tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38349292079188532612024-03-13T11:52:49.411+00:00Friends of KoreaUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger289125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-81075340723813743022023-11-25T23:48:00.005+00:002023-11-25T23:49:16.166+00:00Yoon not welcome here!<div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZEJVUy5S-zbzmJyCCYsZ7BTShUegllppyAYZVLCFGaLbjiRSGg9YNd51qKX0Ex52FE6hYsuzh7TCBHewFzLTsXTr9WcpyYiT6W5wDG-stwEpNHnzdDX6rnziymPlu3Nx56KTS3zTxHH6qxUdFJs7GrXjwZ67zS59nqyTsdu_UrgOMzPYJfjrnuWnjj8/s4624/2231p10KFA.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2608" data-original-width="4624" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmZEJVUy5S-zbzmJyCCYsZ7BTShUegllppyAYZVLCFGaLbjiRSGg9YNd51qKX0Ex52FE6hYsuzh7TCBHewFzLTsXTr9WcpyYiT6W5wDG-stwEpNHnzdDX6rnziymPlu3Nx56KTS3zTxHH6qxUdFJs7GrXjwZ67zS59nqyTsdu_UrgOMzPYJfjrnuWnjj8/s320/2231p10KFA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>by New Worker correspondent</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b><span style="font-family: CG Times;">NCP leader Andy Brooks joined Korean solidarity campaigners protesting outside the south Korean embassy in London on Tuesday. Called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) the picketers were protesting at the presence of puppet south Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol who landed in Britain on Monday for talks with the British government.<br /><span> </span>Addressing the picket KFA Chairman Dermot Hudson said “Yoon is a cringeworthy puppet of the US who even sang the song American Pie to the senile US President 'Sleepy Joe' Biden!<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“South Korea itself is not a real country but a puppet regime created by US bayonets in 1945 .Since the 1940s south Korea has been ruled by successive fascist dictators such as Syngham Rhee , Park Chung Hee , Chun Do Hwan and now Yoon Suk Yeol. Many massacres were carried out such as the Jeju Island massacre (1948) which saw the deaths of 70,000 or 80,000 , the Bodo League massacre 1950 in which 200,000 people were killed and the Kwangju massacre of 1980 which saw 5,000 people slaughtered.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“Today , south Korea has the longest working hours in the world and and one of the highest suicide rates . This is the grim reality of the so-called 'human rights paradise' praised by the Western mainstream media”.</span></span></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-85834924654653826482023-10-31T23:56:00.001+00:002023-10-31T23:56:17.899+00:00 Defend Democratic Korea!<div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_WvkuZw52dJRl2BTeAN6LCItnTpI6tfLlCT5vwFNa4KDlNjUtaPL78R5Kzt6uxqKaTytdFOnL1a98z2v-nt6pRKzlr55YrSaX5R8mKEQlRy4Ow-lIlvjyOhC8PRNvdTHdQP61ALHw11gidM8A6a70bKf7PRxPpXoS8zs3pNRkNSvA6JhDZeDHG6uYMkc/s4624/2227picKFA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2608" data-original-width="4624" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_WvkuZw52dJRl2BTeAN6LCItnTpI6tfLlCT5vwFNa4KDlNjUtaPL78R5Kzt6uxqKaTytdFOnL1a98z2v-nt6pRKzlr55YrSaX5R8mKEQlRy4Ow-lIlvjyOhC8PRNvdTHdQP61ALHw11gidM8A6a70bKf7PRxPpXoS8zs3pNRkNSvA6JhDZeDHG6uYMkc/s320/2227picKFA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: CG Times;">by New Worker correspondent</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><br /></b>Despite bad weather the Korean Friendship Association (KFA UK) picketed the BBC HQ last weekend. London comrades and Korean solidarity campaigned protested at the ongoing bias of the BBC outside the heavily guarded Broadcasting House in central London.<br />Dermot Hudson , the KFA Chair denounced the BBC for making a programme in connivance with the south Korean ‘Daily NK’ far-right website pointing out that "If the BBC were right about the DPRK by now everyone in the DPRK would have starved to death in the DPRK not once but several times over!<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The BBC does not have reporters inside the DPRK . In fact the borders of the DPRK were closed in January 2020 . So the BBC has no access to people in the DPRK".<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Dermot Hudson also said that the DPRK has free health-care , free education and free housing but abolished taxation. He also pointed out that the DPRK is an anti-imperialist socialist country that is on the side of the people of the third world.</span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-51315581845225985852023-10-01T23:48:00.015+01:002023-10-01T23:56:38.341+01:00The Korean war: the first defeat for American imperialism <div style="text-align: left;"> <b><i><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid2RmuJJX6LXXMVWu6Y8az3AYNZpJcVPDVa7gEIuoLg1q4QtEYA4AktPtdyZmkMTWNRlJO8XAoK7TD2eJsT5iYrw6sp3cXoPPo6Oi-7bqzxhdfN6Hw86cwTw463EaBMBX0pwBbe8nth9MqfPxTIDVRIV3TCV35wqAICy_m1BhL3ypAqlvOiWvPQIJXrPE/s1440/2223Featspic3.webp" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1038" data-original-width="1440" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid2RmuJJX6LXXMVWu6Y8az3AYNZpJcVPDVa7gEIuoLg1q4QtEYA4AktPtdyZmkMTWNRlJO8XAoK7TD2eJsT5iYrw6sp3cXoPPo6Oi-7bqzxhdfN6Hw86cwTw463EaBMBX0pwBbe8nth9MqfPxTIDVRIV3TCV35wqAICy_m1BhL3ypAqlvOiWvPQIJXrPE/s320/2223Featspic3.webp" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: times;">A contribution to the Friends of Korea committee seminar held at the NCP Centre in July to commemorate the victory of the Korean people over US imperialism and its lackeys. </span></i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: times;"><i><br /></i>by Dermot Hudson</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b>J<span style="font-family: CG Times;">uly 27th 1953 was the day when the US imperialists finally admitted they could not militarily defeat the DPRK and signed the Korean Armistice Agreement which actually contained a clause stipulating the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the Korean peninsula. But the US reneged on this later. <br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Mark Clark the commander of US forces in the war wrote “in carrying out the instructions of my government, I gained the unenviable distinction of being the first United States commander in history to sign an armistice without victory.” and US General Bradley admitted that it was “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy”. These were the confessions of US commanders that they were defeated in the Fatherland Liberation War.