Under the Moscow agreement of December 1945, it had been agreed by Britain, the USA and the USSR that after its liberation from Japanese rule, Korea would become a unified, independent, democratic state. In violation of this agreement, the government of the USA took advantage of the provisional military occupation by the victorious powers to set up a regime in south Korea subservient to Washington. The USA poured money into south Korea together with weapons and military advisers.
In spite of the economic crisis that was beginning to make itself felt in the USA, 1,225 million dollars was invested in south Korea. The New Corea Company, whose assets were formerly owned by a Japanese trust, was floated and its shares marketed by the National City Bank. Among its assets, the New Corea Company claimed half the mines, railways,banks and arable land in north Korea!
The Oriental Consolidated Mining Company, also formerly Japanese but now in American hands, claimed ownership of the Unsan gold mines, also in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and said to be the richest in all Asia.
The President of south Korea was Syngman Rhee, a man who had spent 30 years in the United States and who had been brought back to south Korea to head the puppet government set up by the Americans. Syngman Rhee abolished the free press and liquidated the political opposition with brutal violence. In an interview with United Press, on 7th October 1949,
Syngman Rhee boasted that the South Korean army could take the north Korean capital of Pyongyang within three days. On the 1st November, the New York Herald Tribune reported that Syn Sung Mo, the south Korean War Minister had declared that his army was ready and waiting to push into north Korea. There had already been a considerable number of border
incidents.
At a conference with his divisional commanders in Seoul during October 1949 General Roberts, Chief of the American Military Mission in Korea, said: "Certainly there have been many attacks on the territory north of the 38th parallel on my orders, and there will be many others in the days to come ... From now on, the invasion by the land forces of the
territory north of the 38th parallel is to be carried out only on the basis of orders of the American military mission."
This is quoted in Thus Wars Are Made by Albert Norden, who also tells us that three months later, in January 1950, General Roberts announced: "The campaign against the north has been decided upon, and the date for carrying it through is not very far off." Documents of the Syngman Rhee government, captured during the subsequent occupation of Seoul by the Korean Peoples Army and published by the north Korean government, confirmed the systematic preparation of the invasion of north Korea from the south.
On the 14th March 1950 a correspondent of the New York Times named Sullivan reported from Seoul that 13 deputies of the National Assembly of douth Korea had been sentenced to imprisonment for periods ranging from one and a half to ten years for violations of the Security Act. Each was found guilty on five charges, of which the fourth was "opposing the invasion of North Korea by the South Korean forces."
In the south Korean elections of the 30th May 1950 Syngman Rhee suffered a crushing defeat and his support in the New National Assembly was reduced to less than a quarter of the seats. The overthrow of his hated regime seemed certain and its impending collapse was openly predicted. The general opinion was that only a victorious war could raise his prestige enough to save him.
Early in June 1950 Secretary of State Acheson's adviser, John Foster Dulles, who was a member of the board of directors of the National City Bank that had marketed the shares of the New Corea Company, appeared in south Korea. His photograph, taken on the border between south Korea and north Korea in the company of high American and south Korean officers by Associated Press on the 19th June, was flashed round the world. On that
same day, in an address to the South Korean National Assembly, Dulles prophesied that "the Communists will lose their rule over North Korea."
On the 20th June the Swiss paper, Zuricher Zeitung, said: "There is no lack of people in South Korea who see the solution of the problems weighing heavily upon the country in a military attack on the north. The Americans have outfitted 150,000 men with American
weapons, have put them under the command of American instructors, and have long been preparing for war."
While Dulles was in south Korea, the US Secretary for Defence, Lyndon B Johnson, and the Chief of the General Staff, Omar Nelson Bradley, were in conference in Tokyo at the headquarters of General MacArthur. On the 21st June, Dulles arrived in Tokyo from South Korea and after long talks with MacArthur told the press that he "prophesied positive action by the USA."
On the 25th June 1950, the day of the invasion of north Korea, John Gunther, the American writer, found himself in MacArthur's private railway car on a pleasure trip in the vicinity of Tokyo. MacArthur's chief political adviser was to have accompanied him but he had to cancel his plans as MacArthur needed him. He was replaced by two other high
officers who accompanied Gunther. According to Gunther, one of them was "unexpectedly called to the telephone just before dinner." When he returned, he told Gunther: "A tremendous story is just coming out. The south Koreans have attacked North Korea."
This was confirmed by General MacArthur himself on the 30th July,When he told press correspondents assembled at his headquarters in Tokyo: "When the war began on the 25th June, the North Korean army had not carried out its mobilisation plan. Only six divisions were ready, although the North Korean plans call for 13 to 15 divisions in case of
war." It had been reported by field observers of the United Nations on the 24th June, a few hours before hostilities had begun, that "no reports have been received of any unusual activity by North Korean forces that would indicate any impending change in the general situation along the frontier." But officers of the South Korean forces captured after the outbreak of war insisted that on that particular day, their regular Saturday leave had been cancelled and that on the following day they had been ordered to begin "the full phase of the attack north of the 38th parallel."
