Author: gregoryelich

Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, and a columnist for the South Korean news site, Voice of the People. He is the author of Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem, and the Pursuit of Profit, and has two chapters in the anthology Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. Elich was on the advisory board of the U.S. branch of the Korean Truth Commission, and he is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea. In 1999, he was a member of a team that visited Yugoslavia to investigate NATO war crimes.

Police Raid Humanitarian Group Over Pandemic Aid to North Korea

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Peter Wilson, presenting truck in 2007 to the NZ Friendship Farm in North Korea

An Interview with Peter Wilson, by Gregory Elich

United Nations and U.S. sanctions targeting North Korea prohibit almost all trade and transactions with the nation, resulting in collective punishment of the entire population. Ostensibly, humanitarian aid is exempt from sanctions. Still, many humanitarian groups have been compelled to curtail or halt assistance to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the official name for North Korea). U.S. officials regularly contact officials abroad, urging them to crack down on businesses, organizations, and individuals having any dealings with North Korea.

One such group is the New Zealand-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Society (NZ DPRK Society), which over the years, has provided aid and engaged in educational exchanges with North Korea. Among its projects, it has provided farm equipment, diesel fuel, flood relief, and fertilizer to the NZ Friendship Farm, supplementary food to the SeungHo Home for the Elderly, and multiple shipments of medical supplies. These are only a few examples of the group’s many activities.

This year, the NZ DPRK Society fell afoul of the U.S.-driven effort to strangle the North Korean economy when it provided the DPRK with personal protective equipment to help it deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Peter Wilson, the Society’s secretary, shared his experiences with me.

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Race, Militarism and the US Scheme to Control the Pacific

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Review: A Violent Peace: Race, U.S. Militarism, and Cultures of Democratization in Cold War Asia and the Pacific, by Christine Hong. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2020, pp 300.

Christine Hong’s marvelous book arrives at a time when Washington’s Indo Pacific Strategy is driving U.S. political, economic, and military confrontation in the Asia-Pacific, as the culmination of a long process that began in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

A Violent Peace examines how the United States sought to encompass the Asia-Pacific “within the securitized contours of U.S. military empire,” and the responses to that policy by “a range of people’s struggles – black freedom, Asian liberation, and Pacific Islander decolonization.”

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Is There Any Hope for Revival of U.S.-North Korea Negotiations?

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Interview with Gregory Elich

Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun arrived in Seoul, South Korea yesterday for talks on stalled nuclear diplomacy hours after North Korea said it had “no intention of sitting face to face with the United States.” President Trump had said earlier in the day that he was willing to have yet another summit with the North Korean leader. But Biegun reiterated the U.S. position that North Korea must give up all of its nuclear weapons, something North Korea has always maintained it would not do unilaterally without concurrent sanctions relief.

What is Behind the Strain in Inter-Korean Relations?

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Gregory Elich interviewed by Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman

The recent strain in inter-Korean relations, and how it ties in with U.S. North Korea policy

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Will South Korea’s Moon Defy Trump and Improve Relations with North Korea?

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North Korea is in the news again.  As always, that means that it is time for mainstream journalists and establishment figures to reach for the handy cliché and to recycle received opinion as a substitute for thought. Terms like “provocation,” “threat,” and “aggression” abound. Not surprisingly, powerful political and military actors in the United States are seizing the opportunity offered by strained inter-Korean relations to try and kill any prospect of reengagement with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the official name for North Korea).

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Interview with a COVID-19 Survivor

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“At my lowest points, the unsettling realization came to me that given the ferocity and rapidity of change with this virus, a further plunge could mean that I might not survive. Indeed, I felt so close to total suffocation that there seemed little room for further decline. I was determined to fight my way through this, but at the same time, I calmly prepared myself mentally for any eventuality.”

 

Zimbabwe Update: Sanctions, Land Reform, and Neoliberal Policies

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Interview with Freedom Mazwi and Gregory Elich, on WPFW’s Voices with Vision program

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Mnangagwa’s Neoliberal Assault on the Zimbabwean People

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As Zimbabwe’s economy continues its descent since a military coup installed Emmerson Mnangagwa as the nation’s ruler in November 2017, his government’s response has been to double down on its ruinous neoliberal reform program.

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The U.S. Tightens its Grip on South Korea to Strengthen its Anti-China Alliance

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Back in August, South Korea’s 90-day notice that it would withdraw from the General Security of Military Intelligence Agreement (GSOMIA) set off alarm bells in Washington. The agreement provided the means for South Korea and Japan to directly share military intelligence on North Korea.

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How Real is the Trump Administration’s New Flexibility with North Korea?

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Although widely derided by the Washington Establishment as an empty photo opportunity, the recent meeting between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un at Panmunjom produced an agreement to resume working-level talks in the near future. According to the North Korean news agency KCNA, the two leaders discussed stumbling blocks in improving relations and easing tensions, and agreed to work towards a “breakthrough in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in the bilateral relations.”

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