US Troops Out of Korea! No to US Nuclear Blackmail! Korea Is One!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

9th Anniversary of Historic North-South Joint Declaration:
US Troops Out of Korea! No to US Nuclear Blackmail! Korea Is One!

Joint Letter to Comrade Kim Jong Il

Public Meeting: The Present Situation in the DPRK

CPRK Secretariat Releases Detailed Report on Truth about Death of Roh Moo Hyun

For Your Reference:
Text of June 15, 2000, North-South Joint Declaration

The signing of the North-South Joint Declaration in Pyongyang on June 15, 2000, between National Defence Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and President Kim Dae Jung of the Republic of Korea (ROK) marked an historic turning point in the Korean people's long march toward the reunification of their divided country. It signalled a new and irreversible phase in the Korean people's struggle on the road to reunification through their own efforts by setting aside political differences, peacefully, and without outside interference. The June 15 North-South Joint Declaration is also a document that belongs to all the peoples of the world who are striving for a world free of Anglo-American imperialist domination and war, and for each nation to be able to affirm its independence and sovereignty and enjoy peaceful relations with every other nation.

            The significance of this landmark agreement cannot be appreciated without recognising that since 1945, it is the US imperialists who have been the main block to Korea being reunified. Over the last almost 60 years, first the US forcibly divided Korea by drowning in blood the Korean people's armed resistance against US occupation of the south following the Second World War. Next, the US established the ROK in 1948 to prevent reunification and establish a military and economic base. It was the US that fostered civil war and launched a war of aggression on the Korean peninsula from 1950-53 under the pretext of "protecting" the south from the north. Upon meeting defeat in the Korean War, the US constructed the concrete wall along the 38th parallel and entrenched itself politically and militarily in the south. Even today, the US brazenly interferes in the affairs of the Korean nation and people through the traitorous US-installed Lee Myung Bak regime in the south which has been conducting a campaign of persecution and terror against south Korea patriots and reunification activists, including the politically motivated discrediting of former south Korean President Roh Moo Hyun which is seen as one cause of his death. It was Roh, who supported reunification while in office and co-signed the October 4 Joint Agreement – Declaration for Development of North-South Relations and Peace and Prosperity – with Chairman Kim Jong Il of the DPRK.

            Furthermore, the US imperialists continue to uphold the disinformation that its military force of some 30,000 soldiers and numerous missiles and nuclear warheads, its nuclear weapons-armed warships, submarines and aircraft carriers are on south Korean territory to defend it against a nuclear attack from the north. None of this propaganda can hide the fact that the US has no business in Korea and has been on that peninsula for more than 60 years for self-serving geopolitical reasons of furthering its aim to dominate Asia and then the world.

            It is in this context that the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration must be appreciated as a profound mechanism based on the thought material and experience of the Korean nation which provides a guide for the more than 70 million Koreans to affirm their collective right to reunify their country by adhering to the principles of "By the Nation Itself", not permitting outside interference in the internal affairs of the Korean nation, and pursuing their national aspiration peacefully, through negotiations and dialogue.

            The singular achievement of the Korean movement for reunification has been its steadfastness and adherence to principle in spite of every effort of the US imperialists to sabotage it. From attempts to undermine the Six-Party Talks to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and place the blame on the DPRK, to outright interference in the North-South dialogue, to funding fraudulent human rights organisations operating in the DPRK, to enacting the equally fraudulent North Korea Human Rights Act to provoke "regime change" in the DPRK, to threatening the DPRK with a "pre-emptive" nuclear strike and the continued military occupation of the south, and the recent engineering of UN Security Council resolution 1874 which calls for more sanctions against the DPRK for its nuclear test on May 15 – none of this has diverted the Korean people from working together to achieve reunification.

            On June 12, the UN Security Council brought itself into further disrepute by passing the provocative resolution 1874 against the DPRK, ostensibly for its recent nuclear test. It is a resolution which no sovereign government worthy of the name would accede to. Amongst other things, it calls on "Member States to inspect and destroy all banned cargo to and from that country – on the high seas, at seaports and airports – if they have reasonable grounds to suspect a violation." The resolution makes unprincipled demands of the DPRK to unconditionally rejoin the Six-Party Talks, covering up the role of the US in sabotaging the Six-Party Talks time and time again so as to maintain US nuclear blackmail against all those opposed it its imperialist aims.

