in North Korea

(and Help Facilitate Peace on the Korean Peninsula)

Presented January 27, 2009 at a conference hosted by the Summit Council for World Peace

University Club, Washington, D.C., January 27, 2009

What can religious people do to alleviate suffering in North Korea and help relieve persistent tension on the Korean peninsula?

As a Christian, a few measures come to mind for Christians to achieve these important goals. How much they apply to members of other religions is for them to decide. But first, I want to touch on some impediments.

Impediments

Distrust, fear, and asymmetric national objectives are key impediments.

Asymmetric objectives

North Korea, China, South Korea and the United States have fundamentally different objectives, although they all generally favor the status quo.

• North Korea’s primary national objective is regime survival, regardless of the costs in human suffering.

• China wants to prevent North Korea’s collapse and a destabilizing flood of refugees into China.

• South Korea generally wants a carefully managed approach to achieve cost-effective inter-Korea reconciliation and unification.

• The United States has been primarily focused on stopping nuclear proliferation.

There is no obvious priority on alleviating the suffering of the North Korean people.

Fear

The second impediment is fear. Fear is a powerful motivator. North Korea’s fear of change encourages authorities to control its population and frustrate both internal and international efforts to help it adopt a better system.

And the North Korean system, as we know, does not work. Rampant malnutrition and poor economic performance drive home the reality that the system cannot feed the people. It cannot employ the people. It cannot provide adequate medical care for the people. Railways, roads, ports are all poorly maintained and barely functional for North Korea’s weak economy. The military-first policy has produced lopsided emphasis on military spending and heavy industry, which prevents healthy economic development. And the government has steadfastly refused to implement reforms that could improve the system.

Why? Because the leaders believe that change would imperil them by empowering the people. How do we overcome this?

Distrust

The above two factors help to produce intense distrust internally and internationally.

What we have is a vicious circle that is devoid of altruistic human kindness and God’s love. In such a climate, how can religious people hope to alleviate suffering and promote peace?

Measures

As I consider the challenges before us from a Christian perspective, it seems to me that Christians should acknowledge security concerns, for example, understanding that Koreans count over 900 invasions or notable acts of aggression throughout their 4,000 year history, which works out to about 1 every 5 years. Obviously some years were worse than others. Christians should be aware of such concerns but focus on performing their Christian duties to love their neighbors and try to relieve suffering. Caesar, which is to say Government, has to focus on security concerns. This is a fundamental government responsibility. As religious people, we should focus on doing God’s will. For Christians, a key concern is how we can fulfill the commandment to love our enemies. Another is to care for the poor and the weak.

There are no short cuts to help alleviate suffering in North Korea and facilitate true peace. However, I would like to suggest seven relatively long-term measures for your consideration:

1. Love our neighbors in North Korea.

Jesus calls us to love not only our friends but also those who persecute us – our enemies. In fact, he places more emphasis on loving our enemies than our friends¹ and turning “the other cheek” when they persecute us.²

To be sure the North Korean government is not persecuting us. But it is persecuting our North Korean neighbors, who are at least our spiritual cousins, if not our brothers and sisters in Christ.

1. Pray for North Koreans – the oppressed and the oppressors

One of our first actions as religious people should be to pray for North Koreans. This will probably take a great deal of courage for some of us.

Our fellow citizens in the United States, South Korea, and other countries may understand and perhaps even admire us if we pray for North Koreans who are suffering under Kim Jong-il and his government.

But how will our fellow citizens respond if they perceive us as praying for Kim Jong-il and other government officials who govern North Korea so callously? “Aren’t we giving aid and comfort to the enemy?” our fellow citizens might ask.

What should be the content of our prayers for Kim Jong-il and his government?

To follow Jesus, we should not use prayer to condemn Kim, for example. After all, he is one of God’s children, too. But he is misguided, and perhaps even a victim of a system that is all he knows. Kim Jong-il may also be constrained by the reality that the system is all that his followers know, making them more resistant to change.

Jesus calls us to hate the sin and love the sinner.

• Can we pray that God will open Kim’s eyes and incline his heart to love and lead his people in a better direction?

• Can we pray that Kim and his subordinates will regard their fellow citizens with love instead of hate?

• Can we pray that God will help alleviate the suffering of North Koreans? I first think of innocents suffering in labor camps. But then I think of the guards who – as part of the North Korean vicious circle – may be unduly persecuting the prisoners to escape persecution themselves. And then I think about other government authorities who are also trapped in a hateful system. Surviving is one thing. Living as God wants us to live is another.

• Can we pray that God will instill love in the hearts of all North Koreans, including the victims of unjust oppression — and their oppressors?

• Can we pray that God will lead North Koreans to reform their system and us to help them?

• Can we pray that as we think about North Koreans and as we meet with them that we will suppress any rancor, contempt, or hatred that impedes our ability to do God’s work?

1. Assist Refugees

It is risky for North Koreans to escape their system. Surviving in some foreign countries can be risky too.

China repatriates refugees back to North Korea. There, the refugees are treated as traitors. They face imprisonment, execution, torture, and confinement in brutal labor camps. Worse, their family members can suffer the same fate, even if they were completely ignorant of their relative’s behavior.