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> The Fatherland Liberation War, known as the Korean war in the West, is sometimes referred to as the “Unknown War “. This is because the US was defeated and they wanted to cover up their defeat and also cover up the fact they provoked the war. The right-wing, anti-communist US military historian, Bevin Alexander, who himself had been a US army officer during the Korean war, said it was ‘the first war we lost’. Max Hastings, another right-wing historian, wrote that “many American career officers were dismayed by the precedent Korea established: the United States had failed to fight a war to a victorious conclusion”. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>However much the US tries to dress it up or downplay it, they suffered a total military disaster in Korea. The loss suffered by the US imperialists was nearly 2.3 times greater than what they had suffered in the four years of the Pacific War during World War II. Even according to the heavily doctored and downplayed statistics of the US military, the US lost more than 15 times as many troops in the three years of the war than in nearly 20 years of the Afghan war and nine times as many in 8 years of fighting in Iraq. <br /></span> The great leader Kim Il Sung said “In this great struggle our people fought determinedly as one in mind under the correct leadership of the party and government and thereby withstood the harsh trials of war honourably and won a historic victory inflicting an ignominious defeat on US imperialism and its running dogs”. <br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Some people attribute the Korean people’s victory to the internationalist assistance that was given to the DPRK from the People’s Republic of China and the former USSR believing that only big countries can make a difference or only big countries can solve problems. Of course, it needs to be stated that in fact, it was not just the big socialist countries that helped the DPRK but all the socialist countries. There was also a powerful solidarity movement with the DPRK waged in many countries including even the US. In fact, Italian-American congressman Vito Marcantonio, the sole member of the American Labour Party in Congress, voted against the war in the US Congress. In the UK the Communist Party of Great Britain and the <i>Daily Worker </i>opposed the war, as did some Labour MPs to their credit, like the famous Welsh MP S O Davies and Barking MP Tom Driberg. But the so-called left Labour MP Michael Foot supported it. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the oppressed colonial countries, the revolutionary peoples intensified their anti-imperialist struggles. In particular, the revolutionary forces of Malaya and Thailand stepped up their armed struggle. However, the best internationalist aid and assistance have no effect unless the revolutionary forces of a given country unite and wage a powerful struggle. History knows many examples of revolutions that were given unstinting assistance but came to nothing because the internal revolutionary forces were not strong enough and the quality of leadership was lacking.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> As Kim Il Sung pointed out “Even small countries can defeat big enemy, once they establish Juche, unite the masses of the people and valiantly rise in battle despite sacrifice. This is a very plain truth of our times which has been borne out by actual life."<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> During the Fatherland Liberation War, the Korean people fought in the spirit of self-reliance. During the first stage of the war the Korean People’s Army under the command of Kim Il Sung and entirely on its own liberated Seoul, the south Korean puppet capital on the third day of the war. The forces of the heroic KPA defeated the so-called "Invincible US 24th Division" on the 20th July 1950 at Taejon and took its commander General Dean prisoner. Dean was the first US general to be captured by an opposing side. Dean’s general’s pips and boots can be seen in the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang where you can also see a wonderful diorama of the battle of the Battle of Taejon. Within six weeks the KPA had liberated 90 per cent of the territory of south Korea and 92 per cent of the population. A truly amazing feat.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The US imperialists and reactionaries had made a big miscalculation and greatly underestimated the DPRK, the Korean People’s Army(KPA) and the Juche-based military tactics of the Korean communist leader, Kim Il Sung, who accumulated vast and unrivalled experience in the 15-year-long anti-Japanese armed struggle.<br /></span> Kim Il Sung employed unique Juche-based tactics during the Fatherland Liberation War. Based on the Juche idea that people are the masters, he attached importance to the decisive role of people rather than weapons during the war. Basically, he believed that the outcome of war is simply not decided by weapons but by those who hold those weapons.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span> Kim Il Sung initiated an immediate counter-attack on the aggressors when they provoked the war on the morning of the 25th June 1950. He called a cabinet meeting where he made a speech titled <i>Let Us Wipe Out the Invaders by a Decisive Counter-Offensive</i> and ordered the Korean People’s Army over to an immediate counter-offensive. Thus the KPA went over to an immediate counter-offensive pushing the south Korean puppets back. This was something unprecedented in the history of warfare! <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>During the Second World War, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France all fell to the invasion of Nazi Germany, seemingly powerless to resist let alone organise a counter-offensive. Even the Soviet Union in June 1941 was not able to go over to a counter-offensive immediately. By launching a counter-offensive quickly Kim Il Sung snatched away the advantage of surprise from the south Korean puppets and US imperialists.