Year 2005 No. 53, April 21, 2005 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBBOOKS | SUBSCRIBE |
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Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :
2005 DPRK State Budget Increases Funding to Secure People's Well-Being
DPRK Premier Reports to Supreme Peoples Assembly on Work of Cabinet
DPRK Rejects Resolution of UN Commission on Human Rights
Oppose US Secret Plans to Build Military Capability for "Contingencies" on Korean Peninsula!
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The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the 3rd Session of the 11th Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) held on April 11 received a report from Minister of Finance Mun Il Bong, which outlined the results of the implementation of the state budget for 2004 and presented the budget projections for 2005.
Finance Minister Mun noted that in 2004 it was decided to increase the state budget for military spending in order to strengthen the defence capability of the DPRK against war threats by the United States. He pointed out that the 15.6 per cent of the total budget allocated to military spending was to ensure that the dignity and sovereignty of the country would be secured. At the same time, 41.3 per cent of the total state budget was allocated to building the national economy and 40.8 per cent was allocated to social and cultural projects in order to "develop the nation's economy and successfully carry out socialist cultural construction. Mun stated that the 2004 state budgetary expenditures were implemented at 99.3 per cent of the target.
The Minister also presented the budget projections for 2005 in order to keep the balance between revenue and expenditure to sufficiently finance the general march for the Songun revolution led by the Workers' Party of Korea. Overall, there is an increase in the budget of 15.1 over the previous year. This increase in the state budget will mainly be secured through increased profits from state-run enterprises in both heavy and light industry, as well as from the agricultural cooperatives. Military spending will only increase slightly to 15.9 per cent of the whole budget "with a view to bolstering the People's Army, developing the defence industry and implementing to the letter the Party's policy of arming the people and turning the whole country into a fortress" to repel any war of aggression against the DPRK. The 2005 budget will also allocate funds for capital construction and to "spruce up" Pyongyang as well as other urban and rural centres.
The DPRK government is also increasing the budget for science and technology by 14.7 per cent over last year aimed at speeding up the modernisation of the economy to meet the people's needs. There is also an increase of 10.3 per cent to increase the country's capacity to ensure that all its citizens have free health care and education.
The 2005 budget will provide a large increase in funds for Korean children living in Japan by assisting the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon) to develop and safeguard their national culture and education. This is a measure that the DPRK has taken since its inception in 1948 to provide financial and material assistance to their Korean compatriots living in Japan.
The KCNA report concludes that the tasks facing the Korean people this year are formidable and wide-ranging. However, it expresses confidence that by uniting together under the leadership of the Workers Party of Korea, and by building their military capability, as well as developing their independent national economy, the people will achieve their aims and emerge victorious.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, Pak Pong Ju, premier of the DPRK Cabinet, delivered a report on April 11 to the Supreme Peoples Assembly reviewing the work of the Cabinet in 2004 and its tasks for 2005. According to the report, last year the Cabinet administered economic affairs with main stress on radically boosting the electricity, coal and metal industries and the railway transport and rejuvenating the production in all sectors of the national economy including light industry and agriculture, and stepped up the work of reconstructing and modernising the national economy on the basis of modern science and technology.
The US imperialists, the Premiers report said, were so base as to suspend even the supply of heavy fuel oil to our country last year, though they were committed to it as compensation. But industrial fields boosted the production on major indices.
The electricity production went up 50 percent as against 2002. The Musan Mining Complex, in particular, increased the production of concentrated ore 90 percent as against the previous year. The Kusong Machine Tool Factory has been technologically updated and great successes have been registered in the reconstruction and modernisation of the Rakwon Machine Complex, the Huichon Machine Tool Factory and other machine factories and the March 26 Factory.
Operation has been on normal track at major mines and smelteries. The construction of the Taean Friendship Glass Factory has made rapid progress.
Many successes have been made in the chemical and electronics industries and railways and marine transport. A large deposit of iron ore was discovered in the Musan area and a Juche-based iron-making method and the technology of producing magnesia clinker by use of anthracite have been developed and introduced to production. These are spectacular successes made in the efforts to consolidate the foundation of the independent industry.