Can we steadily urge Beijing to stop its policy to repatriate North Koreans back to North Korea?

Can we urge other countries to accept North Korean refugees? Aside from South Korea, some candidate countries could be Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and of course, the United States.

1. Reach out to North Koreans, speaking the truth in love

Expose North Koreans to the outside, especially Kim Jong-il. Invite him and a range of other North Koreans abroad.

Let us find ways to educate and inform North Koreans about their situation and how to live in ways that would be more pleasing to God. We also need to demonstrate how to live lives that are pleasing to God, mindful that our behavior and non-verbal messages say more than our words.

Let us consider ways to extend amnesty to North Koreans in authority to help encourage them to consider other ways of living that would be more pleasing to God. Amnesty, of course, is a controversial topic, but without it, how can we imagine authorities opening enough to accept God’s love and transform their country?

Jesus sends us out “like sheep among wolves” and calls us to “be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”³ Our challenges include purging hatred and contempt from ourselves if we are to do the work Jesus calls us to do.

Above all, we need the courage and wisdom to speak the truth in love.

1. Inspire religious and secular leaders to interact with North Koreans leaders.

Encourage discourse among U.S., South Korean, North Korean and other government officials, political leaders, scholars, humanitarian organizations (Red Cross), religious workers, and others.

In this respect, encourage religious and secular leaders, scholars and others from around the world, including the United States and South Korea, to interact with the DPRK “super structure” whenever possible in conferences and other meetings in the International Peace Center in Pyongyang.

1. Seek to encourage North Korean respect for human rights.

Christians should encourage governments and the United Nations to address human rights violations in North Korea. We should remain mindful of the importance of speaking the truth in love.

We cannot accept the North Korean system. But at the same time, we are not called to “judge” or condemn North Koreans. That’s God’s job. Our job is to love them, confident that love will ultimately produce productive change better than hatred and pressure.

Our challenge is to do this in a loving way.

1. Peacefully demonstrate on behalf of suffering North Koreans.

Petitions, peaceful protest, pickets, and boycotts produced prodigious change in many countries including the United States, South Africa, and the former Soviet Union. North Korea is a tough case, but that will make any victory all the more meaningful.

Conclusions

To conclude, North Koreans are suffering terribly. Many, perhaps most, live in constant fear of betrayal and terrible punishment. Many are imprisoned for dubious reasons. Many govern cruelly, perhaps even out of desperation.

Caesar, which is to say various governments, has basically failed to resolve these concerns.

Can private, religious people succeed with far fewer resources? I think the answer is yes. Rome was neither built in a day nor did the ruling tyrants accept the love of Christ over night. The transformation took time.

There is a role for religious people to help alleviate suffering in North Korea and the emergence of true peace. But we must work patiently. And we must be obedient to a loving God who calls us to act to alleviate suffering.

Jesus commands his followers to love one another. Early in His ministry, He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”⁴

In the last hours of his freedom before He was arrested and sentenced to a cruel death, Jesus told His disciples at least six times that they must love one another. He said,

1. “All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”⁵

2. “If you love me, you will do what I command.”⁶

3. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.”⁷

4. If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. … He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.”⁸

5. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”⁹

6. “This is my command: Love each other.”¹⁰

The legacy that Jesus wanted to mark his time on earth was a world in which His followers would love others as He loved them then … and us today.

Among His last words, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”¹¹ Was Jesus speaking only about the Romans and religious leaders who were killing him? Or was he speaking across time to those who continue to rule through fear, distrust, and hate – even to today’s North Koreans?

Love conquers all in time. I pray that the World Peace Temple will be a temple of reconciliation and peace, beyond sectarianism and exclusion, based on shared universal values that all religions and faiths hold in common.

In 1935, Josef Stalin famously asked how many divisions the Pope commanded. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990 demonstrated that God’s people have more than enough power to effect great change if they courageously obey God and love their neighbor.

The road before us is not easy, and it may be our successors who finally reach the end. But shall we not take up our cross and start to walk it?

Paul Chamberlin has specialized in Korean affairs since the 1970s in a broad variety of public and private sector positions that have given him an unusually comprehensive understanding of both Koreas and the U.S. relationship with them. As a U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer, he served as a military attaché in Seoul and political-military adviser to General Colin Powell when he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since retiring from the Army in 1993, he has spoken and written on both Koreas as an independent scholar, adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and consultant. His publications include

• Korea 2010, which discusses the impact of rapid modernization on South Korea, 2001

• Developing a Common Vision for Korea, 2003

• Fear Prevents Reconciliation, 2003

• Cultural Dimensions of Korean Unification, 2004

• Toward Korean Unification, 2005, republished 2006, which discusses the two different Korean cultures and suggestions to transform them into one

• ROK-U.S. Interests and Alliance in a New Era: A Prescription for Change, 2005

Speaking from a Christian perspective, this presentation outlines some thoughts on the current situation and suggestions regarding the role of religion in peace and reconciliation and on the Korean peninsula.