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The KPA under the command of Kim Il Sung also created other original tactics such as tunnel warfare. The DPRK later sent tunnelling advisors to Vietnam during their war against American aggression. An article by overseas Korean writer Han Ho Suk wrote that “North Korea's expertise in digging tunnels for warfare was demonstrated during the Vietnam War. North Korea sent about 100 tunnel warfare experts to Vietnam to help dig the 250 km tunnels for the North Vietnamese and Viet Gong troops in South Vietnam. The tunnels were instrumental in the Vietnamese victory”. Also, there was the original idea of opening a second front behind enemy lines, the creation of aircraft hunting and tank hunting teams and guerrilla warfare.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Revolutionary peoples of the world praised the DPRK’s victory in the Fatherland Liberation War. The Organisation of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America said “Under the superb leadership of Marshal Kim Il Sung and the People’s Army and the people of Korea who inherited the traditions of the glorious anti-Japanese armed struggle fought heroically and defeated US imperialism in defence of the liberty of the fatherland and the gains of the revolution, thereby making a great contribution to the anti-imperialist national liberation struggle of the peoples throughout the world and the struggle for peace in Asia and the world.” <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A Cuban Minister stated, “The firm position and confidence of the Korean people and their valour offer a model for the peoples of Vietnam, Cuba, the Congo and other countries of the world”.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Gaston Soumialot President of the supreme council of the Revolution of the Congo also wrote in 1968 "Marshal Kim Il Sung is widely known to the whole world as a gifted military strategist...The US imperialist aggressors who had been bragging about their so-called 'mightiness' in Korea scored a failure in Korea for the first time in their 114 wars of aggression”. And Field Marshal Costa Gomes, who had been president of Portugal after the 1974 ‘carnation revolution’ that ended the dictatorship, said that Kim Il Sung had thwarted all the plans that had been worked out by the US general and military policy makers.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>During the Fatherland Liberation War the mask of ‘civilisation ‘ and ‘humanity‘ was torn off the US and there were exposed as mass murderers and aggressors who even used biological and chemical weapons against the Korean people. The Korean war showed that there can be no ‘peaceful co-existence between imperialism and socialism and that there must be an uncompromising struggle against imperialism.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Although the guns fell silent on the 27th July 1953, there was never a permanent or binding peace treaty and the US still has troops in south Korea and has dispatched a nuclear submarine to south Korea. If the US provokes a war the US will suffer a second and a third ‘July 27’ and the Korean people led by respected Kim Jong Un will win and reunify the country!<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Glory to the Korean people and the KPA on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the victory in the great Fatherland Liberation War against the US imperialists!</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-54821151502701521892023-09-21T00:37:00.001+01:002023-09-21T00:37:25.172+01:00KIM AND PUTIN MEET IN RUSSIA<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP5mJLzfdYM4rYIPQWW9vA_JQQThGDCzG0FIMa69rvgoCTn0EH9YvFtiKLlct6aNGqlqc3ZoXXn1lJB3wDnk-iZ1BPe-WWC4CX5dzq6-XxL8le3q-cpWbDp9k-bN-Lc6pJCf_uRldkv2ZMDPodC5aO31YmlAId2Gc9HoF2TgXp_iN6jkRu6Eby0DNN63s/s5215/2221splashA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3210" data-original-width="5215" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP5mJLzfdYM4rYIPQWW9vA_JQQThGDCzG0FIMa69rvgoCTn0EH9YvFtiKLlct6aNGqlqc3ZoXXn1lJB3wDnk-iZ1BPe-WWC4CX5dzq6-XxL8le3q-cpWbDp9k-bN-Lc6pJCf_uRldkv2ZMDPodC5aO31YmlAId2Gc9HoF2TgXp_iN6jkRu6Eby0DNN63s/s320/2221splashA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> <b style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">by
New Worker correspondent</b></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #333333;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></b><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un held top-level talks with Vladimir Putin in Siberia last week. The DPR Korea leader travelled by train to meet Putin at the Vostochny cosmodrome in the Russian Far East after touring rocket assembly and launch facilities at the spaceport. This is Kim’s first trip abroad in four years and his second trip to the Russia Federation. Kim last visited Russia in 2019.</span></span><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;">At the space centre the leaders were taken on a tour of the Soyuz-2 space rocket launch facility and briefed on the progress in the assembly of a new Angara booster. They visited the installation and test facility, where one of the technical rooms was completely modernised for the assembly of the Angara rocket.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>Opened in 2016 the total area of the Vostochny (Eastern) space complex covers about 30 kilometres of land that includes a 28-metres-high launch structure, a command post, oxygen, as well as nitrogen and naphthyl technological units, and water storage tanks.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>The refuelling of launch vehicle tanks takes place from stationary oxygen, nitrogen, kerosene, and naphthyl units. The decision to run the filling hoses underground was made for safety reasons.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;">The Soyuz-2 command post building can withstand the impact of falling component stages of the launch vehicle, and the facility’s massive walls and ceiling are designed to protect personnel from a potential accident.