Kim I Sek and some other south Korean leaders were captured at the very beginning of the war. They gave valuable information. A number of documents were also captured which showed quite clearly that the south Koreans, backed by the Americans, were the aggressors. According to Kim I Sek, the final instructions given to Syngman Rhee by Dulles went as
follows: "Start the aggression against the north, accompanied by a counter-propaganda on the grounds that the North has invaded the South first. If you can but hold out for two weeks, everything will go smoothly, for during this period the United States, by accusing North
Korea of attacking South Korea, will compel the United Nations to take action, in whose name land, naval and air forces would be mobilised."
The invasion started in the early hours of the 25th June. According to a captured front-line officer, Lieutenant Han Su Whan, formerly of the 17th Regiment of the south Korean army: "Though the 24th was a Saturday, officers of the regiment were not allowed to go out; they were ordered to be on the alert. We all stayed up that night in tense mood, and by daybreak of the 25th a secret order reached us from Headquarters to launch an attack on the region north of the 38th parallel line. All the units which had launched the sudden attack from the Ongjin area broke through the 38th parallel line, and their advance covered from on to two kilometres ... Soon after we launched our attack, we were confronted by a fierce counter-offensive of the Constabularies of the People's Republic ... We, who had been so proud of being equipped with American arms of ultra-modern type, collapsed immediately everywhere before the Constabularies of the People's Republic; even the 53 rocket guns we had were of no use.
In his book New Light on Korea D.N. Pritt wrote: "Within eight hours of the first news of the hostilities reaching Washington, the Security Council was summoned ... Its members were called from their sleep at 3 a.m and twelve hours later, in the absence of the Soviet representative, and of any representative of China (the nominee of the defeated bandit Chiang Kaishek still sitting in China's seat), they had passed what appeared to be a resolution of the Security Council."
According to the Charter of the United Nations, all five permanent members of the Security Council had to concur before any resolution could be said to be valid. The representative of the USSR, objecting in principle to China's being represented by the nominee of a government that had ceased to exist, did not attend. The resolution was, therefore, totally void. It nevertheless condemned "the invasion of the Republic of Korea by armed forces from North Korea" and recommended its members to give military aid to South Korea.
In reaching its decision the Security Council neither asked the DPR Korea to give its version of the outbreak of hostilities nor took into consideration its claim that the aouth Koreans were the aggressors. On the 2nd July, the Observer boasted: "The Security Council, overnight, was transformed into the executive authority of non-Communist world opinion," adding that it had "suddenly begun to work as it was intended to work." On the same day, the West Berlin Telegraf told its readers that South Korea, which it described as "the last corner of democratic freedom on the Chinese mainland," had been subjected to "the cowardly attack of Communism."
In a statement made on behalf of the Soviet government on the 4th July, Gromyko accused the Security Council of "acting not as a body invested with the main responsibility for the maintenance of peace, but as an instrument employed by the US ruling circles with the object of unleashing war." Unlike the USA, whose President was already threatening to occupy Formosa and the nominally independent Philippines, as well as sending a military mission to Indo-China and calling for a crusade against every socialist country in the world, the USSR remained calm.
Within three days of the outbreak of war, the People's Army of the DPR Korea had driven back the south Korean invaders and liberated Seoul. But the Americans had anticipated this possibility and had already landed three infantry divisions, one armoured division and one marine division in south Korea. This was, of course, in violation of all international agreements. On the 26th and 27th June, the US forces bombarded north Korean cities and villages, shot up harbours and landed transports under the protection of the Pacific Fleet and the Seventh Fleet, which pushed into north Korean territorial waters. On the 5th July, West German radio announced that the Americans had "rounded up the South Korean troops, who were retreating in panic, and brought them back into position." It was to be three years before the USA, with official losses of 25,000 dead and 100,000 wounded, were forced to agree to an armistice.
The people of the USA and of Korea paid for the war with their lives but the industrial-military complex of the USA reaped its profits in dollars. The industrialists of West Germany also raked in the dollars. In 1950 West Germany increased its exports to the USA from 46.5 million dollars to 102.4 million dollars; and in 1955 its exports to the USA reached 356.3 million dollars. This was the basis of the post-war recovery of the Federal Republic of Germany, then being described as an economic miracle.
The Chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer, used the Korean conflict to create a German army in secret, without the knowledge even of his own government, but in conspiracy with the rulers of the USA. Like Hitler before him, he later justified this by repeatedly declaring that the purpose of the new German army was for the waging of a war against the east.
a revised extract from Churchill and the Bomb
No comments:
Post a Comment