Platform of the meeting in London to celebrate the
Day of the Sun, organised by the Co-ordinating
Committee of Friends of Korea, April 13, 2015 The
Co-ordinating Committee of Friends of Korea held a series of events marking the
103rd anniversary of the birth of the legendary leader of the Korean
revolution, Comrade Kim Il Sung (1912-1994). Friends of Korea upholds the
importance of developing the friendship and unity between the peoples of
Britain and the DPRK to counter the hostile stand of Anglo-US imperialism
towards the DPRK, and to expose the disinformation through information and
activities that promote our friendship and unity. To this end it organised a
friendship meeting on April 13 in London to foster that friendship with our
Korean friends and to provide information about the DPRK and President Kim Il
Sung.
The history of modern Korea is
inexorably linked to the contributions of legendary leader Kim Il Sung. At
every decisive moment in its history, Kim Il Sung provided leadership and
ensured that the necessary organisation was put in place to carry out the tasks
required.
Kim Il Sung was born into a
revolutionary peasant family in 1912, in the midst of the military occupation
of Korea by the Japanese imperialists (1905-1945). In his early years his
family moved between Korea and China. In June 1926, he was admitted to Hwasong
Uisuk School, in Huadian, China, where he organised the Down-with-Imperialism
Union (DIU) and was acclaimed its leader on October 17 the same year. Later,
while studying at the Jilin Yuwen Middle School, he reorganised the DIU into a
more mass-based organisation the Anti-Imperialist Youth League on August 27,
1927, and founded the Young Communist League of Korea on August 28. By the time
he was 18 years of age, he had already formed various mass organisations of the
Korean people and was leading the anti-Japanese struggle.
At a historic meeting in Kalun,
China June 30 to July 2, 1930, Kim Il Sung summed up the revolutionary
movement’s experience, specifically the necessity for the revolution to
be carried out on the basis of the Korean people’s social responsibility
to one another, in accordance with their own needs, experience and thought
material. He pointed out that all the problems arising in the revolution should
be solved independently and creatively by the Korean people themselves. Thus,
the Juche idea of self-reliance was first crystallised. The summation given by
Kim Il Sung at this meeting is also where the Songun or military-first idea of
national self-defence originated – that the revolution is pioneered,
advances and wins victory by strength of arms.
Kim Il Sung formed the first
Party organisation – the Society for Rallying Comrades – on July 3,
1930 in Kalun and organised the Korean Revolutionary Army, a political and
paramilitary organisation to make preparations for an anti-Japanese armed
struggle in Guyushu, Yitong County, China on July 6 the same year.
He formed the Anti-Japanese
People’s Guerrilla Army (later reorganised into the Korean People’s
Revolutionary Army), a standing revolutionary army on April 25, 1932 and led
the anti-Japanese armed struggle, employing guerrilla tactics that put the
Japanese on the run and ultimately defeated them, thus making a great
contribution to the defeat of the Axis powers in World War Two. The country was
liberated on August 15, 1945.
Shortly thereafter, Kim Il Sung
and his fellow revolutionaries formed the Central Organising Committee of the
Communist Party of North Korea and proclaimed the founding of the Party on
October 10, 1945. The Workers’ Party of North Korea would later emerge
from the union of the Communist Party and the New Democratic Party in August
1946.
After he returned to Korea, Kim
Il Sung was elected Chairman of the Provisional People’s Committee of
North Korea on February 8, 1946. At that time People’s Committees were
present all over Korea with the aim of reuniting the country, which had been
divided at the 38th parallel as a decision of the Moscow Conference of 1945
when the Soviet Union and the US agreed to receive the Japanese surrender and
hold Korea in “trusteeship” for five years and pave the way for
Korea to be handed back to the Koreans. This was resented by the majority of
Koreans who felt that they were quite capable of running their own affairs.
