The Amateur

Computerist

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Spring 2020 Obstacles to Peace on the Korean Peninsula Volume 33 No. 1

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

Letter to UN SG about ‘UNCs’ Use of UN Flag . . . . . . . . . Page 4

‘Peace–Forwarding Actions’ with DPRK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8

Chinese and Russian Draft DPRK Resolution . . . . . . . . . Page 10

U.S. Misrepresents its Role in Korean War . . . . . . . . . . Page 13

‘United Nations Command’ As Camouflage . . . . . . . . . . Page 17

Article 32: Right to Due Process in UN Charter . . . . . . . Page 30

The Problem Facing the U.N. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 35

Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia . . . . . . . . . . Page 39

UN SC Controversy over NK Satellite Launch. . . . . . . . . Page 45

Position of the UN SG on the Use of the UN Flag . . . . . Page 49

Open Letter to the UN Security Council Members. . . . . . Page 54

Letter to UN SC Regarding Sanctions on North Korea . . Page 57

Call to Ease the Sanctions Against the DPRK. . . . . . . . . Page 59

Resolution Proposes Easing Some UN Sanctions . . . . . Page 64

Dissolution of the ‘United Nations Command’ . . . . . . . . Page 71

Introduction

What is happening about Korea? The question of how to encourage

the resumption of U.S.–DPRK negotiations has seemed to fade from

public discussion and attention. It becomes ever more urgent to review

Page 1

recent developments and consider what is needed for forward develop-

ments.

This issue of the Amateur Computerist contains a collection of articles

that helps to review some of the events and actions that have helped to

lead to the current impasse. In February 2020 a significant article appeared

in the South Korean newspaper Hankyoreh. The article titled “The

‘UNC’s’ time is up” was contributed by Professor Lee Jang–hue, who is

an emeritus professor of civil law at the Hangul University of Foreign

Studies in South Korea.

Professor Lee’s article reviews developments in the efforts to support

inter–Korean cooperation on the Korean Peninsula and comes to the

conclusion that the U.S. and the role it plays under the cover of being the

United Nations Command (UNC) is a force functioning in opposition to

the obligation it has to be moving toward a peace agreement between the

two Koreas. Professor Lee writes:

As the only signatory from the South Korean side to the Korean

Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953, the UN Command’s

duties involve managing the agreement, preventing military

clashes and acts of hostility, and spearheading a peace agree-

ment.

This is why, the ‘UNC’ holds authority to approve passage over

the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and entry to the DMZ. But

now these duties of the ‘UNC’ are posing a major obstacle to the

effort of linking inter–Korean railways and roads. Rather than

cooperating toward a peace agreement — which should be its

biggest responsibility following the April 27 Panmunjom Dec-

laration in 2018 — it is instead finding faults with and ham-

stringing inter–Korean exchange and cooperation efforts. The

same is true about its overzealous micro–management of the

DMZ.

In his article Professor Lee proposes that in order to stop the intro-

duction of obstacles to peace on the Korean Peninsula, the ‘UN Com-

mand’ should be replaced by the Republic of Korea as a signatory to the

Armistice Agreement.

Several of the articles in this issue of the Amateur Computerist

explore various aspects of how the ‘UN Command’ was created and the

Page 2

problems that accompanied that process. Also there are critical articles

written by some NGO’s as letters either to the UN Secretary–General or

the Security Council protesting the continued violation of UN processes

and procedures by the role played by the U.S. under the guise of being the

‘UN Command’.

Also articles in this issue discuss the obligation of the Security

Council to invite those parties to a conflict to the discussion in the Council

on the conflict so the Council can hear the nature of the problem at the

root of the conflict.

In the conflict regarding the U.S. and the DPRK the Security Council

failed to fulfill this obligation established by the UN Charter. Therefore it

is important that there be public attention to and acknowledgment of the

DPRK side of the conflict. A conflict can only be resolved when there is

an effort at impartial deliberation. This issue is organized into four parts.

The four parts are:

Part 1 is about activist and Security Council Members criticism of UN

activity on the so–called ‘United Nations Command’ (‘UN Command’) as

the chief obstacle to peace on the Korean Peninsula or of the Security

Council sanctions imposed on the DPRK.

Part 1

Letter to the Secretary General about ‘UN Command’s’ Use of UN Flag

NGOs’ Letter to UN Security Council Proposes Peace–Forwarding

Actions’ with DPRK

Chinese Russian Draft DPRK Resolution

Part 2 includes reprints of previous articles about the problem

represented by the ‘UN Command’ and related problems.

Part 2

U.S. Misrepresents it’s Role in Korean War and in Armistice Agreement

as ‘UN Command’

‘United Nations Command’ As Camouflage: On the Role of the UN in the

Unending Korean War

Article 32: Right to Due Process Enshrined in UN Charter, Violated by

Security Council

The Problem Facing the UN

Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the Policy Aimed at

Targeting China as Well as North Korea

Page 3

UN Security Council Controversy over North Korean Satellite Launch:

Reconvening Six–party Talks or Penalizing Pyongyang

Part 3 includes the original letters sent to UN by NGO’s or published

as Open Letters by NGOs.

Part 3

Letter from Jeanne Mirer to UN Secretary–General on behalf of itself and

civil society actions on North Korean Groups about improper use of the

UN flag by ‘UN Command’

Open Letter to UN Security Council Members: We Cannot Possibly Go

Back to Times of Competition and Hostility

Letter to UN Security Council Regarding Sanctions on North Korea

Call to Ease or Suspend the Sanctions Against the DPRK that Impede the

Response to COVID–19

Part 4 includes other relevant documents.

Part 4

Security Council Resolution Submitted by China and Russia Proposes

Easing Some United Nations Sanctions Against DPRK

Dissolution of the ‘United Nations Command’ is the Essential Require-

ment in Defending Peace and Stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the

Asia–Pacific Region by the DPRK

Part 1

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared on the netizenblog on Jan

29, 2020. It can be seen online at:

https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2020/01/

29/letter-to-un-secretary-general-on-un-command-use-of-un-flag/]

Letter to UN Secretary–General about

‘UN Command’s’ Use of UN Flag

by Ronda Hauben

In September 2019, several Korean peace and international activists

visited New York City to raise concerns during the period of the opening

of the 2019–2020 session of the UN General Assembly (GA).

Page 4

One of the issues they raised related to the growing concern in South

Korea with the activities of an entity calling itself the ‘United Nations

Command’, despite the fact that the UN has no role in determining or

overseeing its activities.

It has been reported that the so called ‘United Nations Command’

prevented inter–Korean joint activity to inspect railroad compatibility in

the two Koreas. The activists pointed out that there was increasing

attention in the Republic of Korea by various government officials and

others to such activity of the ‘United Nations Command’ questioning the

legitimacy of the so–called ‘United Nations Command’.

One action taken by activists concerned with these issues was to

transmit a letter to UN Secretary–General Anthonio Guterres from the

International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) on behalf of

itself and 46 other Korean and international peace organizations dated

September 30, 2019.

Also the activists held a press conference across

from the UN on October 1, 2019 about this letter.

The activists pointed out that over the years there have been various

complaints and concerns raised about the inappropriate activity of the U.S.

using the name ‘United Nations Command’.

For example, the letter points to the 1947 GA Resolution A/RES/92(I)

which refers to the need for the UN to protect the name of the organization

and its official emblem and seal from any use not authorized by the UN

Secretary–General.

The letter also cites provisions of the United Nation Flag Code

providing for how the UN flag can be used.

And the letter refers to action

taken in the General Assembly by 28 member states in 1972 seeking to

encourage the peaceful reunification of Korea. At that time among other

proposals was that the “right to use the United Nations flag … in South

Korea, should be annulled.”

The letter also cites a UN document from

June 1975 (S/11737) in which the U.S. agrees to work toward the

termination of the ‘UN Command’ including restricting the use of the UN

flag

In this 1975 document, the U.S. said it would be part of negotiations

to replace the ‘UN Command’.

Citing other references to actions taken by the General Assembly or

members of the Security Council, the letter raised four questions for the

Secretary–General and requested that the Secretary–General act to stop

Page 5

such use.

The letter also referred to some of the concerns raised by legal scholar

Hans Kelsen in the Supplement to his book The Law of the United

Nations: A Critical Analysis of its Fundamental Problems.

In response to their letter to the UN Secretary–General, the IADL

received a reply from Stephen Mathias, Assistant Secretary–General for

Legal Affairs (ASG). ASG Mathias wrote “regarding the use of the United

Nations flag by the ‘United Nations Command’ … . I regret to inform you

that the questions that you have asked concern matters that do not fall

within the competence of the Secretary–General.” There was no further

explanation from the ASG for Legal Affairs about why he gave the

response he did or what authority he was referring to in stating that the UN

Secretary–General was unable to act in a way that would fulfill on the

obligations that the GA had assigned to the Secretary–General.

Commenting on the reply received from the UN Secretariat, activists

of the “International Campaign to Abolish the Fake ‘United Nations Com-

mand’” write:

Due to the irresponsible neglect of the UN in the last 70 years, an

abnormal state of affairs persists for the United Nations because

the so–called ‘United Nations Command’ which is not a UN

entity, has been continuing its activities — undermining the

dignity and order of the United Nations … . A first step is to pro-

hibit the abuse of the UN flag in the name of the ‘UNC’.

This is an exchange between the activists questioning the legitimacy

of the U.S. use of the United Nations name and flag and the statement by

the UN legal office top official without explanation. Presented are two

different views as to whether there is activity contrary to the obligations

of the UN Charter in the U.S. government’s actions calling some of its

military and control activities on the Korean Peninsula, the ‘United

Nations Command’, and of its use of the UN flag by this so called ‘United

Nations Command’.

The activists propose that the Secretary–General has the authority

under the Charter to determine what is appropriate and not appropriate

use. The UN Legal Office claims that the Secretary–General does not have

such “competence.”

If in fact, the ‘United Nations Command’ is an entity functioning

Page 6

without any connection with the UN Charter, then by what authority does

the so–called ‘United Nations Command’ act to restrict interaction by the

two Koreas? This is indeed a serious question for the UN to consider.

Notes

1. Ronda Hauben, “U.S. Misrepresents its Role in Korean War and in Armistice

Agreement as ‘UN Command’.”:

https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/06/26/us-misrep

resents-its-role-as-un-command, June 6, 2013. See also, Ronda Hauben, “‘United Nations

Command’ As Camouflage: On the Role of the UN in the Unending Korean War,”:

https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/08/31/united-nations-command-as-camouflage/,

August 31, 2013.

2. Letter to Secretary–General, September 30, 2019,:

https://www.veteransforpeace.org

/files/8015/7065/0224/IADL_letter-Final_1.doc

3. A/RES/92(I), Official Seal and Emblem of the UN, 7 December, 1946; A/RES/167(II),

United Nations Flag, 20 October 1947.

4. ST/AFS/SGB/89. The United Nations Flag Code (as amended), 28 July, 1950.

5. A/8752/Add. 9. “Creation of Favourable Conditions to Accelerate The Independent and

Peaceful Reunification of Korea.”

6. S/11737, 27 June, 1975 “Letter Dated 27 June, 1975 from the Permanent Representa-

tive of the United States of America to the United Nations Addressed to the President of

the Security Council.”

7. Hans Kelsen, “The Law of the United Nations: A Critical Analysis of Its Fundamental

Problems With Supplement,” 1951, pp. 938–940.

Page 7

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared on the netizenblog on Jan

31, 2020. It can be seen online at: https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2020/

01/31/ngos-letter-for-peace-with-dprk/.]