Successes were also achieved in agriculture, fisheries, light industry and land management last year.
The main tasks facing the economic fields this year, Pak Pong Ju continued, are to decisively settle the food problem, true to the Party's plan and intention, and dynamically push forward the work of reconstructing and modernising the national economy as required by the new century and, at the same time, put the overall industrial production on a higher level on the basis of the existing solid production foundation.
Agriculture is the main front in the socialist economic construction this year, he said. He reported that it is also necessary to direct sustained big efforts to those sectors which play the role of a pilot for the national economy while stepping up the work to reconstruct and modernise it so as to settle the problems of fuel, power and iron and steel and the problem of transport and effect a new surge in the overall industrial production on this basis.
Pak Pong Ju reviewed the operation of power generation, as well as iron and steel production and transport.
The Premier stressed that it was imperative to conduct external economic activities to suit the changed environment and, at the same time, bring the quality of the second and third processing goods in great demand to the world's level by use of raw materials and resources rich in the country in a bid to positively explore foreign markets. Effective economic cooperation should be pursued with other countries in the direction of introducing advanced science and technology.
He also reviewed that it was necessary to study and perfect the new socialist economic management system and method to suit the new circumstances and conditions and, for the present, continue energetically pushing forward the drive to boost the economy of the country with main emphasis on the state enterprises as required by the socialist planned economy in all sectors of the economy.
All the economic guiding officials and managing officials of the factories and enterprises should work out scientific management strategy, business strategy, organise production and business activities as desired by the people and in keeping with the specific conditions, while thoroughly adhering to the socialist principle and the principle of ensuring profitability, and make tangible contributions to rounding off the socialist economic management method of our style, the Premier said.
He also referred to effecting a new turn in the spheres of education, culture, public health and sports, and that the revolutionary soldier culture of the People's Army should be displayed to the full throughout the society.
A "resolution" malignantly slandering the DPRK was adopted at the 61st meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights held in Geneva recently. In this regard, a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry released a statement April 20 declaring that human rights precisely mean national sovereignty and the DPRK will take a decisive measure against the continued misuse of the human rights issue as leverage for the anti-DPRK hostile campaign.
The DPRK will never recognise the "resolution", which groundlessly slandered it over the non-existent "human rights issue", and bitterly and categorically rejects it as part of the moves of the hostile forces to isolate and stifle it, the statement noted, and continued:
Like last year's, the recent "resolution" is peppered with poisonous articles and misinformation some dishonest forces of the world community have long cooked up to tarnish the image of the system in the DPRK and put pressure on it. It has reached the acme of politicisation and selectivity.
The "resolution" is chiefly aimed to overthrow the system in the DPRK.
It is well known that the United States has regarded the human rights issue as well as the nuclear issue as main leverage to escalate the tension on the Korean Peninsula and isolate and stifle the DPRK.
In its annual "report on human rights situation", the US has malignantly slandered the DPRK and other countries. Worse still, it adopted even the "North Korean Human Rights Act", spending a huge amount of money for its anti-DPRK campaign over the human rights issue and plugging its allied forces and even non-governmental organisations into the campaign.
The adoption of the recent "resolution", too, was one more sinister hostile act perpetrated by Western countries including Britain and Japan which have zealously joined the US in the moves to stifle the DPRK at its instigation.
It is a politically motivated document, a clear indication of the high-handed practice of the West keen on applying selectivity and double standards in dealing with the human rights issues.
What is urgent for resolving the present world human rights issues is quite clear to everyone.
If the UN Commission on Human Rights is to properly discharge its mission, it is urgent to focus the debate on the US above all.
The US is chiefly to blame for human rights abuses and crimes against humanity as it is beset with poor human rights performances at home and has committed massacres of civilians and maltreatment of POWs in such illegal wars of aggression as the Iraqi war. Such being hard facts, the recent meeting mentioned no word about the US, the world's worst violator of human rights. It only attacked those progressive countries which have independently advanced contrary to the ideology of the West.
This eloquently proves that the commission allegedly handling human rights issues in the international arena has miserably played into the hands of those forces seeking a sinister political purpose in the human rights issue.