            Despite the obstacles, the Korean people have achieved successes in the last nine years which have been marked by great struggles and victories all of which have increased the collective confidence of the Korean people and strengthened their resolve to rid their nation of the US military occupation, and to achieve independent, peaceful reunification despite all obstacles. The US imperialists and their hirelings have not been able to crush the fighting spirit of the Korean people. The successes of the Korean people in their nation-building project have the full sympathy of all of humanity and represent a bulwark against US ambitions in the region, its preparations for fascism and war and its ultimate aim of dominating the world.

(source: The Marxist-Leninist, Daily on-line newspaper of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), June 15, 2009)

The following letter was sent to Kim Jong Il, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Chairman of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on June 11, 2009.

Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il,

            Our organisations participating in this seminar on the occasions of the ninth anniversary of the historic June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and the 45th anniversary of the start of your work at the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, send you our warmest congratulations and heartfelt best wishes.

            These occasions are a testament to your achievements in the field of Party-building, and in the historic task of re-unifying the Korean peninsula.

            The Workers’ Party of Korea is imbued with the humanity and concern for the whole society which you have embodied, and which serves to unite the people around the cause of independence and socialism, in contrast to the bestiality and brutality of imperialism which stands for war and reaction, and which is arousing the opposition of the whole of progressive humanity. Those who take up responsibility for revolutionary leadership are greatly to be cherished, and it is an immense testament to your qualities that you have taken up this responsibility within the Central Committee of the WPK for these 45 years.

            We express our firm solidarity with the entire Korean people, who desire above all else the reunification of their homeland and the end of tension and the danger of war on the Korean peninsula. The Joint Declaration of June 15, 2000, remains the way forward for the Korean people themselves to reunify their country, being a tremendous blow to the schemes of Anglo-US imperialism to keep the Korean nation divided.  It was a vindication of your far-sighted stand on the reunification of the one Korea, advancing further along the road laid down by President Kim Il Sung.  Despite the set-backs which have been caused by the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors to the Korean nation, the reunification movement has been striving to open the way for independent, peaceful reunification under the principle of: "By our nation itself". We in Britain will do all we can to contribute to building the movement for the peaceful reunification of Korea also.

            These are very dangerous times for the DPRK and the peoples of the entire world.  US imperialism, closely supported by the British government, has shown itself to be the worst violator of human rights in its quest for global hegemony and would even like to deny the Korean nation its right to exist.  We wish to emphasise that it is US imperialism which is the threat to world peace and security with its nuclear monopoly and aggressive policies.

            Our organisations express once again our admiration for your work and leadership, which inspires us to greater heights and to work harder. We regard the Korean people’s victories as our victories, as we struggle for the same ideals and against the same enemies. We assure our comrades in the DPRK and the Korean people that we fight shoulder to shoulder with them in their struggles now and in the future also.

            With warmest fraternal regards,

Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
European Regional Society for the Study of the Juche Idea
UK Korean Friendship Association
New Communist Party of Britain
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
Socialist Labour Party

The peoples of the world, including the Korean people and their leadership, desire a nuclear-free world and an end to all nuclear threats. However, the US is the main threat to world peace and security with its nuclear monopoly and aggression. This meeting is being held to oppose the disinformation about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and support the movement for the peaceful reunification of Korea. We invite everyone who is interested in the reality of the DPRK to come along and participate.

 

Marx House, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1R 0DU
Access by public transport: Underground: Farringdon on Circle, Hammersmith & Metropolitan lines;
British Rail: Thameslink, Farringdon; Buses: 55, 63, 243, 259

Saturday, June 27, 2009, 3.00pm

With a panel from Friends of Korea who will lead discussion on and answer questions about the DPRK.

All welcome! Hands Off Korea! Part of the month of solidarity with the DPRK marked internationally.

