THE KUKMIN DAILY

“When we wrote the 'Declaration of the Churches of Korea on National Reunification and Peace' (88 Declaration), we thought the Korean peninsula would be reunited in 30 years. While I feel honored to be able to come to this event celebrating the 30th anniversary of the declaration, I’m really sad. If asked, ‘What have you done for the past 30 years?’ I don’t know how to answer. I’m really sorry.”

The atmosphere turned solemn as Hon. Prof. David K. Suh (far right), 87, of Ewha Womans University, one of the key drafters of the 88 Declaration, the first South-North joint Christian declaration on reunification, expressed his sentiments at the “International Conference in Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the 88 Declaration of the NCCK,” on March 5 at Ramada Seoul Dongdaemun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul. The three-day event is being held March 5~7 on the theme “Cultivating Peace, Proclaiming Hope.”

Prof. Suh took part in the session “Living the Division 1: Intergenerational Talk.” As the only member of the intergenerational panel who had directly experienced the Korean War, he spoke about his vivid, painful memories of his father’s death during the war. “I was 19 when my father was shot to death on a hill by the Daedong River during the war; on his face was the clear mark of the bullet… I collected his body, crying, and soon came to the South, dreaming of revenge on behalf of my father.”

In the South, however, there was another ongoing tragedy. Many innocent civilians were being killed by the army and the police in the name of anti-communism. Suh said, “I had always declared that I would take revenge for my father, a martyr who was killed for standing up against communism. But after discovering what happened in the South during the war, I could no longer say that… Remembering the victims, I came to think, ‘This pain is because of the division. There cannot be such a thing as taking revenge between the South and the North.’”

Different from Suh, the generation who did not experience the war seem to take a less serious view of the national division. Prof. Suh Bo Hyuk of Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies said, “I was born in 1966. While I was a college student, the democratization movement was still strong, and the 88 Declaration got a great response. Our surveys tell us that the younger generations are less concerned about the national division and peaceful unification… We conduct a survey on reunification every year, and while 70% supported reunification during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, now it is a little more than 50%.”

In the next session, “Living the Division 2: Story Sharing,” Ko Gwan-sun, a victim of the April 3 Jeju Massacre, testified, “I was nine at the time. I witnessed my neighbors gathered at the school playground and getting shot to death. I was waiting for my turn, sitting on the bloody ground, but all of a sudden the shooting stopped, leaving me alive. The Jeju Uprising survivors have had a harsh life because we couldn’t get decent jobs due to our “guilt by association.” I’m very happy just for the fact that an event like this is taking place.”

Panelists in this session who shared their stories also included Mr. Hong Gang-chul, a North Korean defector who suffered because of a “spy” incident fabricated by the South Korean Intelligence Service, and Ms. Lee Sang-yeong, whose family underwent financial loss when the Geumgang Mountain Tourist Region was abruptly closed.

Participants on this day were some 200 international and domestic church leaders from the World Council of Churches, World Communion of Reformed Churches, Christian Conference of Asia, and National Council of Churches in the USA.

Reporter Yang Minkyeong (grieg@kmib.co.kr), with Yeara Ahn-Park (yap@kmib.co.kr)
Photo by senior reporter Kang Min Seok


Original Article in Korean:
“88선언 작성 땐 30년 뒤에 통일될 줄 알았는데…”: 88선언 30주년 국제협의회