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The Current Transcript for April 30, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We have come believing that standing together united in grief is a defiant act of hope and healing in the face of evil. And tonight we stand together.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Soothing words from faith leaders last night as thousands of Torontonians from around the block and across the city and beyond gathered in a vigil to mourn and to reclaim their neighborhood and their city, after the sudden and brutal violence that shattered so many lives last week. scattered along a two kilometre stretch of Young Street are shrines large and small, the smell of so many flowers carried on the winds. But after the cameras and microphones are gone there will be other words because many difficult emotions remain. In a moment we'll hear from three people trying to help the community heal. Also today, the U.S. president has not been known for delicate words of diplomacy on North Korea.

SOUNDCLIP

The United States has great strength and patience but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.

AMT: And yet we haven't seen this kind of movement toward on North and South Korean peace in decades. Is it time for Donald Trump's detractors to give him some credit. We're asking in half an hour. and taking down a drug kingpin.

SOUNDCLIP

I've got Chapo's black hat at the top of my head. As soon as I saw him I ran right up to where we locked eyes for a second and I just screamed. I said 'What's up Chapo?'

AMT: The man they call El Chapo was Mexico's most powerful drug lord at the top of the Sinaloa cartel the U.S. agent responsible for capturing him was on a single minded mission to get a man known for clever escapes. We've got that story in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

'We are in this together': Community rallies to support victims of Toronto van attack

Guests: Daniel Lee, Bobbie McMurrich, Lily Cheng

SOUNDCLIP

we gather today aware of other vehicle attacks in Jerusalem and Beirut, Paris and London, Berlin and Barcelona, Saint Jean sur Richilieu and Charlottesville to grieve for those who have been killed in our city and to support their families, to pray for the injured and to stand in solidarity with so many affected by this van of violence. Toronto has felt the pain of other places and those cities now share our horror and hurt. our sadness is mixed with gratitude for those who cradled the wounded, for the first responders, the police and medical teams. In Toronto, in Ontario, in Canada we do not run away. We run to help others.

[Applause]

AMT: At Toronto's Mel Lastman Square thousands gathered last night at a vigil to remember the victims of the van attack along that stretch of Young Street one week ago. Ten people died with victims ranging in age from 22 to 94 years. For many the shock and the grief are still raw.

SOUNDCLIP

Look at this that looks like Mel Lastman Square [unintelligible] saw the iron works. And then finally they said it was Toronto and I thought oh my god I can't believe in my own backyard. I live a mile away. I've lived there 40 years. It's wonderful that there's so many people that come out and acknowledge this and it's sad that it's for this...

[Music Starts]

AMT: The van left a trail of destruction across a vast stretch of Young Street in Toronto's north end and it left a community struggling to heal.

SOUNDCLIP

Sometimes it takes a tragic situation to bring people close. But I think you know that at least that's one thing positive that could come out of this that people could actually sort of have a sense of 'we are part of a community' and that we can actually you know come together, and sometimes we forget and we pass each other by without even saying hello or smiling at each other. And today we're just reminded you know that we are one.

AMT: The impact of the violence has been felt far beyond the neighborhood where it happened. One of the victims Renuka Amaarasinha worked in the area but lived in the east end of the city. She was a single mom and leaves behind a 6 year old son Diyon. The community from the Buddhist temple where she worshipped is now mobilizing to support Dion including raising money to create a trust fund for his future education. Dilmi De Silva is the president of the Lotus Youth Council at the temple.

SOUNDCLIP

I've had messages all across Canada, as far as Saskatchewan people saying to give their support their love to tell Diyon that the community that we have created is always going to be behind him and they're always going to keep blessing him and praying for him, telling him to stay strong, that his mother is always looking out for him.

AMT: Well to talk about the many other ways people are coming together in the wake of last Monday's attack I'm joined by three people working to support those in the communities that have been affected. Daniel Lee is the president of the Korean Canadian Cultural Association which has been assisting families of those injured and killed. Bobbie McMurrich is the Associate Executive Director of Victim Services Toronto which provides support to individuals’ families and communities affected by crime and sudden tragedies. And Lily Cheng lives a short walk from the site of the attack. She's the co-founder of We love Willowdale a community group that has been organizing vigils and events to bring the community together. They're all with me in our Toronto studio. Good morning and welcome.

LILY CHENG: Good morning.

DANIEL LEE: Good morning.

BOBBIE MCMURRICH: Good morning.

AMT: Lily Cheng I want to start with you. You were on stage helping to lead that vigil last night. What was it like to be there?

LILY CHENG: It was so moving to see our community gathered and at the same time supported by our city at large. And just the diversity of faces and faith groups represented it shows that when we have a compelling reason we can put aside all our differences and celebrate what is good in all of us.

AMT: And there were faith leaders speaking, there was singing, not one politician got up to speak was that by design?

LILY CHENG: Yes it was intentional. They didn't want to create a platform for someone to further their own agenda and instead they really wanted to just address the needs of the people who are grieving. It was really about supporting the community towards healing.

AMT: Daniel Lee what emotions were you experiencing last night?

DANIEL LEE: Thankfulness and a sense of community where a lot of people did come out and support each other. You know as part of the Korean community Toronto we are very thankful that so many people come out and support.

AMT: And the Korean Canadian community in the neighborhood has been deeply affected. How are people coping?

DANIEL LEE: Not good. They're still in a state of shock. We have a roller coaster of emotions, since last week. We have this tragedy happened last Monday and then we have the North Korea and South Korea coming together for talks on Thursday which is the most happy moment for us. But as far as now know still we're still shocked and with deep sadness.

AMT: Bobbie McMurrich staff of Victims Services Toronto were at the vigil but they've been around in the community. What kind of work are they doing there?

BOBBIE MCMURRICH: Right. So the Victim Services' crisis counselors and case coordinators have been out on scene really since the beginning responding where the immediately affected individuals are needing us to. So that's been at the scene supporting witnesses, at the hospitals where families are holding vigil for their loved ones, at the homes of individual families that have lost a loved one. So we're really responding in a variety of settings.

AMT: And you're all making the point that it's still raw. Lily where were you when you heard about this?