Organised by Friends of Korea (tel: 07764288678 or 07899974525)

The Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea released a detailed report on June 9 on the truth about the death of Roh Moo Hyun, former "president" of south Korea.

            According to the detailed report, Roh's death was not a suicide but a politically motivated, premeditated and deliberate terror and murder orchestrated by the United States and the pro-American conservative forces of south Korea.

            A prelude to the operation for "killing Roh Moo Hyun" started already during the "presidential election" in 2002. This operation got evermore undisguised with his visit to Pyongyang and the publication of the historic October 4 declaration in 2007 as a momentum and entered the phase of its full implementation after the conservative group came to power with the "regime" change last year.

            The Lee Myung Bak group was so keen on the extreme political revenge that it pressurised Roh to pay for the past decade when the "power" was in the hands of the progressive forces. It had gone mad with the operation to "kill Roh Moo Hyun", overturning everything achieved in the period of the former "regime" and purging en masse those related to the "government for people", etc.

            A plot hatched by the Lee group was to brand Roh and his close associates as "forces behind" candlelight demonstrations.

            The group […] failed to secure any evidence to label them "forces behind" candlelight demonstrations.

            When the above-said operation repeatedly proved futile, the group hatched a fresh plot to use irregularities and corruption as the last charge for dealing a fatal blow on him.

            At the special instructions of traitor Lee Myung Bak more than ten confidants of Roh Moo Hyun and his wife, children, brother-in-law, niece's husband and others were taken to the prosecution one after another to be subject to intensive questioning. Later, even Roh was taken to Seoul under escort from Kimhae. He was questioned day and night at the "Supreme Prosecutor's Office".

            The puppet prosecution […] deliberately made known the information about the case to the "Grand National Party" and media, though it remained unconfirmed at that phase of the investigation, thus perpetrating all sorts of personal libels against Roh and bringing disgrace to him. […] Unable to endure such feelings of being scorned, Roh finally killed himself as a manifestation of his being cursed and his resistance.

            The United States had long kept him on the "list of those to be killed", regarding him as undesirable person. Roh thus fell victim to the US policy for colonial domination as he stood in the way of implementing it.

            His death caused by the group of traitors was a politically-motivated sinister retaliation against the forces standing for independent reunification through alliance with the north and an unprecedentedly brutal violence to scrap the inter-Korean declarations and stifle the forces supporting them, the report said, declaring that the entire nation will surely make the Lee Myung Bak gang of man-killers to pay for the never-to-be-condoned crime.

(Korean Central News Agency)

True to the noble will of all the fellow countrymen for the peaceful reunification of the country, Chairman Kim Jong Il of the National Defence Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and President Kim Dae Jung of the Republic of Korea had a historic meeting and summit in Pyongyang from June 13 to 15, 2000.

            The heads of the North and the South, considering that the recent meeting and summit, the first of their kind in history of division, are events of weighty importance in promoting mutual understanding, developing inter-Korean relations and achieving peaceful reunification, declare as follows:

1. The North and the South agreed to solve the question of the country's reunification independently by the concerted efforts of the Korean nation responsible for it.

2. The North and the South, recognising that a proposal for federation of lower stage advanced by the North side and a proposal for confederation put forth by the South side for the reunification of the country have elements in common, agreed to work for the reunification in this direction in the future.

3. The North and the South agreed to settle humanitarian issues, including exchange of visiting groups of separated families and relatives and the issue of unconverted long-term prisoners, as early as possible on the occasion of August 15 this year.

4. The North and the South agreed to promote the balanced development of the national economy through economic cooperation and build mutual confidence by activating cooperation and exchanges in all fields, social, cultural, sports, public health, environmental and so on.

5. The North and the South agreed to hold dialogues between the authorities as soon as possible to implement the above-mentioned agreed points in the near future.

            President Kim Dae Jung cordially invited Chairman Kim Jong Il of the DPRK National Defence Commission to visit Seoul and Chairman Kim Jong Il agreed to visit Seoul at an appropriate time in the future.