December 4, 2002
This letter is addressed to those who desire revelation of hidden histories, recognizing the human condition is plagued by dangerous choices exercised by a few, due in part to conscious denial and censorship of history's critical lessons. "Civilization" remains dominated by oligarchs whose policies are enforced in a make-believe world, preempting critical understandings that can enable radical changes in consciousness leading to sustainable, respectful human communities.
Santa Cruz Film Foundation, committed to exposing hidden aspects of U.S. history, is currently producing two documentaries for which we are now seeking funds from people such as you to complete. My filmmaker/director partner, Mickey Grant, is an award-winning documentarian, having produced China Run and Cu Chi Tunnels, the latter an enlightening account of the Vietnam War from the Viet Cong perspective (SEE http://creativehat.com/cuchi.htm). Both of us are military veterans of U.S. war in Asia.
I. Divided Country, Disposable People reveals the little known but significant history of the U.S. decision to divide Korea following Japan's defeat in World War II. The resultant deep wounds still fester among Koreans to this day, and if not acknowledged honestly by the U.S., pose a serious threat to global peace. Most people, however, are unaware of the history of division and incredible pattern of repression that followed, creating today's dangerous lingering effects. In early 2002, North Korea was threatened by Bush II for being part of an "axis of evil," and is likely a next target in the never-ending U.S. war on terror, which makes this documentary ever-more timely.
Korea's division launched one of the greatest crimes of the Twentieth Century. Japan had effectively ruled Korea with an iron fist from 1905 until its defeat in August 1945. The April 1945 U.S. Joint Army-Navy Intelligence Study of Korea acknowledged Japanese rule had benefited but a small minority while oppressing the vast majority, and affirmed the passionate readiness of Koreans to assert their independence. Consistent with this finding, upon Japan's surrender, Koreans jubilantly celebrated and immediately began preparations for a sovereign government, which was formed on September 6, 1945.
Tragically, unbeknown to the Korean people (who had been culturally unified for 5,000 years), the U.S. decided before Japan's surrender, as part of its victor's prerogative, to divide Korea at the 38th parallel. This decision was made with the quiet assent of USSR's Stalin, who was shocked like the rest of the world by U.S. possession and use of the new super atomic weapon. U.S. troops began arriving on September 8. The manner and methods of this intervention (which has effectively never ceased) preceded the officially declared "Cold War" by several years, foreshadowing cruel U.S. interventions in countries such as Italy, Greece, Turkey, and France in the immediate post-War period, and subsequently in Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, greater Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and dozens of other nations. It was the beginning of "containment" (suppression of internal "threats" from independence movements labeled "Communist"). Its success in Korea was considered essential by Secretary of State Acheson for achievement of U.S. global policies. "Everyone is watching," a friend of both Acheson and puppet Rhee exclaimed. The U.S. hegemonic pattern that began with dropping the bomb -- dropped, now we know, not to expedite the surrender of the Japanese who had already indicated intentions to quit, but for the purpose of atomic diplomacy with the Soviets in shaping a post-War capitalist world -- is now out of control and poses grave implications for the entire world.
Note: Though the Soviets had been our WW II ally, they had been our ideological enemy since 1918 when the U.S., with 13,000 troops, joined hundreds of thousands of troops from 12 other Western nations and Japan in an attempt to "strangle at its birth" the Bolshevik revolution, the first proclaimed national socialist state seen as a threat to capitalism's survival. Though unsuccessful in defeating the Reds at that time, that intervention is seen by many as the genuine origin of the Cold War.
Because the vast majority of Koreans were passionate about independence, their struggle could only be contained by a brutal, systematic campaign of repression. The United States brought a puppet ruler to Korea from the United States, Syngman Rhee (like it did in Vietnam nine years later with Ngo Dinh Diem), then outlawed the new Korean government along with virtually all organized political activities not explicitly supporting Rhee. In the period 1946 to 1950 alone, hundreds of thousands, perhaps several million Korean dissidents, were disappeared, tortured, imprisoned and murdered in the south, leading to a civil war which in turn led to the tragic Korean War that erupted in 1950 -- the war we were told was caused by "evil North Korean communists." The U.S. threatened use of atomic weapons on several occasions, while experimenting with biological warfare, the latter remaining one of the darkest Cold War secrets. Five million Koreans and Chinese were killed during that war. How all this unfolded, and why the division of Korea continues to curse a uniquely homogenous people, while endangering the entire world, is the subject of Divided Country, Disposable People.
We cumulatively traveled several thousand miles across various parts of the Korean peninsula to gather information for this story. We interviewed hundreds of people and recorded numerous personal stories about the egregious crimes committed from the air and on the ground. We have collected Korean archival footage and documented issues that continue to nag Koreans, like the ten million families who remain split by their inability to cross the 38th parallel. That division is enforced by 37,000 U.S. troops stationed at 100 installations around the south, while a militarized wall (cp. Berlin Wall) traverses the 155-mile parallel. We also filmed the unprecedented Korean War Crimes Tribunal held in New York City in 2001, where Koreans graphically testified about the brutality they endured in the late 1940s and during the Korean War.
II. Friends of Ho (SEE http://creativehat.com/ho.htm), seeks to reveal Ho Chi Minh's unique leadership style in Vietnam for more than forty years during which he consistently defied the arrogant logic of Western military and political powers. His persistent requests of U.S. Presidents to honor their rhetorical pledges for assisting liberation of colonized peoples, including Vietnam's independence from renewed French colonialism, were tragically spurned. Having assisted the OSS, predecessor of the CIA, in rescuing downed U.S. pilots in Asia and sharing intelligence information with them about Japanese military movements, the independent Vietnamese had reason to believe U.S. pledges. U.S. rejection was an unmistakable clue portending cruel assaults on many of the world's colonized peoples, leading to needless millions of maimings and deaths, including those of U.S. Americans.
Both Vietnamese and Koreans jubilantly celebrated Japan's surrender, each quickly forming independent governments in the same week in early September 1945, the Vietnamese on September 2, the Koreans on September 6. And each was systematically and quickly thwarted, the Vietnamese by forceful French restoration of its Asian colony with the explicit assent of the U.S., and the Koreans by the U.S. who militarily invaded, insisting on establishing a strategic foothold in mainland Asia. Thus began origins of two of the Twentieth Century's most brutal crimes against humanity, one known by virtually everyone, the other virtually unknown.
Atypical of leaders, Ho rejected trappings of power and authority, as if he was self-assured of a noble mission on behalf of the impoverished. The documentary presents an impressionistic view of his personality and patience from friends' perspectives, and from his writings, photographs, recordings and footage. Mickey has conducted many hours of interviews with Ho's friends, and Vietnam hopes that we can complete footage in early 2003.
Our personal funds are exhausted, but our commitment is to complete these documentaries and enter them in film festivals and theaters around the world. Both these projects reveal important insight about the nature of U.S. civilization, and the kinds of radical healing necessary for peace. Please be generous by making tax-exempt contributions (tax ID # 03-0419882) to the Santa Cruz Film Foundation, Inc., a non-profit corporation, and send to Mickey Grant at his address below for deposit in our Santa Cruz Film Foundation account.
Thank you for seriously considering this appeal.
Sincerely,
S. Brian Willson
Executive Producer
Santa Cruz Film Foundation
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