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>Though Soyuz rockets are also launched at Plesetsk in Russia’s Far North and the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan the lifting capacity of the rocket to low orbits is nine tons if the booster is launched from the Vostochny spaceport. Soyuz-2 is a family of three-stage medium-class launch vehicles, developed and produced by the Progress missile space centre based in the Russian city of Samara.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>“I’m very glad to see you,” Putin told his guest, noting that this year marks 75 years of diplomatic relations with the Kremlin as well as north Korea's 75th founding anniversary and the 70 years since the armistice that ended the Korean war.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>"Your current visit is taking place in a truly comradely and friendly atmosphere," Putin said adding that Russia and the DPRK act in the name of peace, stability and prosperity in the region.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>"Our relations were founded during Korea’s struggle for freedom in 1945, when Soviet and Korean soldiers crushed Japanese militarists shoulder to shoulder. Even today we strive to strengthen the bonds of friendship and good neighbourliness. We act for the sake of peace, stability and prosperity of our common region," Putin said.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>Kim thanked his hosts and the Russian people for their very warm welcome saying "we felt the sincerity of our Russian friends from the moment we entered Russian territory,..o</span><span style="color: #333333;">ur friendship has deep roots, and the very first priority for our country now is relations with Russia”.</span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea believes that Russia is fighting a sacred fight for its sovereignty and security and the DPRK supports every decision Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government makes, the north Korean leader said during talks with his Russian counterpart.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;">"Now, Russia is fighting a sacred fight to protect its state sovereignty and security while combating hegemonic forces that oppose Russia,..we want to further develop ties [with Russia] Kim said adding that Democratic Korea would always be together with Russia in the fight against "imperialism”.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span> </span>When asked about cooperation with Democratic Korea in space, Vladimir Putin said that this is the very reason why they came to the Vostochny Cosmodrome. "The north Korean leadership is interested in rocket construction, they are also trying to develop space technologies," Putin said though there was “no particular hurry” to discuss these issues.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span><span style="color: #333333;"> Earlier Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the two leaders would discuss bilateral cooperation and "sensitive" issues, which he stressed "should not become the subject of any public disclosure or announcement".</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-29891814792957662852023-09-11T20:54:00.006+01:002023-09-11T20:56:04.314+01:00 Stepping stones to socialism<p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimFAtasr1JANc0iKpHnkmFvP4lp-PNN78_pG7Z5IVYW7807lTY9jcjzfQzfoj8M3X4_BPF6zHRh8hWZG0-Hs1-dWIodJ0eSBEFX4G-9PuiIjhY2cKw0jvfApWQcydIZqVGrMwgZF4mO-mSzXwO7VV9l3I6WsYdO4PnKqMfQXff1YN8rzG2IUTNEJ9jNQk/s4624/2220p10KFA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2608" data-original-width="4624" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimFAtasr1JANc0iKpHnkmFvP4lp-PNN78_pG7Z5IVYW7807lTY9jcjzfQzfoj8M3X4_BPF6zHRh8hWZG0-Hs1-dWIodJ0eSBEFX4G-9PuiIjhY2cKw0jvfApWQcydIZqVGrMwgZF4mO-mSzXwO7VV9l3I6WsYdO4PnKqMfQXff1YN8rzG2IUTNEJ9jNQk/s320/2220p10KFA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dermot Hudson and Andy Brooks</td></tr></tbody></table><b>by New Worker correspondent</b></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Friends of Korea met in London last weekend to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on 2nd September 1948. NCP leader Andy Brooks and Michael Chant from the RCPB (ML) were there along with other veteran campaigners and supporters of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) event at the Marchmont Centre in Bloomsbury on Saturday.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Opening the meeting KFA UK Chair Dermot Hudson said that “from the first day of its foundation, the DPRK has advanced along the road of Juche, the road of self-reliance, independence and socialism. Juche Korea was not a copy of another country but a unique and original state”.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>DPRK diplomat Kim Song Gi brought greetings from DPRK’s London embassy and told the audience that under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il the DPRK travelled the road of struggle, never giving up even though the moves of the hostile forces continue to this day. And today, led by Kim Jong Un, the Korean people march confidently into the future. <br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Other speakers included Jef Bossyut of the Belgium KFA and Jeremy Bieringer (KFA Germany) while Alejandro Cao De Benos joined us live on video link from Spain. The fact that the DPRK has withstood the test of time, disasters, sanctions and imperialist threats for 75 years, is evidence of the invincible validity of its system and the full support of the korean people in its future”. Alejandro, the international president of the Korean Friendship Association cannot travel abroad as his passport was confiscated by the Spanish authorities some seven years ago. But they haven’t, as yet, barred him from the social media.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Christer Lundgren, the Chair of the Swedish-Korean Friendship Association, also joined us on Zoom saying “during its 75 years of existence the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has had extremely challenging difficulties to overcome, including the fierce Fatherland Liberation War, the postwar reconstruction and industrialization, continuous war threats and extreme economic difficulties caused by the imperialists’ manoeuvres to isolate and stifle People’s Korea as well as by the collapse of some other socialist countries”.