I think you are wrong when you say the ROKs signed the ceasefire with the Americans.

To the best of my knowledge, the ROKs actually refused to sign the 1953 Armistice. It was the UNC Commander at the time (Clark ?) who signed the Armistice on behalf of all UNC forces (minus the ROKs, who have never been a member of the UNC).

The ROKs wanted to continue the war, but like we see today in Iraq, it is your coalition partners that usually get fed up with the whole “limited war” concept and are willing to force you to settle for a half-victory.

Having served in Korea for many years (and several as a troop commander), I have always sensed an underlying tension between US and ROK headquarters and their distinctly separate agendas. The whole “Kapshi Kapshida” thing is a meaningless ploy that provides top cover for the intense bill-paying battles that go on. A senior US officer said it best when he stated that “it is the US-ROK Alliance that’s killing us!”

That bogus alliance started in 1953 when the ROKs refused to sign the armistice. Now that the ROK’s agenda has become apologetic toward the North, it should be no surprise that the ROKs are using Alliance rules to hamper US interests.

I know they officially signed the ceasefire with the Americans, but if they at least made a start with the South it might make getting a railway link a bit easier

But then would that make SK at war with the US?
I can see this a complete legal and political quagmire but you’ve got to start somewhere.

The Daily NK has a post up about another major NKHR conference in Seoul this month on the 21st.

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk00100&num=2045

You all know how much coverage the DC conference did not get.

You probably read my moans about that and the need to take advantage of broadban video access on the internet to achieve one of the primary goals of these NGOs and the primary goal of a conference like this — getting the word out to people who are not already focused on the issue.

So, like back in 2005, I am putting messages out around the K-blogpshere:

if anybody in Korea is willing to film parts of this conference, I would love to do brief edits for them and get them up on the internet where they can be viewed 24/7. (With the spread of You Tube, and Korean society’s awareness of broadban access, perhaps there are already some people who are going to get parts of this conference up. My fingers are crossed…)

I didn’t put messages out for the DC conference until just before it happened and didn’t get any replies.

In 2005, we had about as much time before the conference when I started asking, and I did get 1 person who replied and the result was this webring:

http://www.usinkorea.org/North_Korea/videos/conference/

A tripod would have made the videos much more viewer friendly, but the two of us connecting through cyberspace got more video coverage of the 2005 event than I can find on the recent Washington conference…..

If anybody might be interested in filming some of the conference is worried about permission, I emailed several of the NGOs and speakers who we filmed in 2005. None complained. Some sent me a text of their comments that I could include on the webpages. David Hawk was surprised to see he was taped but said he liked it.

Some of the people connected to these NGOs might/probably read this blog and might read this message, and if capturing such lectures or panel discussions in film like this is taboo, you can let me know…

It wouldn’t make sense to me since the point is to get the message out to a wider and wider audience.

Anybody interested in filming these events could also ask for permission or I could send emails to the groups asking ahead of time or again like I did last time when I have finished getting them up for them to see what I did with them…

I really hope someone will have the desire and opportunity to get parts of this conference up on the internet.

With the amount of K-bloggers interested in North Korea - including their Human Rights abuses - and the amount of people who own camcorders these days - you would think 2 or 3 people could be lined up who can get some coverage of these events…..

you can email me at usinkorea@hotmail.com

What you hear these days is “taking steps” — which shows how far we have come in shoving our heads up our bums pretty much all the way around —- except for Japan…