 My name is Durasian. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii Show, Finding Our Future. And we are here every other Tuesday from 1 to 1.30. And we cover issues from sustainability, social justice, things that matter for our future, and especially for young people and millennials. So today I'm really stoked that my guest is Christine Ahn. And she is the founder and executive director of Woman Across DMZ. And Christine, thank you for being here. Oh, thank you, Durey. I'm honored. So it would be great for people just to get an overview of exactly what you do on a regular daily basis. Well, I kind of do a little bit of this. I do a lot of talking on conference calls with people from around the world, especially Washington DC and New York. I write a bunch of articles and primarily our goal is we want to see an end to the Korean War. And people often say the Korean War, that was like 70 years ago and didn't that war end? And yes, it ended with a ceasefire, but it did not formally end with a peace settlement. And so we have been mobilizing women around the world to call for an end to the Korean War with a peace agreement and to mobilize women to ensure that our voices and our perspectives are included in this peace process. And so that's what we've been doing. And in 2015, I helped organize a historic peace walk of women, 30 women peacemakers from around the world, many from the countries that participated in the Korean War, walked with 10,000 Korean women on both sides of the DMZ. And that was a historic event. It really, I believe, transformed the peace and social movements in South Korea and really set forth, I think, an incredible change, I think, in the conversation, not just on the Korean Peninsula, but especially here in the United States, where most Americans have no clue about the Korean War. They have no idea that the United States divided the Korean Peninsula, that more bombs were dropped on the Korean Peninsula than all of the Asia Pacific Theater during World War Two, that the U.S. is the one that began the nuclear crisis. We threatened to use atomic weapons during the Korean War and we have placed nuclear weapons in South Korea up until George Bush Sr. And so it's been really important to educate. And that's why I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be on your show today, because it was the Korean War that actually inaugurated the military industrial complex. It's a quadrupled defense spending in this country. It set forth the U.S. to become the world's military police. And I think that we have a huge opportunity right now to end the longest standing overseas U.S. conflict and hopefully begin the process of building a more just and diplomatic and peaceful U.S. foreign policy. Yeah, I have so many questions about this because I'm Korean and I'm Korean-American and so this issue is very important to me just for my family and my culture. And so my first question is why women? Why is this a women-led movement and why is that important? Well, I get this question oftentimes and every time I have a different response. But at this very moment, first of all, the data is in and there have been numerous studies that track conflicts around the world and that it has actually shown that when women are involved in peace processes, it actually leads to a peace agreement. And there have been now nine UN Security Council resolutions mandating that women are involved in peace processes. And it's like even the Trump administration, Donald Trump, even signed something called the Women, Peace and Security Act mandating women's inclusion in the peace process. So the international law is in place. The data is in. But it's really been my experience in the last five years since organizing the historic crossing of the DMC to witness the role of women and how women tend to organize differently. And it's been, I think, especially for some of the grassroots networks. So there is now 10 chapters across the country of Korea Peace Now, which is the transnational feminist campaign that we launched. But historically in this country, a lot of the Korean Americans that have done this piecework have been men. They have been older men. And I think that there is a different way of organizing. And now it's been an opportunity saying that it's not like we're saying men aren't allowed or gender nonconforming people aren't allowed. But it is definitely a movement that is led by women. And it's not just about our gender, but it's about the kind of values, the feminist values that we bring to this peacebuilding work that is inclusive, that is non hierarchical, that is really challenging militarism, that is intersectional. And so that's for me the amazing thing because, you know, when I set out to do this, I really used a lot of the language around the UN Security Council resolution. The most significant one is 1325. It was passed in 2000. Hillary Clinton was a real champion of it. And it really, you know, called for women's inclusion and peace processes. But it's been so fascinating to actually be experiencing it and to actually see how women through we don't obviously have a seat at the table. But it doesn't mean that we don't influence the discourse. And it doesn't mean that we don't change the political space for there to be a shift in the conversation. So because of our organizing, because of our persistence, because of our networking. And I mean outright, I don't know, it's just like you're not going to get rid of us. And so we're just going to keep knocking on the door. We're going to keep demanding a seat at the table. And we're going to be putting forth really a critical version, a critical history, a critical analysis that I think is trying to get to the root