YM19 Peace Report North Korea Working Group
PART A: REPORT
Achievements/Activities
At Yearly Meeting in both 2017 and 2018 Sejin Pak, an Attender at Adelaide RM, held information sessions on the subject of North Korea. Sejin, who was born in South Korea, was concerned that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) received an unjustifiably bad press which could lead to acceptance of catastrophic conflict with a country which was previously regarded as the “Axis of Evil”. To counter this, he wished to take a group of Quakers to North Korea to see the country for themselves and to look for ways of better relating to the people of that country.
That tour took place in October 2018 and a dozen Australian Friends went on a special study tour for a week. We visited three farm cooperatives, one of which had been assisted by the American Friends Service Committee in the past, and met officials of the Ministry of Agriculture in North Korea. We also had a fascinating time seeing many of the conventional tourist sites.
Following the tour, nine of us formed the North Korea Working Group to forward Sejin’s Concern. We have been meeting on a regular basis via Zoom and various of us have given talks to our Regional Meetings and to other groups. There have also been reports in the Australian Friend and in various newsletters.
We obtained the support of QPLC who then arranged a meeting with two officials from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra to explore the government’s attitude to the UN Sanctions and travel to North Korea. One of the officials also attended the presentation about the tour given by Roger Sawkins in Canberra in January 2019.
At Standing Committee in January, we gave a report of the tour and of our other plans, which include arranging a second trip by four of our members which is mentioned below. Standing Committee noted our Working Group and supported the proposed trip. Sejin has also requested support from SANTRM for his Concern which we hope will be forthcoming at the time of this report.
Issues/Analysis:
It is clear that North Korea is suffering severely from the sanctions imposed by the United Nations (and supported by Australia). They are unable to produce sufficient food for their basic needs, as well as equipment and other facilities. They have very high infant mortality and general malnutrition. The general population are suffering because of overseas political posturing. Information about many of the issues, and ways to overcome them, are on our Quaker website page (www.quakersaustralia/DPRK)
The proposed trip
We are planning for Sejin Pak, Rowe Morrow, David Swain and Rae Litting to go to the DPRK for about two weeks in June. The hope is that they can visit the farm which the authorities think we may be able to help and have other discussions to see what may be feasible.
Whilst we have initiated discussions with the person who arranged the previous trip with the DPRK authorities the process is a slow one and at the date of this report we don’t have any information on whether the trip will be possible. However, we are very grateful that the AYM Peace and Social Justice Fund and SANTRM have indicated they are willing to provide up to $18,000 funding for the trip.
We hope the trip will happen before Yearly Meeting so that they can report there.
Other discussions
The Group has discussed other ways in which we can forward the Concern. We have some pages on the Quaker website (www.quakersaustralia/DPRK) which include links to further information. We have also been investigating organisations which may run tours to the DPRK which we may be able to publicise to Friends and others.
We encourage Friends to make their own enquiries and to consider a trip to North Korea to experience the situation for themselves. Tourism is one way in which the DPRK can obtain money to purchase necessary equipment and skills from overseas.
Our relationship to Australia Yearly Meeting
We established ourselves quite informally as the North Korea Working Group and that arrangement was noted by Standing Committee in January 2019. We have had subsequent discussions about the relationship with AYM and have decided to request that we become the AYM North Korea Committee.
As it happens, the nine members of the Working Group come from all Regional Meetings except Tasmania and so we would presumably be regarded as an “expert” committee in AYM terms.
We have alerted the AYM Nominations Committee to our request.
PART B: FOR CONSIDERATION
- Does Yearly Meeting accept that we become the AYM North Korea Committee?
- We ask all Regional Meetings to publicise the Concern as widely as possible and to offer assistance to any Friends who wish to become involved
Committee members: Sejin Pak (SANTRM), Wilma Davidson (CRM), Sue Ennis (VRM), Adrian Glamorgan (WARM), Dale Hess (VRM), Rae Litting (NSWRM), Rowe Morrow (NSWRM), Roger Sawkins (QRM), David Swain (NSWRM)
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