NGOs’ Letter to UN Security Council

Proposes ‘Peace–Forwarding Actions’

with DPRK

by Ronda Hauben

There has often been criticism of how the Security Council conducts

its deliberations. One recent civil society effort to contribute to improve-

ment of the negotiation process in the UN Security Council was sent to the

Security Council in January 2020.

It was an open letter to members of the

Security Council, dated January 7, 2020.

The letter is titled “We cannot possibly go back to times of competi-

tion and hostility.” In their letter, four civil society organizations present

both an analysis of the current situation and propose what they see as

needed steps toward transforming the roadblocks to fruitful progress in the

negotiations with the DPRK.

Pointing out that this year 2020 marks the 70

year since the begin-

ning of the Korean War, the letter proposes that Korean civil society is an

important agent to contribute to peace on the Korean Peninsula. The letter

proposes that not only the DPRK and the U.S., but also the whole inter-

national community is needed to contribute to “peace–forwarding

actions.”

The letter notes that there were no meaningful negotiations either after

“last year’s Trump–Kim Hanoi Summit nor after the meeting at

Panmunjom in June 2019.” Though the U.S. and DPRK at their Singapore

meeting declared that “mutual trust building” would “expedite denucle-

arization of the Korean Peninsula,” this agreement was not implemented.

In particular the letter notes “that the U.S. has not taken any measures to

show their trust compared to DPRK’s set of actions including a freeze of

nuclear and missile experiments.” That is why, the letter proposes, there

have been “no points of contact” between the two parties.

Page 8

“We are strongly against a practical muddling through of the U.S. by

insisting ‘denuclearization first’” the letter explains, critiquing the U.S.

position, and critiquing the DPRK, for the “North’s missile tests conduct

that creates militaristic tensions.”

The letter proposes that the United Nations and the U.S. “lift the

sanctions against the DPRK that are related to humanitarian aid at least.”

The letter points out that the original claimed purpose of the sanctions

was to act as “a medium of problem–solving.” Instead, however, the sanc-

tions have developed to a point of “aggravating the situation” for the peo-

ple of the DPRK. Also the sanctions have been used to stymie inter–penin-

sula cooperation.

The letter asks that the UN Security Council have constructive dis-

cussions about partially lifting economic sanctions “which could lead to

the negotiation table.” And it urges Seoul and Washington to pause the

joint exercises they have planned for March 2020. It also calls for resolute

action by the ROK government to “proactively ask for broad sanction lift-

ing and to exercise some autonomy in solving the problem.”

The letter points out that the efforts toward inter–Korean exchange

and cooperation projects were prevented from happening by the economic

sanction of the UN and U.S. Among these were Mount Geumgang tours,

humanitarian cooperation for separated families, road and rail connect

projects, and the formation of a Joint South–North Military Committee.

The groups writing the letter propose that “We will strive to mark

2020 a year to be one that will halt the war and open the way to a new age

of peace.”

The groups signing the letter include, Civil Society Organization

Network in Korea — Civil Peace Forum, Korean Confederation of

Religions for Peace, Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation,

Korean NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea, and the Southern

Committee on June 15 Joint Declaration.

Notes

1. See Ronda Hauben, “Channel for Individuals or NGO’s to Send Communication to UN

Security Council,” netizenblog, Jan 29, 2017:

https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2017/01/

29/channel-for-communication-to-unsc/

2. “Open Letter to Security Council, ‘We cannot possibly go back to times of competition

Page 9

and hostility’.”: http://www.peoplepower21.org/index.php?mid=English&document_srl

=1679682 &listStyle=list

[Editor’s Note: The following article was written in January 2020. The

resolution had not been acted on as of March 2020.]

Chinese and Russian Draft

DPRK Resolution

by Ronda Hauben

The UN Security Council has on the whole appeared content that two

years of efforts to explore the possibility of dialogue between the U.S. and

the DPRK and between the DPRK and ROK appears to have broken down.

On December 7, 2019, however, China and the Russian Federation made

an effort to propose a draft Security Council resolution which could lead

to a more constructive direction for negotiations between the DPRK and

the Security Council.

The proposed resolution has yet to receive enough support from other

Security Council members to have it pass through the stages needed for

Security Council adoption. It is however useful to look at some of the

elements contained in the resolution in order to consider how such a reso-

lution could provide a needed change in the Security Council direction

with respect to the DPRK.

The proposed resolution provides for the UNSC to “adjust the sanc-

tion measures” as needed to correspond with the DPRK’s compliance with

relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

One criticism of the actions of the U.S. in negotiations with the DPRK

is that there is not any flexibility in the U.S. stance but only that the DPRK

must make all the concessions while the U.S. offers nothing in return.

Such a behavior is contrary to the normal process for settlement of a

dispute by negotiation. Instead it is directed toward inflicting punishment

on one party to the dispute, making negotiations toward resolving the

dispute impossible.

Another provision in the proposed resolution welcomes “close dia-

Page 10

logue and communication between the authorities of the two sides.” This

refers to civilian cooperation and exchanges in many areas, “in particular

the projects of rail and road connections on the Korean Peninsula,” as

agreed on 27 April, 2018 and 19 September, 2018 by Moon Jae–in and

Kim Jung Un. In particular, the proposed resolution provides for the 1718

Sanctions Committee to respond favorably to “requests for exemption

from existing UN sanctions against the DPRK for humanitarian and live-

lihood purposes.” It also provides for the exemption from existing sanc-

tions for inter–Korean rail and road cooperation projects.

The proposed inter–Korean projects provide a means for cooperation

between the two Koreas, and in this way, creating a basis for the DPRK

to have a more secure and positive environment. This begins to provide a

means of meeting the DPRK demand that the U.S. cease its hostile actions

and attitude toward the DPRK.

Also Security Council sanctions are illegitimate when they impede

humanitarian aid. Yet the Security Council in general has ignored the crit-

icisms of its actions in violation of this obligation.

The proposed resolution provides for lifting at an early date the

sanctions against the DPRK “which are directly related to the livelihood

of the civilian population.” That a number of the sanctions are directed at

stopping or interfering with activity related to the livelihood of the people

of the DPRK demonstrates the hostile nature of the sanctions rather than

that their purpose is directed to help resolve the dispute.

The proposed resolution provides for lifting the sanctions against the

supply, sale, etc. of machinery or vehicles, “which are used for infrastruc-

ture construction and cannot be diverted to the DPRK’s nuclear and bal-

listic missile programs.” The proposed resolution contains a substantial list

of such items.

The proposed resolution calls on member states to step up their efforts

to provide humanitarian assistance needed by the population of the DPRK.

The sanctions against the DPRK have led to the ending of several human-

itarian programs previously functioning in the DPRK. Particularly, by

interfering with banking transactions in the DPRK, the sanctions not only

impeded humanitarian projects and aid previously functioning in the

DPRK, but made other forms of humanitarian aid difficult to deliver.

Other parts of the proposed resolution encourages building peace

Page 11

related activities.

For example, the proposed resolution welcomes the continuing dia-

logue between the U.S. and the DPRK toward building a “lasting and

stable peace on the Korean Peninsula in accordance with the 12 June, 2018

joint statement” of the President of the U.S., and the Chairman of the State

Affairs Committee of the DPRK.

Also, the proposed resolution calls on all parties concerned to find

ways to implement steps to reduce military confrontations including but

not limited to a peace treaty to end the Korean war.

Toward such a goal, the proposed resolution calls for the resumption

of the Six Party Talks or dialogue in other formats to work to reduce

tension and promote beneficial regional cooperation in North East Asia.

Considering these various aspects of the proposed resolution demon-

strates that there has been a serious vacuum within the Security Council

toward fulfilling its obligation toward supporting the dialogue and positive

cooperation between the two Koreas and between the U.S. and the DPRK.

Though the proposed resolution does not appear to have gotten

support in the Security Council for a discussion of its merits, the Republic

of Korea government (ROK) has indicated that it is pursuing efforts to

restore work on certain joint projects, particularly, for example, the

inter–Korean railway project.

It would seem appropriate that the 15 members of the Security

Council recognize the need for an active means of encouraging inter–

Korean activity and negotiation. Also the Security Council has basically

left negotiations between the U.S. and the DPRK up to the U.S., rather

than investigating the nature of the dispute by hearing the views of both

parties toward finding a resolution. Why this is true and how to end this

state of affairs deserves a serious investigation and analysis of why the

Security Council has been so lax in its obligation to work toward a peace-

ful settlement of the Korean Peninsula conflict. This is the process that

Article 32 of the UN Charter requires and it is the obligation of the

members of the Security Council to act according to the procedures and

principles outlined in the Charter.

Page 12

Part 2

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared on the netizenblog on June

6, 2013. It can be seen online at:

http://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’

by Ronda Hauben

July 27, 2013 was an important anniversary. It was the 60

anniver-

sary 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 provision that it be followed by a political

conference three months later to hammer out a political agreement 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, 2013, the permanent mission of the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), more commonly known

as North Korea, held a press conference.

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

Page 13

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 (SC 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

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 nego-

tiations 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 desig-

nation 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, how-

ever, he explained, the U.S. is projecting that it can serve as a “multina-

tional 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’. Ambas-

sador 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’.

Page 14

At the June 21, 2013 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:

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

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 read-

ing the transcript of the statement by the Permanent Representa-

tive of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and we’ll

have something later on to say.

To an email 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:

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

Page 15

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 pur-

suing 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

war–oriented not peace–oriented.”

“In other words,” he elaborated, “the existence of the ‘UN Command’

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.”

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

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:

https://www.un.org/press/en/2013/db130621.doc.htm

3. Email from Eduardo del Buey on June 25, 2013. See follow up article, Ronda Hauben,

“‘United Nations Command’ As Camouflage: On the Role of the UN in the Unending

Korean War,”:

https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/08/31/united-nations-command-as-

camouflage/, August 31, 2013.

Page 16

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared on the netizenblog on Aug

31, 2013. It can be seen online at: http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2013/08

/31/united-nations-command-as-camouflage/.]

‘United Nations Command’

As Camouflage: 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

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 Koreans north of the 38

parallel and many Koreans

south of the 38

parallel were excluded, a formal structural division was

created which continues until today.

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

United Nations Security Council resolutions of June and July 1950

Page 17

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 war

that had begun in Korea, 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.

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.

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

three hats: Command of U.S. troops in South Korea, Combined Forces

Page 18

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.

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 resolu-

tions supports North Korea’s argument. During this period the UN

Security Council passed four resolutions. They are:

SC 82 (V)–S/1501 on June 25, 1950

SC 83 (V)–S/1511 on June 27, 1950

SC 84 (V)–S/1588 on July 7, 1950

SC 85 (V)–S/1657 on 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.” SC

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

providing forces and other assistance pursuant to the aforesaid Security

Page 19

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.”

SC 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. com-

mand 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.”

SC 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.”

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 MacAr-

thur as the Commanding General of the military forces which the

Members of the United Nations place under the Unified Com-

mand of the United States pursuant to the United Nations effort

to assist the Republic of Korea.

Similarly the “Unified Command” was the designation used in a letter

Page 20

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, “Com-

munique 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 MacArthur 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 SC 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 Com-

mand” after initially referring to the designation of “Unified Command,”

language which was actually provided for in the Security Council resol-

ution of July 7?

Page 21

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

Implicit in Chapter

7 of the UN Charter is that it is the Security Council that can exercise

force not that it can cede its authority to others.

Instead of the United Nations fulfilling its charter obligations, how-

Page 22

ever, 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, 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.”

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

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

Page 23

Senate investigating committee, “ … my connections with the United Na-

tions 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.”

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.”