From 1945 to 1948, Kim Il Sung was active in leading the fight for Korean
independence in the face of the brutal campaign of terror the US was waging to
suppress the Korean independence movement and establish a permanent military
presence in south Korea to launch its wars of aggression. Hundreds of thousands
of Koreans perished or were imprisoned during this period. Fraudulent
“elections” were organised to install the Syngman Rhee puppet
regime in the south – all against the wishes of the Korean people.
The period following the US
partition of Korea at the 38th parallel was a time of grave danger for the
Korean people. The US was using the UN to organise a bogus election in south
Korea to entrench the division of Korea. To oppose these aims, Kim Il Sung
called a historic conference in Pyongyang April 19-23, 1948, which was attended
by political parties and organisations from the north and south including many
prominent political personalities from the south. At that Joint Conference of
Representatives of Political Parties and Public Organisations in North and
South Korea, he called on the entire Korean people in the south to rise up as
one to thwart the US imperialists’ plans to use the UN to orchestrate a
fraudulent election to establish a pro-US government in the south and divide
Korea into “two Koreas” permanently.
At this conference Kim Il Sung
reminded the delegates that the Korean people have a proud 5,000-year history,
that they liberated their country from Japanese imperialism through their own
efforts and that it is their sovereign right to establish a unified, democratic
Korea, by their own efforts, uniting under the banner of the nation, setting
aside political differences in order to secure the reunification and
independence of their divided country.
He organised another conference
of the Korean people in June that year to denounce the UN elections that were
carried out illegally against the will of the Korean people on May 10, 1948, in
the south and which installed the reactionary anti-communist Syngman Rhee as
President of the Republic of Korea (ROK), which was declared in August 15,
1948. At this second conference, plans were made to carry out elections to the
Supreme People’s Assembly of a united democratic Korea in September 1948
in which close to 80 per cent of the electors from the south and 99 per cent
from the north voted.
On September 9,
1948, the DPRK with its unified central government of the Korean people was
founded. This was done to guarantee the base for Korean independence,
reunification and self-determination. Kim Il Sung was elected Premier. He
organised the first democratic election and established the People’s
Assembly of North Korea where he was elected Chairman of the People’s
Committee of North Korea, the new central organ of state power, and set out the
tasks for the period of transition to socialism. Under his leadership, the
Korean People’s Revolutionary Army was transformed into the Korean
People’s Army (KPA), a regular revolutionary armed force, in February
1948. He called the Joint Plenary Meeting of the Central Committees of the
Workers’ Parties of North and South Korea on June 30, 1949, where he was
elected Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea.
The US refused to recognise the
sovereignty of the Korean people and undertook a campaign of mass terror and
violence against the patriotic forces in the south who had taken up arms to
liberate south Korea from US domination. It was Kim Il Sung who worked
tirelessly to inspire and lead the Korean reunification movement at this
critical juncture.
On June 25 1950, President Kim
Il Sung and the Korean people were forced by the US imperialists into the
Korean War. The US was overconfident about a quick victory over the nascent
DPRK. Despite the US military attack across the 38th parallel at dawn June 25,
1950 which began the war, Kim Il Sung and the KPA were prepared and able to go
on the counter-offensive moving steadily south. In a little over a month, the
KPA liberated 90 per cent of the territory of south Korea and 92 per cent of
its population.
The United States, attempting to
“encircle and annihilate” the KPA units, called the troops of 15
other countries including Britain to the Korean front, as part of an infamous
and illegitimate UN “police action”. In response, President Kim Il
Sung ordered the KPA to make a strategic and temporary retreat, thus keeping
the initiative.
The KPA, taking advantage of the
mountainous terrain of the country, developed tunnel warfare and employed a
wide range of tactics to frustrate and weaken the enemy forces. As Supreme
Commander, Kim Il Sung adapted to the ever-changing situation, ultimately
leading to the defeat of the US aggressors in July 1953, after three years of
bloody warfare in which an estimated four million Koreans were killed –
the vast majority civilians – by military massacres, napalm attacks,
carpet bombing, germ-warfare and other crimes. General Mark Clark, commander of
the US/UN forces, admitted in a surrender document that the KPA had emerged
victorious thanks to General Kim Il Sung’s command.
