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Quotations
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| Dear compatriots!
Fourteen months have passed since my arrival. During this long period of indolence and lack of virtue, I have been unable to repay your ardent affection and encouragement. In the meantime, however, the objective development of the situation has not been favorable to international relations, and the people are groaning everywhere. Even if we hug our hearts and weep, there is nothing to comfort us, and I cannot stop shedding hot tears. However, tears alone cannot save us. Only by rigorously criticizing the past and working together as a nation to carve out the correct path with single-mindedness and virtue will we be able to survive and develop. I, too, have many regrets about my past. However, I regret that I am unable to apologize to each one of you in person. I would like to ask for your generosity in this regard. I am determined to make a penance by dedicating my remaining life to our country until my body is worn out, and I ask for your cooperation for the five principles. If you feel like that my appeal has reached you, please I sincerely request you to provide me with your wise counsel. clear advice and frank criticizing, in addition to your effort for the joint struggle. 1. Regrouping the independents On this matter, I have already stated in my letter to the top leaders of the parties including Emergency National Council, National Unification Headquarters, and the National Unification Association, that our independence movement after August 15, two years ago had more failures than achievements. It is not an exaggeration to say that the expression of selfishness was greater than that of public interest, and the impulse of emotion was stronger than that of intelligence. If we continue to do this, we risk isolating ourselves from the people. In the face of such a crisis, if we do not regroup the independence movement camp after admitting of our failure, we will immediately find ourselves in an irreparable situation. Therefore, we urgently need to have the Headquarters and the Association above join the Emergency National Council, which inherits the legitimacy of the independence movement for decades, and make it as the highest body of the independent camp. At the same time, it is our task to expand and strengthen the supreme body together with the authoritative representatives of these political parties and organizations. This body, whatever it is called, should have the power to direct and command the political parties and sectoral organizations of the independence movement in order to determine the best strategy for the independence movement it and operate it. And each group operating under this new body should, by its orders, move swiftly and deeply into the people, to propagandize them, to train them, to organize them, and further to secure people to be the basis of independence camps. 2. Joint Committee We are demanding national unity. Because the reunification of the entire nation is necessary, we are calling for a united front of left and right. Internal reunification is absolutely necessary for our independence, but it is even more so for our independence and freedom as we are divided and occupied by two countries with different political ideologies as of today. It is difficult for the left alone to complete independence, and it is also difficult for the right alone to complete independence. Therefore, the intention of the Democratic Assembly to summon the Joint Committee members is not to recognize or abandon the left-right collaboration as unnecessary. However, it is because the Joint Committee has suddenly been betrayed by the left wing in the middle of its mission and become to have no hope of achieving its purpose, and the clause on anti-trusteeship among the seven principles announced by the Committee has been recently undermined by the contents of Lieutenant General Hodge’s letter of December 24 last year and his statement of May 5 this month. However, our respect for those who have made sincere efforts for the joint work by canceling the meeting is not negated, and it is unjust to try to humiliate them through a temporary emotional impulse. Moreover, Dr. Kim Kyusik, who leads the Committee, has sacrificed his life for the independence movement and is a staunch opponent of the trusteeship, and it is only a kind of dirty entrapment to make him a proponent of trusteeship. We should pay attention especially to this point. It is also worth mentioning that the middle line can exist as a political ideology, and there are middle-line parties with this idea. However, if the Joint Committee members who were working with the mission of left-right cooperation abandoned the left and right to take the middle, it would be nothing but creating one more faction. This would be a sectarian behavior that would ultimately defeat its own mission. Therefore, the existing Joint Committee should be disbanded, and the path of left-right cooperation should be taken separately. 3. Trusteeship To promise us independence and to impose trusteeship on us is like giving us a disease and then medicine or vice versa. In the first place, to impose a trusteeship on our country would violate the purpose of WW II. Therefore, they are trying to create an unjustified reason that could be insulting us and forcibly comply with it for their own benefits. The U.S.-Soviets, who are in the forefront with the task of applying the trusteeship to us, seem to understand the absurdity of it.. Therefore, their explanations are also inconsistent and confusing. First, the Soviets referred to the trusteeship as a guardianship. However, the Covenant of the League of Nations stipulates that mandate and guardianship are the same. Lieutenant General Hodge said that trusteeship was an aid, though he did not know what trusteeship was. But it is not necessary that the aid should be in the form of trusteeship , which he does not know and which we do not want. When the words come to this, even the three-year-old child can guess what is not cheerful in them. Indeed, according to a recent commentary about the issue, 'the American trusteeship of the Pacific areas is tantamount to annexation,' a four-nation co-trusteeship of Korea would be a four-nation annexation. Those who oppose the trusteeship will be righteous and patriotic, not an obstructionist or reactionary. The commentary is a dangerous line of reasoning that has the potential to produce the new pro-Japanese Iljinhoe. Therefore, the first echo of the trusteeship was that the entire nation unitedly opposed it severely. Unfortunately, however, a small number of people were caught up in the strange stream coming from the North, and within three days they suddenly changed their minds and opposed anti-trusteeship, that is for the trusteeship. No one dared to say outright that the trusteeship was good. Witnessing this situation, General Arnold, upon returning home, clearly mentioned in Washington that 'the Korean people are overwhelmingly opposed to the trusteeship'. It was then that Mr. William, several months later, said, 'there are some among the Korean people