Thursday 13 July 2017

A great communist leader



by New Worker correspondent
Michael Chant speaking with Andy Brooks and Dermot Hudson

COMRADES and friends met at the John Buckle Centre in south London last week to mark the 23rd anniversary of the passing of President Kim Il Sung on 8th July  1994 and to discuss the tense situation on the Korean peninsula following the recent American  threats to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Kim Il Sung and the communist movement he inspired began the Korean people’s struggle against Japanese colonial rule in the 1920s that ended in victory in 1945. Kim Il Sung went on to lead the Korean people to another great victory against a foreign invader when the American imperialists and their lackeys attacked the people’s government in the north in 1950.
All the speakers, which included Song Gi Kim from the Democratic Korean embassy in London, Michael Chant from the RCPB (ML), Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association and New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks, paid tribute the achievements of the great Korean leader and the Workers Party of Korea that he led until his death in 1994.  After questions and discussion the meeting ended but discussion continued over drinks at the John Buckle Centre.
The Co-ordinating Committee of the Friends of Korea brings together all the major movements active in Korean friendship and solidarity work in Britain today. It is chaired by Andy Brooks and the secretary is Michael Chant. The committee organises meetings throughout the year, which are publicised by the supporting movements and on the Friends of Korea website.

Friday 7 July 2017

Crisis in Korea


THE DEMOCRATIC People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) demonstrated its nuclear prowess on 4th July this week with the successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the American mainland. The DPRK leader, Kim Jong Un, clearly chose Independence Day to make the point to America’s ruling circles who are playing with fire on the Korean peninsula.
    Donald Trump responded with yet another of his incomprehensible Tweets while his chief minion, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, threatens to impose more sanctions on Democratic Korea and those that trade with the north, and the chief American general in the occupied south claimed that only “self-restraint” was keeping the United States and south Korea from going to war over the missiles that the US imperialists claim are a direct threat to themselves and their regional lackeys. But who is threatening whom?
    The Korean peninsula has been divided since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The south remains a puppet of US imperialism whose 29,000 strong garrison can quickly be reinforced from Japan.
    The Workers Party of Korea has led the Korean revolution, performing tremendous feats in socialist construction, defeating US imperialism, beating the US-led economic blockade and overcoming natural disasters to become a nuclear power and a modern socialist society that serves the people throughout their lives. The revolutionary struggle was led by great leader Kim Il Sung and dear leader Kim Jong Il. Today leader Kim Jong Un follows their footsteps at the helm of the Party that is leading the drive to build a thriving socialist republic.
    The ballistic missile test and the Democratic Korean nuclear missile programme as a whole are defensive responses to decades of American threats, provocations and sanctions, and an intensifying US-led build-up toward war.
    Everybody knows that the Americans have surrounded the DPRK with a nuclear-armed armada. Every year the US imperialists and their south Korean lackeys hold war-games in the occupied south that simulate an invasion of Democratic Korea, and everyone knows that it has been the Americans who have ratcheted up tension on the Korean peninsula with the deployment of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) missiles that clearly threaten the security of Russia and People’s China.
    The DPRK has had no choice but to develop its nuclear energy programme and its own independent nuclear deterrent. The DPRK threatens no one. Its enemies are close by. United States nuclear-armed warships are stationed off the Korean coast and thousands of US troops are in the south of Korea as well as in Japan.
    US imperialism’s military and diplomatic ‘pivot,’ or ‘rebalance’ toward Asia is simply a cover for a new bid to control both sides of the Pacific Rim and extend American hegemony throughout Asia. US imperialism can never forgive the DPRK for being the first country since the Second World War to defeat it on the battlefield, setting an example for all people fighting for independence and self-determination.
    The Americans and their south Korean lackeys are working constantly to try to isolate the DPRK and the movement for national reunification. Peace campaigners and trade unionists have been jailed under south Korea’s fascist National Security Law — and the joint US—south Korean military exercises aimed at invading the DPRK take the Korean peninsula ever closer to a cataclysmic nuclear war.
    US imperialism wants to perpetuate the division of Korea and ultimately to extinguish socialism in the Korean peninsula. We must stand by the DPRK and condemn the imperialist aims and threats.

New Worker editorial
7th July 2017