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 cam-

paign 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 actions

were on behalf of and under the United Nations. This was provided by

changing the designation of the Command from the “Unified Command”

to the ‘United Nations Command’. The change of name helped to create

the needed misleading appearance. Similarly, the reports that the U.S.

Page 24

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 supervi-

sion.

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 con-

tinues 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 controlling

the political and the strategic direction for the Korean War. After 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.

Page 25

Government’s unilateral actions and decision making processes in the

Korean War.

Recently several UN Secretary–Generals, including Secretary– Gen-

eral 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,”The UN did not

at any time have any role in the command of the forces that operated in

Korea in 1950–1953.”

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

U.S. Government activity represents a continuing violation of the UN

Charter.

In 2013, in response to a question, the Spokesperson for Ban Ki–

moon said that the issues of the Korean Armistice are issues that do not

Page 26

concern the United Nations as the United Nations is not a party to the

Armistice.

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 in the Korean

War. This has to do with the role played by the U.S. Government in by-

passing 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.

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 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

Page 27

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 autho-

rized 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’.”

Not only did Truman commit troops and aid to South Korea before

the Security Council called for 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. Con-

stitution 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.

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 Con-

stitution 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.”

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.”

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

Page 28

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 six–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

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 SC 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:

https://www.un.org/press/en/2013/db130621.doc.htm

15. Email 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.

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.

Page 29

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared on the netizenblog on Dec.

13, 2017. It can be seen online at: https://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2017/-

12/13/article-32-right-to-due-process/.]

Article 32: Right to Due Process

Enshrined in UN Charter,

Violated by Security Council

by Ronda Hauben

There is a provision in the UN Charter which requires the Security

Council, when it discusses a dispute, to invite those countries that are

parties to the dispute to participate in that discussion. This requirement of

the UN Charter is explained in Chapter V, Article 32 of the Charter.

The language of Article 32 says:

Any member of the United Nations which is not a member of the

Security Council … if it is a party to a dispute under consider-

ation by the Security Council shall be invited to participate,

without vote, in the discussion relating to the dispute. (Emphasis

added)

The Security Council, however, does not comply with this require-

ment of the UN Charter. The many resolutions that have been passed by

the Security Council condemning actions of the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea (DPRK) were passed without the members of the

Security Council inviting the DPRK into the discussion as is required by

the UN Charter.

For example, shortly after the first nuclear test was carried out by the

DPRK on October 9, 2006, the DPRK indicated that there were reasons

why it took this action. In violation of the Charter, however, the members

of the Security Council did not invite the DPRK to participate in the

discussion in the Council about the dispute. Instead sanctions were

imposed by the Security Council on the DPRK without hearing its side of

the dispute. Only after the sanctions were voted on as Resolution 1718 was

the Representative of the DPRK allowed to speak.

How can the members of the Security Council understand the nature

Page 30

of a dispute without hearing from the parties to the dispute? How can

Security Council members decide how to act to resolve a dispute unless they hear

from those involved in the dispute?

In the many years since UN Security Council passed in 2006 Resol-

ution 1718 punishing the DPRK for its first nuclear test, the DPRK has

conducted several additional nuclear or missile tests. The UN Security

Council has passed several additional resolutions against the DPRK,

without making any attempt to hear from the DPRK. The DPRK has

written to the Security Council several letters asking to have the Security

Council consider the dispute that the DPRK says is why it needs to

develop a nuclear weapon. The DPRK has also offered to freeze further

nuclear development if the U.S. and the Republic of Korea (ROK) cease

large scale military drills against the DPRK that they hold several times

a year. The U.S. refused to consider this offer and the Security Council

members continue to support the U.S.–created resolutions increasing the

Security Council’s sanctions against the DPRK.

While the Security Council ignores the letters from the DPRK, and

the Charter requirement that it hear DPRK’s views about the dispute,

several Security Council members publicly proclaim but inaccurately, that

it is the DPRK that refuses to negotiate about its nuclear program.

The failure of the Security Council to adhere to the obligation of the

UN Charter, has led to an ever more tense situation over the dispute be-

tween the DPRK and the U.S.

An event, however, which helps to shed light on this situation took

place at UN headquarters on September 22, 2017 during the week of the

General Debate that began the 72

Session of the General Assembly. A

press conference was held by the Foreign Minister of the Russian Feder-

ation, Sergey Lavrov. In response to a question raised by a journalist at the

press conference, FM Lavrov provided not only an understanding of the

nature of the obligation that Article 32 bestows on the Security Council,

but also an understanding of the importance of this obligation.

The

journalist asked Foreign Minister Lavrov:

My question is about the significance of the Security Council and

the world not hearing, in the process of the sanctions, from the

DPRK. Under Article 32, it says that the DPRK should be invited

to the Security Council. They’ve [the DPRK] also asked to come

Page 31

about the joint exercises. They’ve sent numerous letters to the

Security Council and yet we are told they don’t want to negoti-

ate. But if the Security Council constantly doesn’t even follow

the Charter inviting them, how can they (the DPRK) have a sense

there is any process going on within the Security Council? Can

you say Russia’s position about having an invitation the way

Article 32 provides for a country who is being discussed and

hearing their side of the story?

Foreign Minister Lavrov responded:

I believe that when the UN Security Council reviews the issues

which regard any country, any member country, this country has

to be invited and has to have an opportunity to present their

position to the UN Security Council. For me, this is a given and

it is enshrined in (the) Charter as you quite rightfully say. But

when it goes for the practical actions not everything depends on

us. There are many opportunities for other Security Council

members, member states. Well, in any case, despite this article

(in the Charter), the routine practice is the following: that we

need consensus. Not everything depends on us.

Lavrov’s response clarified that while the obligation is “enshrined in

the Charter” to provide an opportunity for any country, involved in a

dispute considered by the Security Council to be invited and to be able to

present its view of the dispute to the Security Council, he also acknowl-

edges that this obligation of the Charter is not practiced at present by

Security Council members. Instead Security Council members determine

by consensus what their practice will be. In addition, Lavrov explains that

on its own the Russian Federation is not able to change this Security

Council violation of the Charter.

But Lavrov is not alone in recognizing the violation by the Security

Council of the right to due process under the Charter for those being

condemned by the Security Council. This violation of the Charter by the

practice of the Security Council also has been the subject of criticism by

member states demonstrating the need for Security Council Reform.

For example, at the 62

General Assembly meeting on the need for

Security Council reform, Ambassador Hilario Davide of the Philippines

told the Council:

Page 32

(D)ue process and the rule of law demand that Member States

that are not members of the Security Council but are the subjects

of the Council’s scrutiny should have the right to appear before

the Council at all stages of the proceedings concerning them to

state or defend their positions on the issues that are the subjects

of or are related to that scrutiny … . A denial of due process, …

is a violation of the basic principle of the rule of law. Due

process and the rule of law require that a party must be heard

before it is condemned.

Also this violation of the Charter had been criticized by civil society

groups, as for example, in a [2017] letter sent to the Secretary–General

and signed by over 300 women and women’s groups from 45 countries.

In the letter, the women wrote:

In accordance with UN Charter rules, we urge you to respond to

North Korea’s security concerns regarding these war drills, the

world’s largest, which rehearse surgical strikes on North Korea,

‘decapitation,’ and regime change. According to Article 32 of the

UN Charter, ‘Any Member of the United Nations which is not a

member of the Security Council … 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 dis-

pute.’ Yet the DPRK has never been invited to participate in

UNSC sessions on sanctions resolutions, and the Permanent

Mission of the DPRK to the UN has not received a response to

its August 25, 2017 letter where they “strongly request[ed] the

Security Council of the United Nations to place the issue of the

joint military exercise as its emergent agenda and discuss in the

meeting with no further delay.”

Criticism of the Security Council’s failure to provide due process to

those they condemn has even been raised in court proceedings as with SC

Resolution 1267, with the Court requiring the Security Council to change

its procedures.

Also, there is an example of the Security Council acting differently.

In 2010 the Security Council took up a dispute regarding sinking of a war

ship involving the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea. The Security Council invited both parties to present

Page 33

their view of the dispute. Then it issued a Presidential Statement docu-

menting the nature of the dispute and urging the two parties to settle it in

a peaceful manner.

It is significant that Lavrov recognized the obligation of the Security

Council to hear the views of nations involved in a dispute being consid-

ered by the Security Council. His acknowledgment that such problems

need others to take them up in order to be resolved, implies a current

challenge for the UN. The ongoing failure of the Security Council to

operate according to the Charter undermines the legitimacy of the Security

Council and even of the UN.

Notes

1. Charter of the United Nations, Chapter V, Article 32,:

https://www.un.org/en/sec

tions/un-charter/chapter-v/index.html

2. The U.S. is the pen holder writing the SC Resolutions against the DPRK and then uses

various forms of pressure to get the SC to pass the resolution. This is the case even though

the U.S. is a party to the dispute with the DPRK.

3. See for example:

http://webtv.un.org/watch/japan-prime-minister-addresses-general-

debate-72nd-session/5581786476001/ Japan — Prime Minister Addresses General

Debate, 72

Session, 20 Sep 2017 — Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, addresses the

general debate of the 72

Session of the General Assembly of the UN (New York, 19–25

September, 2017).

4. See: http://webtv.un.org/media/watch/sergey-lavrov-russian-federdation-press-con

ference-22-september-2017/5583136573001/?term= (Start 30:23; End 32:03) Sergey

Lavrov (Russian Federation) — Press Conference (22 September, 2017) 22 Sept., 2017

— Sergey V. Lavrov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, addresses

the press on disarmament and other topics.

5. See:

http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/PV.5968 (Resumption

1) Transcript Security Council meeting, August 27, 2008, S/PV.5968, Resumption 1, p. 8.

6. See for example:

https://www.womencrossdmz.org/web/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/

Final_Letter-to-UNSG-ver6.pdf

7. See for example: https://www.heise.de/tp/features/At-Legal-Crossroads-3419131.html

Ronda Hauben, “At Legal Crossroads: Security Council Sanctions Imposed Without Due

Process,” Telepolis, 29 June, 2008.

8. See for example: UN Security Council Presidential Statement S/PRST/2010/13:

http://

www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc .asp?symbol=S/PRST/2010/13

Page 34

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in Ohmynews International

on Oct 17, 2006. It can be seen online at: http://english.ohmynews.com/

article view/article_view.asp?no=323351&rel_no=1.]

The Problem Facing the U.N.

by Ronda Hauben

Only after an agreement was achieved among the five permanent

members of the Security Council and supported by the ten 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

voted for the sanctions on North Korea did the Council allow the rep-

resentative from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North

Korea), Pak Gil Yon, to have a few minutes to speak. His talk was fol-

lowed by a brief statement from the South Korean ambassador to the U.N.,

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 representing a legit-

imate means of investigating a dispute and determining how to diffuse a

tense situation.

In the General Assembly on Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, there were

speeches supporting discussion and investigation. But the closed decision–

making process that culminated the following day in the issuing of sanc-

tions against North Korea was in stark contrast.

The statements by several of the five permanent members of the

Security Council, the members who have the power to veto Security Coun-

cil decisions, emphasized that their resolution imposing sanctions against

North Korea reflected the condemnation of the “international community”

and that all the nations of the U.N. now had a legal obligation to carry out

the provisions of the sanctions.

Page 35

While the Security Council does indeed have the power to impose

such sanctions on a country in the name of the U.N., 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 U.N.

The chairman of the Latin American and Caribbean regional group,

in his comments at the General Assembly made to the future secretary–

general, he explained that there are important challenges for the U.N. 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 U.N.

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

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 states 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 U.N. 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

Page 36

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 their disarmament.

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 legit-

imate justification to develop nuclear weapons.

