Published below is the statement from Cho Young-sam, the South Korean citizen who self-immolated himself yesterday.

President Moon Jae-In is President of South Korea.

THAAD is "Terminal High Altitude Area Defense", is "is an American anti-ballistic missile defense system designed to shoot down short, medium, and intermediate range ballistic missiles in their terminal phase (descent or reentry) by intercepting with a hit-to-kill approach"  (Wikipedia)

Free Press staff.

Cho Young-sam self-immolated himself yesterday, leaving behind a plea for NO THAAD in South Korea:

Our country only has a future via the success of the Moon Jae-In Administration

President Moon Jae-In, long ago, when I was in Germany, I am someone who supported and respected you.

President Moon Jae-In, I will give you a direct message. THAAD can not happen. Mr. President, you also know that THAAD will not bring peace, but anxiety and the dangers of war.

There’s a saying that you take one step back to go two steps forward, I was considering that there might be a bigger picture, but by all means this is not the case. To be the coveted interest of the American superpower can’t be easy. But if from the beginning you are pushed like this, how will you stand up?

I am a person who genuinely, honestly hoped for the success of the Moon Jae-In administration. Through the success of the Moon Jae-In administration, we could have seen a future for North-South Korean economic partnerships, peace & reunification, work done to achieve balance in Northeast Asia, and a future for us [Corean] descendants.

THAAD, for all intents and purposes, will not be a war deterrent nor a protective arm for peace. Rather than the potential for “matching bullet for bullet”, achieved by the THAAD installation itself, the placement of the X-Band within the THAAD installation makes it a prime target by China and North Korea at the exact moment it exhibits behavior of surveillance.

North Korea’s ICBM’s potential for destruction is not limited to the Korean Peninsula but exceeds the continent with its long-distance capabilities.

If I am to be more specific, I am referring to the United States. Mr. President, you too know this common sense knowledge. Despite that you are disrespectful in claiming it will be a “temporary placement”, while you moved up the installation date of THAAD probably because you knew that you had reached the absolute limit that could not be tested against the wall of honest politics. Of course the primary claim you made in conversation was that the reason for the installation was due to the nuclear experiments undertaken by a ignoramus in North Korea.

Whether you truly did not mean it or by chance your interests changed, I will never know, but presently the by-product of your statement that “North and South Korean relations are a hostile symbiotic relationship” and the ensuing THAAD placement is that a dark cloud is coming over our future. The result of cowardly games like “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is a surge down a potentially exhaustive road for both North and South Korea. The ever vigilant Japan (with one eye always open) thus comes into vision.

For those with responsibility in the North I ask for a favor. At one time I was a Universal sympathizer and became the right hand man for (and student under) Lee In Mo, a vetted war correspondent within the People’s Army. In that time, Lee In Mo, due to the consequences that came from the tragic division of Korea, could no longer take a step.

To the Party, in accordance with the “by the people” rhetoric you use at leisure, don’t simply say “people”, “people”, but truly lay everything down in front of the people.

The destiny of the people is to coordinate as a peoples, with a mindset of carrying on, so that before America and its divisionary “coveted interest” rhetoric comes into play, we set out to take action on forming the next chapter of North and South Korean relations. Using rhetoric of “By the people” but in fact promoting “Korea Passing” is not permissible. Currently the power of Korea is not the power of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. The power to leave a mark in world politics is the power remaining in the road ahead within the candlelight movement. We have to succeed. Thank you…

We have a proverb that goes like, “Lifting together is always better, even when it’s just a blank sheet of paper”.

Do you know it by any chance? Couldn’t the graves erupt to stop the United States by any means necessary in the processes of North and South Korean conversation?

I evaluate your “incarnation of faith” highly, and in addition to shared ties with Professor Lee In-Mo, I come to you as a person who has wandered around the peripheries of life, frequently having to change directions, thus I believe that I can ask of this favor to the Party, given my qualifications.

President Moon Jae-In, I truly, on a human level, respected and loved you. Even after I finish this trip of life I will not have dashed beliefs. My life sustenance and breath is the hope of a THAAD withdrawal, and if through this moment of difficult breathing, negotiations with the US lead to a good result, this will be remembered as a glorious moment during this long drought. The free people of the wind unfettered by the net, living as they had desired, without name, as pacifists, as we drop the last leaf for the peace we have hoped for on this land, to never underestimate Korea…

That he was one person among the million participating in the candlelight revolution, that our Corean government was born out of the candlelight revolution – I would love it if we could sternly state that to the United States.

Mr. President, I pray and hope that you don’t take the candlelight with uncertainty, but as it initially was, push ahead with the strength that comes with success and set a path for the world to remember. I hope for your health.

If you are a member of the candlelight revolution, know that you are worthy and qualified to do anything and everything that anyone else could,

A single field flower,

Sincerely, Cho Young Sam

P.S.

My actions will be argued about and understood in many ways. I do not care.

I said I lived as “the free person of the wind unfettered by the net”, so what more words are necessary for those that couldn’t experience that life? For those for whom the trip of life is not yet over, I please ask that you give my regards to my wife and my young son.

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