Korean Friendship Association (Canada)

Answered by George Graham
Official Delegate (Canada), Korean Friendship Association
President, Korean Friendship Association (Canada)

I'm a Korean student living in Canada. From your name, I assume you're not Korean. I don't understand how a non-Korean would be interested in a government often described as a brutal Communist dictatorship. Can it be some sort of social or personal reasons?

You're correct in assuming I'm not Korean. I was born and raised in Toronto. KFA Canada's membership reflects the diversity of Canada's population. Our members come from a very wide variety of backgrounds. With that in mind, I can only give you my personal reasons for being involved with KFA Canada.

I became interested in the DPRK while living in Seoul from 1997-98. I visited the DMZ as well as the Odusan Reunification Observatory just north of Seoul. I came away from both places deeply depressed over the division that had been imposed on the Korean people. There was, as you probably know, no good reason for the occupation of either northern Korea (by the USSR) or southern Korea (by the US). Korea was an occupied nation during the Second World War, not a belligerent like Germany or Japan.

Most of my students in Seoul were adults. Many had grown up during the Korean War, and their views on the DPRK were very different from what I read in Korean books or the daily 'Korea Herald'. I was surprised to learn that, contrary to what we read in history books, the Korean War did not start on June 25, 1950. True, that was the date on which DPRK forces launched a massive southern assault. However, there had been tension -- and shooting -- across the 38th parallel for several months prior to June 25. South Korean President Syngman Rhee had repeatedly threatened to reunify the country by force. When the DPRK took his threat seriously and launched an attack toward Seoul, Syngman Rhee fled the capital and had the bridges across the Han River blown up -- trapping thousands of poorly-equipped south Korean troops who were left as a sacrifice to Rhee's cowardice. In its first air attack during the Korean War, the U.S. Air Force bombed retreating south Korean soldiers whom they just assumed were from the DPRK. Unless things have changed dramatically in the last few years, you won't read about these incidents in south Korean textbooks, and yet they can be verified by unclassified American documents.

I should mention that all of the above things were pointed out to me by Koreans living in Seoul. Of these adult students of mine, several were teachers or college/university instructors, and they could not understand why south Korean textbooks continued to portray the DPRK as some kind of insane asylum. As one man put it to me, "After all, they are our brothers. We should try to understand them and speak to them. But our government doesn't want that."

With that in mind, I would suggest you read everything concerning the DPRK with a critical eye. It is perhaps an easy thing to dismiss a nation of nearly twenty-five million people; it is far more difficult, but much more worthwhile, to try to understand it.

That is part of the reason KFA Canada exists; to promote an understanding of the DPRK. According to the incorporation documents we are filing with the Canadian government, our Association has three basic goals:

1. To solicit material aid, in particular needed medical supplies, for the people of the DPRK;

2. To facilitate cultural, technical and academic exchanges between Canada and the DPRK;

3. To educate and inform Canadians about the DPRK, including its history, culture and economy.

That's it. We have no secret aims or a hidden agenda. Our association is open to anyone who believes in a peaceful resolution to the problems on the Korean peninsula. Some members are proud supporters of Kim Il Sung's Juche Idea. Others believe that ideology is irrelevant, and that the important thing is that there should not be a second U.S.-sponsored Korean War. Some of us have fathers or grandfathers who served in the Canadian Army during the Korean War, and part of the way we honor their memory is to ensure that no one else will have to fight and die on the Korean peninsula.