who understand trusteeship as a good thing,' which not only outraged the Korean people but also deceived the world. It is not uncommon for some of our compatriots to have a vague notion that if a trusteeship government were established in a state of disappointment, the civil life would be somewhat improved. But this is a dangerous illusion, like drinking a poisoned water to get rid of thirsty in your mouth. Our survival can only be sought from self-independence. Dr. Washington also shouted, 'Freedom or death'. Therefore, how can Korea be an exception when all the other countries, including the Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia, and India, are struggling for independence? The United States, which dared to go to war with the United Kingdom for its independence, will understand us better than anyone else. And some of them, though opposing the trusteeship from the bottom of their hearts, seem to have the mistaken idea that it is an internationally prescribed fact, and that even if we oppose it, it will only be counterproductive; and they insist on begging them to win their favor by submission, and to approve us independence only after the promised five years. But if other weaker nations are able to fulfill their purpose by appealing to the world for the revocation of unequal treaties, even those which they have signed with their own hands, why should we not be able to appeal to the world for ours? Even a criminal condemned to death is at liberty to appeal, so why should we not appeal to our allies, who support us, to make them understand and oppose the method which we didn’t choose for our independence? They may, in conscience, sympathize with us, for they have made their own arrangements without our knowledge. Since if you seek, you will find, and if you knock, it will be open to you, let us oppose the trusteeship by the most sober and peaceful means, appealing to justice and truth. For the just cause of the emancipation of the African-Americans, the descendants of the United States, who have fought a civil war, and the descendants of the Soviet Union, who have opposed the entry of the allied armies into Siberia since the October Revolution, and who have had the bitter experience of struggling to avoid foreign interference several times, will not refuse our just demands. If the understanding and sympathy of the peoples of the two friendly nations for us increases, the policies of both nations will naturally improve. Moreover, since the U.S.-Soviet Joint Committee has not been able to fulfill its mission and the decisions of the Trilateral Conference have not been effective, it is natural for us to appeal to the United Nations or to the Quadruple Conference to be held in Moscow on March 10 to seek a just settlement of our problems. The United Kingdom and France who will participate in the conference, like the U.S.-Soviet Union, are our friends, and there may be a quadruple or pentagonal conference soon after the Four-Party Conference, with China participating. It is needless to say that China will sympathize with us, and so will the United Kingdom, who is now trying to grant independence to Myanmar and India. And the French will sympathize with us as well as China and the United Kingdom. France has been especially sympathetic to our independence movement since the March 1 Movement, protecting our Provisional Government in the French Concession in Shanghai for more than a decade, and in January 1945, the French government agreed to establish diplomatic relations with our Provisional Government. Even if international relations were bad, our independence movement cannot be suspended for a moment, so why should we not endeavor to fulfill this great opportunity? The hope of the future is clear, so let us be united and oppose the trusteeship to the end. Our survival depends on independence, and our independence depends on anti-trusteeship. 4. 38th parallel Eighteen months after the end of the war, when the world is striving to establish an eternal peace, our country is divided and occupied by the two armies whose enemies were ours, too. What a contradiction it is! Moreover, according to foreign news coming from Washington, authoritative government officials have stated that it was necessary to maintain world peace by stationing troops in Korea, Japan and Germany. While it can be said that it is necessary to station troops in Japan and Germany, it is questionable if the troops need to be stationed in Korea. It is impossible for anyone to believe that Korea itself poses a threat to peace like Japan and Germany, so it is clear that the problem is not in ourselves. In that case, the presence of the army itself would be a threat to peace. If they deny this and keep the troops stationed, the consequences of this are likely to bring unimaginable misery to Korea, and this is not what our allies, who have promised us independence, want. Therefore, our insistence on the withdrawal of the U.S. and Soviet troops is not only for the sake of Korea’s independence, but is actually a great contribution to the building of world peace. Some people seem to have the idea that the 38th parallel will be removed as soon as any form of government is established in Korea, but this is only wishful thinking. Since the only way to immediately remove the 38th parallel is to establish an independent government, we should demand the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. and Soviet troops for the sake of the reunification of the two Koreas and make concerted efforts to complete the reunification and independence of the two Koreas through the withdrawal of the U.S. and Soviet troops. 5. International relations As Korea is part of the international community, it cannot exist apart from international relations, and the international community cannot maintain peace by ignoring this. A famous statesman once said that there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies among nations, but if we want to establish a lasting peace in the future, we can only achieve that goal by becoming permanent friends. For the present, therefore, we shall be equally friendly to all our friends. But the key to mutual friendship lies in mutual sympathy, tolerance, and cooperation on an absolutely equal footing, without distinction as to strength or weakness, wealth or poverty, or color. Therefore, we will naturally welcome international intercourse and sharing friendship, and we will request our allies to provide us with skills and advisors in every way to assist us. But we will never accept unequal treatment. We must continue our struggle until we attain international equality. But until we are not in utter despair, our struggle must be peaceful, intelligent, and consistent. By being peaceful we can win sympathy, by being intelligent we can have a careful plan, and by being consistent we can exert ourselves. In short, the whole nation should unite to fully grasp the favorable international relations by fully adapting to the situations, and the unfavorable international relations should be improved by struggling with the truth and leading the relation proactively. February 10, the 29th year of the Republic of Korea Kim Gu |
