‘The Koreans, Japanese, Mongols, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Russians have to uproot Oriental despotism if they truly want their own ZOPFAN and NWFZ. Failure means World War 3.’
SEOUL. — Here at the 2025 International NGO Conference on History and Peace, we share a stanza from a Christian Evangelical hymn: “Faith of our fathers! living still, In spite of dungeon, fire, and sword; O how our hearts beat high with joy, Whene’er we hear that glorious word! Faith of our fathers, holy faith! We will be true to thee till death.”
We do so given that the theme is “80 Years of Liberation and Atomic Bombings, 60 Years of Korea–Japan Relations: Historical Reflections and Civil Society Collaboration for Peace.” And the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons reminds humans: “The indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons means that children die. In fact, the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is estimated to have killed over 38,000 children…It takes around 10 seconds for the fireball from a nuclear explosion to reach its maximum size. A nuclear explosion releases vast amounts of energy in the form of blast, heat and radiation. An enormous shockwave reaches speeds of many hundreds of kilometers an hour. The blast kills people close to ground zero, and causes lung injuries, ear damage and internal bleeding further away. People sustain injuries from collapsing buildings and flying objects. Thermal radiation is so intense that almost everything close to ground zero is vaporized. The extreme heat causes severe burns and ignites fires over a large area, which coalesce into a giant firestorm. Even people in underground shelters face likely death due to a lack of oxygen and carbon monoxide poisoning.” [https://www.icanw.org/catastrophic_harm]
We also need to share: “The 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches met in a region where nuclear explosions, accidents and threats have taken a heavy toll. Northeast Asia is the only place on earth where nuclear weapons have been used in warfare. During the Cold War, more than 1,000 nuclear bombs were tested in adjoining areas of the Pacific and Asia. Today, all states in the region either possess nuclear weapons or depend on the US nuclear arsenal. The 100-plus nuclear power plants in East Asia and the many more planned are signs of economic prowess but also reminders of the Fukushima tragedy. South Korea has the highest geographic concentration of nuclear power plants in the world.” [https://oikoumene.org/resources/documents/statement-towards-a-nuclear-free-world]
As for the historicity of the conference dates, we are tasked to inform the Koreans, the Japanese and even the rest of ASEAN that July 5 this year is the 80th anniversary of the MacArthur 1945 Communique, which in part reads: “The entire Philippine Islands are now liberated and the Philippine Campaign can be regarded as virtually closed. Some minor isolated action of a guerrilla nature in the practically uninhabited mountain ranges may occasionally persist, but this great land mass of 115,600 square miles with a population of 17,000,000 is now freed of the invader. The enemy during the operations employed 23 divisions, all of which were practically annihilated.”
“The objects of the campaign were as follows…The Liberation of the Philippines with the consequent collapse of the enemy’s imperial concept of a Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and the reintroduction of democracy in the Far East.” [Maitland Mercury, Thursday, 05 July 1945, page 1]
The Hirohito regime (along with the Hitlerites of Europe) perpetrated crimes against peace and against humanity (Rape of Manila, etc.), a fact palpable even from testimonies of Filipinos accused of collaboration with the Fascists: “We have been informed that the most serious charge against former Ministers of the Philippine Republic is that we left Manila and this resulted in the killing of so many residents of the city. In other words, they say that if we had not left Manila, the massacre of residents would not have occurred. I am sure that our presence in Manila would not have made any difference. This is what the Japanese did throughout China before the establishment of the Pro-Japanese government. The Japanese were aware that the majority of Filipinos were against them. To protect our people and ourselves, we of course denied this. But as a matter of fact, we knew positively that 95% of the Filipino people were anti-Japanese. We knew that even the government employees serving in the Japanese regime were ‘guerrilleros’. We knew the feeling of the Filipinos because we were in continuous close contact with them. They hated the Japanese. This feeling was prompted by the abuses committed by the Japanese. They also resented the intervention of the military police and Japanese civilians in strictly private affairs.” [Diary of Antonio de las Alas, Friday, July 5, 1945]
Thus, here at the Jeongdong Franciscan Education Center, the youth and their mentors participating in an Intergenerational Dialogue for Sustainable Peace and International Cooperation have to be informed that the Filipino guerrillas battled the Axis (militarist Japanese, actual Nazis, Italian Fascists, Spanish Falangistas) in Rizal’s homeland as a continuation of the 1896 Philippine Revolution initiated by the Katipunan. That Revolution was for the replacement of the tyrannical European colonialism with a democratic republic of the Haringbayang Katagalugan, which would then power a beacon for all oppressed nations of Asia-Pacific.
As the Bruneians, Cambodians, Laotians, Vietnamese, Thais, Malaysians, Singaporeans, and Indonesians are aware of, Sustainable Peace entails deNazification (as completion of the 1942 Declaration of the United Nations), decarbonization (to address catastrophic climate change), and denuclearization (because the whole of Southeast Asia is a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality as well as a Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone).
The Koreans, Japanese, Mongols, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Russians have to uproot Oriental despotism if they truly want their own ZOPFAN and NWFZ. Failure means World War 3.