cause of this problem and to build power horizontally and to build movements and to really democratize US foreign policy. I think that it's been just a transformative thing to not just witness that some of the shifts in conversation, I would say for sure there have been two things that women cross DMZ, I believe we can own. And one is that the conversation about denuclearization has shifted. We have said that peace needs to go alongside denuclearization. We can't just assume that North Korea is going to hand over their nuclear weapons without a security guarantee. And that must come in the form of a peace agreement. And so that has actually gained some traction. And so, in fact, when you see the presidential candidates among the Democrats, they are no longer saying the CVID, the complete verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons. They're actually saying now it needs to be a step by step approach. So that's one. I do feel like we have really shifted the conversation nationally about that issue. But the second one is about human rights. I mean, you know, when we were doing this peace walk in 2015, we got hammered for not caring about North Korea human rights. Oh, that evil regime. How could you engage with them? And we have said that peace is actually the path to improving human rights in North Korea and amazingly enough in the last few weeks, the UN special rapporteur on North Korea human rights, his name is Thomas Quintana. He actually made a statement saying that the United States should negotiate a peace agreement separate from a denuclearization deal because that will improve human rights in North Korea. So it has been remarkable to see how women organizers, activists, experts, strategists, when we work together, we can actually create the political space and the momentum to achieve a peace agreement. Yeah. One question I have is what is the benefit of officially ending the Korean War? Because it has been so long. I bet this is a question you guys get a lot. And what is the risk of not ending it? Like, so why is that a primary goal? Like, does it really do anything in the physical world? Yes, absolutely. So in 1953, so the Korean War was from 1950 to 53, and four million people were killed. And they finally, the commanders negotiated an armistice agreement. It actually took over a year to sign that agreement. But it was a ceasefire. They agreed to stop help fighting. But they promised within that provision to return within 90 days to negotiate a political settlement. And so because they have not done that, North Korea and the United States is still in a state of war as is South Korea. But so that means that there is a state of war that exists. That means that at any point, just as Hawaii experienced in 2018 when the false missile alert that was supposedly coming from North Korea, that means that the United States with South Korea regularly conducts military exercises, practicing regime change. So what happened right now recently with the US assassination of the general in Iran, Soleimani, that is what they practice on an annual basis, is to strike and take out the North Korean leadership. And so at the same time, what you see is North Korea, they're also conducting missile tests, nuclear weapons tests. This is insanity. And just even at that level, that is not OK. But I think the other perspective that women bring is what about the families? Millions of families still remain separated by the world's militarized border, the DMZ. And without peace, there is not an opportunity for either the families to reunite or, frankly, even the Korean people to be able to travel freely across the Korean Peninsula. I think that 70 years of war has really closed off our creativity, our imagination of what is possible. And I think that's why we do what we do, the kind of bold, direct action and thinking outside of the box. And that is why it's so powerful for women to do this work, because we are outside the halls of power. And I think because we don't use brute force, we don't depend on our masculinity to push things forward that we use our ingenuity and our relationships and trust building to achieve things that we will have a much more sustainable and holistic piece. Yeah. Yeah, so it sounds like ending the Korean War is more of like a foundational thing, like it allows space to have these other conversations to move to the next steps that are needed to move more. Totally. Well, I mean, if the US negotiates a peace agreement with North Korea, then North Korea is that sets forth a process of normalizing relationships. And so that means that they don't have to have this militarized confrontational relationship. It means that the US policy of maximum pressure, which includes sanctions against ordinary people. It means that actually North Korea could join the international economy. It means that North Korea, 40% of North Koreans don't need to be on the verge of hunger. It means that the democratization of the Korean peninsula, which also includes not just North Korea, but South Korea, means like people often slam North Korea for the human rights violations. But look at our country. I mean, you might be too young to, right? But after 9-11, we passed something in this country called the Patriot Act. And we allow system-wide surveillance of everybody in this country. And the targeting of political opposition in this country, it's like we think we live in such a free democracy. But it's like, and so when we allow the governments to say that there is the threat of war, the threat of our security, that enables governments to use repression to justify freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly. And so I really work hard to educate Americans that