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This hybrid meeting, spanned half the world. It was a first for the KFA. It certainly won’t be the last. </span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-14794107159082546282023-08-26T13:19:00.004+01:002023-08-26T13:19:25.028+01:00 Legendary Tales of the Korean War<div style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwrL8DbEqVvQlFo7rdHZFqqe3Z8KuHfjmDxRInHIJQqkjgyCvYnP4rEmgzQ4s58kYQQired9Y9DSduxmaHiFqz2xwZfHaG4pmVuk3KrzDsn4da8RJ2Dk04UcwZt3cYHHoA2PRoIu4_3IocBe_9TSBvkaqkmNXXvFSvc3ylLdefrhrMWIillPHqIs4Y4Rk/s687/londinium2218A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwrL8DbEqVvQlFo7rdHZFqqe3Z8KuHfjmDxRInHIJQqkjgyCvYnP4rEmgzQ4s58kYQQired9Y9DSduxmaHiFqz2xwZfHaG4pmVuk3KrzDsn4da8RJ2Dk04UcwZt3cYHHoA2PRoIu4_3IocBe_9TSBvkaqkmNXXvFSvc3ylLdefrhrMWIillPHqIs4Y4Rk/s320/londinium2218A.jpg" width="233" /></a></div>A Friends of Korea committee seminar was held at the NCP Centre in London last month to commemorate the victory of the Korean people over US imperialism and its lackeys. Chaired by Andy Brooks the symposium heard papers from Michael Chant and Dermot Hudson and a video link contribution from Jong Gi Kim from the DPR Korea embassy in London. This is the contribution from Jong Gi Kim. </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />In 1950 the Korean War, the fiercest war since the Second World War, broke out. At that time no one ever thought that the DPR Korea, founded two years before, could defeat the United States, which had been boasting of being the “strongest” in the world having won 110 wars since its founding. Across the world the media called the war a confrontation between the rifle and the atom bomb.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But the result of the war turned out to be the opposite. The DPRK, a small country in the East, created a miracle by defeating the multinational forces, which pounced on the country in the name of the United Nations, for the first time in the world.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After switching over to an immediate counter-offensive, the Korean People’s Army drove the enemy to the end of south Korea within a little over a month.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On the other hand, the United States hurled into the Korean front forces armed with the latest weapons – one-third of its ground force, one-fifth of its air force, most of its Pacific Fleet–as well as the troops of fifteen of its vassal states, as well as the south Korean puppet army and some remnants of the former Japanese army. The military budget during the war totalled $164 billion. This notwithstanding, the Americans sustained a loss nearly 2.3 times greater than that they had suffered in the four-year war in the Pacific and signed an armistice agreement.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>By defeating the enemy, who were superior in terms of number of troops and technical equipment, by dint of their ideological and spiritual, strategic and tactical superiority, the Korean people defended the freedom and independence of their country and<br /></span>defending global peace and security they frustrated the US attempt to dominate the world with the Korean peninsula as a springboard. <br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>General Mark Clark, commander of the US Far East Command who had signed the armistice agreement, said that the north Korean army was victorious thanks to the outstanding command of General Kim Il Sung, who had achieved great exploits in the resistance of many years against the Japanese army until the defeat of Japan in the Second World War.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Seventy years have elapsed since the ceasefire was achieved on the Korean peninsula. But the peninsula still remains as one of the hottest spots in the world.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After the armistice agreement was reached, the United States implemented none of the items of the agreement and tenaciously pursued a hostile policy against the DPRK, driving the situation on the peninsula to the brink of war. It deployed nukes in south Korea, imposing undisguised and direct nuclear threat on the DPRK.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Entering the 21st century, it has put the DPRK on the list of targets of its pre-emptive nuclear strike and stages nuclear war games every year in the areas near the country by mobilising large forces including its strategic nuclear assets.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A country without an effective self-defence capability will inevitably be at the mercy of external military threats and, worse still, be unable to safeguard the existence of its own and of its people. This is an immutable law shown by human history.</span><br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Over the past 70 years after the war, the DPRK had to overcome manifold difficulties in developing its economy and improving the living standards of its people because of the long-drawn-out military threat, sanctions and blockade.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The best option for the DPRK for both durable peace and further acceleration of building itself into a powerful socialist country was the line of simultaneously promoting economic construction and building up its nuclear forces.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The line of simultaneously promoting the two fronts was put forward at the March 2013 Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>True to the new strategic line, the defence scientists displayed their indomitable will in developing strategic weapon systems of their own style.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Within a few years the DPRK manufactured innovative versions of inter-continental ballistic missiles, thus making its military strength irreversible.