Women Who Crossed DMZ in 2015 Urge Biden Administration to Lift North Korea Travel Ban
August 30, 2021
Posted in: News
Mr. Antony Blinken
Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520
August 30, 2021
Dear Secretary Blinken:
We are women leaders writing to urge the Biden administration to lift the Trump-era ban on Americans traveling to North Korea.
In 2015, we were part of an international delegation of women peacemakers that crossed the DMZ from North Korea to South Korea to meet with women on both sides to forge a path to peace on the Korean Peninsula. We made a commitment to the Korean women that we would work together to help bring closure to the Korean War, the longest U.S. war. We are looking forward to returning to North Korea to continue our conversations and work for peace.
As you know, in 2017 the Trump Administration imposed a ban on U.S. citizens traveling to North Korea without a Special Validation Passport (SVP), which makes exceptions for humanitarian aid workers, journalists and for “national interests.” Not only are these SVPs virtually impossible to obtain, they preclude other groups such as Korean-American families seeking to reunite with their families in North Korea and people-to-people exchanges and peacebuilding efforts like ours.
We believe the consequences of the travel ban are wholly inconsistent with the Biden Administration’s declared policy of limiting adverse humanitarian impacts in the implementation of U.S. sanctions. The ban has obstructed humanitarian organizations from delivering critical medical and other assistance to the most vulnerable in North Korea. By lifting the travel ban, these humanitarian aid and development workers will be able to resume life-saving operations as soon as North Korea reopens. The travel ban has not, and does not, advance U.S. efforts to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And, it clearly conflicts with the long-established, constitutionally protected right of free travel for American citizens.
As members of the LIFT campaign stated in their August 18, 2021 letter to you, “For decades, tens of thousands of Americans have traveled to North Korea safely and without incident. Between 2000 and 2017 an estimated 6,000 Korean Americans traveled to North Korea, many seeking to reunite with family members from whom they became separated due to the Korean War. In addition, since the early 1990s U.S. humanitarian organizations have been sending their workers into North Korea, both into and beyond the capital city of Pyongyang. While the exact number of U.S. citizen travelers to North Korea may not be publicly reported, there is little doubt that thousands have traveled there in the decade prior to the 2017 travel ban, and hundreds more have a purpose to travel there in 2022.”
As reported in the Washington Post on August 25, 2021 the detention of U.S. citizens is far more common in other countries where travel is legal, than it is in North Korea. We know from experience that with careful attention to one’s activities while in North Korea, and including for those traveling there with permission of the North Korean government or a recognized sponsor, visitors are unlikely to experience any impact on their safety and security.
We have all been to North Korea, some of us multiple times. Just as we do when traveling outside the United States, we respect the protocols and customs of that country; we must and we want to go back. We strongly urge the Biden Administration to allow the 2017 Trump-era travel ban to North Korea lapse on August 31, 2021.
Signed:
Gloria Steinem – Activist, Writer & Recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom, New York
Christine Ahn – Founder & Executive Director, Women Cross DMZ, Hawaii
Medea Benjamin – Co-founder, CODEPINK: Women for Peace; Washington DC
Deann Borshay Liem – Director and Producer, California
Aiyoung Choi – Chair, Women Cross DMZ; Chair Emerita, Korean American Family Service Center, New York
Gay Dillingham – Director, Producer, Filmmaker; The Livingry Foundation, New Mexico
Abigail Disney – Documentary Filmmaker & Philanthropist; New York
Jodie Evans – Co-Founder, CODEPINK: Women for Peace; California
Suzy Kim – Professor of Korean History, Rutgers University, New Jersey
Gwyn Kirk – Founding Member, Women for Genuine Security; International Women’s Network Against Militarism, California
M. Brinton Lykes – Professor & Co-Director, Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Boston College, Boston
Lisa Linda Natividad – President, Guahan Coalition for Peace & Justice; Assoc. Professor, Division of Social Work, University of Guam
Hye-Jung Park – Documentary Filmmaker; Member, Korea Policy Institute; Co-Founder, Rainbow Women’s Center, New York
JT Takagi, Documentary Filmmaker, Third World Newsreel, New York
Ann Wright – Retired US Army Colonel; Former US diplomat, Hawaii
CC: Kurt Campbell, National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific
Wendy Sherman, Deputy Secretary of State
Kin Moy, Senior Bureau Official of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Bureau
Sung Kim, US Special Representative for North Korea
Ian Brownlee, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Consular Affairs