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