The US imperialists’ spirit
of revanchism and striving for global domination has meant that ever since the
end of the Korean War, the US has refused to sign a peace treaty while it has
continuously violated the Armistice Agreement. This means that technically
there is still a state of war on the Korean Peninsula which requires the DPRK
to expend great efforts to maintain the peace and make sure that never again
will the US be able to rain death and destruction by occupying all of Korea as
it attempted to do in the 1950s’ war. Meanwhile, the US has maintained a
brutal economic blockade, continued to garrison troops in south Korea as well
as various weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons. It has
committed innumerable acts of espionage, military provocations and war games
which continue to the present.
In the early 1960s, when the
situation worsened owing to US schemes to ignite a new war, President Kim Il
Sung made sure that the US did not achieve its aim of keeping Korea vulnerable.
He led the people to simultaneously push ahead with economic construction and
ensure that defence building projects were put in place while looking after the
people’s well-being. The military was further strengthened and modernised
and defence training provided to all citizens, thus turning the whole country
into a veritable fortress against foreign aggression.
From the time that Korea was
divided against the will and aspirations of the Korean people following their
defeat of the Japanese military occupiers of their country, Kim Il Sung
provided consistent, timely and decisive leadership, including advancing the
three principles of national reunification (May 1972), the Five Point Policy
for National Reunification (June 1973), the plan for founding a Democratic
Federal Republic of Koryo (October 1980) and the 10-Point Programme of the
Great Unity of the Whole Nation for the Reunification of the Country (April
1993).
The 10-Point Programme for
National Reunification was elaborated by President Kim Il Sung at the Supreme
People’s Assembly on April 6, 1993:
“1. A unified state,
independent, peaceful and neutral, should be founded through the great unity of
the whole nation.
“2. Unity should be based
on patriotism and the spirit of national independence.
“3. Unity should be
achieved on the principle of promoting co-existence, co-prosperity and common
interests and subordinating everything to the cause of national reunification.
“4. All political disputes
that foment division and confrontation between fellow countrymen should be
ended and unity should be achieved.
“5. The fear of invasion
from both south and north, and the ideas of prevailing over communism and
communisation should be dispelled, and north and south should believe in each
other and unite.
“6. The north and south
should value democracy and join hands on the road to national reunification,
without rejecting each other because of differences in ideals and principles.
“7. The north and south
should protect the material and spiritual wealth of individuals and
organisations and encourage their use for the promotion of great national
unity.
“8. Understanding, trust
and unity should be built up across the nation through contact, exchange visits
and dialogue.
“9. The whole nation,
north, south and overseas, should strengthen its solidarity for the sake of
national reunification.
“10. Those who have
contributed to the great unity of the nation and to the cause of national
reunification should be honoured.”
The Three Charters for national
reunification consist of the three principles of national reunification, the
ten-point Programme of the great unity of the whole nation and the proposal of
establishing the Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo.
The Three Charters have
reflected the actual conditions of the country and the nation’s unanimous
aspiration and demand for reunification and comprehensively covered and
systematised in an integral manner all the issues in realising national
reunification, i.e. the charters have defined the fundamental principles and
the driving forces for national reunification, clarified the mode and method of
the reunification and even gave a complete picture of the reunified state
including the ways of running the federal state and its administrative policy.
It makes the Three Charters a perfect charter for reunification in the true
sense of the word.
These principles and proposals
created the conditions for the signing in Pyongyang of the historic June 15,
2000, North-South Joint Declaration between Kim Jong Il, Chairman of the
National Defence Commission of the DPRK, and President Kim Dae Jung of the ROK.
The north-south joint
declaration opened a new era of national reunification movement by affirming
the core of the three principles for national reunification-the spirit of
national independence, the idea of by our nation itself and by achieving
national consensus, for the first time in history, at the summit-level on the
federal system as the way to achieve national reunification.