Korea is facing this kind of arrested development because the unresolved Korean War. Yeah. Yeah, I have this debate with my partner and many people who are proud Americans, and they want to just defend what America is doing and criticize other countries and be like, North Korea's, they're doing all the sketchy things. It's very vague. It's like they don't understand what's happening and I'm not defending any country. But I think to your point, look at what's happening here. Supposed to be the best country on Earth in some measures or to some subjective perspectives. But there are all of these injustices going on here as well. And so I guess my question to you is, how would you explain to folks who are very defensive about American foreign policy why North Korea is so anti-America? And what was the US's part in the Korean War? And why is there this animosity to the United States for people who don't really know that history and context? Thank you. I think that that is so vital to have that critical historical perspective. And so in 1945, at the end of World War II, when the United States defeated, and I want to say defeated in quotes because we dropped two nuclear weapons on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and annihilated instantly a quarter million people in Japan, which included actually tens of thousands of Koreans because Japan had colonized Korea for 35 years. And so my parents were born in the 1920s and they, like every other Korean, poured out into the streets in 1945 because they felt that Korean liberation was finally here. But instead of independence, what Korea and Koreans got was division. Two young US military officers were tasked to basically figure out a way to divide the Korean Peninsula because the Soviet Union, the former Soviet Union, was also a victor in World War II. And it was the beginning of the Cold War. And the US wanted to stem back the tide of communism that had been sweeping the world. And so the two young officers basically tore a page from the National Geographic and they drew a line across the 38th parallel. And that is how Korea became divided. President Truman sent a memo to Stalin and said, you guys can have north of the 38th parallel, which included Pyongyang. And we will take Seoul and south of the 38th parallel. It was meant to be a temporary division. For three years, there was military governments in both South Korea by the US and in the north under the Soviets. And then became the creation of two separate states, the Republic of Korea and South and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north. And then that began a struggle between the two states to unify the country under their various systems. And so actually the first, allegedly the first skirmish that led across the 38th parallel was on June 25, 1950. So we're approaching that. This is the 70th anniversary of the start of that war. And so that's what historically is considered the beginning of the Korean War. And so it was three years of brutal fighting. As I noted, 4 million people were killed, mostly Koreans, mostly Korean civilians, women, children, elderly. And in the north, I mean, we don't hear this. But if you actually look at archives, especially of military generals and commanders that testified in the Congress, they say, there are no more targets. We've decimated that country. And so we know that 80% of North Korean cities were bombed to bits. We know that the US committed genocide. We committed war crimes. We totally blew up dams that flooded entire tracts of farmland. And so one in four members of a family were killed in that war. And so if you go to North Korea, you actually talk to the North Korean people. Not only do they have that as part of their education, they remember the Korean War. It is not just in their education and their curriculum and passed down from generation to generation, but it is all over the billboards. I mean, if anybody has been to Cuba, there are no commercial ads, but there are political billboards all over the country reminding the people about why they have to struggle, why they have to suffer because of US imperialism. And so we don't get that perspective in this country. We definitely get, I think, the perspectives of some defectors that are very anti the regime. And I think, absolutely, it's an authoritarian dictatorship. And we hope for a different kind of future for North Korea. But frankly, from our perspective, we don't see regime change ever being a successful thing. And what we need to do is help create the conditions in that country for things to improve. And so for example, the US policy on North Korea is sanctions. And so it's been under place for a long time, but the shift from the Obama administration to the Trump administration has shifted from what was called smart sanctions that just targeted the arms industry or targeted the regime or luxury goods is now like wholesale impacting the North Korean civilian economy. So I often talk about women and women's empowerment. And I think that's a very popular normalized thing. It's like, oh, when we know that when women have access to resources, everybody benefits, right? But at the same time, now UN Security Council sanctions led by the US block certain industries. So for example, textiles, that was a growing industry for North Korea, 400,000 jobs have basically been lost by these sanctions. And so 400,000 garment workers are without a job. And so 80% of those garment workers are women. They can't export textiles. They can't export fisheries. They have a cap on how much oil that they can import into the country or export of coal. I mean, yes, I mean, from environmental perspective, absolutely we want to support it, but when they are just