LILY CHENG: I was at home and I had just finished dining in the area where it had happened. I was home a mere five minutes when I got a call from my friend who saw it happen out of the corner of her eye. She was deeply traumatized and shocked and I was scared because I thought that my husband might have gone back into that area after dropping me off, and I couldn't reach him for about 10 minutes. I think the phone lines were jammed and those 10 minutes were the scariest moments of my life.

AMT: Speaks to the randomness of this. Nobody saw it coming. Nobody knew who would be a victim. And what's it been like walking that neighborhood now?

LILY CHENG: The first couple of days they still had it taped up. And so it felt like a crime scene. And there was a solemnness. You know I walked down that street all the time and usually it's you know a lot of people, there's a lot of bustle happening. But for the first couple of days there was just a silence. People felt like they couldn't even speak as they walked. Over the last few days it started to pick up again and I think that's really good because a lot of the small businesses suffered, and for small businesses a couple of days as a big deal for them. So I'm glad to see our community come back out. And all the flowers and I think there's still a solemnness even though there are more people on the streets. And I think that's just out of respect for the victims and those who are still impacted by this.

AMT: It's interesting along that route now not only these large shrines with mounts of flowers [unintelligible] but then little places where you suddenly see a group of flowers dropped in, some they leave candles, people leave markers so they can write things they can add to it. Ever seen that before?

LILY CHENG: No I think it just speaks to our desire to contribute something. We all have this thought in our head that, yes, we should do something we should respond. And I've heard from our City Councillor John Filion and Ali Ehsassi our MP that they've gotten calls throughout the whole week. 'What can I do? What can I do?' And my hope is that that conversation continues in the days and weeks to come. We will all say 'What can we do?' to make our city a better place.

AMT: Well last night there was a walk that you were one of the organizers and all of you walked the length of it. Why did you do that? What was the point if that?

LILY CHENG: I think that our sense of security has been stolen from us and we wanted to- We called it Reclaim Young. And it's about reclaiming our sense of safety, our sense of community and bringing people back together to say we are in this together. So especially for those who are still in shock and you know even if you weren't on the scene, if that's your neighborhood and you walked that street there is a trauma that is left knowing that a place that you are raising your family in has been devastated in that way. So by coming together, it just brings a sense of I'm not alone. And we can get through this together.

AMT: Daniel Lee of course some people were mourning last night who actually are not from that neighborhood. They have to fly and you were at the airport for some people who came in from Korea.

DANIEL LEE: Yes we had family members who came in from Korea to visit the child was in the hospital and unfortunately someone passed away. So the parents they fly in from from Korea. Yes.

AMT: I can't imagine what would like to be the one at the airport to meet people who have flown so many hours with that kind of news.

DANIEL LEE: Visually it's very uncomfortable, heartbreaking. You have a mother who hardly can walk to the car from the airport.

AMT: Because she's so emotional.

DANIEL LEE: She is emotional and she's drained because of the long travel. It's-- you cannot describe it in words. Yes.

AMT: And so - I know you don't want to speak very specifically about families - but what's being done to help them cope? What's going on?

DANILE LEE: For example we have family members who are visiting injured out here at the hospitals. And you know they don't speak one word of English so we have Korean nurses, Korean Nursing Association is helping them to translate and also you know they don't have time or energy to go out and buy food. So we have supporters who are willing to supply them with lunch and dinner. And we have you know volunteers who is willing to drive them from the hotels to the hospitals at all times, any time 24 hours. But the most hurting thing is that we have kids. We are mourning the dead but we also have to think about those people who are injured and their families. Their families are very very worried. Their families are concerned. So I think we should also think about them as well.

AMT: We don't even know the extent of the injuries but we know that kind of accident leaves bad injuries. We know that much.

DANIEL LEE: You know as far as I only have information about the Koreans were injured, we have one kid who just got the surgery done last night. And then we have one who moved from intensive care to the just a general ward and the other one is still in intensive care. You know it's just hearing - I am in constant contact with the Consulate General's office of the Republic of Korea - and hearing things like how parents are exhausted and all that it's just devastating.

AMT: Bobbie McMurrich what are the kinds of ripple effects that this violence has on the broader community?

BOBBIE MCMURRICH: Well I think that almost immediately people that weren't directly impacted but live in the neighborhood are feeling very unsafe in their home ground. And so many people are deeply affected and that feeling of trauma does definitely extend to members of the community that live in that neighborhood. But in terms of the broader community we are always concerned about individuals that have been traumatized in the past that are being triggered. So in those particular cases they are reliving whatever their traumatic experience was previously. But I think neighborhoods and individuals across the city, across the province, the country and even internationally are deeply impacted. And getting back into a routine and sense of normalcy is going to take some time.

AMT: And then you of course have the families of the wounded. How do you how do you help those people? What do you do?

BOBBIE MCMURRICH: So right now it's very practical. The focus is on helping families and individuals really get through each 24 hour period. And what do they need in order to survive that next 24 hour period.

AMT: Because some people you don't even know what you need until you're in the middle of it I guess.

BOBBIE MCMURRICH: Well exactly. So right now the focus is on ensuring that people have their basic needs met and that they are able to be with their loved one in a way that is culturally appropriate for them and in whichever environment that is. So, we're working with all of the consulates and individuals like Daniel to ensure that we are able to support their citizens and our country people as well in a way that is important.

AMT: And of course when the cameras and the microphones go and the headlines are not there, what kinds of things do you anticipate needing to help people with?

BOBBIE MCMURRICH: So as as we move along and we move beyond focusing on helping people establish and maintain their basic needs, then other needs are going to come into play. I think that people will start moving away from shock and that shock is a very important emotional buffer really. So the intensity of the pain of what they're experiencing will start to unfold. And this is where we want to make sure that individuals are really provided with the necessary supports; emotional supports, therapeutic supports to manage that. And that's really not going to be for quite a while yet. And so the practical needs are going to take some time.

AMT: Daniel Lee you live in the area. What's it like then to sort of be in the area now? What's your family thinking? What kinds of things have you had to talk about at home?