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 of

Korea while neglecting the nuclear threat posed by the United

States against his country … . The council was incapable of of-

fering a single word of concern when the United States threat-

ened 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 antinuclear development and enforce-

ment 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 U.N. to understand the problems that North Korea claims

compel it to develop nuclear weapons as a means of securing its borders

Page 37

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 U.N. at this juncture in its history is

not whether North Korea has developed and tested a nuclear device. It is

the 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 U.N. 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.

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 U.N. be changed

in the needed ways so that it will be able to handle such problems? This

Page 38

is the urgent issue facing the U.N. This is one of the challenges facing,

member nations and people who are part of the U.N. organization of this

needed global organization.

Notes

1. See “Pyongyang’s Nuke Test Sparks Fission Over Response.”:

http://www.ais.org/

~jrh/acn/pyongyang-nuke-test.txt

2. See “What About North Korea’s sovereignty?”

3. See “U.S. Most Responsible for Nuclear Test: Poll.”

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in Ohmynews International

on May 19, 2007. It can be seen online at: http://english.ohmynews.com/

articleview/article_view.asp?no=362192&rel_no=1.]

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

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 state-

ment 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.

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

Page 39

funds from the Banco Delta Asia (BDA) to North Korea. Wachovia Bank

reported that it would require the necessary approvals from bank regu-

lators 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.

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, ob-

viously 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.”

Whether this latest development with Wachovia Bank will provide the

needed breakthrough, it is too soon to tell. But there are other develop-

ments 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 Depart-

ment 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.”

In his statement, Au explains the history of his bank’s relations with

Page 40

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 con-

ducted this business than another financial entity that may not be so coop-

erative 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

examined in accord with common banking practices by the bank itself.

Au also explains that he had not been approached by U.S. government

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–laundering 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.”

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.

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

Page 41

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

easy target in the sense that it was not so large that its failure would bring

down the financial system.”

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:

The alternative view … is that legitimate North Korean financial

activity does exist, BDA had a right to solicit North Korean ac-

counts 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 polit-

ical 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

Page 42

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:

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 mil-

lions.

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

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 invest-

igation 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.

Notes

1. See an earlier article “North Korea’s $25 Million and Banco Delta Asia.”:

http://eng

lish.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?menu=A11100&no=351525&rel_no=

1&back_url=%3Cbr%3E

2. “North Korea says work to transfer bank funds under way,” AFP, May 15, 2007:

https://www.spacewar.com/reports/North_Korea_Says_Work_To_Transfer_Bank_Funds

_Under_Way_999.html

Page 43

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

Measures Against Banco Delta Asia, p. 7.: http://www.ncnk.org/resources/publications

/Jones_Day_Pet ition_Rescind_BDA_Rule.pdf See also: Kevin G. Hall, “Bank owner

disputes money–laundering allegations,” McClatchy Newspapers, May 16, 2007: https://

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

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, pp. 115–116:

http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006

hearings/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/art

icleview/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=362192&rel_no=1

Page 44

[Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in OhmyNews International

on Oct 4, 2009. It can be seen at: http://english.ohmynews.com/article

view/article_view.asp?no=385061&rel_no=1.]

UN Security Council 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, 2009, launch of a

satellite by North Korea. The Security Council met for emergency con-

sultations on Sunday, April 5, while the P–5 and Japan met in other con-

sultations 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 SC 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

Page 45

for a “prudent reaction.” A spokesperson for the its Foreign Ministry said

that Vietnam “hopes the relevant parties have a prudent reaction, find a

reasonable solution and do not complicate the situation and affect peace

and stability in the Northeast Asia region.”

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

SC Resolution 1718 which demands that North Korea suspend all activ-

ities “related to its ballistic missile program.”

While SC Resolution 1718 explicitly demands that North Korea not

conduct any “launch of a ballistic missile,” the members of the Security

Council disagree about whether SC Resolution 1718 forbids the launch of

a communication satellite.

Countries advocating the position that North Korea violated SC

Resolution 1718, point to parts 5 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. (SC

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.”

(SC Resolution 1718, pp. 2–3)

North Korea was not invited to participate in the emergency consulta-

tions 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

Page 46

(North Korea), Pak Tok Hun said:

Every country has the right, the inalienable right to use the 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 re-

cognize it’s not a missile.

A reporter asked, “But you use ballistic technology. You need bal-

listic technologies.”

Pak responded:

Those countries who launch satellites use similar technology and

if the Security Council, they take any kind of step whatever, 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 SC 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 penal-

izing 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 Fall 2008, 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.

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.

Page 47

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

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.

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 SC 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, on line at:

http://

travel.org.vn/news/politics/2009/04/vietnam-calls-for-rsquoprudentrsquo-reaction-

to-dprk-rocket-launch.html

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.

3. Ronda Hauben, “U.S. Media and the Breakdown in the Six–Party Talks,” OhmyNews

International, Sept. 29, 2008, on line at:

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/art

icle_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=383769&rel_no=1

4. Glenn Kessler, “Far Reaching U.S. Plan Impaired N. Korea Deal: Demands Began to

Undo Nuclear Accord,” Washington Post, Friday, Sept. 26, 2008; p. A20.

Page 48

Part 3

[Editor’s Note: The following letter was sent to the United Nations

Secretary–General on September 30, 2019. It can be seen online at:

https://www.veteransforpeace.org/files/8015/7065/0224/IADL_letter-Fi

nal_1.doc]

Letter Seeking the Position of the UN

Secretary–General on the Use of the

UN Flag by the ‘United Nations

Command’ in Korea and Japan

September 30, 2019

Hon. Antonio Guterres

Secretary–General

The United Nations

New York, New York

Dear Secretary–General Guterres:

The International Association of Democratic Lawyers, (IADL) a

non–governmental organization with consultative status with ECOSOC,

is writing on behalf of itself and other civil society groups that are sup-

porting this letter (the list of these groups is [below]). We are seeking your

opinion on the above issue because the UN General Assembly adopted a

resolution beginning in its early history to protect the name of the United

Nations and Secretary–General had been authorized by the General

Assembly to adopt a UN flag code and protect its dignity.

1. The U.S. military is still using the UN flag at certain military bases

in Korea and Japan, in claiming to be the ‘United Nations Command’,

which was unilaterally created by the U.S. in July 1950. The U.S. uses

Security Council Resolution 84 of 7 July, 1950 to justify its use of the UN

flag. However, there are some serious problems with such use. For

instance, the Security Council made a grave mistake in authorizing the use

of the UN flag for a non–UN, multi–national military command that was

only recommended in SCR 84. Perhaps, some members of the Security

Page 49

Council at the time may have believed that the Security Council had such

power. However, according to Prof. Hans Kelsen, the leading legal scholar

on the Charter and Law of the United Nations at the time, such opinion

had “no basis neither in the Charter nor in the Resolution 167(II) of the

General Assembly.”

Moreover, SCR 84 authorized the “Unified Com-

mand” to use the UN flag in the “course of operations against North

Korean forces,” but the U.S. military has used the UN flag in the name of

the ‘UN Command’ in its military operations in Korea from the beginning.

2. The first UN Flag Code was issued on 19 December, 1947, and Pt.

8 of the Code stated that “the flag shall not be used except in accordance

with this Flag Code.” However, the Code did not contain a provision

authorizing the use of the flag in military operations. On 28 July, 1950,

Secretary–General Trygve Lie added to the Code a new paragraph under

Pt. 6 which stipulated that “the flag may be used in military operations

only upon express authorization to that effect by a competent organ of the

United Nations.”

Prof. Kelsen criticized this new provision as “an ex post

facto justification” of the SCR 84.

3. In a joint letter sent to the Secretary– General by 28 Member States

on 15 September, 1972, requesting to add to the agenda of the 27

session

of the General Assembly a draft resolution with the title of “Creation of

Favorable Conditions to Accelerate the Independent and Peaceful

Reunification of Korea,” the second clause of the resolution stated that the

General Assembly “Considers that the right to use the United Nations flag

… in South Korea, should be annulled.”

Thereafter, the U.S. wrote a letter

to the Security Council which informed the Council that it will “undertake

measures to reduce manifestations of the ‘United Nations Command,’

including restricted use of the flag … .”

About three months later, the

U.S. sent another letter to the Security Council, informing the Council that

“from 25 August, 1975, the United Nations flag” will no longer fly over

military installations in the Republic of Korea “except at facilities directly

associated with the implementation of the Armistice Agreement of 27

July, 1953.”

The U.S. has taken the step of continually using the UN Flag

unilaterally, in opposition to the growing demand of Member States that

the U.S. stop using the UN flag in Korea. Such action was also taken in

disregard of the Secretary–General’s authority and opinion.

4. On 24 December, 1993, while crossing the South–North dividing

Page 50

line in the DMZ, the UN Secretary–General Boutros Boutros–Ghali stated

that he did not authorize flying the UN flag at Panmunjom.

His remark

was true and just since the Secretary–General was also a scholar of

international law. In June 1994, the Secretary–General further clarified

that SCR 84 “did not establish the unified command as a subsidiary organ

under its control …”.

In other words, the “Unified Command” was not

under the control of the UN Security Council. Thus, it cannot be called as

a ‘United Nations Command’.

5. In regard to this issue, we would like to ask the Secretary–General

the following four questions:

1) Did the SCR 84 violate the UN Charter and the UN Flag Code

when it authorized the “Unified Command,” which was a non–UN

entity, to use the UN flag in the course of operations against North

Korean forces?

2) Did the U.S. violate the SCR 84 by creating the so–called the ‘UN

Command’ on its own initiative and then using the UN flag in the

name of the ‘UN Command’?

3) Did the U.S. violate the SCR 84 by continuing the use of the UN

flag in the name of the ‘UN Command’ even today, although active

fighting in Korea ended on 27 July, 1953 and the main goal of the

SCR 84 was achieved?

4) If the U.S. violated the UN Charter, the UN Flag Code, or the SCR

84, then what measures would the Secretary–General take to stop the

abuse of the UN flag in Korea and Japan?

We would appreciate your attention to this matter and kind response

as soon as possible.

Respectfully yours,

Jeanne Mirer, Esq.

President, International Association of Democratic Lawyers

Endorsed by the following civil society groups:

Confederation of Lawyers of Asia and the Pacific (COLAP)

Lawyers for a Democratic Society–Research Committee on USFK Affairs

(ROK)

Page 51

Citizen’s Solidarity for Peace & Unification (ROK)

Peace Mothers of Korea (ROK)

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (ROK)

Eurasia Peace Way (ROK)

Korea Youth Solidarity (ROK)

The Tomorrow (ROK)

National Federation of Peasant Society (ROK)

Korean Women Peasant Association (ROK)

National Women’s Solidarity (ROK)

Korea International Peace Forum (ROK)

Action One Korea (ROK)

Democratic Workers’ National Conference (ROK)

National Democratic Movement Families Association (ROK)

National Unification National Unity South Korea Headquarters (ROK)

Progressive College Student Network (ROK)

Unification Square (ROK)

Support Committee for Prisoners of Conscience for Justice, Peace and

Human Rights (ROK)

Korea Progressive Solidarity (ROK)

National Poverty Alliance (ROK)

Democratization Practice Family Movement Council (ROK)

Citizen’s Coalition for Resurrection of Chang Jun Ha, the Patriot of Korea

(ROK)

Progress Union of Korea University Students (ROK)

World BEYOND War (U.S.)

Environmentalists Against War (U.S.)

Columban Mission Society

Des Moines Catholic Worker (U.S.)

Peace Action Maine (U.S.)

Peaceworkers (U.S.)

Veterans For Peace (U.S.)

Presbyterian Peace Network for Korea (U.S.)

National Association of Korean Americans (U.S.)

