Congress make the decision that
authorizes that war.
Though other artifices were employed to evade U.S. Constitutional
obligation, such as calling the Korean War a “police action,” U.S. Courts
rejected such subterfuges.
18
Responding to these subterfuges, Vito Marcantonio, the American
Congressman from N.Y. for the American Labor Party said, “When we
agreed to the United Nations Charter we never agreed to supplant our
Constitution with the United Nations Charter. The power to declare and
make war is vested in the representations of the people, in the Congress of
the United States.
19
Commenting on this same situation, Justice Felix Frankfurter argued,
“Illegality cannot attain legitimacy through practice. Presidential acts of
war, including Truman’s initiative in Korea can never be accepted as
constitutional or as a legal substitute for Congressional approval.”
20
Page 78
Notes
1. See for example: Jay Hauben, “Is the UN Role in Korea 1947-1953 the Model Being
Repeated Today?”
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/UN-Role-in-Korea.doc
2. I. F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War, New York, 1952, p. 75. By August
1, 1950, the Soviet Union had returned to the Security Council ending its 6-month boycott
and so there were no further UN resolutions authorized by the Security Council
supporting UN participation in the Korean War.
3. See for example: Ronda Hauben, “U.S. Misrepresents its Role in Korean War and in
Armistice Agreement as UN Command,” taz blogs, June 26, 2013.
http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/06/ 26/ us-misrepresents-its-role-as-un-command
4. Press conference June 21, 2013, Ambassador Sin Son Ho at the UN.
http://webtv.un.org/media/press-conferences/ watch/ambassador-sin-son-ho-the-
permanent-representative-of-the-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea-to-the-un-press-
conference/2498682301001 A text version of the statement presented is online at:
http://www.4thmedia.org/2013/06/26/ illegitimacy-and-injustice-of-the-un-command-in-
south-korea-dprk-calls-for-its-immediate-dissolution/
5. James F. Schnabel, United States Army in the Korean War Policy and Direction: The
First Year, available at:
http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/020/20-1/CMH_Pub_20-1.pdf. See p. 102, f/n
6 “Memo, JCS for Secy. Defense, 9 Jul. 50, sub: Designation of a United Nations Unified
Comdr by the United States.”
6. James W. Houck, “The Command and Control of United Nations Forces in the Era of
‘Peace Enforcement’,” Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law, vol. 4, No
1, 1993.
7. See Houck, p. 13 f/n 51.
8. Trygve Lie, In the Cause of Peace, New York, p. 334.
9. Houck, p. 12. “None of the resolutions (referring to the June and July S.C. resolutions-
ed),” writes Houck, provided for Security Council control over the ensuing operation
despite the fact that it would be conducted under Security Council authorization.”
10. See Articles 42, 44, 46 and 48 of the UN Charter. These articles authorize the Security
Council to use force. There is no article in Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which authorizes
the Security Council to cede political decision making to a member state to carry out a
Chapter 7 action.
11. Schnabel, p. 103, Rad, WAR 85743, DA to CINCFE, Jul. 12, 50.
12. Schnabel, p. 104, f/n 10. See MacArthur Hearings, p. 10.
13. Lie, p. 334.
14. Daily Press Briefing by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General,
June 21, 2013.
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2013/db130621.doc.htm
15. E-mail received from Eduardo del Buey on June 25, 2013.
16. See I. F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War, New York, 1952, p. 75.
Page 79
17. Louis Fisher, “The Korean War: On What Legal Basis Did Truman Act?,” American
Journal of International Law, Jan. 1995. (89 Am J. Int’l L. 21), p. 30.
18. Fisher, p. 34.
19. Fisher, p. 35.
20. Fisher, p. 38.
[Editor’s note: The following article appeared in OhmyNews International
on Feb.14, 2007]
Book Review: The Hidden
History of the Korean War*
by Jay Hauben
The Hidden History of the Korean War
By I. F. Stone
364 pages. Monthly Review Press. 1952, 1970.
The controversial book, The Hidden History of the Korean War by
I. F. Stone was originally published in 1952 during the Korean War (1950-
1953) and republished in 1970 during the Vietnam War (1960-1975). It
raised questions about the origin of the Korean War, made a case that the
United States government manipulated the United Nations, and gave
evidence that the U.S. military and South Korean oligarchy dragged out
the war by sabotaging the peace talks.
Publishing such a book in the U.S. during the time of
McCarthyism,
while the war was still continuing was an act of journalistic courage. Forty
years later, declassified U.S., Soviet and People’s Republic of China
(PRC) documents both confirmed some and corrected some of Stone’s
story.
Until his death in 1989, Stone was an experienced and respected,
independent, left-wing journalist and iconoclast. This book-length feat of
journalism, with over 600 citations for his quotes and materials, is a
testament to Stone’s search for a way to strengthen his readers to think for
themselves, rather than be overwhelmed by official stories and war
Page 80
propaganda.
The standard telling was that the Korean War was an unprovoked
aggression by the North Koreans beginning on June 25, 1950, undertaken
at the behest of the Soviet Union to extend the Soviet sphere of influence
to the whole of Korea, completely surprising the South Koreans, the U.S.,
and the UN.
But was it a surprise? Could an attack by 70,000 men using at least
70 tanks launched simultaneously at four different points have been a
surprise?
Stone gathers contemporary reports from South Korean, U.S. and
UN sources documenting what was known before June 25. The head of the
U.S. CIA, Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenloetter, is reported to have said
on the record, “that American intelligence was aware that ‘conditions
existed in Korea that could have meant an invasion this week or next.’” (p.