In the June 15 joint
declaration, the north and south recognised that the proposal by the north for
a low-stage federal formula and the one by the south for a confederal formula
had points in common and agreed to navigate the moves for reunification in this
direction.
This is the first method for
reunification common to the nation that was agreed between the north and south
in the history of national division marked with the traces of the vicious cycle
of mistrust and confrontation.
This historical agreement on
building a reunified state in the confederal formula is a great and historic
national asset that opened a prospect for achieving the grand national unity,
overcoming differences in the ideology, doctrine and systems and is the
practical proof of the righteousness and vitality of the Three Charters.
The joint declaration on the
development of the north-south relations, peace and prosperity issued at the
north-south summit on October 4, 2007 is a practical programme for national
unity since it is a comprehensive agreement reached at the summit level on the
development of the north-south relations, peace and common prosperity of the
nation embodying the idea of grand national unity of the Three Charters for
national reunification.
This practical programme gives
answers to all practical and immediate issues arising in achieving the great
national unity including the facilitation of the legal and institutional
mechanism to develop the north-south relations towards the reunification,
ending the military hostility, easing tension and maintaining peace on the
Korean peninsula, terminating the cease-fire state and establishing a durable
peace regime, developing the national economy in a balanced way, economic
cooperation for the common prosperity, consolidating national culture,
broadening humanitarian cooperation, securing the rights of the overseas
compatriots and so on.
In his 2015 New Year address,
Comrade Kim Jong Un stated that the north and the south should refrain from
seeking system confrontation while absolutising their ideology and system and
satisfactorily resolve the reunification issue in the common interests of the
nation transcending the differences in ideology as they had already agreed. He
has upheld that in order to achieve national reunification in line with the
desires and intentions of the nation, the Korean people have to reject foreign
interference and firmly maintain the stand of “By Our Nation
Itself”.
For these contributions to
building a modern Korea and leading and inspiring the Korean reunification
movement, and thus contributing to the independence of all nations,
self-determination of all peoples and peace, Kim Il Sung is owed a debt by the
Korean people and all humanity, a debt that will be paid when Korea is reunited
as a modern democratic state.
On the front of international
relations, far from permitting the DPRK to be isolated by the US imperialists,
President Kim Il Sung did his utmost to build links with the peoples of the
world on behalf of the Korean people. He met more than 70,000 foreign guests
including heads of state and government and party leaders, and paid official or
unofficial visits to 87 countries. In June 1994, he met former US President
Jimmy Carter in Pyongyang and created favourable conditions for the opening of
DPRK-US negotiations about the nuclear issue and for a north-south summit. His
life-long efforts lead to the establishment of diplomatic relations with most
countries of the world with the exception of the countries which committed
aggression against the DPRK during the Korean War. To date, the aggressor
states refuse to right historical wrongs or normalise relations on the basis of
upholding the principle of the right to self-determination.
In recognition of his
achievements, Kim Il Sung received more than 180 top decorations from more than
70 countries and international organisations, titles of honorary citizenship
from more than 30 cities and honorary academic degrees from 20 foreign
universities.
Kim Il Sung worked tirelessly
for the Party and the revolution, for the country and the people, for global
peace until the last moment of his life. Kim Il Sung died on July 8, 1994.
The great achievements of
President Kim Il Sung are reflected in the revolutionary spirit of the people
of the DPRK today in the work to build a bright future themselves, safeguard
their independence and reunify their country. At a time when the peoples of the
world are striving to defeat imperialism around the world, a great debt is owed
to President Kim Il Sung and the Korean people for the incalculable sacrifices
made to establish the DPRK which has been an implacable bulwark against US
imperialism, and to reunify Korea so as to guarantee peace on the Korean
peninsula, thereby contributing greatly to the peace and security of the region
and the entire globe.
We salute the immortal memory of
President Kim Il Sung!
Workers Weekly
