Now, real possibility of Korean peace; Filipino war dead could be brought home

THERE is now the real possibility for peace in the Korean Peninsula.

The meeting last week in Singapore between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, grandson of the first leader, founder of North Korea or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) President Kim Il-Sung, immediately foreclosed the possibility of more hydrogen bomb and ballistic missile tests by the North, and cancelled the scheduled provocative US-South Korea military exercises in the South, a welcome Trump initiative.

South Korean President Moon Jaein equally deserves great credit for his series of initiatives including two Summit talks with the young North Korean leader at the Panmunjon Demilitarized Zone just a few weeks back which set the stage for the US-North Korean meeting in Singapore, the first between an American president and a North Korean leader since the Korean War broke out in 1950.

At the time, North Korean troops broke through the dividing line, the 38th Parallel, invaded the South, were advancing toward South Korea’s southernmost city of Pusan, until they were driven back by Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s UN troops. Filipino battalions (including our own young Fidel Ramos, a fresh graduate from the US West Point) fought for almost three years in the Korean War under the UN flag.

In recent weeks, we have been planning a trip to North Korea and organizing a small composite team of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) and the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace (IAPP) to hopefully contribute to the peace efforts and visit the North. We discussed this in Tehran four weeks ago with former Iranian Vice President and Minister of Energy Hassan GhafooriFard, and in London with Pakistan Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed during the most recent meeting there of Asian and European Political Parties, and there is great enthusiasm and political support for new moves to bring about a final peace in the Korean Peninsula.

Two weeks ago, we received an unexpected written invitation from Pyongyang to visit North Korea, and we will propose that perhaps we will gather a small team from ICAPP (political parties) and IAPP (parliamentary leaders) to visit the North. Two months earlier, we had encouraged former Nepal Premier Madhav Nepal and Member of Parliament Ek Nath Dhakal, who is married to a Filipina, and they journeyed to Pyongyang and had a memorable visit.

We are reminded of our first visit to North Korea in 1990, 28 years ago. We were then the acting chairman of the Congress Foreign Affairs Committee and we journeyed to Pyongyang with the late Rep. Mike Romero, then presidential brother-in-law Len Oreta, former Education Undersecretary Nestor Kalaw, and Japanese journalist Kiyoshi Wakamiya.

Those were the days before Japanese party leader Shin Kanemaru visited Pyongyang and followed later by former US President Jimmy Carter.

We had a great meeting with the North Korean founder and first President Kim Il-Sung. We agreed on establishing Philippines-DPRK formal diplomatic relations, and we invited DPRK VicePremier Kim Dahl-Hyun, who in turn visited Manila after a few weeks.

We could not have done it without the full support of President Cory Aquino and then Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus. Today, we have an exchange of ambassadors and our current envoy to Beijing, Chito Sta. Romana, is concurrently accredited to Pyongyang and the North Korean Ambassador in Bangkok is accredited to Manila.

We hope the young North Korean leader visits New York and address the UN General Assembly this September, and make a historic visit to Washington, DC, These events will move quickly to propel the process of denuclearization but as we said before this will take much longer including the mobilization of international inspectors to journey to North Korea’s various nuclear sites for verification.

Our own guess is that this could take five to ten years.

In the meantime, the US, Seoul, Pyongyang, and Manila must start to get busy on the equally important task of identifying and recovering the bones/ remains of their war dead, long the dream perhaps of countless families of the fallen during the Korean War including the valiant Filipino soldiers, about fifty, who perished and were buried in graves, marked or unmarked, in the Korean North or South during the war.