North Korean Stooges Step Into the Light

by Lawrence Peck, Advisor, North Korea Freedom Coalition, Newsweek, 7/14/23

On June 25 this year, the anniversary of North Korea's 1950 invasion of South Korea, Kim Jong-un's regime commenced its annual "hate America" propaganda event known as the "Month of Anti-U.S. Struggle," which lasts until July 27, the date on which the Korean War armistice agreement, routinely violated by the North, was signed in 1953.

On July 27 and 28 this year in Washington, D.C., some of the spirit of that event, albeit in a camouflaged form, will be present in several events targeting Congress and the media. Taking the form of a lobbying campaign by self-styled advocates of "peace" on the Korean peninsula, these events in reality constitute an exercise in deception, and to some extent a foreign influence operation targeting Congress.

This campaign in Washington at the end of July is part of an annual lobbying effort by pro-North Korean and other extremist groups/activists and their dupes to argue for unconditional U.S. acceptance of the North's long-standing demands.

This so-called "National Mobilization to End the Korean War" will focus on promoting a bill in the House of Representatives, the misnamed "Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act," H.R. 1369. Introduced in 2021 and reintroduced this year by Rep. Brad Sherman, and co-sponsored by 32 other Democrats from the far-left wing of their party and a lone Republican, this bill amounts to a gift granting North Korea its long-sought demands, including unreciprocated concessions to dictator Kim Jong-un.

Among its bad ideas, the bill calls for the United States to accept the North's demand for a no-preconditions "peace agreement," while asking nothing from the North in return.

The bill fails to mention any demands by the U.S. or the international community for the North's complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization; an end to its horrific crimes against its own people; its proliferation of weapons to other rogue and terrorist regimes; its military attacks against South Korea; its assassinations, or its cyber-crimes targeting the U.S. and South Korea.

Worse than the glaring omissions of H.R. 1369 is the pro-North Korean, anti-American, racist, and anti-Semitic nature of some of the official sponsoring/organizing groups participating in the D.C. lobbying and other events in late July. The dirty secret of this campaign is the involvement of groups that support the North Korean regime, such as the Korean American National Coordinating Council, the June 15 U.S. Committee for Reunification of Korea, and Nodutdol. These fanatically pro-North Korean, anti-American groups, as well as Women Cross DMZ, are headed by individuals who have for years been communicating and collaborating with intelligence agents of North Korea's United Front Department stationed at the North's Mission to the United Nations.

To expose this deception, questions should be posed to those directly involved in this campaign or indirectly involved in it through their support for some of its sponsors. These are questions to those who are not pro-North Korea, but who do not know, or do not care to know, the true nature of the groups/individuals they are involved with and supporting in this campaign.

Women Cross DMZ leader Christine Ahn, a Honolulu resident, has said that she is "trying to liberate Korea under the yoke of U.S. imperialism," that the "U.S. military is there to protect the corporate interests of U.S. corporations" and she describes the U.S. as "the world's aggressor and occupier."   She has also said, regarding the U.S military, "the U.S. and South Korean governments control and suppress dissent through the infrastructure of bases, particularly Pyeongtaek and Osan."

Are Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Leaf and scientist Dr. Sigfried Hecker aware of the fact that they will be speaking at a Washington event alongside not only Ahn, but Ann Wright, another Honolulu resident, who has said that "There are powerful influences in the United States, key Jewish persons with lots of money, who use that money and influence to influence our U.S. Congress, and to influence every U.S. president?"

Are Global Impact Rotary Club and Rotary Satellite Club of International Peace World, District 5000, which are sponsoring the Washington events in late July, aware of the fact—or, do they care?—that their fellow sponsor and participant, the Korean American National Coordinating Council, is a fanatically pro-North Korean group whose website features an official statement claiming that "American politics serves to exclusively benefit Jews and capitalists" and articles condemning what are termed "gangster American-style race-mixing" and "immoral race-mixing culture," which claim that "North Korea is the world's most honorable nation, because it is independent of the ugly evils of Jewish capitalism," and that "70 percent of Koreans are obsessed with American capitalism and have become inhuman sh*t worms lower than dogs"?

This campaign coming to Washington in late July, focused on lobbying Congress, is not what it claims to be, and not what some of its deluded supporters and participants believe it to be. As demonstrated by the extremist views of some its organizing/sponsoring groups and their leaders, it is an effort by pro-North Korean forces, some of whom have connections to North Korean agents, to influence American policy to benefit the Kim Jong-un regime. Members of Congress and the media should be aware of this deception and conduct due diligence research into the extremist nature and appalling views of some of the groups/activists behind this campaign.

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Lawrence Peck serves as an advisor to the North Korea Freedom Coalition, the largest network of North Korea human rights groups in the U.S.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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A bill to help Kim Jong-un, backed by extremists

by Lawrence Peck, JNS, July 26, 2023 (excerpt)

… Consider, for example, the leader of Women Cross DMZ/Korea Peace Now, Christine Ahn, one of the most vocal and active supporters of the bill, who has stated that she backs the bill because she sees it leading to a withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea, which is her goal. Although Ahn denies being pro-North Korea, she has said “the U.S., so-called leader of human rights, freedom and democracy is showing its racist, colonial, genicidal [sic] history to the world. North Koreans have learned that history, most Americans haven’t.” Ahn has even opposed North Korea human-rights legislation. Ahn’s group libels Israel as an “apartheid” and “settler-colonial state,” and demands an end to U.S. support for Israel. She praises what she terms “Palestinian people fighting for freedom and liberation from brutal apartheid.”

Sherman has refused to disavow the support of Ahn and her group for his bill, or disassociate himself from them, or reject them as an essential part of the coalition backing the bill. He is well aware of their major role in lobbying for his bill, has held up their support as an example to others, and an official of Ahn’s group participated in Sherman’s Capitol Hill event announcing his re-introduction of the bill. Why would Congressman Sherman be in any way associated with or refuse to reject the support of extremists like this?

Another example of the extremists supporting the bill is Ann Wright, an official of Women Cross DMZ and Code Pink, who will speak at one of Ahn’s events in D.C. this week to promote the bill. Although she denies being anti-American, Wright has rhetorically asked “Why is [sic] Bin Laden and Al Qaeda intent on doing harm to [the] people of America? Is there a reason why they are after us? And if there are some reasons, should we consider perhaps evaluating whether or not they may have a point on a few things?” One co-founder of Wright’s group Code Pink spoke at a Holocaust-denial conference in Iran, and another co-founder protested outside Walter Reed Military Medical Center, calling our wounded troops being treated there “terrorists.” Code Pink is one of the sponsors and participants in Ahn’s events this week. Another sponsor and participant is the group Nodutdol, whose members are enthusiastic fans of North Korea and endorse terrorism against Israel. Why would Congresswomen Lee and Chu participate in an event with extremists like this?…

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