DANIEL LEE: I do live in Willowdale and when that happened I was driving down on Willowdale Avenue South to the Cultural Center, and the first was denial. A sense of denial where just somebody got injured in a car accident and then you arrive at the Cultural Center, you start getting phone calls where people got injured people got killed. Then you come to a sense of shockness. You get shocked. And then you hear that your community is affected. You become depressed and wanting to do something. So by now it's kind of it's scary to go to Young Street to be honest. But I know we need to do things like vigils like last night and vigils that we organized on Friday where we take the streets back. All of that's very good. We actually walked from Mel Lastman square to the [unintelligible] square during my vigil as well. But the the reason behind the walk to re walk the crime scenes and to pay their respects to the places that the deceased had fallen. And it's different when we do that walk. And I think a lot of people felt that people really came to together and actually experience the sight that actually happened. So it was different. So I think it's always - I don't know - it's good that everybody comes together to do the healing and stuff but we still need time for us to recuperate.

AMT: Lily Cheng you agree?

LILY CHENG: Yes. We're also doing something called 25 Days of music and we've had musicians volunteer to play music along Young Street over the 25 days.

AMT: 25 because 25 people were affected directly.

LILY CHENG: That's right, and music is so healing and I think that in the days and weeks to come we will look for further opportunities to gather. We just need to gather and bring healing to our community.

AMT: Thank you all of you for being part of this discussion and for your thoughts today.

DANIEL LEE: Thank you.

BOBBIE MCMURRICH: Thank you.

LILY CHENG: Thank you.

AMT: I have been speaking with Daniel Lee president of the Korean Canadian Cultural Association. Bobbie McMurrich who is the Associate Executive Director of Victim Services Toronto. Lily Cheng lives a short walk from the site of the attack. She's co-founder of We love Willowdale, a community group, all in our Toronto studio. Stay with us. The news is next. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

How much credit does Donald Trump deserve for Korean leader summit?

Guest: Tina Park, Bea Phillips, Sung-Yoon Lee

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, he was one of the world's most wanted men and his dramatic arrest four years ago captured international attention. Now El Chapo is behind bars in the U.S. awaiting trial. We'll hear from the DEA agent who helped put him there. But first Donald Trump and how the diplomacy of fire and fury may bring the two Koreas back together again.

SOUNDCLIP

AMT: The nuclear war would have happened if you had weak people. We had weak people. This should have been settled long before I came into office. This is a much different ball game than if they did it five or 10 or 20 years ago. This is a much more dangerous ball game now. They've given up denuclearization, testing, research. We're going to close different sites and I'm saying to myself, wait a minute, all of these things he's given up and we haven't even really that much asked him because we would have asked them but they gave it up before we even asked. So when I came into office people thought we were going into nuclear war. And now they're saying wow looks like that's got to be taken care of.

AMT: US President Donald Trump quick to take credit as the driving force behind Friday's historic summit between North and South Korea. He was on the Fox News Channel there reassuring the public in America and beyond that the days of nuclear brinkmanship are over. The Panmunjom declaration, named for the village where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the South's Moon Jae-in held their talks, commits the two Koreas to the goal of complete denuclearization in the peninsula and officially ending the Korean War. Since that summit the New York Times is reporting that the South Korean government is saying that North Korea's Kim Jong Un is prepared to abandon his nuclear weapons if the United States promises not to invade his country. Many pundits and players credit President Trump for bringing Kim Jong Un to the table in the first place including South Korea's foreign minister. Kyung-Wha Kang.

SOUNDCLIP

Clearly you know credit goes to President Trump. He's been determined to come to grips with this from day one. My president also since day one. And I think the Presidents Moon and Trump has worked very closely together, sometimes in complementarity, sometimes in different messaging, but the level of consultations and the confidence between the two leaders has been instrumental.

Well for more on President Trump's role in these developments and what it means for his upcoming meeting with Kim Jong Un. We've reached Beau Phillips. He's a former Republican strategist and he's in Alexandria Virginia. Hello.

BEAU PHILLIPS: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

AMT: Are they right? Does President Trump deserve credit?

BEAU PHILLIPS: I think President Trump does deserve a lot of credit for this. I think no one person is usually ever responsible for everything that they may take credit for, that people may point to them for but and obviously there's certainly a role here related to the Chinese, related to the South Koreans. But even President Trump would probably say that he's responsible for their actions as well. But President Trump came into office basically saying I'm going to do, if not everything, a lot of things very very differently. And when it came to North Korea he sort of made clear from the start that he was going to take a much harder line and everybody was incredibly concerned because Kim is so unstable. Kim Jong Un is so unstable, essentially you know a child when it comes to these things. And there were great fears about what that would lead to. But the prior three four administrations either you know giving him everything he wanted with very little accountability which led to you know the United States and others turning over a lot and getting nothing in return, or getting promises that were later broken in return, or sort of you know strategic appeasement or strategic ignoring of what was happening in North Korea clearly didn't work. Things are moving in a direction that they have not ever moved before. And President Trump certainly has to get a lot of credit for that.

AMT: Well and you have been such an outspoken critic of Donald Trumps. So you surprising are yourself in admitting this.

BEAU PHILLIPS: I guess the answer is yes. And the funny thing is is I don't know if I call myself an outspoken critic. I'm critical of the way in which he operates, the way in which he communicates, the way in which he sort of can't keep either his mouth or his Twitter shut. That doesn't mean I'm necessarily critical of all of his policies but in this case yes his it is his mouth, his twitter, or his obnoxiousness in a sense the things that even people who want to support him dislike about him, that was a big piece of making this work.

AMT: And we heard that clip of him talking about weak people he is obviously alluding to previous presidents. Is he right?

BEAU PHILLIPS: These, referring to both previous Republican and Democrat presidents obviously, is right. I mean clearly history is not going to you know record well of other efforts to take care of the North Korea problem. President Obama you know chose to turn a blind eye for eight years. President Clinton literally gave hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in concessions to North Korea in exchange for actions that were only momentary in nature, and as soon as the baubles were turned over the North Koreans turned the nuclear program right back on. President Bush frankly didn't do much better. Didn't do any better really to be honest. So, yes, President Trump - as much as it may seem obnoxious to rub the noses of others in it - is doing better at least at the moment then than his predecessors.

AMT: And we heard South Korea's foreign minister allude to different messaging between Mr. Trump and Mr. Moon but she praises Mr. Trump's involvement. How much traditional diplomacy do you think has been going on behind the scenes?

BEAU PHILLIPS: Probably a great deal probably a tremendous amount because first of all nobody does the sort of obnoxious stuff Mr. Trump does other than Mr. Trump. President Trump. And secondly because somebody actually has to do the work of diplomacy in the background to make the logistics of all this function and make the potential deals that are going to be done if any are going to be done actually happen.

