Chapter 6 UN ROLE IN RESOLVING THE KOREAN CONFLICT The North Korean People's Army's attack across the 38th parallel on 25 June 1950 was the first serious challenge to the UN system of collective security, and the Cold War will not really end until the Korean Peninsula is reunified. The United Nations has formally been involved in attempts to resolve the Korean problem since 1947 and is actively engaged today. At the Demilitarized Zone, U.S. troops flying the UN flag are as close to war as any on the planet, and yet the UN is also behind the lines on the other side of the DMZ actively promoting the economic development of North Korea. A key intelligence question is: What are the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the Korean conflict? In a UN context, the follow-up questions are: What are the prospects for a UN role in a negotiated settlement? and, How could it be accomplished? UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali's Agenda for Peace called for a comprehensive and preemptive approach to peacemaking. He advocates UN involvement in solving the underlying problems which lead to conflict in the first place, using the UN as a mechanism to bring the parties into a process to resolve the conflict. In An Agenda for Development, he proposes economic cooperation and development as a means to build common interest and understanding as the basis for peace. Since the end of the Cold War the UN has been involved in comprehensive peacemaking in Mozambique, Cambodia and El Salvador, providing a mechanism to end decades of civil war fueled by superpower confrontation. Captain Hoyle analyzes these three cases as possible models for a UN role in Korea. She reviews UN involvement in Korea since 1947 and analyzes the stated positions of North and South Korea toward peaceful reunification. She then provides an assessment of the suitability of the UN's approach to the Korean problem, pointing to some areas where the parties" positions are close to agreement and others which may require third-party intervention. The hardest part seems to be getting dialogue started. Master Sergeant Curran sees the incentive of economic gain from the multilateral development of the Tumen River area as a possible catalyst. He outlines the plans of the UN Development Program for a free trade area as a way to open at least a small crack in the door to North Korea through international trade, shipping and manufacturing. Although only a small step, the UN project is one of the few areas where North and South Korea are actively cooperating. PROSPECTS FOR UNITED NATIONS PARTICIPATION IN KOREAN REUNIFICATION Jennifer Morsch Hoyle THE UNITED NATIONS IN KOREA The United Nations has played a significant role in the problem of the unification and independence of Korea since September 1947 and maintains a presence on the Korean peninsula today. The UN has provided guiding principles for reunification, has mobilized forces to halt aggression, and has established commissions to assist North and South Korea in their search for common ground. The continued stalemate and division of the peninsula is a relic of the Cold War, the end of which has brought renewed hope of a reunified Korea. This paper will address the prospects for the UN's participation in assisting North and South Korea to reunify, based on the changing role of the UN and its recent peace operations in Cambodia, El Salvador, and Mozambique. The UN's experience and lessons learned from its past involvement in Korea and in recent transitional regimes may provide the necessary assistance in facilitating a well-planned framework set of procedures to reunite the governments, factions, militaries and peoples of the divided nation. Since September 1947, the United Nations has played a significant role in the "problem of the independence of Korea" (Bailey: 2) and maintained a presence on the Korean peninsula in one form or another. The various UN commissions on Korea, the Military Armistice Commission, and the Unified Command all reflect international interest in the peaceful reunification of Korea. Korean attempts of the early 1990s to solve the problem between themselves were followed by stalemate in the last few years. A look at what divides North from South and the role the UN has played in that division provides a valuable perspective for future attempts to bring unity and peace to the peninsula. 20TH CENTURY HISTORY OF KOREA'S DIVISION For 13 centuries, Korea spent its political and social history as a unified nation under the Shilla Kingdom. During the early 20th century, Korea lost its autonomy as the Japanese formally annexed it in 1910 after their successes in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. In 1945, during the Yalta and Potsdam conferences and after Japan's surrender in World War II, world leaders from the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union agreed to divide the Korean peninsula. Their intent was not only to disarm the Japanese military forces, placing the Soviet Union in the north and the U.S. in the south, but to find a way to reunify the peninsula. In 1950, North Korea attempted to reunify the nation by force, attacking the South in a conflict that ended with an armistice in 1953. Since then, Korea has remained a nation divided along the 38th parallel, seeking to mend its physical and ideological rifts, borne of years of armed stand-off and deep-seated distrust (Korean Overseas Information Service a: 308). Japanese Colonial Rule International involvement in Korea followed a long history of foreign occupation of the peninsula. Japan fought its war with China on Korean soil in 1894-95, on the peninsula that had acted as a cultural bridge between the two nations for centuries. The Japanese remained in Korea after asserting strong influence over the peninsula, making it a Japanese protectorate after the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. Japan annexed Korea in 1910 and maintained violent and ruthless rule until World War II. During the Cairo Conference of 1943, Britain's Winston Churchill, American Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and China's Chiang Kai-shek determined the need for a free and independent Korea, due primarily to the peninsula's suffering under Japanese colonial rule, but also to its strategic significance. The Korean peninsula offered the U.S. and Britain access to the Asian continent, while it could serve China as a buffer from |