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May 23rd, 2015 
David Schulberg 
Feminist icon Gloria Steinem and two Nobel Peace Prize laureates have joined a group of 30 women activists planning to cross the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Koreas in a symbolic step for peace.
Steinem, 81, agreed to join at the invitation of Korean-American
peace activist Christine Ahn. Nobel Peace Prize laureates Mairead
Maguire and Leymah Gbowee have also joined the group. Maguire
received her prize in 1976 as one of the founders of Women for
Peace in Northern Ireland. Gbowee was recognized in 2011 for
helping end the second Liberian civil war.
Women Cross DMZ announced that the historic crossing would
take place on May 24, celebrated by the activists as
International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament. Initially,
the activists planned to cross the boundary at Panmunjom, where
the 1953 armistice was signed. Due to South Korean opposition,
the crossing was moved to Kaesong.
3k + North Korean women joining us now for first part of walk
before tomorrow’s DMZ crossing #womencrossdmz2015pic.twitter.com/BHKpXP5YnI
— Coleen Baik (@colbay) May 22,
2015
“We have accomplished our first goal of meeting
woman-to-woman in order to break through barriers to make human
connections,” said Steinem. “We achieved what we set out
to do, which is to engage in citizen diplomacy.”
“We bought one way tickets for Pyongyang not even knowing
whether we would need to fly back to Beijing,” said Gbowee.
“Not only have we received the blessing for our historic
crossing, we’ve gotten both Korean governments to communicate.
That is a success.”
“We’ll be taking the road that both governments are in
agreement with,” added Maguire. “We celebrate
that.”
READ MORE: Mini-me missiles? N Korea claims it
has made miniaturized nuclear warheads
According to the
organizer, the plan is to start the crossing in the company of
North Korean women at the Reunification Monument in Pyongyang,
cross at Kaesong, hold a peace ceremony at Panmunjom, and then
return to Kaesong to cross the demilitarized zone, known as the
DMZ.
They expect to be greeted by hundreds of South Korean women
leaders and conclude the symbolic crossing with a ceremony at
Imjingak Park, in the nearby city of Paju. There, the organizers
say, they will read a joint declaration drafted with the women of
both Koreas, affirming their “commitment to support the
desires of the Korean people and all people of conscience around
the world to work towards the peaceful reconciliation and
reunification of the Korean peninsula.”
Several male human rights activists in the US have condemned the
initiative, however. Shin Dong-hyuk, a North Korean defector
whose story served as the basis for a 2012 best-seller called
‘Escape From Camp 14,’ called the activists “confused or
distracted.”
“For those who can go to that evil [North Korean leader Kim
Jong-un] and smile to his face speaking of ‘peace, peace…’ They
apparently aren’t [sic] thinking about the abused and oppressed
people of the Country whose women are trafficked and sold into
China,” Shin wrote on his Facebook page.
“How can they so easily find the ability to be comfortable
with smiles on their faces to this dictator when so many are
suffering at his hands.”
Photos of @medeabenjamin and
@MsJodieEvans in
North Korea for #WomenXDMZ2015
peace delegation! pic.twitter.com/nNdu6mkzXK
— CODEPINK (@codepink) May
22, 2015
In a Washington Post editorial on April 26, associate dean of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, Abraham Cooper, and executive director
of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Greg
Scarlatoiu, called the initiative “outrageous and
dangerous.”
“We desperately need the voices of feminists protesting the
murder, torture and exploitation of North Korean women by their
own government,” Cooper and Scarlatoiu wrote. “But any
sanctioning of a peace march by North Korea can be nothing but
human rights theater intended to cover up its death camps and
crimes against humanity.”
Fought from June 1950 to July 1953, the Korean War was frozen by
an armistice between the US-led United Nations Command (UNC) on
one side, and North Korean and Chinese forces on the other. As
the conflict has never officially ended, a state of war still
technically exists between the North and South Koreas. The DMZ
along the armistice line is the world’s most heavily fortified
frontier.
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Female peace activists to march from North to South Korea amid controversy
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