AMT: How important was then the push for harsher sanctions in creating those conditions do you think?

BEAU PHILLIPS: Very important. People, I think, in America and around the world really don't have a sense and I'm sure your other guest will have a much better explanation of this, a sense of how poor a country, how desperate a country North Korea really is economically that there really are no resources and any additional sanctions really do hurt. They hurt more than I think people around the world realize.

AMT: And so again all of the tweets and the provocative comments from Mr. Trump that got so many people worried needs to be revisited, huh?

BEAU PHILLIPS: Look I would never argue that crazy is a strategy. But sometimes when the only thing that a opponent who is like Kim Jong Un respond to is this sort of threat, this sort of aggression, this sort of chest pounding and table pounding clearly Donald Trump figured out something that the rest of us didn't. And it seems to be working again. Caveat everything with you know this is North Korea. Nothing is done until it's done and then verified over and over and over. The difference is Donald Trump and his very aggressive brand of Twitter diplomacy.

AMT: And so as President Trump prepares to meet Kim Jong Un in the coming weeks where do you think his approach will lead?

BEAU PHILLIPS: He's been pretty straightforward about how he's going to be with Kim. He's been setting expectations in a pretty smart level everything. Kim has done heretofore has been pretty, he's given in a lot if you will. So I think we'll get something that looks and feels positive. And as with everything with North Koreans it will be about making sure it actually happens.

AMT: Okay Beau Phillips, thank you for your thoughts today.

BEAU PHILLIPS: Anna Maria thank you so much for having me.

AMT: Beau Phillips former Republican strategist, a critic of Donald Trump. He is in Alexandria Virginia. For a different take on Donald Trump's role in the latest developments on the Korean peninsula I'm joined by Sung-Yoon Lee. He is the Kim Koo Korea Foundation professor of Korean studies at Tufts University. He joins us from Burlington Massachusetts. Hello.

SUNG-YOON LEE: Thanks for having me.

AMT: How much do you credit Donald Trump for bringing the North and South leaders together?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well I give Trump a lot of credit from Inauguration Day 2017 up to March 8th this year when Mr. Trump impulsively agreed to Kim Jong Un's proposition for a date, a summit meeting. Many people have the misperception that U.S. sanctions against North Korea have always been very tough, even maxed out. It's simply not true. And Trump really is the first U.S. president to enforce sanctions against North Korea in a meaningful way. Now with respect to this presumption that Trump's tough rhetoric, tweets, threats compels Kim Hong Un to come out, all evidence - I would argue - your points to the contrary. Fire and Fury at the likes of which the world has never seen before, that threat was made on August 8th last year and then three days later locked and loaded all military options are ready to go. Well in late August just three weeks later. Kim Jong Un's fired the intermediate range ballistic missile over Japan and then five days later, on September 3rd, Kim had his nation's most powerful nuclear tests conducted, a thermo nuclear test that fractured the mountain above the test site. That doesn't strike me as the behavior of a frightened man. Trump should ask him a very basic question of logic. At what point between February 9th this year when that the opening ceremony of the Winter Games in South Korea. Mr. Pense said that North Korea's outreach to South Korea is fake, is a charade. What point between that opening ceremony and March 8th when Trump accepted North Korea's proposition for a summit did the Kim Jong Un's intentions go from faith to sincere.

AMT: So, before you outline every point here, but we have gone from the rhetoric to a meeting. So what do you credit to that? Why did that happen?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Kim Jong Un takes all the credit because he is the driver. Such is the bizarre backwards image of North Korea, which North Korea certainly is, it's very hard ,for Americans especially citizens of the mightiest nation on earth, to take North Korea seriously. It's inconceivable almost to presume that North is the driver that it wields both the carrot and stick. But the past 50 years of record when North Korea goes through a protracted phase of provocations and then dramatically changes the tune and says let's talk, then the leaders of the biggest nations in the world all oblige towing with them concessions and concessions, billions of dollars in concessions.

AMT: Okay so if you believe that that North Korea is the complete driver on this. How significant do you think Friday's summit was?

SUNG-YOON LEE: It's very significant for North Korea because Kim Jong Un is now poised to dictate to trump the terms of the drawn out negotiations what North Korea seeks is not denuclearization but denuclearization negotiations process, so that Kim can buy time and money with which to perfect his own nuclear posture review. To think that a regime that has spent more than half a century assiduously developing such nuclear and missile capabilities would give them up is a bit of a stretch, I think. And the summit meeting was you know very gripping, in terms of optics, all those positive images and verbal palliatives like peace this, peace that, peace treaty, no war. But we have seen this movie before many times already.

AMT: When?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Oh at the first ever Inter-Korean summit in 2000, at the second Inter-Korean summit in 2007. Nothing that's been pronounced last Friday is unprecedented. It's identical to what's happened before.

AMT: So you're saying that North Korea is playing both the South and the United States?

SUNG-YOON LEE: The world and, willingly, the neighbors obliged because de-escalation, diffusing, tension is the pragmatic approach.

AMT: So the news coming out of Seoul over the weekend that- The New York Times reporting that the South Korean government says that Kim Jong Un had told President Moon Jae-in that he would abandon his nuclear weapons if the U.S. agrees to formally end the Korean War and promised not to invade his country. How do you read that?

SUNG-YOON LEE: It is a ploy that we have seen since at least 1972 when the grandfather, all of a sudden, put on a nicer face and invited Americans to come and visit him. And in May 1972 New York Times reporters and then the next month Washington Post reporter and then the next month the Harvard law professor had meetings with Kim Il-Sung. And Kim Il-Sung would say strangely pleasing reasonable things like 'Oh I understand that the U.S. troops in the region play a stabilizing role, so I'm not calling for their immediate withdrawal. I mean they'll have to leave at some point'. So that leader comes across as affable, not a raving lunatic and quite reasonable and the outsider comes away impressed and convinced that he has gained some deep insight into the North Korean regime, solely by virtue of his own charisma and empathy.

AMT: Well what's in it for Mr. Kim?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Well to come to be accepted as a legitimate reasonable leader with whom the outside world can do business. What kind of business? Nuclear negotiations which always entail money and goodies flowing into Pyongyang's coffers and to buy time to really advance nuclear capabilities.