2) Stone writes that “America’s leading military commentator, Hanson
Baldwin of the New York Times, a trusted confidant of the Pentagon,
reported that they [U.S. military documents] showed ‘a marked buildup by
the North Korean People’s Army along the 38
th
Parallel beginning in the
early days of June.’” (p. 4)
How and why did U.S. President Truman so quickly decide by June
27 to commit the U.S. military to battle in South Korea? Stone makes a
strong case that there were those in the U.S. government and military who
saw a war in Korea and the resulting instability in East Asia as in the U.S.
national interest. Stone presents the ideas and actions of them, including
John Foster Dulles, General Douglas MacArthur, President Syngman Rhee
and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, which appear to amount to a
willingness to see the June 25 military action by North Korea as another
Pearl Harbor in order to “commit the United States more strongly against
Communism in the Far East.” (p. 21). Their reasoning may have been,
Stone thought, the sooner a war with China and/or Russia the better,
before both become stronger. President Truman removed Secretary of
Defense Louis Johnson, according to Stone’s account, because Johnson
had been selling this doctrine of a preventive war. (p. 93)
Stone shows that Truman committed the U.S. military to the war in
Korea, then went to the UN for sanctions against North Korea. “It was
neither honorable nor wise,” Stone argues, “for the UN under pressure
Page 81
from an interested great power to condemn a country for aggression
without investigation and without hearings its side of the case.” (p. 50) But
that is what the U.S. insisted should happen using, Stone argues, distorted
reports to rush its case.
Then when the war came to a stalemate at the 38
th
Parallel, Stone
makes a strong case that U.S. Army headquarters provoked or created
incidents to derail the cease-fire negotiations. When the North Koreans
and Chinese had ceded on Nov. 4, 1952 to the three demands of the UN
side, the U. S. military spread a story that “The Communists had brutally
murdered 5,500 American prisoners.” The talks were being dragged out,
the U.S. military argued, because “The communists don’t want to have to
answer questions about what happened to their prisoners” and they are
lower than “barbarians.” (pp. 324-25) At no time after these reports were
these “atrocities” reported again or documented. But hope of a cease-fire
subsided.
Stone takes the story in time only a little beyond the dismissal of
MacArthur on April 11, 1951. He quotes press reports as late as January
1952 that “there still could be American bombing and naval blockade of
Red China if Korean talks fail.”
1
The evidence which Stone presents is solid but circumstantial. What
else could it be, with the official documents still unavailable? In the 1960s,
the Rand Corporation, a major think tank originally funded by the U.S. Air
Force, conducted studies with additional information and according to one
reviewer came to “almost identical conclusions” as Stone.
2
Stone’s telling of the history of the Korean War, emphasizing the
opportunistic response by the forces in the U.S. advocating rollback and
also downplaying the role of the Soviet Union challenged the dominant
assumption that this was Stalin’s war. “Until the release of Western
documents in the 1970s, prompted a new wave of literature on the war, his
remained a minority view.”
3
Then in the 1990s, documents from the former Soviet archives
became available, as did telegrams and other sources from the PRC
archives. Scholars examining these documents and fitting the pieces
together were able to make the case that Kim Il-sung had sought and
eventually received Soviet support for a military effort to unify Korea.
Stone had been wrong to suspect that General MacArthur and John Foster
Page 82
Dulles somehow colluded in the start of the Korean War.
But Stone did a service by documenting the role of sectors of U.S.
policymakers looking for an opportunity to push the USSR and the PRC
back from Northeast Asia. Bruce Cummings studied the detailed policy
debate in the U.S. which lead to the policy of active containment.
Cummings’s book, The Origins of the Korean War, Volume II gives
substance to the internal fight between supporters of rollback and those
who supported containment, which for Stone was journalistic speculation.
4
In 1952 when it was published, The Hidden History of the Korean
War met with almost a complete press blackout and boycott. But that
included no rebuttals or answers from official U.S. sources. There was a
republication in 1970 and the book has been translated at least into
Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. Some chapters also appeared in French.
Used copies are still available, especially from online booksellers.
I. F. Stone’s case is thought provoking and helpful, especially when
tensions are being stirred up again on the Korean Peninsula, and manipu-
lated wars are still in style. Perhaps however journalism like that of
Stone’s and lessons from the first Korean War can make a second Korean
War less likely.
Notes
1. Wall Street Journal, Jan. 17, 1952.
2. Stephen E. Ambrose, Professor of Maritime History at the Naval College in the
Baltimore Sun.
3. Kathryn Weathersby, “The Soviet Role in the Korean War: The State of Historical
Knowledge,” in The Korean War in World History, edited by William Stueck, University
Press of Kentucky, 2004, page 63.
4. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Volume II: The Roaring of the
Cataract 1947-1950, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990.
* This book review originally appeared on OhmyNews International at:
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/ article_view.asp?no=345425&rel_no=1
Page 83
EDITORIAL STAFF
Ronda Hauben
William Rohler
Norman O. Thompson
Michael Hauben (1973-2001)
Jay Hauben
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Permission is given to reprint articles from this issue in a non profit publication
provided credit is given, with name of author and source of article cited.
The opinions expressed in articles are those of their authors and not neces-
sarily the opinions of the Amateur Computerist newsletter. We welcome
submissions from a spectrum of viewpoints.
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