occupying more top positions than are south Koreans. Is this not proof that the thirty million Koreans, north and south, are one family-of one stock? Even those brethren still cooped up in north Korea, if a chance is offered them, will cleave to us and put heart and soul into overcoming this national tribulation and in rehabilitating our devasted national economy. Even among the north Korean brethren present here, I am inclined to believe that some feel as we do, though they can hardly dare say so.

Those few changeling Koreans who oppressed their own kin, in league with foreigners they have welcomed in, and who fondly call a foreign country their fatherland, will, of course, stand condemned before the nation for generations. As for those innocent north Koreans who form the great majority, we embrace them in spirit and silently weep with them in sympathy, though we cannot do so physically.

Mr. Chairman, the right solution of the Korean question must come from sound conclusions based on facts. It would not be utterly meaningless, therefore, for me here to recapitulate the events that took place since the liberation of 1945, exactly as they were.

The demarcation along the 38th parallel was originally a temporary military expediency, with the Soviet Union disarming the Japanese above the line-the United States below it. But it has been hardening into a boundary line all these nine years.

The Moscow Decision of December 27, 1945, stipulating a USUSSR Joint Commission for framing proposals for the establishment of a Korean provisional government, says in paragraph 2: "In preparing their proposals the Commission shall consult with the Korean democratic parties and social organizations. . .

When the news got abroad that the Moscow Decision was for a five year four-power trusteeship, the entire nation, both north and south, was convulsed with a movement against it similar to the 1919 Mansei movement. A Moscow directive, however, compelled the few communists to fall away from the national movement. In north Korea, suppression was complete, and Mr. Cho Man-sik, a most prominent national leader, was imprisoned as a result and finally was spirited away by the Russians.

On May 20, 1946, the first US-USSR Joint Commission opened at last. The Soviet Union insisted on excluding the majority of the Koreans from consultation on the ground of their anti-trusteeship tendencies. Finally, after nearly two months of fruitless talk, the Commission broke up because of this undemocratic attitude of the Soviet Union. One year afterwards, on May 21, 1947, the Joint Commission was reconvened. But the Soviet Union persisted in the un

democratic demand that all the nationalist elements forming the majority of the people be excluded from consultation, with only communists and their fellow-travellers being eligible. After dragging on for months, the Joint Commission ceased to meet.

Thus it became apparent that the Soviet Union had not the slightest intention either of living up to the Moscow Decision or of unifying the country. So the United States submitted the question to the United Nations. The November 14, 1947 resolution of the United Nations called for a general election throughout the country for the purpose of establishing an independent, democratic Korean government. But the plan failed because of the communist refusal to admit the members of the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea as observers.

On February 26, 1948, the Interim Committee of the United Nations adopted a resolution authorizing the UNTCOK to observe general elections and thereby set up a democratic government in an accessible area, that is, in south Korea. In a speech delivered in the Interim Committee on the previous day, Mr. Lawford, delegate of the United Kingdom, said: "The United Kingdom delegation will vote in favour of the United States draft resolution in the hope that the elections in south Korea will constitute a first step towards Korean unity and independence'.

The Korean people have a right to independence and it is the duty of the United Nations to remove, so far as possible, any obstacles in the way of that independence. It would be unfair to refuse to recognize the right of the two-thirds of the Korean population because one third of the total population is prevented, against their will, from enjoying those rights." [sic]

In the opinion of the United Kingdom delegate, which I strongly share, to hold free elections in north Korea, when made accessible, was the remaining task to be fulfilled for the completion of Korean unification.

Fully in step with this original intent of the United Nations resolution, our National Assembly held about one hundred seats vacant, always ready to be filled by holding free elections in north Korea under United Nations observation.

It is beyond dispute that to open north Korea to such elections as have been carried out time and again in south Korea in the last six or seven years will be to complete the task to which the United Nations set its hand, and that that alone will be compatible with United Nations prestige and former resolutions on Korea. Making an issue of holding free elections in south Korea, as if discrediting the previous ones as devised and observed by the United Nations, cannot but con

stitute a serious reflection upon the prestige and authority of the international organization.

The foundation of the Republic of Korea strengthened as popular confidence in it grew. Despairing of taking it over from within through infiltration, sabotage and guerrilla warfare, the formidable communist army in north Korea, supported by a great number of Russian-made tanks, cannon and jet fighters, without previous notice on 25 June 1950, launched an all-out attack on the Army of the Republic of Korea, which was hopelessly under-armed and small in numbers. Led by the United States, fifteen other United Nations member states sent fighting units to Korea to give succour to the victim and punish the aggressor, an act of collective security never before known in human history.

On February 1, 1951, the United Nations passed a resolution condemning communist China as an aggressor. Some are prone to think that it is reasonable for the United Nations forces to withdraw simultaneously with the Chinese communist troops, but this is against logic and reason. The United Nations forces were in Korea before the aggression by the Chinese communists, to take a police action in punishing the north Korean aggressors. Only when that police action is regarded as accomplished will they withdraw, and not before. We fail to see why their withdrawal should be tied up with that of the Chinese communist aggressors. It would be like a burglar agreeing to drop his criminal weapon on condition that the policeman was disarmed at the same time.