AMT: So given that this is how you see it, what do you expect of the meeting between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, if it goes ahead?

SUNG-YOON LEE: Trump will meet Kim Jong Un, moved by his own hubris and his ability to tame this backward little rocket man and Kim Jong Un will lie to Trump's face, say all the things that Trump wants to hear. And Trump will come away that meeting thinking that somehow emotionally connected with a North Korean and be more prone to giving North Korea concessions prematurely in violation of the United States law on North Korea sanctions, from 2016, which stipulates that terms for gradual suspension and ultimate termination of sanctions.

AMT: Okay so you are warning us all not to be so optimistic.

SUNG-YOON LEE: When you've seen Rambo one, two and three by the time Rambo 4 comes around you have a pretty good idea how it's not going to end.

AMT: Sung-Yoon Lee, thank you for your thoughts today.

SUNG-YOON LEE: Thank you.

AMT: Sung-Yoon Lee is the Kim Koo Korea foundation president of Korean studies at Tufts University we reached him in Burlington Massachusetts. Will people in Seoul South Korea had lots to say over the weekend about the historic peace talks.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: To be honest, I'm not that confident that will bring peace in Korea because in the past we did this kind of thing. Nothing has changed, much [chuckles].

VOICE 2: We are families. [Unintelligible] Think about, imagine, well, if your father or your grandfather were born in North Korea and in the war he took a chain to south, but that day, only he took the train and his wife didn't. After 60 or 70 year, your grandfather never met your grandmother. Maybe that's the reason why we keep a good relationship and meet. Yes, that's. We are just one family.

VOICE 3: I cannot 100 percent sure because the leader of North Korea is so unpredictable. But about 60 percent sure about the Peace of Korea.

VOICE 4: I'm quite sure about the peace like 60 to 70 percent because, well, it's the first time for Kim Jong Un to open himself.

VOICE 5: They have to keep promise. They, you know Moon and Kim they had a promise yesterday. Anyway they have to keep promise, to keep going.

AMT: The voices of some people in Seoul reacting to Friday's summit. And our thanks to freelance journalist Oliver Gardner for gathering that tape for us. For more insight on what these developments could mean for North and South Koreans I'm joined by Tina Park. She is Canadian Korean relations expert and co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Center for the Responsibility to Protect based at the Munk School of Global Affairs. Tina Park is with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

TINA PARK: Good morning.

AMT: What are we supposed to think? Lots of different emotions and analyses there with my last couple of guests, too. What are you thinking?

TINA PARK: Well I'm actually just very excited about what happened because I think the summit put a human face to the leaders who never met, but also to give us some hope that it is possible for North and South Korea to have a very meaningful discussion and make progress in a peaceful way. So you know when you look at the dialogue they were having, Kim Jong Un came across as a self-deprecating, sometimes witty kind of a person and that was very much of a shock for a lot of South Koreans watching the live stream. And I think the declaration, itself, Panmunjom that coloration is truly historic in terms of what the two leaders agreed upon because there is a very clear pledge towards the nuclearization, and also moving towards a peace treaty. And that I think will address some of the root causes of North Korea's insecurities which then would really eliminate the need for them to arm themselves so heavily.

AMT: What would it mean for regular people then and both the north and the South to see that kind of movement?

TINA PARK: It would just be a very euphoric experience for you know millions of Koreans. Because if you look at 51 million South Koreans and 24 million North Koreans who have had to live in a divided country for the last seven decades, and it's not just the immediate families who are affected, but you know their everyday life is kind of tied to the fact that they're technically at war. So for a lot of them you know it's yes seven going to be a difficult and long process. There's no doubt about you know the eventual road to peace. But they also remembered that you know we are one people. And if you asked then South Korean they don't see a North Korean as an enemy, it's you know brothers and sisters who happen to be living up north, under very severe political oppression, who are starving themselves. So in a way there's a very human and real dimension that we often don't remember when talk about nuclear warfare on the Korean peninsula. So if you for instance look at the latest polls, sixty five percent of South Koreans actually believe that, yes, One day North Korea will denuclearized. We know that it will take time and we have to be very patient and cautious about the process itself. But this summit I think gave a political impetus to something that we dreamt of for a very long time and to see that it's kind of becoming a reality is very exciting for a lot of Koreans.

AMT: What's it like for you to watch it?

TINA PARK: As somebody who studies and you know comments on Korea all the time, I was in tears actually when the summit unfolded because we knew this was very challenging for the two leaders to meet. And I know that the South Korean government worked really hard on it. President Moon for instance you know laid out this vision for peace in Berlin last summer, and everybody thought he was just crazy to think that we could improve inter-Korean relations when North Korea was firing missiles every other day. But a lot of what he laid out is coming to fruition. And I think - without getting too optimistic about what will happen in the months and years to come - I think we are genuinely living through a historical moment on the Korean peninsula because a lot of circumstances are coming together. And you know in diplomacy timing is very important. And North Korea finds itself with a leader who has ambitions for economic development in North Korea and nuclear weapons are costly and he's priority really comes down to making sure that his regime survives.

AMT: And so the view of my last guest that we're being played, how do you how do you read that?

TINA PARK: Well for me I think a lot of credit for the breakthrough goes to the South Korean government because without President Moon's personal commitment, in terms of improving inter-Korean relations and bringing peace on the Korean peninsula, I don't think this summit would have happened. We're looking at a president who happens to be an offspring of North Korean refugees, who is very intent on making sure that we institutionalize peace. So I think it's easy to get cynical when we're dealing with North Korea and their track record of violating different rules and international legal regime. But the fact of the matter is we're also dealing with a very desperate regime and one that could benefit from economic and humanitarian assistance.

AMT: We know that this is a place where the average person is oppressed and they don't have a lot. And there was a little bit of spotlight put on that by Mr. Kim actually, because he actually admitted to bad roads... How did you react to sort of his little joking back and forth there with Mr. Moon?