The Olympia, Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation (U.S.)

Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (U.S.)

Popai Liem Education Foundation (U.S.)

Page 52

Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (U.S.)

Australian Anti–Bases Campaign Coalition (Australia)

6.15 Komitee of South–North–Overseas Korean, Section Europe

(Germany)

International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibil-

ity (Germany)

Peace Philosophy Centre, Vancouver, B.C. (Canada)

Peace Women Partners International

Swedish Peace Council (Sweden)

Trident Ploughshares, XR Peace (U.K.)

SOAS University of London Social Justice Korea (Student Union Society)

(U.K.)

Policy Research for Development Alternative (Bangladesh)

Notes

1. A/RES/92(I), Official Seal and Emblem of the UN, 7 December, 1946;

A/RES/167(II), United Nations Flag, 20 October, 1947.

2. Hans Kelsen, The Law of the United Nations: A Critical Analysis of Its

Fundamental Problems (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1950), p. 938.

3. ST/AFS/SGB/89, The United Nations Flag Code (as amended), 28 July, 1950.

4. IBID., Kelsen, p. 939.

5. A/8752/Add. 9.

6. S/11737 (27 June, 1975).

7. S/11830 (22 September, 1975).

8. Shawn P. Creamer (U.S. Army Colonel), “The ‘United Nations Command’ and

the Sending States,” International Journal of Korean Studies, vol. XXI, n. 2,

Fall–Winter 2017, p. 2.

9. UN Secretary–General Boutros Boutros–Ghali letter to the DPRK’s Foreign

Minister, New York, NY, June 24, 1994.

Page 53

[Editor’s Note: The following open letter to the UN Security Council

members was dated 13 January, 2020. It was signed by five South

Korean Civil Society organizations. A copy appeared on the

People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) website at:

http://www.peoplepower21.org/English/1679682.]

Open Letter to the UN

Security Council Members

We Cannot Possibly Go Back to Times

of Competition and Hostility

At the beginning of 2020, the 70

new year since the outbreak of the

Korean War, the situation of the Korean peninsula stays gloomy. The

DPRK–U.S. negotiations have been stuck at a deadlock for the past year

without a seemingly possible breakthrough. In the meanwhile, DPRK that

has recently announced “a new path” have resolved a “frontal break-

through” in the latest Workers’ Party Central Committee plenum and

emphasized economic self–help strategies and development of new stra-

tegic weapons.

Two years have barely passed since 2018, when hope that this age of

hostility and contention would end, was plated. As we all know, the road

to peace establishment in the Korean peninsula should be a trust–building

process through perpetual conversations and patience. We are now facing

the uneasy obstacles along the road, but we cannot possibly abandon

patience for a return for antagonism. Today, the civil society organizations

have gathered here in a united wish to never go back to the time before the

Panmunjom Inter–Korean Summit in any circumstances, when dangers of

war were imminent. We assert that conversations between DPRK–U.S.

and South–North should reconvene as soon as possible, and agreements

which had been difficult to reach between them should be fulfilled, and we

hereby suggest to governments of ROK, DPRK, and the U.S.

DPRK and the U.S. should both work to form adequate preconditions

to resume dialogue.

DPRK and the U.S. have not been able to progress meaningful dis-

Page 54

cussions, neither after last year’s Hanoi Summit nor after the meeting at

Panmunjom in June 2019. During Singapore, the two parties have declared

that a mutual trust–building will expedite denuclearization of the Korean

peninsula, but such resolutions have not been abided by. Above all, we

pinpoint the fact that the U.S. has not taken any measures to show their

trust compared to DPRK’s set of actions including a freeze of nuclear and

missile experiment conducts. This is also a reason why there have been no

points of contact — none among packaged, phased, or concurrent

settlements — between the two. We are strongly against a practical mud-

dling–through of the U.S. by insisting “denuclearization first,” and North’s

missile tests conduct that creates militaristic tensions. Both the U.S. and

DPRK should do their best to establish conditions that will continue the

dialogue, and clarify the principles of denuclearization and peace regime

establishment. We ask for the U.S.’s political, militaristic, economic trust–

building mechanisms that will allow for greater agreements, and also for

DPRK to halt from taking further militaristic actions.

The UN and the U.S. should lift the sanctions against the DPRK that

are related to humanitarian aid at least.

The United Nations and the U.S. have constantly maintained or built

up the levels of economic sanctions against DPRK since it was first

enacted. The U.S. is standing firm on the position that without prior

denuclearization of DPRK, Washington cannot lift the sanctions. It has

been testified that the economic sanctions have been aggravating the

situation for especially the underprivileged. Now that the sanctions are

outpacing their original purpose to act as a medium of problem–solving,

the trust–building process between DPRK and the U.S. is even more in-

jured. Moreover, these sanctions are keeping inter-peninsula cooperation.

We hope that the unsuccessful history of insisting ‘nuclearization first,

sanction alleviation next’ kind of solution without any fruit will not repeat

itself. At the minimum, the sanctions that accelerate the humanitarian

crisis should be lifted. We’d like to appeal to the UN Security Council for

proactive discussions about China and Russia partially lifting economic

sanctions, which could lead to the negotiation table.

Communication and militaristic actions cannot coexist.

We remember the fact that the postponement of ROK–U.S. joint mil-

itary exercise worked as a driving force for the peace process on the

Page 55

Korean peninsula. Raising militaristic threats and confrontations are no

good for the negotiation. We hereby urge Seoul and Washington to pause

another joint exercise planned in March. This decision will ignite the

dying ember of negotiation between the DPRK and the U.S.

We urge for a resolute action for the ROK government to carry out the

agreements.

When DPRK–U.S. negotiations have been stopped, South–North

relations also chilled down. Including the exchanges and cooperation

projects, the parts the two sides have agreed on has not been able to take

a single step due to maintained economic sanctions of the UN and the U.S.

This is a very lamentable situation. Operation of Gaeseong Industrial

Complex, Mount Geumgang tours, humanitarian cooperation for solving

separated families’ problems, road and railway connection projects should

not be postponed any longer. This includes the formation of the Joint

South–North Military Committee and other parts of the agreements that

pertain to military issues. The ROK government should proactively ask for

broad sanctions lift and exercise some autonomy in solving the problem.

Though it will not be easy, the government should lead to provide room

for problem solving and engine to change the current situation.

We will take up the civic society’s responsibility to cease the war and

to make peace.

This is the 70

year since the Korean War. It is time to put an end to

contentions and hatred as results of the divide and cease–fire that have

been regenerating itself. The Korean civil society is the agent directly

involved that will form the peace on this peninsula. We hold the responsi-

bility to stimulate dialogue for permanent peace regime and denuclear-

ization to continue. We will gather desperate voices for peace and deliver

them not only to the DPRK and the U.S. but to the whole international

community. We will ask the international community to be with us on our

peace–forwarding actions. We will strive to mark 2020 a year to be one

that will halt the war and open the way to a new age of peace.

7 January, 2020

Civil Society Organization Network in Korea — Civil Peace Forum

Korean Conference of Religions for Peace

Korean Council for Reconciliation and Cooperation

Page 56

Korea NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea

The Southern Committee on June 15 Joint Declaration

[Editor’s Note: The following letter dated Dec 11, 2019 from four

women’s peace groups to the Members of the UN Security Council was

posted on the Korea Peace Now website on Dec 11, 2019 at: https://korea

peacenow.org/letter-to-un-security-council-regarding-sanctions-on-north-

korea/.]

Letter to UN Security Council Regarding

Sanctions on North Korea

Members of the United Nations Security Council

December 11, 2019

Dear Ambassadors,

We are writing to you as members of the international women–led

campaign Korea Peace Now! Women Mobilizing to End the War.

As you gather today to discuss the security crisis on the Korean

Peninsula, we urge you to take a holistic approach considering the human

costs of sanctions–based responses. The North Korean civilian population

is caught in the crossfire of a geopolitical dispute they have little to no

control over, perpetuated by the lack of resolution to the Korean War and

made more acute by the imposition of sanctions so comprehensive they

threaten their very existence. As it is part of the fundamental principles of

the United Nations to settle disputes peacefully and in conformity with the

principles of justice and international law, we urge you to call for an end

to the Korean War and to review the conformity of nonproliferation sanc-

tions to international human rights and humanitarian law.

Recently, our campaign commissioned a panel of independent experts

to produce a report, “

The Human Costs and Gendered Impact of Sanctions

on North Korea,” which highlighted the negative consequences of sanc-

tions on the lives of the North Korean people. According to the report, the

Page 57

sanctions regime against North Korea has since 2016 grown from a “smart

sanctions” model essentially targeting the military and the elite to an

almost total embargo on North Korea–related trade, investments, and fi-

nancial transactions. Drawing evidence from UN and nongovernmental

organizations on the ground as well as other relevant data sets, the report

found that sanctions are having humanitarian, developmental and gendered

impacts and that existing sanctions exemption mechanisms are insufficient

to prevent adverse consequences. It raised concerns that the sanctions in

their current form may overstep what is permissible under international

humanitarian and human rights law, highlighting the rights to life, food,

health, an adequate standard of living, and development, as well as

women’s rights.

While the Security Council has repeatedly stated that its sanctions are

not intended to have adverse humanitarian consequences, in their current

form, sanctions are interfering with the ability of both international aid

organizations and of the North Korean government to address the urgent

and long–standing humanitarian needs of the population. According to the

UN Panel of Experts, a wide range of humanitarian–sensitive items are

banned from entering the country, including agricultural material and

medical equipment, and generally any items containing metal, such as

scalpels or nails.

Sanctions are also impeding the economic development of the DPRK,

reversing the country’s growing trade and engagement with the world.

This undermines progress that North Korea made in overcoming the

economic crisis and famine of the 1990s, particularly market activity led

by grassroots women, a key engine of social change. Sanctions undermine

women’s economic security and their livelihoods, perhaps most clearly

with UNSC resolution 2375’s ban on textile exports, an industry in which

82 percent of workers are female. Increasing gender inequality is count-

erproductive to the stated aims of those advocating sanctions. Furthering

a gender divide and marginalizing women from any form of economic

power and, hence, influence (even if limited) serves only to institutionalize

the disparities that empirical research in various conflicts has shown is

inimical to peace building.

As the crushing North Korean winter sets in and as expatriate North

Korean workers are forced to give up their jobs by the end of the year and

Page 58

return to the DPRK, we urge you to urgently address the unfolding human

tragedy by (1) opening the space for dialogue on the adverse consequences

of sanctions and the question of their conformity to international human

rights and humanitarian law, (2) establishing a process to assess the human

impact of sanctions and take expedient action to mitigate and ultimately

eliminate undue harm; and (3) calling on the relevant parties to the unre-

solved Korean War to formally end it by replacing the 1953 Armistice

with a peace agreement.

We look forward to your response and constructive engagement.

Sincerely,

Korean Women’s Movement for Peace

Nobel Women’s Initiative

Women Cross DMZ

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)

[Editor’s Note: The following is a call issued March 31, 2020 to suspend

sanctions against the DPRK. Endorsed by 87 South Korean Civil Society

Organizations (CSOs), it argues that what is needed is to ease or suspend

the sanctions against the DPRK imposed by the U.S. and UN, because the

sanctions are blocking any possibly effective response to COVID-19. The

call can be accessed online at: http://www.peoplepower21.org/English

/1695715.]

