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Statement in Response to Third DPRK Nuclear Explosive Test
U.S. Working Group for Peace & Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific


Published 24 February 2013

1) We come from diverse backgrounds and hold a range of analyses (or
perspectives) approaching the proposed North Korean nuclear weapons test and
the further militarization of Asia and the Pacific.

2) We oppose the development, possession of, and threats to use nuclear
weapons by any nation. We are committed to creating a world free of nuclear
weapons. We have deep concerns that North Korea’s third nuclear weapons test
contributes to an increasingly dangerous region-wide nuclear arms race. We
understand the North Korean test was part of a cycle of threat and response
to previous U.S. nuclear threats, and to continued military provocations. We
cannot ignore the double standards and hypocrisies of the members of the
"nuclear club" who refuse to fulfill their Article VI disarmament
commitments of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty commitments by
"modernizing" their omnicidal arsenals while insisting that other nations
refrain from becoming nuclear powers. While North Korea has conducted three
explosive nuclear tests, compared to the United States’ 1,054.

3) We note that beginning with the Korean War, the United States has
prepared and threatened to attack North Korea with nuclear weapons at least
nine times, that it maintains the so-called U.S. "nuclear umbrella" over
Northeast Asia, and that its current contingency plans for war with North
Korea include a possible first-strike nuclear
attack. [i] <https://webmail.afsc.org/owa/?ae=It...>

4) The Obama administration’s first-term policy of "strategic patience"
with the DPRK, reinforced by crippling sanctions that contribute to
widespread malnutrition, connected to the stunting of growth in children and
starvation, has proven to be a grave failure. The policy has foreclosed
crucial opportunities to explore diplomacy and engagement. "Strategic
patience", combined with North and South Korea’s increasingly advanced
missile programs, aggressive annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises -
including preparations for the military overthrow of the DPRK government -
and the Obama Administration’s militarized Asia-Pacific
"pivot,"[ii]<https://webmail.afsc.org/owa/?ae=It...> contributed
to the DPRK’s decision to conduct a third nuclear "test."

5) Added to these factors was the January 22, 2013 UN Security Council
resolutions condemning North Korea’s December rocket launch and the
tightening of the existing punitive sanctions program against North Korea.
The double standard that permits all of North Korea’s neighbors and the
United States to test and possess missiles, space launch, and military space
technologies and to threaten the use of their missiles is extraordinary. It
thus came as little surprise that the DPRK responded by announcing plans for
new nuclear tests that provocatively "target" the United States. Numerous
analysts interpreted the announcement of a possible test as a means to
break through the Obama Administration’s failed policy of "strategic
patience" in order to bring the U.S. to the table for direct U.S.-DPRK
negotiations.

6) 2013 marks the sixtieth year since the signing of the 1953 Armistice
Agreement, which established a ceasefire but did not end the Korean War. We
join Koreans around the world who call for Year One of Peace on the Korean
Peninsula, as well as our partners across Asia and the Pacific who have
designated 2013 as the Year of Asia-Pacific Peace and Demilitarization.
Peaceful relations between the United States and North Korea (DPRK) are
possible and they are more urgent than ever.

Given that unending war remains the basis of U.S.-DPRK relations, which have
destabilized the lives of ordinary Korean people and been used to help
justify the obscenely large Pentagon budget (equal to the spending of the
next 13 largest military spenders -
combined!)[iii]<https://webmail.afsc.org/owa/?ae=It...> at the
expense of U.S. citizens, we believe it is in the interests of the U.S. and
North Korean peoples for our governments to begin negotiations to end the
Korean War and leading to the eventual demilitarization and denuclearization
of the Korean Peninsula. Peace is possible. We recall that, as recently as
2000, the Clinton Administration came within a hair’s breadth of completing
a comprehensive agreement with North Korea, which was derailed by U.S.
domestic political crisis over the outcome of the presidential election.

7) In this moment of escalation, we call for proactive measures by the
U.S. government as an active party to this crisis. In order to stanch the
dangerous nuclear, high-tech, and conventional arms races in Asia and the
Pacific, we urge the following:

a. Direct U.S.-DPRK negotiations

b. Suspension of aggressive military exercises by all parties involved
in tensions related to the Koreas

c. An end to the UN-led punitive sanctions regime against the DPRK,
which hurts/devastates? the lives of the North Korean people.

d. An end to the Korean War by replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement
with a peace treaty

e. Negotiations leading to the creation of a Northeast Asia Nuclear
Weapons Free Zone

f. An end to the U.S. first-strike nuclear weapons doctrine and a
reversal of U.S. plans to spend an additional $185 billion over the next
decade to "modernize" the U.S. nuclear arsenal and nuclear weapons delivery
systems (missiles, bombers, etc.)

g. Commence negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention
that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a time
bound framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific*

Signed:

Christine Ahn , Gretchen Alther, Rev. Levi Bautista, Jackie Cabasso, Herbert
Docena, John Feffer, Bruce Gagnon, Gerson, Subrata Goshoroy, Mark Harrison,
Christine Hong, Kyle Kajihiro, Aura Kanegis, Peter Kuznick, Hyun Lee, Ramsay
Liem, Andrew Lichterman, John Lindsay-Poland, Ngo Vinh Long, Stephen McNeil,
Nguyet Nguyen, Satoko Norimatsu, Koohan Paik, Mike Prokosh, Juyeon JC Rhee,
Arnie Sakai, Tim Shorock, Alice Slater, David Vine, Sofia Wolman

The Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific is comprised of individuals and organizations concerned about and working for peace and demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific on a comprehensive basis.

For more information see

See

Joseph Gerson.
Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World,
London: Pluto Press, 2007; John Feffer. North Korea South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis, New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003

[ii] See In October, 2011, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled a major transformation of U.S. foreign and military policy, the "pivot" from Iraq and Afghanistan to Asia, the Pacific and the strategically important Indian Ocean. Shortly thereafter, the Pentagon’s strategic guidance named the Asia-Pacific region and the Persian Gulf as the nation’s two geostrategic priorities. Elements of the pivot include "rebalancing" U.S. military forces, with 60% of the U.S. Navy and Air Force to be deployed to the Asia-Pacific region. Military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Thailand are being deepened and revitalized, while military collaborations with Indonesia, Vietnam, India and other nations are reinforced. The "pivot" is also being reinforced with deeper U.S. involvement in multi-lateral forums across the region and by efforts to create the Trans Pacific Partnership, a supra-free trade agreement that would more deeply integrate the economies of allied nations and partners with that of the United States.

[iii] See Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The 15 countries with the highest military expenditure in 2011 (table) See; Defence budgets "Military ranking" Mar 9th 2011, by The Economist online


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