Peace activists set the record straight after Newsweek publishes an opinion column entitled “North Korean Stooges Step Into the Light.”
NOTE: On July 14, 2023, Newsweek published an opinion column titled “North Korean Stooges Step Into the Light” by Lawrence Peck. This article contains false statements about Women Cross DMZ intended to undermine our reputation and credibility. On July 15, 2023, Women Cross the DMZ sent the following email to Deputy Opinion Editor Jason Fields asking to retract the article. We are re-posting it here with permission to help set the record straight, and because it is a articulate and honest response to an irresponsible article in Newsweek filled with falsehoods. – The editors
Originally posted in Women Cross the DMZ
Dear Jason,
I am writing to you on behalf of Women Cross DMZ in response to the July 14 opinion column “North Korean Stooges Step Into the Light” by Lawrence Peck. We are deeply disturbed that a widely respected journalistic publication such as Newsweek would publish an article containing false, defamatory, and harmful accusations against our organization and other peace advocates, especially without seeking a response from the subjects of such attacks.
Mr. Peck accuses our organization, Women Cross DMZ, of being “pro-North Korean” and our activities to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula as “an exercise in deception” constituting “a foreign influence operation targeting Congress.” He accuses Women Cross DMZ of working in collaboration with the North Korean government to benefit the Kim Jong Un regime.
These are baseless claims. Among the “evidence” Mr. Peck provides to back his claims is an opinion article—although not labeled as such—in the conservative-leaning Washington Examiner noting that Women Cross DMZ Executive Director Christine Ahn met with a diplomat at the DPRK Mission to the United Nations. To attribute nefarious motives to the meeting is both dishonest and irresponsible. The meeting was a necessary procedural step to arrange the 2015 women’s peace symposium, the DMZ crossing, and subsequent efforts to meet and engage with North Korean women—not, as the article suggests, evidence of collaboration or deception. Women Cross DMZ has also met with representatives of the U.S. and South Korean governments, because we believe that face-to-face engagement is essential to fostering dialogue, trust, and understanding—the building blocks for peace and lasting security.
Mr. Peck also points to statements made by Christine Ahn that are critical of the U.S. military presence in South Korea. Being critical of the fact that the U.S. military poisons the water, robs farmers of their land, and destroys ecosystems — not to mention the annual U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises prompt North Korea to react with provocative military actions — is also not evidence of being “pro-North.” Being pro-peace and pro-engagement does not equal supporting any government.
Our work is widely lauded by prominent experts and leaders, including the former UN Special Rapporteur human rights in the DPRK. Among the broad coalition of allies who stand with Women Cross DMZ are Nobel Peace laureates, feminist authors, peace activists, human rights lawyers, professors, former parliamentarians, faith leaders, humanitarian aid workers, filmmakers, artists, a retired Army Colonel, and a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Nowhere in Women Cross DMZ’s literature, speeches, media, or reports have we praised the North Korean regime. As our financial reporting demonstrates, we are funded entirely by U.S.-based foundations and individual donors, none of whom are based in North Korea or have any ties to the North Korean government.
Sadly, these attacks to discredit our organization and the growing movement for peace on the Korean Peninsula are nothing new. It is worth noting who is funding these attacks and why.
Of note, Lawrence Peck is the managing editor of the One Korea Network, which has espoused conspiracy theories about election interference in the U.S. and South Korea and has routinely attacked our pro-peace message. It is funded by a largely unknown and wealthy oligarch, Honolulu resident Annie M.H. Chan. As noted in a lengthy investigative report published by The Nation last year, Ms. Chan is the chairwoman of both One Korea Network and the Korea Conservative Political Action Conference, the South Korean branch of the Conservative Political Action Conference. In 2021, One Korea Network and the Korea Conservative Political Action Conference paid for fear-mongering advertisements, including full-page ads in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and a Times Square billboard, attacking bills supporting peace on the Korean Peninsula and family reunions with Korean Americans and their loved ones in North Korea.
Ms. Chan appears to have financial motivations for these attacks. She is a director of IP3 International, which markets the export of U.S. nuclear technology around the world in a global energy race against Russia and China. At one point Ms. Chan was also listed as director of “strategy & innovation” at IP3’s subsidiary, Allied Nuclear, which “helps international governments procure U.S. nuclear technology.”
According to investigative reporter Eli Clifton, “Chan’s One Korea Network appears to echo the perspectives of IP3 and Allied Nuclear, cheering South Korea’s plans to export nuclear power technology and to maintain the country’s existing nuclear technology.” Chan is pushing radical conspiracy theories to fan the flames of great power competition between the US and China, which would clearly benefit her business interests.
Mr. Peck must not be given a platform to repeat his conspiracy theories about Korea peace activists without disclosing the financial motives of such attacks. In light of the falsehoods and conspiracies throughout Mr. Peck’s article, as well as the fact that it fails to meet basic journalistic principles of fairness, we request that you retract this article in its entirety. At the very least, in the interest of fairness, we hope you will give us a similar platform to explain why we advocate for peace.
