Dear Trump, North Korea tortured me but please don’t attack it

Robert Park has more reason than most to loathe the regime of Kim Jong-un. His ‘tearful prayer’ to the US president – as American forces gather – is to avoid the loss of innocent lives a military strike would entail

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Korean-American Robert Park in 2010, being escorted by US officials upon his release from North Korea. In an open letter, he has urged US President Donald Trump to avoid an armed conflict on the Korean peninsula. Photo: AP

Published: 8:03am, 15 Oct 2017Updated: 12:03pm, 15 Oct 2017

A Korean-American human rights activist who was tortured while being detained in North Korea for 43 days from late 2009 has written an open letter to US President Donald Trump urging him not to launch military strikes against the reclusive nation because of the potential loss of innocent life.

In the letter, Robert Park called on Trump to consider the lives of millions of North Koreans who are not part of Kim Jong-un’s regime and who have merely had the misfortune to be born in a country that has been under the control of the same dynastic dictatorship for more than 70 years.

Similarly, the blameless people of the South would inevitably be subjected to the fallout of any conflict on the Korean peninsula, whether that were a conventional conflict or a nuclear war, Park said.

“I sincerely beg – whatever you decide to do in concert with South Korean authorities and the international community – that none of the general people of both North and South Korea would ever get hurt,” Park wrote. “Koreans have already endured and sacrificed far too much.”

Park’s appeal comes as tensions in the region continue to rise. A US nuclear submarine is docked in Busan in South Korea and the USS Ronald Reagan, along with its accompanying strike fleet, is about to start exercises with the South Korean navy off the peninsula. A second aircraft carrier battle fleet, centred on the USS Eisenhower, has left San Diego for the western Pacific, while US B-1 Lancer bombers again this week carried out training missions off the coast of Korea with South Korean and Japanese aircraft.

Dear Trump, North Korea tortured me but please don’t attack it

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