| [ CMU ] in KIDS 글 쓴 이(By): sjdoh (한솔 아빠) 날 짜 (Date): 2000년 6월 18일 일요일 오후 12시 44분 07초 제 목(Title): News Report on TRIBUNE-REVIEW City's Koreans watching and waiting Immigrants cautiously welcome peace By Gordon Ovenshine TRIBUNE-REVIEW Even as North and South Korea inch closer to reunification, Korean immigrants students and experts in Pittsburgh watching the process unfold say reconciling differences will be tough but welcomed. "There is great political tension between the north and south," said Carnegie Mellon student Sam-Joo Doh, 34, of South Korea. "In some sense, we are enemies, unfortunately. They built a strong communist country, and we built a somewhat westernized, or free country." As Pittsburgh's Korean community anxiously follows the peace process between the longtime adversaries, academics and Korean War veterans gathered Thursday at the University of Pittsburgh to assess the Korean War's legacy and to take a look forward. The conference, "The History of the Korean War," will conclude today. "The two Koreas are still officially at war, so there has never been a sense of closure," said Carolyn Ban, dean of Pitt's graduate school of public and international affairs. North and South Korea signed an agreement this week pledging to work for reconciliation and eventual reunification. The countries agreed to allow reunions between families that have been separated for 50 years by ideological differences and a closed border. "We've been praying about this since last week," said the Rev. Eun Lee of the 300-member Korean Central Church of Pittsburgh. With family living in South Korea, Lee, 39, said unification would help reduce an atmosphere of uncertainty and dread back home. "Our country has always had the threat of war," said the Oakland resident who moved to Pittsburgh 18 months ago. "Through the unification, the threat of war will be solved." Doh said North and South Koreans share a common heritage. "All Korean people feel we are one nation, one country," Doh said. "We were one country for a long time, more than 1,000 years." Carnegie Mellon University student Jihyun Lee, 30, said the two nations are destined to unite, as did East and West Germany. "We use the same language. We are the same race. We are one," said Lee, a South Korean. The conference drew about 50 participants from across the nation to Posvar Hall. Sponsored by the Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, the goal of the conference was to assess issues that the war raised and discuss new interpretations. Experts surveyed the Cold War climate that produced the opening salvos, when Communist North Korean troops invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. The war ended three years later, costing about 54,000 American lives. Conference participants examined press censorship, the strained relations between President Harry Truman and Gen. Douglas MacArthur and profiled Matthew B. Ridgway. He led the United Nations forces during the war after Truman fired MacArthur. Ridgway retired to Fox Chapel in 1955. They also spoke of little-known facts, such as Turkey's participation. James Matray, a history professor at New Mexico State University who has written several books on the war, said North Korea invaded South Korea as a preemptive strike. North Korean military leaders, along with Soviet strongman Josef Stalin, believed the United States had the economic might to back the South Koreans in an invasion of the North. After a lot of political waltzing, Stalin agreed to an invasion to fend off an American-backed first strike by South Korea, he said. North Korea's goal was to invade and occupy South Korea before the United States had time to react, Matray said. It didn't work. "I view the outcome of the Korean War as an inevitable defeat of communism," Matray said. "Any society based on the oppression of people and economic depravation will not survive forever." Chuck Marwood, 70, of Brentwood, served in the Navy during the war. He attended the conference, he said, to share experiences with other veterans and hear what the college professors had to say. According to the Pittsburgh Committee for the Commemoration of the Korean War, 26,427 Korean War veterans live in Allegheny County. "I'm here to get information from other peoples' perspective," Marwood said. |