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In April last a DPRK ballistic missile of the Hwasongpho-18 type made its appearance, demonstrating the level of development of the country’s strategic forces.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Display of military equipment at military parades held every year in the country is proof of its military strength which the others could not belittle.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With this, the DPRK could frustrate the machinations of the hostile forces, who<br /></span>were trying to drag it into their arms race by aggravating the situation on the Korean peninsula.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This can be testified by the demonstration of the potential of the DPRK’s self-supporting economy, like setting up structures that reflect its people’s dreams and ideals and opening a new era of rural rejuvenation amidst severe difficulties like harsh sanctions, a global healthcare crisis and successive natural disasters.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the present world, where confrontation of strength is the order of the day, the country’s sovereignty and dignity and genuine peace can be assured only by an overwhelming defence capability–this is the creed of Kim Jong Un, the President of the State Affairs of the DPRK.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In April last year in the speech at the military parade held in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, Kim Jong Un said “we should continuously grow stronger; there is no satisfaction or accomplishment in cultivating strength for defending ourselves, and, whoever we confront, our military supremacy should be more secure”.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The 70-year-long post-war history of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in which it defended its sovereignty and dignity and the safety and happiness of its people, further highlights the meaning of the 70th anniversary of victory in the war in the 1950s.</span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-80819570375293063192023-08-15T23:39:00.001+01:002023-08-15T23:39:15.948+01:00 The Korean War and its Relevance Today<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu40bMAN2mfEtfQjNfV00vh_zOXZ3-wnLp0Pw_wi20pkhX5ulGf6_zX6oIWVW2g2mCCXpzEnXMTs-cEQ1adjWDQeJ9zSyRRmPXWEgI797kFZhXVJ8KrUsDcbGxqIj1UiNYG85VR4GXwGAzxq-dvOwv3XD2bNsijhiVIkEYNe965oH_B8xXkA2IOGnCcZI/s1670/londiniumFoK.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1670" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu40bMAN2mfEtfQjNfV00vh_zOXZ3-wnLp0Pw_wi20pkhX5ulGf6_zX6oIWVW2g2mCCXpzEnXMTs-cEQ1adjWDQeJ9zSyRRmPXWEgI797kFZhXVJ8KrUsDcbGxqIj1UiNYG85VR4GXwGAzxq-dvOwv3XD2bNsijhiVIkEYNe965oH_B8xXkA2IOGnCcZI/s320/londiniumFoK.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><i style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">A
Friends of Korea committee seminar was held at the NCP Centre in
London to commemorate the victory of the Korean people of US
imperialism and its lackeys. Chaired by Andy Brooks the symposium
heard papers from Michael Chant and Dermot Hudson video link
contributions from Jong Gi Kim from the DPR Korea embassy in London.
This is the contribution from Michael Chant, the secretary of the
Friends of Korea Committee.</span></i><br /><br /><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On
July 27, 1953, the heroic forces of the Korean People’s Army and
Chinese People’s Volunteer Army achieved victory in the Korean War
by forcing the US imperialists and their allies to come north of the
38th parallel to sign the Armistice Agreement that ended the fighting
in the Korean War. This was a victory not only for the Korean people,
but for peace-loving humanity. The signing of the Armistice Agreement
also signalled the first military defeat of the US following the
Second World War — a humiliation which has haunted the US
imperialists ever since, and for which it has yet to forgive the DPR
Korea and the Korean people. From Britain, there were 81,084 men and
women who served in the conflict, including 1,108 British servicemen
who were killed in action. This is also a crime for which Britain
must be held responsible.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>As
we said in the invitation to participate in this seminar, on June 25,
1950, the US imperialists, under the aegis of the United Nations, had
launched a brutal illegal war of aggression against the Korean
nation. Since July 27, 1953, the US has done everything possible to
maintain its military presence on the Korean Peninsula and keep the
Korean War going. But the resistance of the DPRK continues, as the
Korean people proudly demonstrate their mettle and build their own
future.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
<span> </span>The Victory Day is not simply a celebration day for commemorating and
looking back to a chapter of resistance in a previous era. The day
also serves as a reminder that the US imperialists and their
appeasers are stepping up war preparations in the Asia Pacific, and
that the terrible tragedies visited upon the Korean people during the
Korean War must never again be permitted. The significance of that
war is taking on new meaning today as the US imperialists beat the
drums of war to attempt to justify a nuclear catastrophe that
threatens the very survival of the Korean people and the peoples of
the world. But it further serves as a reminder that it is the people
who are the makers of history and that they themselves must prevail
against war.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>This
year, on the 70th anniversary of July 27 1953, the people of the
DPRK held activities to celebrate the victory, together with a
delegation from the People’s Republic of China which took part in
the events and a military delegation from the Russian Federation
which also paid a congratulatory visit to the DPRK on the occasion.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>On
July 25, leader Kim Jong Un had visited the Fatherland Liberation War
Martyrs Cemetery, paying high tribute to the martyrs who defended the
sovereignty and security of the country and people at great cost. Kim
