Peace Prize Forum Focuses on the Republic of Korea, March 8-9

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- David Halberstam and Sung Chul Yang will address the 14th annual Peace Prize Forum, "Striving for Peace: Who is Responsible?" March 8-9 at Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D. Augustana is one of 28 colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
Students attending the Peace Prize Forum will explore personal obligations and efforts that contribute to peacemaking, including an examination of the possibility of peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula.
Sung Chul Yang, the Republic of Korea's 18th Ambassador to the United States, will address the forum on March 8. He will represent Kim Dae Jung, president of South Korea and recipient of the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.
From 1996 to the time of his posting in Washington, D.C., in 2000, Yang served as a member of the Korean National Assembly. He was president of the Unification and Policy Forum and chair of the International Cooperation Committee for the National Congress for New Politics. He was vice chair of the Unification and Foreign Affairs Committee, and was a member of the Political Reform Committee.
From 1987 to 1994 Yang was dean of academic affairs at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyunghee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. He served as secretary general of the Association of Korean Political Scientists in North America and as president of the Korean Association of International Studies.
Yang is a member of the advisory committees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of National Defense and the National Unification Board. He has written several books, essays and articles on Korean issues.
From 1970 to 1994 Yang taught and held a variety of positions at several education institutions in the United States and in the Republic of Korea. He earned a doctorate in political science at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, in 1970, and a master's degree in political science from the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, in 1967. Yang earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Seoul National University in 1964. From 1960 to 1962 he served in the Korean Army.
Halberstam, a journalist, social and political commentator, will address the forum March 8. Halberstam is the author of books about power in the United States: "The Best and the Brightest," "The Powers That Be" and "The Reckoning."
In 1998 Halberstam wrote "The Children," which chronicles the lives of eight young civil rights activists he met in 1960 as a reporter for The Nashville Tennessean. In 1999 he wrote a biography of basketball player Michael Jordan titled, "Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made." Halberstam's latest book, "War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals," reveals how post-cold-war U.S. foreign policy has been haunted by the legacy of Vietnam.
He wrote 11 best-selling books. At the age of 30 Halberstam was awarded The Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Vietnam. Halberstam earned a bachelor's degree at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., in 1955.
Craig Kielburger, founder of Free the Children, will address the forum March 9. At the age of 12, Kielburger became a spokesperson for children's rights after he read about the murder of a boy from Pakistan, who was sold into bondage as a carpet weaver and murdered for speaking out about child labor. Now 17, Kielburger has traveled to more than 30 countries visiting street and working children and speaking out in defense of children's rights. In 2001, the Jerusalem Post named him one of the 10 most interesting people to visit Israel.
Kielburger, who lives with his parents in Toronto, gathered a group of his friends and founded the organization Free the Children, which is now the world's largest network of children helping children with more than 100,000 active youth in 27 countries. The organization has initiated many projects around the world, including the construction of more than 100 schools and two live-in rehabilitation centers for children, the creation of alternative sources of revenue for poor families to free children from hazardous work, leadership programs for youth, and projects linking children on an international level. Free the Children has helped convince members of the international business community to adopt codes of conduct regarding child labor and has helped governments change laws to better protect children from sexual exploitation.
Kielburger's book, "Free the Children," outlines his journey from the suburbs of Toronto through the slums and sweatshops of South Asia. The book has been translated into seven languages.
Other forum speakers include Olav Njolstad, research director of government, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.; the Rev. Mark N. Swanson, associate professor of Islamic studies and director of the Islamic studies program at Luther Seminary, St. Paul. Minn.; Derek J. Mitchell, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.; and Ann Pederson, associate professor and chair of Augustana's Department of Religion. The Honorable Robert Flaten, former ambassador to Rwanda and chair of the Peace Prize Forum committee, will convene the 2002 Forum.
In addition to addresses, the Peace Prize Forum will feature 30 one-hour workshops on a variety of topics designed to address the conference theme. Other highlights of the forum include a town hall meeting on terrorism in America, a peace fair exhibiting peacemaking organizations from around the world, and conversation sessions with the forum's keynote speakers.
The site of the forum rotates annually among five Midwestern colleges of the ELCA with Norwegian heritage: Augsburg College, Minneapolis; Augustana; Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn.; Luther College, Decorah, Iowa; and St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.
Held in cooperation with the Norwegian Nobel Institute, this series of forums was created to offer an opportunity for Nobel Peace Prize laureates, diplomats, scholars, young people and the general public to come together in expression of their personal commitment to peace. -- -- --
Editors: Current information on the Peace Prize Forum is available at http://www.peaceprizeforum.org on the Web.

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