Canada complicit in North Korea nucleur test

Photos

Axis to Grind: Inside North Korea by Irwin Oostindie

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uploaded by Dutchphoto

US and Canadian foreign policy encouraged North Korea.

Canada can contribute to solutions by allowing DPRK's request for embassy in Ottawa.

North Korea’s nuclear test did not surprise anyone who has actually been listening to the statements of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In doing my photography work, I have traveled to both sides of the Korean DMZ, the line that keeps the Korean peninsula artificially divided. I have come to see an enormous gap in how Canada’s media reports on North Korea, and the damage this causes to advancing peace and security in the region and in developing an intelligent Canadian foreign policy.

Sadly, since January 2002, the war-hawks in the Bush administration have relied on the North to react from the very corner the west has stuck them in. Without the ‘axis of evil’ boogey man popularized by the US media (and Canada’s alike) there would be less sales of US weapons systems in Asia, and little rationale for the Star Wars program. Does Canada’s media report on DPRK reaction to joint US/South Korea war games and their routine ‘mock invasion’ of the North? Instead we get sensational and inaccurate reports of the 'Dear Leader' living a playboy life, his Hollywood fetish and crazed dictator tendencies.

Can someone gently remind Canadians that we are still technically at war with Korea? North Korea is doing old fashioned gun-boat diplomacy because that’s the only avenue left for them. If Canadians genuinely cared for the plight of the Korean people, we would promote peace and security of the Korean peninsula. It was 53 years ago 45,000 Canadian troops came back from the Korean War, and we still have not signed a peace treaty and brought security to the region. Ottawa and Washington are complicit in this nucleur proliferation. It is time Canada breaks with the US' embargo rhetoric and end this cold war deep freeze. Despite starting diplomatic relations with the DPRK in 2003, Canada continues to deny their request for an embassy in Ottawa.

The US could have avoided all this by agreeing to North Korea’s decades-long request for bilateral talks. The capitalist west should stop the double standard of supporting only select developing countries, while trying to overthrow ones with a different economic system. By advancing development loans the DPRK has requested to deal with its severe famines, we would engage them to join the global community as a sovereign nation. By following through on the 1994 US-DPRK agreement to normalize relations, the DPRK could finally redirect it’s precious resources from military defenses, to the real needs of the Korean people.

Perhaps the silver lining in the DPRK nucleur test is that more American’s will see the dismal failure of the Bush administration’s pre-emptive strike policy, and possibly vote him out of office.


A Canadian view on North Korea:

My photo work titled ‘Axis to Grind’ was sponsored by Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs & International Trade and toured Canada in 2004-05. AXIS TO GRIND photographs and digital works reveal how North America’s misrepresentation of North Korea stands as an obstacle to peace and reunification for the Korean peninsula

View my  North Korea photos on CBC
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Beyond the Rhetoric my North Korea work reviewed by CanKor

My interview with CNN Tokyo Bureau Chief on her NKZone site (scroll down to article)

Sometimes online, occasionally offline, my Axis to Grind website

AXIS TO GRIND was featured on various radio, print and TV interviews, including a feature segment on CBC’s The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos.

I Want More from UK pop band Faithless ~ a most inspired 3 minute music video looking inside North Korea (download video from zip file). A look at Arirang - mass games, the most impressive mass cultural spectacle anywhere on the planet (even more extravagant than the USA's Super Bowl or Rose Bowl Parade!)

CanKor provides a Canadian perspective on North Korea

A North Korean perspective on nucleur testing