Jong Un said that they provided the precious ideological and moral
heritage and tradition of victory as a steadfast cornerstone for the
DPRK. He made the important point that the victory of July 27, 1953,
is of significance to all humanity. This is the case since it
inflicted such a disgraceful defeat on US imperialism, but also
played its part in preventing a new world war at that time.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>On
visiting the martyrs' cemetery of the Chinese People’s Volunteers,
Kim Jong Un further elaborated on the significance of the DPRK’s
victory in the war, saying that it was a hard fought just war not
only to defend the dignity, honour and sovereignty of Korea and its
people but also essential to defend world peace and security. It was,
he said, an acute political and military confrontation with the
imperialist forces which was waged on behalf of the peace-loving
forces and progressive humankind. That great victory continues to
show its vitality today.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
US had intervened in Korea based on the reactionary Cold War policy
of the “containment of communism”. From the Japanese colonial era
through the Second World War, the outstanding resistance and
guerrilla warfare carried out in Korea under the leadership of Kim Il
Sung and other communists brought great prestige to communism
throughout Korea for its ability to mobilise and organise the people
to defend themselves.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>Even
before the surrender of Japan, the US divided Korea by force at the
38th parallel with the aim of imposing their rule over the victorious
Korean people who had contributed, second to none, to the Allied
victory in the Second World War. The aim was to keep the Korean
people divided and to turn the south of Korea into a US military
beachhead in order to wage war against China and the Soviet Union.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Following
the Japanese surrender, the US brutally suppressed and outlawed the
Korean People’s Republic that had been proclaimed by the
representatives of the whole Korean people on September 6 1945, in
Seoul. The US installed the US Military Government of Korea in the
south which carried out a campaign of terror against the Korean
people’s resistance to US dictate and occupation. A virulent
anti-communist, Syngman Rhee, who had spent most of his life in the
US, was installed as the first President of the so-called Republic of
Korea (ROK) in July 1948. The pro-US Rhee government continued to
suppress the Korean people’s widespread resistance to US military
occupation through extrajudicial killings, civilian massacres, mass
incarcerations and other crimes, carried out with impunity.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Meanwhile
in the north, the Korean people, under the leadership of Kim Il Sung,
were able to establish the Workers’ Party of Korea and found the
DPRK in 1948. They took control of their future and began to build a
modern socialist society on the basis of self-reliance. President Kim
Il Sung and the Workers’ Party of Korea also provided political and
practical leadership to the Korean people’s aspiration for a
reunified Korea. It was following the ROK elections of May 29, 1950,
when the Syngman Rhee government suffered a major electoral setback
and the forces for reunification were gaining momentum, that the US
launched the Korean War on June 25, 1950, to block the independent
reunification of Korea.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>In
the Korean War, the people of the DPRK, led by Kim Il Sung, were
organised by the Workers’ Party of Korea and mobilised to support
the Korean People’s Army. The newly established People’s Republic
of China sent troops in the form of the Chinese People’s Volunteer
Army to support the Korean people after US forces approached China’s
eastern border with the DPRK. They ardently defended the Korean
people in this war of aggression carried out by the US imperialists
and 15 allied countries, including Britain, under the fig leaf of the
UN flag.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
armistice talks began on July 10, 1951. However, the US refused to
agree to a ceasefire as a condition of talks and also refused to
abide by the Geneva Convention regarding the repatriation of
prisoners. During the two-year period of negotiations, the US and its
allies employed all sorts of delaying tactics in the hope of
achieving an outright military victory. They massacred hundreds of
thousands of civilians in the north and south of Korea, with many
buried alive, dismembered, burned to death or drowned. They carried
out such war crimes as germ and chemical warfare, the bombing of
infrastructure including dams and irrigation canals to flood the
grain fields and starve the people, the carpet bombing of civilian
targets, and the massive use of napalm — all to terrorise the
Korean people into submission. An estimated 4.6 million Koreans,
mostly civilians, perished during the war.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>However,
a US victory was not to be. The Korean people, led by Kim Il Sung and
the Korean People’s Army, with the help of the Chinese People’s
Volunteer Army, defeated the troops of the US and the other aggressor
nations. The US was forced to come to the north to sign the Armistice
Agreement in Panmunjom. It was a bitter pill to swallow — being
defeated for the first time in the 20th century and by a small Asian
nation at that.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>In
the spirit of revenge-seeking and stubbornly following its own
geopolitical interests, the US has refused ever since to sign a peace
treaty to end the Korean War, as stipulated by the terms of the
Armistice Agreement, despite the repeated invitations by the DPRK to
do so.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Item
60, Article IV of the Armistice Agreement states: “In order to
insure the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, the military
Commanders of both sides hereby recommend to the governments of the
countries concerned on both sides that, within three (3) months after
the Armistice Agreement is signed and becomes effective, a political
