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Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Tuesday the Gwangju Democratic Uprising of 1980 was thwarted by an "invisible hand." The minister was telling an Uri Party policy committee how the destiny of the Korean Peninsula has been controlled by outside forces for the last 100 years.
"A hundred years ago, the Philippines became a U.S. colony and the Korean Peninsula a Japanese one owing to the Taft-Katsura Agreementˇ± of 1905, Chung said. ˇ°The division of the nation and Korean War were not our will either," nor was the failure of the Gwangju Uprising. A century later, Chung promised ˇ°a hot summer in which our fate will be decided not by North Korea, China, the United States, Japan or Russia, but by our own pride and self-determination."
Chung recently told a weekly magazine the division and war happened without regard to the will of the Korean people, as did the suppression of the Gwangju Uprising.
The remarks ˇ°mean we must actively decide our own fate,ˇ± the minister explained. ˇ°As for the invisible hand, take my literal meaning."
Chung also asked the Uri Party to double inter-Korean cooperation funds, which currently stand at W500 billion (US$487 million) a year.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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