Call to Ease or Suspend the Sanctions

Against the DPRK That Impede the

Response to COVID–19

On March 25, 2020, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

asserted that “the G7, and all nations, must remain united in calling on

North Korea to return to negotiations, and stay committed to apply

diplomatic and economic pressure over its illegal nuclear and ballistic

Page 59

missile programs.” This was a dismissal of remarks made the day before

by Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human

Rights, that “In a context of a global pandemic, both for global public

health reasons, and to support the rights and lives of millions of people in

these countries (e.g. the DPRK), sectoral sanctions should be eased or

suspended.” Following this, Secretary Pompeo had an interview with the

media on March 26 saying that “Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, in some of

these countries, when humanitarian assistance is offered, they’ll often

reject it.” However, maintaining the level of pressure in the DPRK policies

while taking their rejection of humanitarian assistance does nothing to

mitigate the current situation. If the U.S. is willing to cooperate with the

DPRK in preventing the COVID–19 epidemic as President Trump wrote

in his personal letter to Kim, what is needed right now is to ease or

suspend the sanctions against the DPRK imposed by the U.S. and UN,

which are blocking any possibly effective response to COVID–19.

Calls for easing or suspending sanctions are continued, as COVID–19

is spreading on a global scale. Michelle Bachelet said that “Broad sectoral

sanctions should urgently be re–evaluated in countries facing the corona-

virus pandemic” and mentioned Cuba, the DPRK, Venezuela, Zimbabwe

and Iran to emphasize that sanctions may also impede medical efforts,

which heightens the risk for all of us. António Guterres, UN Secretary–

General, also sent a letter to G20 members and encouraged them to waive

sanctions to ensure access to food, essential health supplies, and COVID–

19 medical support. Humanitarian assistance groups of the U.S. also urge

that sanctions against the DPRK should not impede the assistance.

The 1718 Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council is ap-

proving the requested humanitarian exemptions on a case–by–case basis

and they recently shortened the duration of the procedure, but it is still not

enough. Even the necessary medical supplies such as thermometers, RT

PCR machines, reagents, and ventilators have to go through a complex

process. In order to obtain the waiver, a wide–ranged submission of

information that encompasses the purpose of the aid, the travel position of

the items, the quantity and method of the shipment, travel route of the

package, its value converted into dollars, the reasons for seeking an

exemption, and the financial institutions that will be used, is required and

there should be no changes in its operation. Besides, even if an exemption

Page 60

is granted, financial sanctions and the U.S. secondary boycott complicates

the situation further because they make it difficult to find financial

institutions to pay for the items and provide funds for resident NGOs or

UN agencies in the DPRK. It is hard to deliver cash in person due to

COVID–19 related restrictions, overall, assistance is met with severe

adversity. Sanctions against the DPRK are blocking urgent and effective

responses to a rapidly spreading epidemic.

The DPRK has reported that there is no case of COVID–19 up until

now, but no one would be able to possibly predict situations to come. They

have shut down flights since the beginning phase of proliferation and with

other border controls, are said to be concentrating in the prevention of

epidemics. Concurrently, they asked for reagent kits to Russia and medical

supplies to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and UNICEF, etc. Even if

there is not a single case of infection, no country can be called safe unless

a tight quarantine system is in operation. There are no borders for a virus.

Experts accentuate the importance of multilateral and international coop-

eration because, if only one country fails to prevent and the outbreak goes

out of control, it will pose the intensified level of threat to the whole

world. Not just to ‘support’ the DPRK but also to jointly respond against

COVID–19 as a whole, it is very urgent that some alteration in sanctions

be made.

On March 26, G20 leaders have hosted an extraordinary summit

regarding responses to COVID–19 and agreed that ‘global action, soli-

darity and international cooperation are more than ever necessary to

address this pandemic.’ A number of countries have been requesting the

international cooperation with South Korea because the ROK govern-

ment’s actions have been acclaimed. Ironically, one country that the ROK

cannot cooperate with is the DPRK, a country that resides on the same

peninsula. Assistance from the ROK government and NGOs and inter–

Korean cooperation on health care have been blocked by the sanctions.

Effective mechanisms to prevent the outbreak of COVID–19 in the DPRK

would expand supplies for prevention, quarantine, and treatment, which

cannot possibly take place without an extensive easing or suspending

sanctions against the DPRK and international cooperation. In addition,

something that is as important as the elaborated agenda is the active

participation of the DPRK to the proposals of the international society for

Page 61

cooperation to prevent the epidemic. Cooperation does not bear fruit by

efforts that are one–sided.

The two Koreas, through the Inter–Korean Sectoral Meeting for

Cooperation on Health Care that took place in November 2018, agreed

upon bilateral sharing of information to prevent the influx and spread of

infectious diseases cooperation on diagnosis, prevention and treatment of

infectious diseases; including tuberculosis and malaria; promotion of

extensive mid and long–term cooperation projects for epidemics; health

and medical care regular discussions and resolutions through inter–Korean

Joint Liaison Office. However, in a context of a global pandemic of

COVID–19, these pacts are not carried out at all. This is a clear case that

shows the progress of a peace process on the Korean peninsula is directly

connected with people’s safety. As António Guterres, UN Secretary–

General had highlighted, “this is the time for solidarity, not exclusion.”

There is no time to hesitate. The U.S. and the international society must

immediately ease or suspend sanctions that impede the response to

COVID–19 in the DPRK.

Endorsed by the following 87 Civil Society Organizations in ROK:

80 Millions’ Movement for One Korea, Anti– THAAD Gimcheon Civil

Action Committee, Childfund Korea, Citizen Solidarity for Participation

& Autonomy of Chungbuk, Citizen Solidarity for Participation &

Autonomy of Sejong, Citizens’ Solidarity for Human Rights, Civil Peace

Forum, Civilian Military Watch, Coal Briquettes for Neighbors in Korea,

Committee of Reconciliation and Reunification in NCC–Korea, Cool–

Jam, Cooperation for Peace and Prosperity on the Korean Peninsula,

Corporation Nanum, Education Institutes for Workers, Gimje Justice

Peace Act, Green KOREA, Hananuri, Health and Sharing, Hyungmyung

Foundation, Incheon Citizen Culture Art Center, Incheon Movement for

One Korea, Incheon Network for Making Peace City, Incheon Network for

Peace & Welfare, Incheon Small Library Association, Incheon Urban

Agriculture Network, Incheon Women’s Association, Incorporated

Organization Silcheon Bulgyo, Inmuyeon Humanities Center, Jeju Peace

Human Rights Institute WHAT, Jeju People out of the Island, Jeju

Solidarity for Participatory Self–government, Jeonnam Inter–Korean

Page 62

Exchanges Peace Center, Kaesong Tourism Resume Movement,

Kimcheon Education Beyond, Korea Alliance For Progressive Movement

(KAPM), Korea Association for Restorative Justice, Korea Biopolitics

Forum, Korea Vietnam Peace Foundation, Korea Women’s Associations

United, Korea Women Alliance, Korean Catholic Women’s Community

for a New World, Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, Korean

Federation Medical Activist Groups for Health Rights (Association of

Korea Doctors for Health Rights, Association of Physicians for Human-

ism, Korean Dentist’s Association for Healthy Society, Korean Pharma-

cists for Democratic Society, Solidarity for Worker’s Health), Korean

House for International Solidarity, Korean Public Service and Transporta-

tion Worker’s Union (KPTU), Korean Sharing Movement, Korean

Women Peasants Association, Korean Women’s Movement for Peace,

Medical Aid for Children, Naeil Corp. for Youth Human Rights, National

Council of YMCAs of Korea, Networks for Greentransport, New

Bodhisattva Network, Nice People Foundation, Okedongmu Children in

Korea, One Korea Tree, Pan Korean Association for Reconciliation, Pax

Christi Korea, Peace and Human Rights Center in Jeju, Peace Network,

Peace Railway of the Korea, Peacemomo, People not Profit, People’s

Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), Professors for Democ-

racy, SARANGBANG Group For Human Right, Seongju Soseongri

Villagers’ Association against THAAD, Solidarity for Another World,

Solidarity for Independent Peaceful Reunification of Korea, Solidarity for

Peace & Human Rights, The Center for Historical Truth and Justice, The

Corea Peace 3000, The Headquarters of National Unification Movement

of Young Korean Academy, The Korean Council for the Justice and

Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, The

Righteous People for Korean Unification, The Won–Buddhist Emergency

Committee to Guard the Sacred Site at Seongju, Ulsan People’s Solidarity,

Unification Committee of MINBYUN–Lawyers for Democratic Society,

Urinuri Peace Corp., West Sea Peace Zone Association, Women Making

Peace, Won Buddhism Human Rights Commission, Won–Buddhists

Social Movement Network

Page 63

Part 4

[Editor’s Note: The following is the resolution proposed in December,

2019 by the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation

missions to the UN Security Council for consultations and adoption.]

Security Council Resolution Submitted

by China and Russia Proposes

Easing Some United Nations Sanctions

Against DPRK

The Security Council,

PPl. Recalling its previous relevant resolutions, including resolution

825 (1993), resolution 1695 (2006), resolution 1718 (2006), resolution

1874 (2009), resolution 1887 (2009), resolution 2321 (2016), resolution

2356 (2017), resolution 2371 (2017), resolution 2375 (2017), resolution

2397 (2017),

PP2. Reaffirming that proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological

weapons as well as their means of delivery constitutes a threat to inter-

national peace and security,

PP3. Noting that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“the

DPRK”) has refrained from conducting nuclear tests from September 2017

and introduced a moratorium on conducting further nuclear tests and test

launches of intermediate–range and intercontinental missiles from 21

April, 2018,

PP4. Welcoming numerous important statements by the DPRK on

firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the

Korean Peninsula and the decision by the DPRK to demolish Punggye–ri

nuclear test site and Dongchang–ri missile engine test site and launch

platform under the observation of experts from relevant countries,

PP5. Considering the development of inter–Korean relations based on

the principles of independence and self–determination of the Korean

nation as the key for a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,

PP6. Underscoring the necessity to respect the legitimate security

concerns of the DPRK, and ensure the welfare, inherent dignity, and rights

Page 64

of people in the DPRK, and reaffirming that the measures previously

introduced by the UN Security Council are not intended to have adverse

humanitarian consequences for the civilian population of the DPRK,

PP7. Expressing its support for the efforts by the United States of

America and the DPRK to establish mutual trust and improve bilateral

relations through dialogue and consultations,

PP8. Stressing the importance of further defusing military tension on

the Korean Peninsula and fostering the atmosphere of cooperation and

trust by preservation of the abovementioned moratorium of the DPRK and

the decision by the United States of America and the Republic of Korea

to indefinitely postpone their joint large–scale military exercises in the

region,

PP9. Reiterating its commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and polit-

ical solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula and beyond and

welcoming the efforts by the Council Members as well as other States to

facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue,

OP1. Reiterates that all parties should commit to work toward com-

plete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula;

OP2. Decides that the Security Council shall adjust the sanction mea-

sures toward the DPRK as may be needed in light of the DPRK’s com-

pliance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions;

OP3. Calls upon the nuclear–weapon State Parties to the Treaty on the

Non–Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to facilitate together with the

DPRK the process of practical denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula;

OP4. Welcomes further development of inter–Korean relations

through close dialogue and communication between the authorities of the

two sides, civilian exchanges and cooperation in many areas, in particular

the projects of rail and road connections on the Korean Peninsula, in

accordance with Panmunjom Declaration of 27 April, 2018 and Pyong-

yang Declaration of 19 September, 2018 by the president of the Republic

of Korea Moon Jae–in and the Chairman of the State Affairs Commission

of the DPRK Kim Jong Un;

OP5. Decides that the 1718 Committee shall adopt the most favorable

approach toward requests for exemptions from existing UN sanctions

against the DPRK for humanitarian and livelihood purposes; and decides

to exempt the inter–Korean rail and road cooperation projects from exist-

Page 65

ing UN sanctions against the DPRK and such activities should be notified

to the 1718 Committee in advance;