Like all real communists, the Chinese communists, too, regard the Soviet Union as their fatherland. If they were independent of the Soviet Union, they would not have come into the war. The present Communist China is in the same situation as was the Soviet Union in the 1920's. Their primary task is to consolidate their internal situation, not to wage a foreign war of expansion. Yet, abjectly submissive to the directives of Moscow, communist China is prepared to offer its multi-million nationals as cannon fodder in the Soviet cause of global conquest.

During the recent Sino-Japanese war, whereas the Japanese invaders did not send one single bombing mission to Yenan, the Red capital lying close by, they sent many hundreds to Chungking, which was hundreds of miles away, in a difficult terrain. This is a historical fact. The reason was obvious. The Communists never fought the Japanese, though they pretended to. They were so absorbed in their own aggrandizement, to the utter neglect of their national interests. The growth of the Communist strength, off-setting that of the Nationalist government, was thus found advantageous to the Japanese invaders.

For over one thousand years, Korea and China lived side by side, on very friendly terms. China never interfered with the internal affairs of Korea. She went so far as to create a no-man's land on her own territory, contiguous to ours, to prohibit her own people from migrating to Korea and causing friction. Those who transgressed this barrier received capital punishment. When Communism came into power, however, China's national character underwent a complete change, suddenly becoming aggressive, quite contrary to her long tradition. This is a matter of regret for world peace as well as for peace in the Orient.

Communist China has placed the whole of north Korea in occupation status. Not only that, it sends in an endless stream of Chinese farmers to supplant the Korean population. How can such a policy ever hope to win Korean friendship? If aggressive acts are stopped and the traditional Chinese policy of peace is resumed—if a real good neighbour policy is put into practice the numerous neighbour nations surrounding China are more likely than not to prove a protective wall. It would be a blessing to everyone concerned. If, on the other hand, aggressive [aggression?] is extended to more neighbours, China will be encircled by hostile nations only.

Since the signing of the Armistice Agreement, the Chinese communists have in disregard of the agreement built military airfields throughout north Korea, and amassed immense quantities of munitions, dodging the inspecting eyes of the Supervisory Committee and often forcibly hampering its activities. The communists have unilaterally repudiated the Armstice terms. Even if we should come to conclude that the Armistice terms so utterly disregarded by the communists need no longer bind us, they will be held responsible for this state of affairs.

Mr. Chairman, I have frankly recounted the past events as they actually have occurred. Without bravely rectifying past errors, the prospect of peace will not be bettered by the mere wish to have it. It entirely lies with the communists to maintain peace in the Orient, and indeed in the world, by backing their professed wish for peace with real acts of peace.

Some outsiders say that the Republic of Korea alone loves fighting. Nothing is further from the truth. For what reason on earth should my country be bellicose? Never in all our long history have we ever fought any war outside of our own boundaries. We have no intention of carrying on any warfare against any other people, but only to protect what is our own. Surely we have seen enough of war to be weary of it. Has not much of our country been turned to cinders? Has not our economy been shattered beyond remedy? Have we not suffered casualties defying computation? No other nation can have more

cogent reasons to hate war than the Republic of Korea. All through our history we have preferred peace in obscurity to celebrity achieved through bloodshed.

Nevertheless, we cannot buy peace at the price of freedom. We cannot seek to survive at the expense of honour. Our determination to die for what is right alone may yet lead us to life. We believe, along with our friends abroad, that right will win out in the end.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Korean delegation should like to stress most emphatically that there should be cooperation all around to help the discussion that is to take place here finally to achieve the objective of establishing by peaceful means a united, independent and democratic Korea. We have been longing for complete unification and freedom all these years, and prayerfully hope that this cherished wish of ours may be accomplished at this Conference.

Geneva Conference: Proposal by the North Korean Representative (Nam II), April 27, 19541

In order to achieve the speedy restoration and unification of Korea and the establishment of a democratic independent, unified state;— 1. The government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Government of the Republic of Korea are urged:

(a) to hold general elections for a national assembly for the formation of a unified Korean government, based on the free expression of the wishes of the inhabitants of the whole of Korea;

(b) to organise an all-Korean Commission, with representatives from North and South Korea, to make the necessary preparations for free general elections for a Korean assembly, and to take urgent measures for the economic and cultural rapprochement of North and South Korea, the members of the Commission to be selected by the Supreme People's Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea respectively, and to include representatives of the largest democratic social organizations in South and North Korea;

(c) to bear in mind that one of the primary tasks facing the allKorean Commission would be to arrange for the drafting of a law on general elections, which would guarantee the true democratic character of the elections and enable them to be carried out in a

1 Text from The Korean Problem at the Geneva Conference, April 26-June 15, 1954, pp. 39-40.