January 16, 2003 - Honolulu Advertiser: Korea RPCV Edward Schultz says US didn't live up to 1994 agreement with North Korea
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January 16, 2003 - Honolulu Advertiser: Korea RPCV Edward Schultz says US didn't live up to 1994 agreement with North Korea
Korea RPCV Edward Schultz says US didn't live up to 1994 agreement with North Korea
Many Returned Volunteers have had the experience of returning home and reading stories in the national media about their Countries of Service and discovering that the media got the facts wrong or are presenting a view of their Country of Service which is at odds with our own experience. We listen when RPCV Sam Farr talks about Colombia or RPCV Thomas Gouttierre talks about Afghanistan - RPCVs know the facts and we understand the context - we've lived there. That is why PCOL always pays attention when a RPCV writes about a Country where he has first hand experience and presents a point of view at odds with "conventional wisdom."
Read and comment on this story from the Honolulu Advertiser that Korea RPCV Edward Schultz says US didn't live up to 1994 agreement with North Korea. Schultz traces the current nuclear crisis to the 1994 agreement among the United States, Japan and North and South Korea in which the western powers agreed to provide fuel for the North's electric power in return for a freeze on its nuclear program.
But the United States reneged on its agreements, said Schultz. "We stopped sending fuel ... so we didn't really live up to the bargain." Under President Clinton, Schultz saw a continuing movement toward normalized relations. But under President Bush, there has been in essence a return to Cold War policies. "What Bush did was slam the door shut and set out to isolate Korea once again and that did nothing but create fear," he said. Read the story at:
UH's expert on Korea advocates mediation*
* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.
UH's expert on Korea advocates mediation
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
As the crisis with North Korea plays out — coinciding with Korean-American celebrations marking the centennial of immigration to the United States — Edward "Ned" Schultz, an expert on Korea based at the University of Hawai'i, is becoming one of the media sources for an understanding of the Korean mind.
"If the U.S. sits down and talks to them and takes them seriously and lives up to some of the promises it made, it will go a long way to ameliorate difficulties," said Schultz. "The North Koreans have nothing to bargain with. They're desperately trying to find a way to have people take them seriously and survive. This is where the nuclear card comes in."
As a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea in 1966, Schultz remembers seeing two Korean men posturing and blustering belligerently on a public street as they faced off against each another. But all it took for an amicable settlement of the disagreement was intervention by a third party who stepped in to talk them both down, he says.
Schultz believes mediation could resolve this international crisis and rewrite the agreements between the two countries.
Schultz traces the current nuclear crisis to the 1994 agreement among the United States, Japan and North and South Korea in which the western powers agreed to provide fuel for the North's electric power in return for a freeze on its nuclear program. Included in that agreement was an understanding that the United States would eventually provide technical information for North Korea to create a nuclear energy industry — much different than a weapons track.
But the United States reneged on its agreements, said Schultz. "We stopped sending fuel ... so we didn't really live up to the bargain."
Under President Clinton, Schultz saw a continuing movement toward normalized relations. But under President Bush, there has been in essence a return to Cold War policies.
"What Bush did was slam the door shut and set out to isolate Korea once again and that did nothing but create fear," he said. "Too often Americans look at the major players and refuse to talk to the small guys, and the small guys can cause the problems."
It's not clear when it happened, said Schultz, but at some point North Korea re-created its nuclear research program.
"They were expecting (the U.S.) doing away with economic sanctions, and allowing more fluidity between North Korea and the U.S.," said Schultz. "They feel they deserve to be treated with respect. Koreans don't want to be patronized or sloughed off somewhere between China and Japan."
Schultz's expertise on Korea has its roots in the mid-1960s, when he taught English in Pusan. His knowledge continued to grow when he returned to the United States, earning a master's degree and then a doctoral degree in Korean studies at UH. He's now director of the Korean Studies Institute on the UH-Manoa campus.
Schultz has told friends that once "the U.S. wakes up and sits down and starts talking," the current crisis will be resolved.
Schultz said he would be very surprised if the North Koreans have already built nuclear weapons.
If they even had had two, he said, they would have had to detonate one to determine whether it works.
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This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Korea; Speaking Out
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By Leon A. Cloutier on Wednesday, February 05, 2003 - 3:27 am: Edit Post |
If we we make agreements we should live up to them. My arguement is that we never should have entered into any agreement with the North Koreans. The regime is a dictatorship that has alowed over 2 million of their people starve so they could build nuclear power for peaceful or war material is sinful and inhumane. No country needs to push for nuclear power while their people starve. India and Pakistan are other good examples. Where was the world(UN) body when the Cama Rouge slaughter over 2 million Cambodians in that country in the 60's?
I'm a RPCV who served in Iran '74-'76, and understand the middle eastern(moslem) mind. No man in his right mind wants war, but there is time to stand up and draw the line with Iraq. This is another brutal regime that has been allowed to fester too long. The moslem reigion keeps their people deaf, dump, and blind to what goes on in the rest of world, and wants to keep their people always backward in the twelve century. It is a very repressive religion.