OP6. Decides that the measures imposed by resolutions 1718 (2006),

1874 (2009), 2087 (2013), 2094 (2013), 2270 (2016), 2321 (2016), 2356

(2017), 2371 (2017), 2375 (2017), 2397 (2017), which are directly related

to the livelihood of the civilian population of the DPRK should be lifted

at an early date;

OP7. Decides that the provision that all member states shall prohibit

the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to the DPRK, through their

territories or by their nationals, or using their flag vessels and aircraft, of

certain industrial machinery and transportation vehicles which are used for

infrastructure construction and cannot be diverted to the DPRK’s nuclear

and ballistic missile programs, and certain items in the humanitarian and

livelihood field is not applicable to the specific items and corresponding

HS Codes as listed in the Annex;

OP8. Decides with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the

civilian population of the DPRK to terminate the provisions set out in

paragraph 29 of resolution 2321 (2016), paragraph 9 of resolution 2371

(2017), paragraph 16 and 17 of resolution 2375 (2017), and paragraph 8

of resolution 2397 (2017);

OP9. Calls upon all Member States to intensify their efforts in

providing humanitarian assistance to the DPRK both bilaterally and

through the programes of the UN and other international organizations,

and non–governmental organizations, given grave concerns about the cur-

rent humanitarian situation in the DPRK; and stresses that all member

states should ensure the unobstructed and timely provision of humanitarian

aid to the DPRK through their territory;

OP10. Welcomes the continuation of the dialogue between the United

States and the DPRK at all levels, aimed at establishing new U.S.–DPRK

relations, building mutual confidence and joining efforts to build a lasting

and stable peace on the Korean Peninsula in a staged and synchronized

manner, in accordance with the joint statement of 12 June, 2018 by the

President of the United States of America Donald J. Trump and the

Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK Kim Jong Un;

OP11. Calls upon all parties concerned to consider implementing

further practical steps to reduce military tension on the Korean Peninsula

Page 66

and probability of any military confrontation by all appropriate means,

such as, but not limited to, conclusion of agreements between military

officials, adoption of formal declaration and/or a peace treaty for the end

of the Korean war; and affirms its intention to provide needed assistance

in this process;

OP12. Reaffirms the importance of maintaining peace and stability on

the Korean Peninsula and in North–East Asia at large; and stresses that it

can be achieved only on the basis of multilateral cooperation between the

countries of the region;

OP13. Calls for prompt resumption of the six–party talks or re–launch

of multilateral consultations in any other similar format, with the goal of

facilitating a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue,

reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and beyond, and promoting

peaceful co–existence and mutually beneficial regional cooperation in

North–East Asia;

OP14. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

Annex

List of the Items to be removed from the sanctions

with HS Codes

1. Materials, machines and vehicles for infrastructure constructions

HS code Items

1 721041 Iron or non–alloy steel; flat–rolled, width 600mm or

more, corrugated, plated or coated with zinc (Color

steel tile)

2 7302 Railway or tramway track materials of iron or steel;

rails, ties, etc.

3 7308 Structure of iron or steel and parts thereof for roof,

window, etc.

Page 67

4 7318 Screws, bolts, rivets, washers, and the like, of iron or

steel.

5 8429 Bulldozers, excavators, road rollers, etc.

6 8530 Electric signaling or traffic control equipment; for

railways, port, airfields, etc.

7 ex870191 Tractors of an engine power not exceeding 18 kW

8 870421

870422

Vehicles of a gross vehicle weight not exceeding 20

tonnes

9 870431

ex870432

Vehicles of a gross vehicle weight not exceeding 8

tonnes

10 8705 Special purpose motor vehicles, such as breakdown

lorries and fire fighting vehicles

2. Humanitarian and livelihood items

HS code Items

11 7317 Nails, drawing pins and the like, of iron or steel

12 7319 Sewing needles for use in the hand, pins and similar

articles, of iron or steel

13 7321

through

7324

Stoves, radiators for central heating, kitchen articles

and parts, sanitary ware and parts thereof, etc., of iron

or steel

14 7415 Nails, drawing pins and the like, of copper or steel

15 7418 and

7615

Copper and aluminium; table, kitchen or other house-

hold articles and parts thereof

Page 68

16 8211

through

8215

Cutlery such as knives, scissors, spoons and forks

17 83 Miscellaneous products of base metal, such as locks,

filing cabinets, loose–leaf binders and name plates

18 8403 Central heating boilers

19 ex841510 Air conditioning machines, of a refrigerating effect

not exceeding 4000 Cal per hour

20 841520 Air conditioning machines, of a kind used for per-

sons, in motor vehicles

21 ex841821 Refrigerators for household use, compression–type,

of a capacity exceeding 50 L, not exceeding 150 L

22 ex841919 Solar water heaters

23 842211 Dish washing machines, of the household type

24 8450 Household or laundry–type washing machines

25 8471 Automatic data processing machines and units

thereof, such as panel computers and micro–com-

puters

26 850811

Vacuum cleaners, with self contained electric motor,

of a power not exceeding 1500 W and having a dust

bag or other receptacle capacity not exceeding 20 L

27 8509

through

8510

Electro–mechanical domestic appliances, such as

juice extractors, food grinders, and electric shavers

Page 69

28 8516 Electric water heaters, electric irons, microwave

ovens, electromagnetic ovens, etc.

29 8712

through

8715

Bicycles, carriages for disabled persons, baby car-

riages, parts and accessories thereof

30 8201 Spades, shovels, axes, sickles and other tools used in

agriculture, horticulture, and forestry

31 8202

through

8206

Tools, hand; saws, files, spanners and wrenches, etc.,

two or more put up in sets for retail sale

32 8424 Fire extinguishers, spray guns, etc.

33 8432

through

8438

Machinery and equipments for agriculture, forestry,

poultry–keeping, etc.

34 8439

through

8443

Machinery for paper making, binding and printing

35 8472 Office machines, such as copy machines, staplers,

and paper shredders

36 8475 Lamps, tubes, etc., and machines for manufacturing

glassware

Page 70

[Editor’s Note: The following is the Annex to the letter dated 14 January,

2013 from the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea to the United Nations addressed to the President of the

Security Council. It is posted online at: https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=

en/S/2013/20.]

Dissolution of the ‘United Nations

Command’ is the Essential

Requirement in Defending Peace and

Stability On the Korean Peninsula

and In the Asia–Pacific Region

Memorandum of the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs

of the Democratic People’s Republic

of Korea

This year marks the sixtieth year since the Korean Armistice Agree-

ment was signed.

It is now 60 years since the gunfire of war stopped roaring, but the

war has not been terminated legally. There remains a fragile ceasefire

status of neither peace nor war on the Korean peninsula, which has yet to

build up a mechanism to ensure peace.

The United States has gone defiant against the Government of the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in its consistent stand and effort

to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty and tries to

maintain the ceasefire status. Lurking behind this background is the ghost

of the cold war, i.e., the ‘United Nations Command’.

This ghost, keeping pace with the recent United States defense

strategy, is coming back to life as a tool for an aggressive war that would

bring a fierce flame to the Asia–Pacific region, the greatest hotspot of the

world.

Page 71

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic

of Korea recognizes that there is a need to bring the attention of the inter-

national community to these moves of the United States, which would

result in an extremely dangerous situation.

The United States, according to its new defence strategy, is trying to

transform the ‘United Nations Command’ into a “multinational force com-

mand” which would serve as a matrix of the Asian version of the North

Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The ulterior motive of the new United States defense strategy, re-

leased for the first time in January, 2012, is to encircle and put a military

curb on other big Powers in Asia so that the latter cannot grow to make a

resistance to it. For this purpose, the United States plans to concentrate 60

percent of its overseas–deployed forces to the Asia–Pacific region in the

next 10 years. At the same time, the United States is stepping up its

preparations to drag its bilateral allies in the region into a gradual concen-

tration as a multilateral military alliance like NATO that moves under a

unified command system.

It is a well–known fact that the United States has long kept its eye on

forming a tripartite military alliance by combining the United States–

Japan and United States–South Korea military alliances.

The United States drew its “experience” of containing and collapsing

the former Soviet Union and East European countries by relying on

NATO during the cold war time. Based on this, it is trying to set up a

larger–scale collective military organization which would enable it to

encircle its potential enemies in the Asia–Pacific region as well.

The United States, in order to get around the stiff resistance of the

countries concerned, is trying to form a combined force instead of opting

for a new one, by playing tricks to revive the functions of the ‘United

Nations Command’, which is nothing more than just a name.

The ‘United Nations Command’, fundamentally speaking, is a tool of

war which was organized by the United States for the purpose of deploy-

ing its satellite forces and exercising its control over them during the

Korean war. After the ceasefire, the United States continued to seize and

exercise its right to operational command in South Korea through the

‘United Nations Command’. But, as pressure was mounting at home and

Page 72

abroad in the 1970s to dismantle the ‘United Nations Command’ and

withdraw its forces from South Korea, the United States had no other

alternative but to form the United States–South Korea “Combined Forces

Command” and transfer the right to operational command to it. Through

this, it tried to legalize and perpetuate its occupation of South Korea by

changing the nature of the United States troops in South Korea from

“United Nations forces” to that of forces dispatched by the “Republic of

Korea–United States Mutual Defense Treaty.”

Since then, the ‘United Nations Command’ has become a nominal one

with nothing more than a name.

Behind the recent attempts of the United States to revive the functions

of the ‘United Nations Command’ lie its strategic self interest to make

South Korea a forward base for the domination of the Asia–Pacific region

and hold fast to it as cannon fodder for an aggressive war under a changed

situation.

As sentiment ran high for independence against the United States and

pressure was exerted to take over the commanding power from the United

States, the United States had no other choice but to return the right to

peacetime operational command to the South Korean side in 1994.

Furthermore, it is to hand over the right to wartime command by 2015.

Accordingly, the United States–South Korea “Combined Forces Com-

mand,” which has served as a tool for exercising the right to United States

operational command over South Korea, should be dismantled.

This does not mean that the United States is likely to easily give up

its right to military command over South Korea, the strategic point in its

strategy regarding the Asia–Pacific region.

It is none other than the revival of the ‘United Nations Command’ that

the United States worked out as an “alternative” to seize and wield its

actual command control over the South Korean armed forces.

The resolution of the Security Council which was railroaded for adop-

tion by the United States in the 1950s stipulates that all the forces pro-

vided to South Korea should be under the control of the ‘United Nations

Command’ under the United States. Together with this, the United States

moved further in depriving South Korean authorities of the right to

operational command in the name of the ‘United Nations Command’,

Page 73

according to the July 1950 “Taejon Agreement.” Such being the case, if

the ‘United Nations Command’ is to revive its function now, that would

be as good as re–establishing the United States right to control over the

South Korean puppet army.

When the United States began to discuss the issue of returning the

right to wartime operational command to South Korea in March, 2006, the

United States Commander in South Korea, at a hearing before the United

States Senate Armed Services Committee, made an assertion that the

‘United Nations Command’ should increase its role and be turned into a

“multinational force command” in such a way as to allow the member

States of the ‘United Nations Command’ to participate in its detailed

activities, let alone the fact that they are involved in the mapping of the

wartime operational plans.

Following this, the United States made its gradual move to increase

the scale and frequency of the joint military drills in and around South

Korea and saw to it that the operational players from the member States

of the ‘United Nations Command’ were involved in such drills, adapting

them to the operational skills of the joint military drills led by the United

States.

The United States and South Korea held the forty–fourth annual

security meeting in Washington in October, 2012, and issued a joint

statement “reaffirming that the ‘United Nations Command’ is indispens-

able for maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula.”

