REST IN PEACE

My meeting today was substantially scaled back due to the apparent suicide of President Roh (2002-2008). It will likely impact most of the week as there is great shock and mourning. As one friend here wrote: “Waken up in a Saturday morning by a shocking news of a former leader's death, people in this country still find difficult to realize he is truly gone. We are still in awe and speechless for the great loss we have. The whole country is turned into an enormous mourning place, where no one is able to find words to describe the deepest sorrow of loosing a leader who they elected with their own hands and also now about to bury. State of awe continues, Korea is submerged with the silence”

Roh was the most progressive president in Korea. He came up in familiar territory for me. A human rights lawyer whose early representations of demonstrators in 1981 had so impacted him that it changed his legal and political life forever. He had when asked about becoming a Human Rights Activists he described the case saying “When I saw their horrified eyes and missing toenails, my comfortable life as a lawyer came to an end and I became a man determined to make a difference in this world.” He went to jail for three weeks with other demonstrators in 1987 when the big democracy movement reached its peak. He passed the act creating the Truth and Reconciliation commission and sought to build more bridges with the North through exchange and trade. All are saying it was ironic when his family got caught up in this bribe scandal as it was something he fought regularly.

Regardless I met with Professor Bo-Hyuk Suh who has done great human rights and peace work in Korea. Also a few women from local peace groups and PSPD, including the Coordinator of Peace and Disarmament Huisun Kim. I told the group at the start of our meeting: “Let me first begin by expressing great sadness and our condolences to the families and friends and to the people of Korea for the loss of your former President Roh this past week. As a Human Rights lawyer myself who has represented activists for decades and worked for peace I feel great sadness that someone who stood up for people, was willing to lead a courageous march toward Truth and Reconciliation and continued the path toward peace, engagement died prematurely. No one is without their flaws and struggles, and personal demons, but the courage he showed as a human rights lawyer in the struggles of the 1980‘s will always inspire and lead more people to take up the cause of justice. It’s those moments we will remember forever.”

We actually accomplished a lot with discussions about ways in which we can unite our movements in Korea and the US to work for peace. They agreed to a joint Video conference and to share candlelight vigils with ours set for Armistice Day July 27th. Some further educational ideas on peacemaking and a joint project to video people’s stories for historical and film projects arose. We will start with people sharing what peace would mean to them on a joint blog. They agreed to write more letters of support for peace like the one they had written earlier to Secretary Clinton. (Great letter in which they called on the US to move from Peacekeeping to Peacemaking- huge difference). THis type of joint efforts are a big step. It is key to not only speak being an internationalist or support interconnectedness but to model it. It is what this trip represents. One thing we agreed upon was the need for healing on both sides of the pacific, as many families and Vets in the US still carry the trauma of what has gone on here.

I shared with them the words of President Obama “When nations and peoples allow themselves to be defined by differences, the gulf between them widens. When we fail to pursue peace, then it stays forever beyond our grasp.” President Barack Obama Prague April 5, 2009. The goal is to make sure that Obama is seeing his views reflected in his Korea policy. At Notre Dame in May “Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history..” It is time to bring such thinking from the stage in Indiana to the Korean Peninsula. It is Roh’s dream and his legacy.
Posted by Eric Sirotkin