An outstanding Korean leader

By New Worker correspondent

Millions of communists in Korea and all over the world recalled the outstanding achievements of dear leader Kim Jong Il at events to mark the 5th anniversary of his passing on 17th December 2011 last weekend.

London Korean solidarity activists, including NCP leader Andy Brooks, presented floral tributes during a ceremony at the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) embassy in London on Saturday 17^th December hosted by the new ambassador Comrade Choe Il. Other bouquets were laid by Michael Chant and Chris Coleman from the RCPB(ML) and Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association (KFA).

Following in Kim Il Sung’s footsteps, Kim Jong Il led the Workers Party of Korea into the 21st century to build a strong and prosperous democratic republic. Kim Jong Il was a leading Marxist thinker who made an important contribution to modern communist theory, as well as an astute statesman who led the Korean people through thick and thin to overcome natural disasters, imperialist blockade and diplomatic isolation.

Kim Jong Il made an immense contribution to Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology. In his 1982 work On the Juché Idea, Kim Jong Il brought together and systematised the Juché theory; his 1994 thesis Socialism is a Science affirmed that socialism would eventually become the economic system of the entire world because it is the only form of society in which people can be truly free.

Kim Jong Il worked tirelessly to ease tension on the Korean peninsula to pave the way towards the peaceful reunification of Korea whilst at the same time ensuring the DPRK’s defence against the threats and provocations of US imperialism and its lackeys.

On 15th June 2000 dear leader Kim Jong Il and President Kim Dae Jung of south Korea signed the historic North–South Joint Declaration. This was an historic landmark in the struggle of the Korean people to reunify their homeland that had forcibly been divided by the US imperialists following the Second World War. The Declaration opened up a new era for independence, peace, reconciliation and reunification on the Korean peninsula until the US-sponsored anti-national and anti-communist Lee Myung Bak clique in the south began to sabotage its spirit and principles.

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. Its revenge continues unabated to this day.

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 whilst the joint US–south Korean military exercises aimed at invading the DPRK take the Korean peninsula ever closer to a cataclysmic nuclear war.

The DPRK has had no alternative but to develop a nuclear deterrent to defend its socialist system. At the same time it has pledged that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons, and it has also vowed never to threaten the use of nuclear weapons nor allow the transfer of nuclear technology to other countries.

Kim Jong Il was a great leader of the Korean people who devoted his entire life to serving the Korean people in the cause of building a human-centred society, a cause that is one espoused by the democratic and anti-imperialist forces the world over.