Prospects for peace in Korea

by New Worker correspondent

Michael Chant speaks

Comrades gathered at the Marx Memorial Library on 1st July in solidarity with Democratic Korea at a meeting organised by the Friends of Korea committee. Their main priority was to assess the prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula in the wake of the historic Singapore summit between Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US president Donald Trump.

Michael Chant of the RCPB(ML) opened the meeting, saying that the new relations between the USA and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) were most welcome and “have vindicated the stand of the DPRK in maintaining the peace, and show the strength of the nationhood of the Korean people”.

Up to now “the default position has been the use of violence by the USA and NATO in attempting to control the world and establish hegemony,” based on “nuclear blackmail, that only some must have nuclear weapons.”

Chant expressed the hope “that the 65th anniversary of the Armistice Agreement on July 27 1953 might be the occasion for the signing of a peace treaty!”.

Dermot Hudson, representing the Korean Friendship Association (KFA), said that he had been told by Alejandro Cao de Benós, president of the KFA, that US diplomats had approached DPRK embassies in many countries “begging for talks”, after 12 rounds of US sanctions, including those on second countries, “had achieved nothing and become a joke”.

But he warned that there were many enemies of the peace talks in the USA and danger that the USA could well introduce new demands to the talks, such as ending the DPRK’s civil nuclear power programme. Calling for a stepping up of actions in Britain to defend Democratic Korea and the Juche system, Hudson called the Singapore summit “a great victory for Democratic Korea and the astute tactics of Marshal Kim Jong Un”.

Theo Russell from the New Communist Party (NCP) pointed out that the current peace process had begun with Kim Jong Un’s call for the DPRK to take part in the Winter Olympics, where exchanges took place leading to the inter-Korean summits.

He said that in the past the USA had achieved peace deals with the Soviet Union, Vietnam and Cuba, the cancellation of the Iran agreement showed Trump’s unreliability and that he is a maverick, and that clear divisions within US ruling class meant that there was a strong chance of failure to agree a deal.

But he added that “everyone in this room would dearly love to see an agreement establishing peaceful relations between the USA and DPRK, and all the positive developments coming out of that for the people of Korea”.

Speaking for the Socialist Labour Party (SLP), John Tyrell said he was proud that through the efforts of a few people SLP members understand the need to support the DPRK and for the re-unification of Korea.

He said that the DPRK had learned the lessons of countries like Libya and Iraq, which were crushed after agreeing to disarm, but that if genuine peace and equal relations could be established between the DPRK and the USA it would be a major step for world peace.

The meeting ended by adopting a message of congratulations to Kim Jong Un, to the people of the DPRK and to the whole Korean people, on the historic successes achieved in safeguarding peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.