The claim by Ministers Judith Collins and Winston Peters that deploying NZDF personnel to the so-called United Nations Command (UNC) in South Korea will better support peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula is refuted by Dr Tim Beal, Chairman of the NZ DPRK Society.

He says that “increasing the number of New Zealand troops deployed in Korea will increase tension on the peninsula and the wider region”

Beal points out that the UNC is not a United Nations organisation but one of the names of the US military command in Korea, which also has wartime control of the Republic of Korea military. The title was illegally coined by General MacArthur in the early weeks of the Korean war.

Three UN Secretary Generals have explicitly stated that the UNC has nothing to do with the United Nations.

A 1975 UN resolution stated that the General Assembly: “Considers that it is necessary to dissolve the “United Nations Command” and withdraw all the foreign troops stationed in South Korea under the flag of the United Nations.”

After being dormant for decades, the US has recently been breathing new life into the UNC in a move to counter South Korean attempts to wrest back control of its military. Some commentators are viewing expansion of the UNC as proxy establishment of an Asian NATO aimed primarily at China – something New Zealand should not be drawn into, according to Beal.

“Peace and security can best be served by New Zealand withdrawing all NZDF personnel from serving under the US military command in Korea and, instead, actively working to decrease tension and encourage dialogue between all parties” he says. ’We should be promoting peace not fanning the flames of war’.