TINA PARK: That was very interesting because it is absolutely rare for a North Korean dictator to admit publicly that there are problems within his country. It wouldn’t have happened with his father or grandfather. And yes it is true that you know over 90 percent of roads in North Korea remain unpaved. They have a major infrastructure problem, over 17 million women and children face malnutrition as we speak. And the report by Justice Michael Kirby for the U.N. Commission of Inquiry found out that the regime is committing crimes against its own people and crimes against humanity, as we found in the report that falls on the responsibility to protect. So that's something that the international community is watching out for. So yes there are no doubts about severe humanitarian conditions and human rights violations within the regime, but I think that's precisely why it was refreshing to hear him speak about the problems in his own country, because admitting that there is a problem is sort of the first step towards fixing it. And I think once North Korea opens up more economic exchanges and human contacts and cultural exchanges, it gives as a little bit more access to deal with these problems and these infrastructure issues and human rights problems are issues that the international community at large including Canada that would be more active in addressing.

AMT: Okay. Well thank you for your perspective on all of this, Tina Park

TINA PARK: Thank you.

AMT: Tina Park is the executive director of the Canadian Center for the responsibility to protect its based at the Munk School of Global Affairs. She joined us in our Toronto studio. Let us know what you think of what our guests have had to say today about who gets credit and how much optimism there should be and there is. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with, us in our next half hour a conversation with the agent from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who helped lead to the capture of the notorious drug kingpin El Chapo of the Sinaloa cartel. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One.

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DEA agent describes the hunt for El Chapo, the world's most dangerous drug lord

Guest: Andrew Hogan

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

[Indistinct shouts]

VOICE 1: If there was a slightly deferential tone in the shouts of the media at a perp walk in Mexico City today it probably had something to do with the identity of the perp doing the walking. Joaquin Guzman was known as El Chapo or Shorty and every drug agent in Mexico in America knows what he is. Michael Broad is the former chief of operations for the DEA.

VOICE 2: Chapo Guzman is without a doubt the most prolific trafficker of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana in the world.

AMT: Well that was a report by the CBC's Neil McDonald's in February of 2014. The capture of El Chapo made news around the world. Andrew Hogan was the agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration who led the investigation that would lead to the dramatic takedown of the notorious drug kingpin. He chronicles the hunt and the chase in Hunting El Chapo: The Inside Story of the American Lawmen Who Captured the World's Most Wanted Drug Lord. And we reached Andrew Hogan in New York City. Hello.

ANDREW HOGAN: Hello.

AMT: Give me an idea of just how powerful and wealthy El Chapo was when he was the world's most wanted drug lord.

ANDREW HOGAN: He was the biggest. I'm not sure that there would be anyone that could rise to his- to .the power into that particular level today.

AMT: He was even ranked by Forbes In terms of his wealth.

ANDREW HOGAN: Correct, in the billions of dollars.

AMT: So he was also really dangerous and you're a DEA agent. You actually move to Mexico with your family on this assignment. How dangerous was that for your family?

ANDREW HOGAN: I mean the dangers are real you know I mean they were all calculated and I'm still calculating them to this day. But I looked at it as my mission, as a DEA agent. You know the person at the top of the ladder was Chapo Guzman. There was there was nobody else. And you know carrying out that mission and essentially just doing my job and that's how it felt. And that's still how it feels today.

AMT: So you're in the U.S. Embassy in Mexico and you are the head person on trying to find this guy and basically deal with the Sinaloa Cartel. Give me some idea of its reputation for brutality when it came to DEA agents.

ANDREW HOGAN: Coming in you look back at the 1985 murder of a DEA special agent Kiki Camarena where he was he was brutally tortured and then then murdered by essentially the men that Chapo followed. You know Chapo followed the men who killed Kiki, followed them in their footsteps and it goes with the cartel territory. I mean there's use of violence, to rule and with a strong fist and you certainly saw that from Chapo many times over. And going back to the dangers as you're talking about you know Kiki made the ultimate sacrifice for us all and really paved the way for a lot of things for the United States to work even closer with the Mexican government to really tackle these large issues and target these huge criminals.

AMT: And I mean he was tortured and he was buried alive, was he not?

ANDREW HOGAN: He was.

AMT: This is the level of violence you were dealing with. This is what you've stepped into to try to find this guy.

ANDREW HOGAN: Right. Right. I mean we're he from Mexico the dangers exist. You know the dangers are real there and you've got to be cautious all the time. It's a constant risk assessment of checking your back and analyzing what's around you and determining if you're safe or not, all the time.

AMT: You have a wife and how many kids?

ANDREW HOGAN: I'd rather not disclose how many kids I have. I have sons, but...

AMT: Okay fair enough. But you moved there with your wife and your young sons. How did you have to go through life, or how did they have to go through life when you were living in Mexico in order to make sure that they were okay, given what you were doing?

ANDREW HOGAN: It was the same way. It was the same constant risk assessment that my wife would have to do. Although we tried to enjoy our time down there. I mean Mexico is a beautiful country and we fell in love with the culture and the people and the food and all the little neighborhoods. And it was just a great place to live. I felt like that was necessary too to understand the Mexican culture. You I kind of work that into the grain of my investigation and it really helped me.

AMT: Let's talk about the police work that led you to El Chapo. You were honing in on where he was by pinging Blackberries associated with his cartel. How did that work?

ANDREW HOGAN: Pinging phone number, yes. Well I mean first you have to find the phone number so it's targeting Chapo's inner infrastructure, his couriers, his facilitators, his distributors, his pilots, his family members, his down to really even as his cooks and maids. I mean it's breaking it down to the details and looking at the details and finding those numbers and targeting those numbers, and starting to work your way up the ladder and determining who those numbers are talking to. And before you know we were we were getting close. We were getting closer to Chapo every week, and we discovered that he had a very sophisticated communications structure, a layering drug structure that he was using to insulate himself from all of his workers. And we were able to break that down and intercept judicially from the United States a lot of his communications.

AMT: So were you able to read this text and the text going to him or going back and forth?

ANDREW HOGAN: We were. Texts going out from him, him putting direction out to his men on the ground and in different countries, and in the communication that was coming back up to him from those people. I mean once we had the specific phones that we knew that were with him, that were right next to him meaning a secretary, his secretary that would essentially live with him 24/7 and would run all the phone communications. Once we had that device we were able to ping that device and start to begin to establish a pattern of life. Pattern of life it just means that every time that you pay that phone you're marking that on a map trying to understand his day to day activities and where he's camped out and where his movements and where he's going during the week. And once we had multiple months of that then we felt really good and where he was at. We then went and delivered all of our intelligence to the Mexican marines.