The recent adoption of the "resolution" once again proved the truth that the human rights precisely mean national sovereignty. For anyone to talk about national sovereignty and dignity without any strength to protect oneself is nothing but an empty talk. We are convinced of this through our past history and our practice today.
The DPRK has invariably maintained the principle of reacting with the toughest stand to anyone who dares slander and provoke it. Those countries which took the lead in seeking the adoption of the "resolution" hostile to the DPRK should clearly understand this and act with discretion.
In particular, we will certainly force Japan to pay for having brought the already settled "abduction issue" to Geneva for its inclusion in the "resolution" and kicked up an anti-DPRK racket.
Japan has not yet made any apology and compensation for the hideous crimes perpetrated against humanity in the past. It is, therefore, not qualified to be a leading member of the international community of good virtue and faith, much less having the face to talk about the human rights issue.
The human-centred socialism in the DPRK under which people are regarded as dearer than anything else and everything is made to serve them is a happy home to its people as it provides them with genuine freedom and rights.
The US and its allied hostile forces should know that their despicable anti-DPRK human rights racket is as foolish an act as trying to sweep the sea with a broom. Such acts will only harden the determination of the army and people of the DPRK to protect their ideology and system at the cost of their lives.
(Korean Central News Agency, April 20, 2005)
On April 8, south Korean news sources revealed that the US military has stockpiled an enormous quantity of war supplies in south Korea to prepare for "contingencies" on the Korean peninsula a thinly disguised threat of war against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The Korean Broadcasting System said that a large stockpile of some 600,000 tons of bullets, bombs, nuclear missiles and other weapons have been placed in various US military bases in south Korea for immediate use in the event of "possible instability in north Korea". It was also reported in the south Korean press on April 6 that the US nuclear submarine Los Angeles had entered a naval base in Jinhae, south Korea for joint military exercises.
These acts of aggression violate the collective right to the security and the well-being of not only the Korean people but also the peoples of Asia and the world. They violate all the treaties and agreements made between the US and the DPRK including the Armistice Agreement and the Agreed Framework of 1994. These acts prove that the Bush administration's claim that it does not intend to start a war with the DPRK is a lie. The claim that the Bush administration is dedicated to finding a peaceful solution to the "nuclear crisis" on the Korean peninsula (a problem created entirely by the US) is a lie. By "finding a peaceful solution, the US means that the Korean people and their governments, especially the DPRK government, should surrender their sovereignty to the US. Should they fail to do so, they will be held responsible for any war which the US unleashes against them. It is the logic of gangsters.
The situation is so dangerous that on April 15 the south Korean government demanded that the US stop formulating a "military contingency plan" for "possible instability in north Korea". The National Security Council of south Korea has asked the Korea-US Forces Command (CFC) to scrap an operational plan, code-named "OPLAN 5029-05", which would enable the US military to take over military operations in the event of a "contingency" that arose with the DPRK. The south Korean government stated that such plans violated "its sovereignty and ability to ensure peace on the Korean peninsula". The government of the DPRK has justly stated that in the face of these threats from the US and in defence of its sovereignty and independence, it will continue to build its deterrent force. It has reiterated its right to use nuclear weapons.
In related news, a commentary in the April 20 issue of Minju Joson said that the key point of "OPLAN 5029-05" is that the US and south Korea would play the main role in openly inducing a war on the Korean peninsula. "Herein lies the grave nature of this war scenario against the DPRK. According to it, the south Korea-US 'combined forces command' will undertake all actions from working out detailed plans to carrying out operations. Under the previous plans, the US Pacific Command was to mainly take charge of military operations and actions. So, the 'OPLAN 5029-05' is an adventurous scenario aimed at the provocation of a Korean war by the 'combined forces command' any time, and it is a very dangerous document allowing a pre-emptive attack on the DPRK in a short time," the commentary said.
"The plan has made it all the clearer that the US harbours in actuality the sinister intention to stifle the idea and system of the DPRK, though it freely uses phrases such as 'peaceful solution to the nuclear issue' and 'resumption of the six-way talks.' Now that the US seeks to contain the DPRK by force, the army and people of the latter have no alternative but to put up a total rebuff."