From: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com To: the_dojang-digest@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Subject: The_Dojang-Digest V7 #410 Reply-To: the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Errors-To: the_dojang-owner@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com Precedence: The_Dojang-Digest Sat, 17 June 2000 Vol 07 : Num 410 In this issue: the_dojang: Koreas end propaganda war the_dojang: more on the Koreas the_dojang: . ========================================================================= The_Dojang, serving the Internet since June 1994. 930 members strong! Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Replying to this message will NOT unsubscribe you. To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe the_dojang-digest" (no quotes) in the body (top line, left justified) of a plain text e-mail addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. To send e-mail to this list use the_dojang@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com See the Korean Martial Arts (KMA) FAQ and online search the last five years worth of digest issues at http://www.MartialArtsResource.com Pil Seung! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Ray Terry Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 19:48:48 -0700 Subject: the_dojang: Koreas end propaganda war BBC Friday, 16 June, 2000, 13:13 GMT 14:13 UK Koreas end propaganda war South Korea is suspending all anti-North Korean propaganda, including its famed broadcasts at the heavily fortified border dividing the two Cold War rivals. And South Korean monitors said North Korean radio stations had dropped reports on South Korean affairs which contained fierce denunciations of the Seoul government. The gestures follow this week's historic summit between the two Korean leaders in which they pledged to try to end more than half a century of hostilities. But the US said on Friday it would still keep troops in South Korea despite the peace efforts. North Korea wants US troops to leave the Korean peninsula as an early condition for improved relations with the South. The two Koreas are still technically at war after their three-year conflict ended in 1953 without a peace deal. But on Thursday the North's Communist leader Kim Jong-il and the South's President Kim Dae-jung signed a landmark agreement promising to ease tensions. Insults For the last five decades the South and North have engaged in a heavy propaganda war. Public address systems on each side of the 4km wide no-man's land running 242km across the peninsula have blasted insults. But Seoul announced on Friday it had turned off its broadcasts. The giant loudspeakers mounted on hills the other side of the demilitarised zone (DMZ) fell silent just before the summit. US troops Kim Dae-jung has hailed the talks with communist leader Kim Jong-il as "the biggest event of our history" and said he believed the peninsula would eventually be reunified. But despite the thaw in relations, the US said it was "premature" to speculate about withdrawing American troops. The US has maintained its military presence since the 1950s and about 37,000 troops are currently stationed there. Reports say Washington has decided on a partial easing of its trade embargo against Pyongyang. But it will maintain a ban on the sale of technology with potential military use. US officials stressed that North Korea's missile threat still remained. Peace gestures During this week's summit in the North's capital Pyongyang, the two Korean leaders agreed to strengthen economic ties and begin reuniting families divided by the war. Both Koreas have been swift to make goodwill gestures following the end of the talks. The South Korean football authorities said the two countries would send a unified team to the Asia Cup in Lebanon in October. South Korea's Ministry of Defence said it may scale back its $45m programme to mark the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean war. And North Korea returned a South Korean fishing-boat that had sailed into its waters after straying across the disputed sea border. Last year the North and South Korean navies exchanged gunfire in the area in a dispute over fishing rights. In another development, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung said his North Korean counterpart had agreed to his request to invite Pope John Paul II for a visit. He quoted Kim Jong-il as replying: "Okay then tell the Pope to come." ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 21:34:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: the_dojang: more on the Koreas Headline: For N. and S. Korea, summit's end is just the beginning Byline: Ilene R. Prusher, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor Date: 06/16/2000 (SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA) Now comes the tricky part. They had hardly been in each other's presence for 48 hours when the leaders of North and South Korea signed an agreement to end a half century of enmity that tore family from family. The road to reunification, however, promises no short cuts. It's a 55-minute plane ride from Pyongyang to Seoul, but it took as many years to reach this week's accord. And even the flight - twice as long since the South Korean delegation flew around forbidden skies and the world's most militarized divide - shows how much is left to be covered. "It's a kind of intermediate road map," says Park Jong-Chul of the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government funded think tank in Seoul. "We don't know what kind of hindrances may be in the path." What will merit a page in the history books is the line in the agreement promising to move toward a confederation of the two countries. But what that word means to either side could differ substantially. The summit - though at times an emotional event - is more like a strategic rolling up of sleeves. The North-South Joint Declaration states that "for the achievement of unification" the leaders share some common ground between the South's concept of confederation and the North's "formula for a loose form of confederation." Fine-tuning that gap will be perhaps the greatest challenge as both sides strive to show that, unlike earlier rapprochement deals in 1972 and 1991, this one is for real. President Kim Dae Jung, in a triumphant speech upon his return to the South Korean capital, promised that it was. "What used to be a South Korean economy will be extended into the peninsula and will bring benefits to North and South." Kim preempted criticism that the agreement is short on specifics and glossed over the concerns over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. "I'm not saying everything worked out very well. This is just the beginning," Kim said. Simpler matters are presumed to be issues like family reunification, which took place even during the summit itself. Several members of the delegation were reunited with family - uncles with nephews they had never met - after the agreement was signed late Wednesday. The pact sets Aug. 15, Liberation Day, as a target for visitor exchanges. But how far off reunification should be, under whose terms, and whether anyone is really ready to talk about one fully-integrated Korea are questions that could make implementation of the deal far more complex. "Although they use the same language, the connotations and interpretations are very different," says Mr. Park. The North Koreans, analysts say, may interpret wording that calls for "independent" unification as a nod to its demand to withdraw US troops from the peninsula, who now number 37,000, and to dissolve the three-way coordination bloc that has monitored North Korea from Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo. But how does a communist system with crusty dogma promising "to each according to his needs" team up with one whose motto might be "to each his own cellular phone?" A hybrid may take form: Do not overthrow the system or deprogram North Korea's scrappy, state-run economy, but allow big South Korean business to do the work of peace. Such an approach pleases many fiscal conservatives and South Koreans worried about "absorbing" their poor Northern cousins, à la German reunification. But a deal that keeps North Korea in business was not exactly the game plan in Washington, where Kim Jung Il and his father held a special place in the international rogue's gallery. The man deemed world's oddest leader has morphed himself overnight "from stubborn heathen to a very nice uncle," in the words of one South Korean lawmaker. US officials insist that American forces on the peninsula are not a concern in the short term because the underpinning of President Kim's "sunshine policy" of engagement is deterrence, primarily in the form of US military backing. And if Washington can take the new Kim Jung Il at face value, there is reason to believe he will cooperate in reducing the threat of nuclear confrontation. "We have to deal with North Korea as it is, and not as we wish it to be," says a US diplomat. "The world is changing and they are adjusting," says National Assembly member Jung Jey-moon. North Korea "can change their foreign policy and keep their system, and they'll eventually move toward capitalism and a free democratic system." Or, perhaps, the former without the latter, following in China's tracks. If that is the case, Washington is not likely to want to start rearranging its Asian troop lineup anytime soon. *Staff writer Cameron W. Barr contributed to this report. To read this story online http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/06/16/fp7s1-csm.shtml To visit our home page http://www.csmonitor.com ------------------------------ From: Ray Terry Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 7:47:20 PDT Subject: the_dojang: . ------------------------------ End of The_Dojang-Digest V7 #410 ******************************** It's a great day for Taekwondo! Support the USTU by joining today. US Taekwondo Union, 1 Olympic Plaza, Ste 405, Colorado Spgs, CO 80909 719-578-4632 FAX 719-578-4642 ustutkd1@aol.com http://www.ustu.com To unsubscribe from the_dojang-digest send the command: unsubscribe the_dojang-digest -or- unsubscribe the_dojang-digest your.old@address in the BODY of an email (top line, left justified) addressed to majordomo@hpwsrt.cup.hp.com. Old digest issues are available via ftp://ftp.martialartsresource.com. Copyright 1994-2000: Ray Terry and Martial Arts Resource Standard disclaimers apply.