Since World War II, we have already fought two major wars in which millions of Asians died. Despite these high stakes, many Americans may be more inclined to look the other way than to consider a long-overdue overhaul of our stance in Korea. We would have to confront the horror of the millions who died in the war that followed. Clearly US actions in Korea have not measured up to our own standards of proper conduct. Every single Korean I spoke with expressed a heart-felt desire for reunification of the country.
Families continue to be divided with no possibility of even communicating with each other.
Although President Kim Dae Jung has released many political prisoners, he continues to hold those who refuse to promise never to say anything positive about the North, according to Sun Joon shik, director of the Seoul International Human Rights Film Festival. In 1970, Mr. Sun decided to take a first-hand look at North Korea, and he crossed over through China. After spending a week traveling around, he returned to Seoul where he was promptly imprisoned for the next seventeen years simply for taking this illegal trip. While it would be a small first step for the US government to take, a full processing of the massacres at Nogun-ri could become an important vehicle to help open our minds to new possibilities. That is one reason, perhaps the most compelling, why we must punish those responsible for the killings at Nogun-ri.