wfn.org | Official Calls on U.S. and Japan to Change Attitude to North Korea

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

11-May-1999 
99185 
 
    Ecumenical Official Calls on U.S. and Japan 
    to Change Attitude to North Korea 
 
    by Edmund Doogue 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA-The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) has 
called on the United States and Japan to break the "cycle of threats" and 
suspicion between North Korea and the West. 
 
    "Instead of maintaining an attitude of distrust and obliging North 
Korea to maintain an aggressive stance, the primary objective should be to 
reduce the level of tension," Konrad Raiser told ENI after returning to 
Geneva from an official visit to North Korea, South Korea and Japan. 
 
    Raiser said that instead of an approach based on the "ability to 
prevail in a military conflict," current efforts to reduce tension, notably 
by South Korea's President Kim Dae-Jung, should be encouraged. 
 
    "I know this is a risky approach," Raiser said. 
 
    North Korea, one of the world's last rigorously communist states, is 
seen in East Asia as a high risk to the security of the region, mainly 
because it is suspected of developing nuclear weapons. 
 
    Soon after Raiser was interviewed by ENI in his Geneva office, the 
fifth round of Korean peace talks ended, also in Geneva.  The four 
countries involved - North and South Korea, China and the US - reported 
"useful and productive" talks but no concrete measures to show for their 
efforts. 
 
    However, according to the Reuters news agency, North Korean and U.S. 
officials also said they had agreed at bilateral talks to a U.S. visit in 
May to a North Korean site called Kumchang-ri. Washington suspects the site 
is part of a nuclear weapons program. 
 
    In recent years moves for the reunification of North and South Korea, 
which are still officially at war although there is no military aggression 
between them, have gained some momentum.  At times there were suggestions 
that reunification was possible within the foreseeable 
future, but hopes have faded recently. 
 
    Churches and related agencies, including the WCC and churches in North 
and South Korea, have long contributed to efforts to promote the 
reunification of the Korean Peninsula. But Raiser, whose visit to North 
Korea from April 17-20, was one of the highest-ranking by a church official 
to the communist state, suggested to ENI that reunification was far from 
imminent. 
 
    "It needs a different generation [of political leaders]," Raiser said. 
"The constant projection of the image or an enemy - that doesn't disappear 
quickly.  That's not to say that nothing can happen in this generation. 
But reunification will take a readjustment of perception.  It will be 
difficult for those who have lived with the confrontational policies to 
become the carriers of an open policy." 
 
    Asked by ENI about the role the WCC could continue to play in moves to 
reunification, Raiser stressed that the organization could play only a 
limited role and that it was up to "civic and church players" in the region 
who were already involved to continue their efforts.  "Overcoming division 
can only come within the context of East Asia," he said. 
 
    ENI also asked Raiser about an invitation from a South Korean church 
for the WCC to hold its next general assembly -- planned for 2005 - in 
Korea.  Raiser said the invitation had been repeated during his visit, and 
was apparently seen as a means of giving a boost to the peace process, with 
churches determined to make progress on the issue so that the assembly 
would mark a breakthrough.  While Raiser did not rule out the possibility 
of a Korean assembly for the WCC, he said that the decision on the location 
would probably not be taken until the WCC's central committee meeting in 
2002. 
 
    At the same meeting his successor as general secretary would also be 
appointed, and that person should be involved in the choice of location for 
the next assembly, he said. 
 
    Raiser also pointed out that while South Korea's churches had hosted 
several major ecumenical gatherings, the WCC might decide that 2005 would 
be an appropriate time to hold its assembly in Latin America.  Previous WCC 
assemblies have been held in: Amsterdam [1948], Evanston [1954], New Delhi 
[1961], Uppsala [1968], Nairobi [1975], Vancouver [1983], Canberra [1991] 
and Harare [1998].) 
 
    Asked about Christians in North Korea, Raiser said religion was 
practiced "within narrowly defined limits" and that North Korea was 
"essentially" a country without religion - with "not much room [for 
religion] in the ideology of the society."  He added that official 
Christian activities were confined to "what happens within the [few] Church 
[buildings]" in the country.  Officially there are about 12,000 Protestants 
and 3,000 Catholics in North Korea, according to Raiser.  There was also 
"unregistered [church] activity" within private houses, but there was no 
way of assessing the number of Christians involved, he added. 
 
    Since a series of natural disasters hit North Korea in the mid-1990s, 
resulting in a famine which still continues, the international church 
community has also provided considerable aid to the communist state. 
Raiser told ENI that his delegation had officially presented, on behalf of 
the church aid network, Action by Churches Together, $4.25 million of 
church-sponsored aid - in the form of food, seeds and medication. 
 
    "It is clear North Korea will need this sort of assistance for some 
considerable time to come, despite their enormous efforts to get back on 
their feet," Raiser said.  Although the situation was now stabilizing, 
"people are still dying from hunger and from the effects of long-term 
malnutrition." 
 
    He also said that as time went on, the communist authorities in North 
Korea were becoming "less hesitant" about the presence of Christian aid 
agencies.  "They have come to appreciate this presence, and the fact that 
the churches do not follow political interests and are not under political 
control [from their home countries]." 

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