STOP Manipulating the Cheonan Incident for the Upcoming Local Election
STOP the Military Confrontation
DO Transparent Investigation on the Cheonan incident

We, Korean civil society, gather here today to overcome the crisis and conflicts, caused by disputes on the Cheonan, the sunken South Korean naval vessel, and to take a major step forward toward our inalienable values of democracy, co-existence and peace.

Since the Cheonan naval warship mysteriously sank on Mach 26th, the South Korean society has grieved the tragic incident together while trying to clarify the cause and to provide comprehensive countermeasures to prevent its recurrence.

However, a handful of governmental and military officials have tightly controlled the relevant information in the name of military secrets and national security, checking these voluntary acts of citizens to find out the truth of the incident. The Lee Myung-bak administration, which kept warning of a premature conclusion, announced the final investigation results on the Cheonan on the initiating day of local election campaigns. The investigation team of the Ministry of Defense neither conducted essential fact-findings nor thoroughly verified so that contained a number of suspicions, unexplained matters. The Lee administration unilaterally announced dangerous diplomatic and military countermeasures against North Korea based on the final investigation report by the investigation team of the Ministry of Defense, which should have been reprimanded, while not allowing enough time for the public and the National Assembly to review the investigation. These countermeasures paralyzed all the peaceful managements of crisis which have been gradually established since the “July 7 Declaration” in 1988 by the Roh Tae-woo administration. Consequently, the tensions and crisis on the Korean Peninsula are dramatically escalating ever since the military dictatorship decades.

Do you think that such impetuous and dogmatic measures by the Lee administration are helping to resolve the situation? Instead, the Lee’s measures are shaking the very foundation of the systems for peace and prosperity, which would secure the future of the Korean Peninsula. Amid the international economic crisis, our economy was slowly recovering, but now it is faltering again. The efforts of the Six-Party Talks as well as the discarding of the North Korean nuclear program are missing because of the Lee administration’s enforcements of military and economic sanctions and countermeasures against North Korea.

People!
Have you witnessed such military tension in the past when peace and engagement policies were consistently pursued? Now we are at crossroads and need to decide whether to go back to the adventurism of the Cold War era, which the issue of security was ill-used for politics and blinded people to the truth, or to take future-oriented peaceful realism, which emphasizes the democratic process, checks on the abuse of the administrative and military power, and seeks ways for peace and co-existence rather than provocative slogans.

In this regard, we, Korean civil society, present our requests.

Both North and South Korea should immediately stop the military confrontation, which is causing war and economic crisis on the Korean Peninsula. The South should withdraw its series of dangerous military measures and economic sanctions against North Korea, which were enforced without public consensus, an accreditation of the National Assembly including the opposition parties, and agreement by concerned countries. North Korea also should refrain from provocative rhetoric and radical military actions but instead cooperate for a rational process of uncovering the truth regarding the Cheonan.

The South Korean government should immediately take additional investigations to clarify the remaining suspicions and questions and to provide reasonable explanations regarding the sinking of the Cheonan vessel. For this, it is necessary that the National Assembly go through reviewing and accrediting the investigation on Cheonan. Additionally, an international team for accountable verification, which includes the US and China.

Both the South Korean government and the ruling party, the Grand National Party, should refrain from abusing the Cheonan incident for the upcoming local election, which is directly connected to the safety of the Korean people. They also should fully explain if it was really necessary to release the premature investigation results and to announce military countermeasures. In addition, we urge the government to immediately stop abusing its political and legal power to oppress the voters who raise rational questions to the government’s report and military countermeasures.

We appeal to you!
The crisis on the Korean Peninsula is taking place regardless of our intention, but we should not be excluded from the process of clarifying the real causes and seeking ways to resolve this problem in an appropriate way. It is because it is directly related to our future of democracy and peace. It is time to call upon your wisdom and courage to keep peace.

At 3pm, on May 29, let us show our will to uncover the truth and accomplish real peace on the Korean Peninsula. From today, let’s begin to light up candles for peace of the Korean Peninsula, each and every night.  

On June 2, election day let’s objectively judge the government’s governance and policies with a sense of ownership, and let’s open our future with democracy, co-existence, and peace for ourselves.