The 5th Jeju Peace Forum 제5회 제주평화포럼

Back around the beginning of August, I attended the 5th Jeju Peace Forum at the Haevichi Hotel and Resort in Pyoseon. I was covering the Peace Forum for the Jeju Weekly, and wrote a couple of articles about it. The first, about its history and what this forum was expected to include, is found here.

I got to the hotel around 9:00 am on Wednesday, the second day of the forum. Scheduled was the opening keynote speech of the forum by South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, however, because of the winds, his flight was unable to make it time, so his speech was postponed 'til later in the afternoon.

In lieu of the opening speech, the forum went right into the first plenary session: the World Leaders' Session, entitled "Toward the 21st Century of Mutual Benefit and Common Prosperity." Speakers were former South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hong-Koo and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard with Park Jin residing as Chair.

I was particularly excited about hearing from John Howard, who was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia and was in office from 1996 to 2007. He is the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister. Here is part of his speech from the plenary session:



Here is Park Jin discussing with the two speakers about the recent visit by former U.S. President Clinton to North Korea to negotiate the release of the two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, captured by North Korean soldiers when they "mistakingly" crossed over the Chinese border into North Korean territory.



On Thursday, the second keynote speech was delivered by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Despite the little mix-up with security passes, the Jeju Weekly staff finally managed to get in before the end of his speech.

It was a little frustrating, but worth it when we got inside. His speech, together with South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo's, was well spoken, stressing the need for more co-operation and union between not only East Asia, but the world as a whole. You can get the full details about their speeches from my second article, published in the most recent issue of Jeju Weekly.

Another note of interest during the forum was seeing Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. I recently had watched a documentary about him on the BBC, how he built up his empire from almost nothing and how he lost billions because of the global financial crisis.



He is certainly not the most inspiring or exciting person to hear a speech from, but his life story is very compelling and worth reading about.

Overall, I was really excited about going to the forum and having a chance to experience such an event, especially here on Jeju.