This shows that the United States had already forced the South

Korean authorities to accept its scheme to revive the ‘United Nations

Command’.

It is also on a step–by–step basis that preparations are under way to

expand the operational sphere of the ‘United Nations Command’ to the

whole of the Asia–Pacific region.

The United States troops in South Korea, the mainstay of the ‘United

Nations Command’, have already been afforded “strategic flexibility” so

that they could provide support in case of emergencies in other parts of

East Asia. Recently, the plan has been actively under review to revive the

deployment of the United States marine forces to the Philippines and

South Korea which are due to be present in Australia on a new basis.

Page 74

If any move to establish a collective military bloc in the Asia–Pacific

region is allowed, this would inevitably trigger off a countervailing force

from other countries which are placed under the target of this bloc. If this

is the case, it would be par for the course that this region, too, would be

plunged into a theater to take sides with as in Europe, with a revival of the

cold war and increased danger of a nuclear war beyond any measure.

Under this worst–case scenario, it is none other than South Korea that

would suffer most.

The ‘United Nations Command’ is primarily an unjust tool which

only misuses the name of the United Nations. All this bears no relation to

the consensus of the United Nations Member States.

According to Article 27 of the Charter of the United Nations, the

important decisions of the Security Council shall be made by an affirma-

tive vote of more than seven member States (at that time), including the

concurring votes of all five permanent member States. This means that

even if the United States scraped the bottom of the barrel in collecting

seven satellite States, it was not possible to make any decisions against the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea when one of the permanent mem-

ber States did not agree on it.

The situation was that the former Soviet Union, which held a seat on

the Security Council, was not attending Council meetings from 13

January, 1950, in protest against the exercise of the representative right in

the United Nations by the Taiwanese authorities, not by the People’s

Republic of China.

The United States took this occasion as momentum in instigating the

traitor Syngman Rhee to launch a pre–emptive all–out armed invasion

against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. On that same day, the

United States did not lose any time in convening a meeting of the Security

Council where it adopted a resolution branding the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea as an “aggressor” (resolution 82 (1950)).

The Government of the Soviet Union responded to this by sending

telegrams to the Security Council on 29 June and 6 July, 1950. In those

messages, it emphasized that the resolution could not go into effect, as it

had been adopted by permanent member States against the United Nations

Charter without the consent of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic

Page 75

of China, permanent members of the Security Council.

Despite this, the United States convened a meeting on 7 July, again

in the absence of the Soviet Union. At that meeting, it cooked up a

resolution allowing United Nations Member States to dispatch forces to

the Korean war and place those forces under the control of “‘the unified

command’ under the authority of the United States” and giving free rein

to that command to “use the United Nations flag” (resolution 84 (1950)).

On 25 July, 1950, the United States submitted a report of this

command to the Security Council in which it had freely changed the name

of the “unified command” to the ‘United Nations Command’.

It was only on 31 January, 1951, after the former Soviet Union,

permanent member of the Security Council, had returned to its meetings,

that the Council submitted an agenda and adopted resolution 90 (1951),

calling for the removal of the agenda item “Complaint of aggression upon

the Republic of Korea” from the list of items of which the Council was

seized. This complaint was made by the United States when the Korean

war broke out on 25 June, 1950. In the ensuing time, the Korea question

was no longer discussed.

The Security Council adopted such a resolution even in the middle of

the war. This itself is an admission of the fact that the United Nations

made a mistake from the beginning by allowing it to be involved and

misused in the Korean war.

Even the successive Secretaries–General of the United Nations

have made an official recognition of the fact that the ‘United Nations

Command’ is not a subsidiary organ of the United Nations, but abso-

lutely a tool used by the United States for the war.

In June, 1994, the then Secretary–General, Boutros Boutros–Ghali,

recognized that “the Security Council did not establish the ‘unified

command’ as a subsidiary organ under its control and that it came to be

placed under the authority of the United States” (24 June, 1994 letter

from the Secretary–General to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).

In December, 1998, Secretary–General Kofi A. Annan made it clear

that “none of my predecessors have granted any authorization to any State

to make use of the name of the United Nations” when he referred to the

Page 76

forces and command dispatched by the United States into the Korean war

(21 December, 1998 letter from the Secretary–General to the President of

the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea).

On 27 July, 2004 and 6 March, 2006, the United Nations Spokesper-

son confirmed that the “‘United Nations Command,’ despite its name, is

not the army of the United Nations, but a United States–led force.”

It is not the United Nations, but the United States, which has the

power to appoint the “United Nations forces commander.” It is not the

United Nations, but the United States Administration, which has an

absolute power to decide on reduction or enforcement of the United States

forces in south Korea that are under the helmets of the “United Nations

forces.”

The United Nations has changed its composition with the passage of

time. Given this, the ‘United Nations Command’ is all the more a sub-

sidiary organ of the United States, which has no relevance to the United

Nations.

The United Nations today is no longer the forum of the 1950s, when

the United States organized the ‘United Nations Command’ at its will.

More than 20 years have passed since the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea became a legitimate member of the United Nations

after joining it. China, together with the Democratic People’s Republic of

Korea, sat face to face with the “United Nations forces” when it gave a

joint signature to the Korean Armistice Agreement. It has been 40 years

since China came to exercise its representative right as a permanent

member of the Security Council.

Despite this prolonged time, the United Nations flag is still hanging

and shows off in Panmunjom. This, a product of anachronism, is simply

a shame to the United Nations.

The ‘United Nations Command’ should be dismantled without any

further delay if the United Nations really wants to regain its lost authority

and impartiality.

The ‘United Nations Command’ is the refuse of the times, the disso-

lution of which has already been declared by the General Assembly.

Page 77

At its thirtieth session, held in November, 1975, the General

Assembly adopted two resolutions on the dissolution of the ‘United

Nations Command.’ Resolution 3390 (XXX) B, initiated by the progres-

sive Member States of the United Nations, called for the immediate and

unconditional dissolution of the ‘United Nations Command’. The United

States– sponsored resolution 3390 (XXX) A stated that the ‘United

Nations Command’ might be dissolved on 1 January, 1976, if “alternative

arrangements” for maintaining the Armistice Agreement were made.

This is how the United States came up with the conditional theory of

dismantling the ‘United Nations Command’. This is simply a despair

counsel to avoid the voice of the broad international society calling for an

immediate and unconditional dissolution of the ‘United Nations Com-

mand’. All this shows that even the United States itself could not deny the

illegal and anachronistic substance of the ‘United Nations Command’.

If we look at the composition of the then ‘United Nations Command’,

it was no longer the multinational forces, but the United States command

which had only the United States troops stationed in South Korea.

As soon as the Armistice Agreement was signed, Member States of

the United Nations which had participated in the Korean war withdrew

their forces, to the exclusion only of the United States. Afterwards,

Luxembourg and Ethiopia removed their flags from the ‘United Nations

Command’ which they had left as a symbol. Even those countries that still

have their own flags neither have staff in the ‘United Nations Command’

nor participate in its activities.

The United States asserted that the dissolution of the ‘United Nations

Command’ would be possible only when another mechanism to maintain

the Armistice was set up. But the current ceasefire status is not maintained

by the ‘United Nations Command’ in practice. In March, 1991, the United

States made an unannounced decision to replace the chief delegate to the

“United Nations forces” at the Military Armistice Commission with the

South Korean army general, a post so far occupied by the United States

army general. The United States sought no prior consultations with the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea side in replacing the chief

delegate to the “United Nations forces” with the army general of South

Korea, which is not a party to the Armistice Agreement. This was a clear

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provocation violating paragraph 61, article V of the Armistice Agreement,

which stipulates that amendments and additions to the Armistice Agree-

ment must be mutually agreed to by the commanders of the opposing

sides.

As the “United Nations forces” lost their delegation power, the

Military Armistice Commission was virtually put in a state of paralysis.

Eventually, the delegation of the Chinese People’s Volunteers, a member

of the Korean–Chinese side of the Military Armistice Commission, with-

drew in December, 1994 and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

side formed the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People’s Army (KPA)

to maintain the ceasefire on behalf of the former Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea–Chinese side.

As time passed, the members of the Neutral Nations Supervisory

Commission (NNSC) failed to maintain the positions of neutrality which

they had at the time of signing the Armistice Agreement. With this, the

NNSC could no longer carry out its functions.

This led to the complete fall of the previous armistice mechanism, and

the ‘United Nations Command’ was reduced to a scarecrow with no party

left to deal with.

It has been since then that all the issues related to the running of the

ceasefire status have been discussed and disposed of between the KPA

and United States military authority rather than between the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea–China and the “United Nations forces.”

Both the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea side and the United

States side have maintained effective control of the ceasefire status for

decades, and this reality proves that there is no longer any reason to

withhold the dissolution of the ‘United Nations Command’. Even from the

viewpoint of replacing the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty, the

‘United Nations Command’ stands in the way as a legacy of the cold war

that would bring no good but only harm.

According to the Armistice Agreement, the issue of ensuring a lasting

peace is to be negotiated only at a political conference at a level higher

than that of military commanders. The actual political superior of the

‘United Nations Command’, a signatory to the Armistice Agreement, is

not the United Nations, but the United States Administration.

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The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Government proposed

to establish a new peacemaking mechanism on the Korean peninsula in

April, 1994, (28 April, 1994 statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).

After that, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea also proposed

to make a provisional agreement between the Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea and the United States that could replace the current

Armistice Agreement in order to prevent armed conflicts, remove the

danger of war and peacefully maintain the ceasefire status until a full

peace treaty was signed on the Korean peninsula (22 February, 1996

statement by the Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea).

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States

held several rounds of talks at the general level in Panmunjom over the

issue of putting in place a new armistice mechanism on the Korean

peninsula.

The issue of establishing a permanent peace regime on the Korean

peninsula was also discussed in the four–party talks between the Demo-

cratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States, which also saw

the participation of China and South Korea. The Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea and the United States held talks in Washington in

October, 2000, where both sides confirmed that there were several ways,

including the four–party talks, to put a formal end to the Korean war by

easing tension and replacing the Armistice Agreement with a durable

peace regime on the Korean peninsula (12 October, 2000 Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea–United States joint communiqué).

An agreement was reached at the North–South Summit in October,

2007 to proceed with the declaration of the end of the war by the leaders

of three or four parties that are direct parties to the Korean question (4

October, 2007 Declaration for Development of North–South Relations and

Peace and Prosperity).

As the facts show, there have been many discussions and agreements

between the concerned parties on changing the ceasefire status to a

durable peace on the Korean peninsula where we can find no mention of

any method which presupposes the existence of the ‘United Nations

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Command’.

Despite that, the ‘United Nations Command’ still exists today, and,

on top of that, it is trying to be revived as a tool of war to be used by

multinational forces. This is an issue that can never be overlooked from

the perspective of ensuring security in the Asia– Pacific region, including

the Korean peninsula.

The United States is claiming that the effort of the Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea to bolster its national defensive power is

causing tension in the region. This is nothing but an imprudent trick to

cover up the aggressive nature of its Asia–Pacific strategy.

Whether the United States immediately dismantles the ‘United

Nations Command’ or not will serve as the acid test in deciding whether

the United States will or will not maintain its anti–Democratic People’s

Republic of Korea hostile policy and whether it wants peace and stability

or a revival of the cold war in the Asia–Pacific region.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will continue to strength-

en its deterrence against all kinds of war, thereby actively contributing to

peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the rest of Asia, until

the United States makes a right choice.

Pyongyang, 14 January, 2013

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.

Page 81

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

The Amateur Computerist invites submissions.

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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.

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