AMT: Canada plays a surprising role in your book. How important was Canada to El Chapo's operation?

ANDREW HOGAN: I think it was it was critical. It really surprised me, actually, just how involved the drug distribution network was for Chapo in Canada, how extensive it was, how it spread throughout the entire country from city to city to city. You know Chapo was able to- he was able to sell cocaine and other drugs there at a higher price than in the U.S. He was making more profits so obviously he was pushing more, distributing more.

AMT: So there's a lot to talk about there. First of all how much more? Canadians were paying more for the same cocaine?

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes I think I say in my book and if I remember correctly the average price for a kilo of cocaine in the United States or in Los Angeles is around twenty five thousand dollars per kilo. And that in Canada he was getting thirty five thousand dollars per kilo.

AMT: How would they get it to Canada? What was the pipeline for him?

ANDREW HOGAN: The course crossed the border, the U.S. Mexico border, would be stored in warehouses where they would load up cars with couriers that would drive it all the way up to the border, the Canadian United States border in Washington. And how they would cross it there. We learned that they were using helicopters. They would throw it into helicopters the helicopters would jump over the border and drop big deliveries, big packages full of kilograms of cocaine amongst the tall lodge pole pines up there and they'd have somebody drive you know into their remote area and pick them up.

AMT: They were also using organized crime. Was it I think you said Iranian organized crime>.

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes. Yes we saw some of that. And I believe those that group was also hooked up with what the hell's angels who were doing a lot of the distribution, street level distribution.

AMT: I didn't even know about Iranian organized crime. What were they doing?

ANDREW HOGAN: I know there was talk about them finding, looking into a GPS guided parachutes where they could parachute large loads into Canada after dropping them out of planes.

AMT: And why was the RCMP so seemingly ineffective in going after his operation in Canada?

ANDREW HOGAN: I'd been in several meetings with the RCMP before and they were very frustrated with their efforts and they even told me, they said it was just you know the RCMP is just so top heavy. They felt like there were too many cumi chiefs that nothing could get accomplished.

AMT: You've described it kind of like a perfect match, that sort of appetite for cocaine in Canada and the reality of the hurdles that police have to go through. And he recognized that.

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes I think so. I think Chopo did recognize the enforcement, or you know his loads of kind of free clear. Once they get in the Canada they don't have a lot taken off or seized and that's a big big positive for for Chapo.

AMT: So we go back to the fact that you've honed in on where he is and you're going to work with the Mexican marines. Why the Marines?

ANDREW HOGAN: They were the warriors. They had a reputation for being the least corrupt in Mexico and I had never worked with them before. But several of our guys in our office had and had some great success, and they were just, you know, if you were going into war you would want these guys next to you. And we went in and delivered the intelligence to him.

AMT: Then you discovered that he was actually monitoring them too.

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes. You know Chapo had people greased everywhere from the lower levels all the way to into the upper echelons of government. And as soon as we delivered our intelligence to say more we discovered that there was a leak, that there was somebody within [unintelligible] that was providing information to Chapo's people that was getting back to Chopo that we were moving our resources up into his territory. You know the only thing that saved us really was that Chopo did not know that we were coming for him.

AMT: He thought they were just around but he didn't realize they were...

ANDREW HOGAN: It was such a target rich environment up there in Sinaloa. You know it's full of drug traffickers and we could have essentially been coming for anyone. But he knew all of our movements instantaneously.

AMT: So there was a huge capture operation involving you and the Marines to nab him in a town called Culiacán in Sinaloa state. Tell me about that raid.

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes so there was a big ramp up to that. You know we were trying to find a location outside of Culican. We knew that the chopper was in Culican. But we thought it would be a bloodbath if we went in there and tried to root him out of his stronghold. And I had found - my partner and I - had found an alternative location where Chapo was leaving Culican. He was coming south out of the city to rest and relax at a place that I nicknamed Duck Dynasty. It was an old duck hunting camp south of the city, in a remote area. And we were all ready to launch there the next time he would come down but due to the leaks he became scared and he stopped coming outside the city. So we had to make that determination to actually go into enemy territory and root them out of his stronghold and we hit his location where we knew he was at. And as soon as we hit it there was a six inch steel reinforced door on the front of the house that took the Marines 10 to 15 minutes to get into. My guys who were on the ground reported that they could see people upstairs, in the windows and looking out the blinds. And by the time that the Marines got inside Chapo had escaped. He had escaped down a tunnel underneath a bathtub and that tunnel ran to the sewers, connected with the city sewer system and he escaped from us at that point.

AMT: He is a real tunnel digger, huh? He has been. We'll talk about him in the past tense because he's in jail now. But he always had tunnels.

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes that was his M.O. I mean really dating back to the 90s where he started the first one at the U.S. Mexico border. He had tunnels in the works all over, underneath of his safe houses and just about every location that he had a safe house at the U.S. Mexico border. And then as we saw when he was in prison he tunneled out the same exact way.

AMT: So he got away through a tunnel. But you guys were on him and it didn't take much longer. Tell us about what happened when he was finally caught.

ANDREW HOGAN: You know so when we went in I said that we needed to do our homework. I mean in our investigation Chapo had had 13 years of hard study on us and he was always one step ahead. He was he was a sharp, a very sharp guy. And I said that we needed to have enough intelligence to know where he was at but then have enough to know where he was going to run to if you escaped us. And as we saw he escaped us. But we had enough, we had enough intelligence to know where he had run and we were able to ping phones and he fled south to our south to a city called Mazatlán Sinaloa along the coast. And we put together a covert operation where we dressed up and got back into civilian clothes and took Chopo seized armored vehicles and jumped in those and left Culiacán covertly and made our approach to the south. We were able to ping the phone number to a place called Miramar. We labeled it hotel Miramar and organized the raid for five thirty that morning and went in with the Mexican marines and they started hitting the doors. We knew that he was roughly on the fourth floor and they found him. They found him there with his secretary and his wife and his two twin girls along with a nanny and a cook inside route 401 at the Miramar area.

AMT: And there was no tunnel in that room.

