For Peace on the Korean Peninsula

For Peace on the Korean Peninsula The People for Achieving Peace and Reunification including 84 other civic organizations and personages formed a committee for promoting peace candlelight and held a press conference in front of the US embassy in Seoul on May 21. The spring of peace is in the balance, the committee deplored through its press release.   The US has threw hurdles in the way of the DPRK-US summit by forcing unilateral concessions from the DPRK, it charged and added that Bolton and other hardliners are increasing sanctions and pressure on the DPRK. In a press release, the committee demanded that the US discontinue such provocative actions as war exercises if it is truly interested in the dialogue with the DPRK. It called for changing the candlelight, symbol of democracy, into symbol of peace and holding it up until peace has settled in the Korean Peninsula and the country has been reunified. About seventy civic groups including the People's Solidarity for Revising Unequal SOFA held a news conference in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand total revision of the unequal SOFA with the US.  Environmental pollution is very serious at the US military bases in Bupyeong and Yongsan compared with other bases in south Korea, the press release noted.  Irresponsible attitude to issue of the environmental contamination at the US military bases in Bupyeong and Yongsan would produce ensuing consequence in other military bases in south Korea, it said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should demand the US forces in south Korea should own responsibility for the environmental contamination, it held.   The south Koreans have been under constant threat of serious environmental pollution at the US military bases, the bacteria of anthrax and biochemical weapons, and crimes committed by the US army for half a century. It is attributable to the lopsided SOFA agreed with the US, it stressed.   The press released declared that the organizations would present a written opinion in demand of total revision of the unequal SOFA to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US embassy in Seoul and launch a vigorous action including a protest rally.