Korean Peace Project Delegation to Korea

September 29, 2003: Eric Sirotkin and Jennie Lusk traveled to Korea on a peacebuilding mission.. The Delegation and its Purpose

On September 29th, 2003 four lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild of the United States, Peter Erlinder, Professor of Law at the William Mitchell School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, Neil Berman, Attorney in Boston, Massachusetts and Eric Sirotkin and Jennie Lusk, Attorneys in Albuquerque, New Mexico as well as a member of the American Association of Jurists, Christopher Black, Barrister in Toronto, Canada, traveled to North Korea, formally the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK) at the invitation of the Korean Democratic Lawyers Association (KDLA).

We came to North Korea in order to increase bonds between lawyers in North Korea and the west, as well as to increase understanding between the peoples of North America and North Korea in order to reduce the risk of war between the DPRK and the United States of America.

The visit had several specific purposes: (1) to develop personal and professional relationships with lawyers in North Korea with a view toward understanding their legal system and its role in society, (2) to determine and understand the views of the people of the DPRK with respect to war and peace and its link to the problem of reunification of the “two” Koreas, and (3) to observe as best we could the real situation for the people of the DKRP in the context of the information being propagated in the western press of an Orwellian, totalitarian, impoverished and starving society - allegations which have been used by the United States to justify all its recent wars of aggression. We felt it essential to let the North Koreans know that many Americans and Canadians have a deep desire for peace and oppose the rhetorical “axis of evil” posture announced by the current U.S. administration. Most of us met in Beijing as virtual strangers, but we parted company days later as friends, transformed by our experience. For more information, check out the Korea Peace Project website at: http://www.nlg.org/korea/ and see the deledgation’s report.