ANDREW HOGAN: .And there was no tunnel. Thank goodness thank goodness. I was worried about our perimeter. I was worried about another tunnel. I was actually standing outside in front of the hotel watching the lights and the floors come on you know, as the Marines were inside hitting the rooms. And I started to run down the ramp to the street to physically run the block to make sure that we had enough guys on on perimeter. That's how worried it was. And that's when I heard the excited radio chatter where they were saying that 'Hey we've got the target. We've got the target'. They brought him out of the room and brought down the service elevator to the underground parking garage that was below the hotel. And they were calling for a vehicle and mine was first in the gate. I jumped in it and drove it down and got out. And it was really dark and they were just starting to stand him up. He didn't have a shirt on. He had some pants and some pants on it just started to stand him up and bring him toward my vehicle. And at this point I'm back and wearing camouflage and a black ski mask and I've got Chapo's black hat on the top of my head that I had taken out of his safe house up in Culiacán as a souvenir. I just happened to be wearing it for the raid. And as soon as I saw him I ran right up to him jumped into his face. And we locked eyes there for a second. And you know I said the first thing that came to my mind and I just screamed, I said 'What's up Chapo!'

AMT: What did he do? [Chuckles]

ANDREW HOGAN: You know he just jumped back for a second his eyes kind of bulged out but I let him pass and slapped him on the back as he walked past, kind of give him an adda boy whack. And the same are put him into the vehicle and then they ended up driving them out.

AMT: And so how did you feel? What was going through your mind? What were you thinking as that day wore on, as the next day when he's like all of this is done, apparently?

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes. So I actually flew back to Mexico City to my home got that same day and I was sitting at the dinner table with my wife and boys, that same night. It was pretty surreal. And I went back in to work the next Monday morning in a suit and tie, back to DEA at the embassy. And I felt hollow. I felt extremely empty. I thought you know I'd be feeling euphoric and doing cartwheels up and down the hall. But I wasn't. And after a lot of self-reflection it was I realized that this was never about him. This was about the hunt. This was about the challenge. And you were for so long, so hard at one particular thing and then it's gone. I was left with really really nothing and I needed a new hunt a new challenge and I didn't believe that I could get that through DEA anymore. I mean I had accomplished everything that I wanted to in my career from really top to bottom. It was DEA's mission. It was a success story. And I looked for that next challenge and hunt and that was that was leaving the government and I went to go find something else.

AMT: So you get him, you and your team, and then he escapes again. This is the escape that gets on most of our radars because this is the one out of the jail. Describe that escape.

ANDREW HOGAN: Yes so he had his chief tunnel builder build him a - I was close to a mile long tunnel from a nondescript house, a little ways away from the prison all the way underground right up underneath his prison cell. I mean just with precision up to the bottom drain of his shower. You know it took him took them months and months and months to build this. It was equipped with a rail car and ventilation then and a pretty incredible credible feat. But you know one day they're watching Chapo on the security camera and he walks over to the shower in a cell and disappears behind a small wall and he's gone. It was pretty predictable. They didn't have him on lockdown, you know on complete lockdown. You know you study his past, you look at his past. What has he done? Right. He is the tunnel King. So it really wasn't that surprising to see. I know it shocked many in the world but that comes with layers of corruption and payoffs to be able to do that type of thing as well.

AMT: In fact there were sounds of drilling undersell detected.

ANDREW HOGAN: Loud sounds. Yes.

AMT: He finally does get nabbed again and this time there's a bloody shoot out. Some of the men are killed. What were you thinking when you heard they got him again?

ANDREW HOGAN: Of course I was pleased and I was glad to see that the Marines, these same Marines that we had worked with mounted back up again and continued the fight, really took our intelligence as a blueprint to track him back down. And they had taken off a lot of his guys, a lot of his chief enforcers and other people within his entire infrastructure and he didn't have many people to turn to. You know Culiacán was decimated after we had left and he couldn't run back there and he essentially ran right into the arms of his only chief enforcer left, which was Cholo Ivan, up in Los Mochis Sinaloa and that's where they pinpointed him down too again by monitoring the phones.

AMT: Where is he now?

ANDREW HOGAN: He's in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown New York in Manhattan.

AMT: No tunnels in Manhattan?

ANDREW HOGAN: I sure hope not.

AMT: For the DEA agents who work on specifically like Mexican drug cartels, and we've seen the reports of violence we kind of know how bad it can get, you all have to worry about that stuff don't you?

ANDREW HOGAN: Absolutely. It's a part of the job. You know that going in.

AMT: And so what kind of hunt do you do now?

ANDREW HOGAN: I can tell it's time to make up for lost time with my family and really really focus on them. I live a totally different life now so it's really paying attention to them and giving them the time that they need.

AMT: No more undercover. No more cartels.

ANDREW HOGAN: No.

AMT: Andrew Hogan thanks for telling your story.

ANDREW HOGAN: Thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.

AMT: Andrew Hogans book is called Hunting El Chapo: The Inside Story of the American Lawman Who Captured the World's Most Wanted Drug Lord. He joined us from New York City. Let us know what you think. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our Web site cbc.ca/thecurrent. That's our program for today. Stay with radio 1 for q. Earlier we were discussing these historic and cautiously hopeful times on the Korean peninsula. Last week Kim Jong Un became the first North Korean leader to step over the demilitarised zone line or DMZ where he was greeted by South Korean president Moon Jae In. The Korean War came to a halt with a cease fire in 1953. Now the two Koreas say they want to declare an official end to that war which killed more than 2 million Korean soldiers and civilians. That cease fire came into effect on July 27 1953. We're going to leave you with how Britain's Movietone News covered the end of bloodshed almost 65 years ago. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

At long last the misery and the bloodshed of the war in Korea has been halted. Let's hope indeed that it's been ended. Let's hope that scenes like these taken during an earlier phase in the long struggle are over and done. Aggression in Korea was promptly met and gallantly withstood by forces of the United Nations and the decision to fight on this grim battlefield may perhaps have prevented an even more fearful clash of arms.

[Music]

Two years truce negotiations dragged on at Panmunjong. Long ago terms were almost agreed between general Nam Il, head of the Communist delegation, and the representatives of the United Nations. But the president or War question held up [unintelligible]. With many representatives of both sides present, a truce has been signed. Even if we are right to be guarded about future prospects in Korea, we can at least rejoice that for all the men who are bearing the burden of this war, a halt has been called. The opportunity for a final settlement has been given and it's right to hope that this will be achieved.

[Music: Theme]

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