Amid a dangerous escalation in tensions on the Korean Peninsula, we urge Newsweek to refrain from amplifying baseless accusations seeking to discredit the longstanding efforts of organizations and individuals who have dedicated their lives to building lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. In the future, we hope you will invest in nuanced, evidence-based reporting and cover the full diversity of perspectives on this issue. Thank you for your attention.
Christine Ahn
Christine Ahn is the Founder and Executive Director of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women mobilizing to end the Korean War and ensure women’s leadership in peace building. In 2015, she led 30 international women peacemakers across the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) from North Korea to South Korea. They walked with 10,000 Korean women on both sides of the DMZ and held women’s peace symposia in Pyongyang and Seoul. Ahn is the International Coordinator of the Korea Peace Now! transnational campaign, which Women Cross DMZ launched in 2019 with three other feminist peace organizations. She has addressed the United Nations, the US Congress, Canadian Parliament and the ROK National Human Rights Commission. Her op-eds have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and she is a regular contributor on MSNBC, Democracy Now!, and CNN. Christine is also the co-founder of the Korea Policy Institute and the Korea Peace Network, and has worked with prominent women’s organizations such as the Global Fund for Women and the Women of Color Resource Center. Christine serves on the board of Hawai’i Peace and Justice. She is the recipient of the 2020 US Peace Prize for her bold activism to end the Korean War, heal the wounds from the war, and women’s leadership in peacebuilding. Ahn has a master’s degree in International Policy from Georgetown University.
Other letters to Newsweek Deputy Opinion Editor Jason Fields
From Colonel Ann Wright, U.S. Army Retired and former U.S. Diplomat:
Lawrence Peck cited me by name in his outrageous and libelous OPED “North Korean Stooges Step Into the Light” published by Newsweek. Newsweek did NOT allow me or others named in his blatantly inaccurate and mal-intentioned article to be able to respond in the same issue of Newsweek with Peck’s malicious and untruthful remarks jeopardizing our reputations.
In case you don’t know lobbyist Lawrence Peck’s history, since 2015 with the trip to North and South Korea by 30 international women from 15 countries, including two Nobel Peace Laureates, with Women Cross DMZ, Peck has continued his outrageous statements about anyone and any group advocating peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Peck is totally wrong in his slanderous and libelous statements about individuals and groups he cites in his diatribe, remarkably published by Newsweek without giving those named as racist, anti-semitic and anti-American by Peck an opportunity to respond to such outrageous and libelous allegations.
I am not anti-American. I served 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. I served 16 years as a U.S. diplomat and resigned over the tragic decision of the Bush Administration to wage a war on Iraq, a war that endangered U.S. national security as we now well know.
I am not racist, nor anti-semitic. I do hold lobbyists for the State of Israel accountable for their influence over individual Congresspersons and their votes in the U.S. Congress that protect the State of Israel from accountability for their criminal actions on Palestinians.
That is not anti-semitic, it is being truthful about the relationship between the State of Israel, lobbyists and some members of the U.S. Congress. The State of Israel and Peck attempt to portray any criticism of the State of Israel as anti-semitic, but it is not and Newsweek should not allow such allegations to stand.
The only “stooge” in the OPED published by Newsweek is the author Lawrence Peck who wants the status quo to continue and would lose his job if there would be peace on the Korean peninsula.
Ann Wright
From Wilson “Woody” Powell, Korean War Veteran, former Executive Director of Veterans For Peace:
I am a veteran of the Korean War. I am a member of Veterans For Peace and have served as Executive Director at one time. I have also made trips to Korea to work with South Koreans and North Koreans in an attempt to foster peace on that peninsula. In fact, I have been friends with a Chinese combatant since 1983. He died last year in China and his daughter is now my daughter. I say these things just to show how important it is to me and to the people I know and love that peace be achieved on this Korea Peninsula.
Lawrence Peck’s article appeared to be characterized by a kind of viciousness and dismissiveness that I think has no part in the peace process. He trashed the reputations of some truly wonderful people who have sacrificed much to bring about peace on that peninsula. He talks about a piece of legislation that in his opinion doesn’t provide all the necessary elements that would constitute a final Peace Treaty. That legislation was never intended to do that. It was intended to start a dialogue that has been long overdue. I have been around long enough to have witnessed some of the promises that we made, that our government made to North Korea and then broke and then wondered why North Korea continued to be regressive and repressive. It seemed to me we were setting them up to let them down and create in the process just another enemy for us to amass our armed might against. One specific that I recall was when Clinton promised the North Korean government at that time a light water reactor that wouldn’t produce fissionable materials in exchange for not creating an atomic bomb. They dug the foundations for its installation. We did not provide the light water reactor.
Mister Peck attacked Ann Wright in his piece for being racist and anti-Semitic. Ann Wright is neither. She is an open-minded, extremely intelligent, compassionate, proponent for doing the right thing and trying to achieve peace in world where peace is a most elusive commodity. She has been tireless in her efforts since retiring from the US military. She does not deserve this kind of treatment in a publication such as yours.
Of course I am angry. I am 91 Years old, 70 years out of Korea as of the 27th of July 1953, and have not seen the final resolution of that conflict yet. Articles like Mr Pecks only serve to postpone the time when the people of North Korea and South Korea can finally get together.
Wilson Powell
Wilson “Woody” Powell.