barely eking out a living and to survive, I think that we have to take a global perspective and to look at where do we as Americans have culpability and responsibility in this? What was America doing? What was the United States doing? Dividing the Korean Peninsula, waging this war that was the Cold War that then really set forth the beginning of endless American wars. And I think that is where we get some interest, I think, from especially people that don't have a clue about Korea is that this is a historic opportunity. The two Koreas do want an end to this war. They have signed in the last two years, Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, the leaders of North and South Korea have signed two historic declarations saying that they're going to transform the Korean Peninsula into a land of peace. And frankly, right now, the key obstacle in that process is the United States. Yeah, so I guess the lesson I want people to take out of your work and this history is that America is not in a place to point fingers and to guide other countries in how to resolve and really just like to take responsibility for what this country has done to Korea as well as to many other regions across the world in their imperialist foreign policy activity throughout history. So that's something that I'm really passionate about sharing as a message and it's not to say any country is perfect in any way, of course. We all have our work to do. But just to understand things like that before we point fingers at a country like North Korea in which they have this authoritative government, but a lot of people are like, oh, well they're lying to their people, all this snooze about America being evil. And when I look at the quote unquote propaganda that's being shared with their population, none of it's untrue. It's all like America waged war on our people and destroyed our land and killed X million people. And so I guess that's something is like this whole concept of propaganda being spread by the North Korean government. I kind of wanted to like dispel that myth. It's not all lies, right? And in fact, if you look at our own media, which is owned by corporations, you can probably find more lies in that I would imagine than you would find in North Korea's media. I love that about your generation. You guys already have that critical analysis already, you know? And you mentioned the Samantha Bee show or I don't know if you did online, but it was so fun to be on that show. And like you do like hours of recording before they do just like that short clip, but they asked me this question about like, well, isn't Kim just so awful to like they're so shitty to their people. So it's like, what do you say to that? And my response was, well, I mean, if you, yes, I mean, if you have the world's largest prison population where one in four children go to bed hungry, where we don't even, you know, have the basics of survival like homes and healthcare and where we spend more, right? And waging more than we do in caring for the wellbeing of its people. And we do mass surveillance of the entire population. You know, it's like, I think we have to ask the very same of our own government. And I think that they were totally tripped up by that and they were, you know, just expecting that I was talking about North Korea when in fact the United States, we have a lot of work to do. And I think the connection to Korea is that actually by ending this conflict on the Korean Peninsula, which is ripe to be picked and to come to closure after 70 years of war that we can do so much to advance our security here at home. Yeah, and really it's like all these, you know, North, South Korea and the United States, like we're all exhausted, wasting all these resources and energy and money and media time, all this stuff in a conflict that doesn't need to continue in this way. So I think in a lot of ways, your work is advocating for the best of all of these countries and hopefully, yeah, reunification is the reality for the future. So we have two minutes left. I just want you to share kind of like, you know, closing messages, like what you really, you know, hope to get out of York, maybe some future visioning for what you, yeah, what you're really trying to do here in the world. Well, one concrete thing, I think for the listeners in Hawaii is we have introduced a resolution in the US Congress called Hres 152, calling for an end to the Korean War with peace agreement. And we actually have 41 co-sponsors. And Tulsi Gabbard is one of the co-sponsors of it. But Ed Case, who is the congressman who's kind of a Cold War dinosaur, has not yet signed on to it. And I think it would be really helpful if all the listeners on this call just, you know, picked up the phone, you could go to koreapiecenow.org. There's some fact sheets about how you could make the case, but just say, you know, it would be great for congressman case to support this house resolution. We don't want to see experience a false missile alert ever again. And the way we could do that is to get to peace with North Korea. And so that would be one concrete thing to do. And I think it would be great for anybody, especially Korean Americans who want to be involved in this movement, but it's more than just about Korean Americans and the Korean diaspora that are behind this. It's a very diverse intersectional movement. And so we would welcome interns or other people that want to get involved. So you can go to the website, womancrossdmz.org and get connected. Yeah, awesome. Well, womancrossdmz, Korea Peace Now. Christine, thank you so much for being here. I want to talk to you more about this offline. And thank you for joining me on Think Takawaii. Thank you, Duree. Bye-bye. Bye.