conference of a higher level of both sides be held by representatives
appointed respectively to settle through negotiation the questions of
the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful
settlement of the Korean question, etc.”</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>ongoing
imperialist aggression</b></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b></b></span><b><br /></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Since
July 27 1953, the US has done everything possible to maintain its
military presence in Korea and keep the Korean War going. On October
1, 1953, it concluded the US-South Korea Mutual Defence Treaty, which
has since become the basis of the continued US military presence in
south Korea that is opposed by the vast majority of the Korean
people. It is also the basis by which the US/south Korean forces
carry out their Key Resolve/Foal Eagle and many other joint military
exercises, which now include Britain, as well as Japan, Australia,
and others, and are aimed at invading the DPRK and imposing regime
change.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>The
US continues to rebuff all attempts at normalising DPRK-US relations,
including diplomatic resolutions to such issues as the DPRK’s use
of nuclear energy and the development of its nuclear deterrent
capability, while at the same time it maintains and expands its own
nuclear weapons in the south. The US has also increased economic and
political sanctions against the DPRK, another form of warfare, as it
is doing against other countries that affirm their right to be and
refuse to submit to US dictate. The Biden administration continues
the disinformation about “human rights violations” in the DPRK in
a feeble attempt to divert from its own human rights abuses at home
and abroad.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
British government for its part maintains its hostility to the DPRK,
following the lead of the US. On the anniversary of the Armistice
Agreement, it shamelessly referred to the US and British aggression
as a “war for freedom”. Today the government also follows the US
in promoting the so-called “rules-based international order”, in
which it is not international law which prevails but “rules”
which are made by and serve the interests of US imperialism. Britain
also follows the US in terming its marauding in the Indo-Pacific
region as “enhancing security”, which the government defines as
“shifting greater resource to the region and developing nations’
ability to police and protect their waters”.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
British government further shamelessly states: “Two Royal Navy
Offshore Patrol Vessels are deployed to the Indo-Pacific on a
permanent basis, and in their first year of operation succeeded in
enforcing UN sanctions against North Korea, […]. The UK’s Carrier
Strike Group will return to the Indo-Pacific in 2025, representing
our commitment to exercise the best capabilities our Armed Forces
have to offer alongside partners in the region.”<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>However,
as time goes on, the US imperialists and their allies are
increasingly isolated in terms of relations with the DPRK. The DPRK’s
principled stand in defence of its sovereignty and right to
self-determination, and its consistent defence of the Korean nation’s
honour continue to win the support of all humanity who can clearly
see who is the aggressor on the Korean Peninsula.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
aim of the US remains the same today as it was at the end of the
Second World War — to occupy the entire Korean Peninsula as a
launching pad for its takeover of Asia and then the world. And the US
justification for doing so remains as bankrupt as ever. All the
attempts of the US to realise its domination of the region — its
occupation of the Korean Peninsula with almost 30,000 troops and its
military bases, the ongoing attempts to sabotage the Korean people’s
movement for national reunification, and its engineering of puppet
regimes in the south — have failed to silence the resolve of the 70
million Koreans who are united in their aspiration for the peaceful,
independent reunification of their homeland, free of US imperialist
interference.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><span style="font-size: small;">the
anti-war movement</span></span></b></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The
criminal role of the US imperialists in Korea, from 1945 to the
present, has been exposed for the whole world to see, and the
resolute struggle of the Korean people for peace and justice,
independence and reunification stands as an example for all the
peoples of the world aspiring for peace. It is the task that Friends
of Korea and all friendship organisations have taken up to tell the
truth about the situation on the Korean Peninsula, and patiently
explain the contribution that the DPRK is making to peace and
stability to the region and its wider implications.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
first demand of the Korean people and all peace- and justice-loving
people around the world is that the US signs a peace treaty with the
DPRK to replace the Armistice Agreement and end the Korean War. This
would be a major step to stabilise the political situation on the
Korean Peninsula and ease tensions. To date the US has violated all
the terms of the Armistice Agreement since the time it was signed and
has constantly rebuffed efforts by the DPRK to normalise relations
between the two countries. The DPRK knows first-hand the perfidy and
subterfuge of the US imperialists and refuses to participate in
“empty talks” that do not advance peace on the Korean Peninsula.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>For
the people in Britain, it is crucial that the demand be made that
Britain make amends for its role in the crimes perpetrated against
the Korean people during the Korean War. Further, Britain must
immediately end its participation in the illegal naval embargo
against the DPRK, which is part of the US-led sanctions regime and an
act of war and a crime against the peace, the most serious war crime
under international law. Friends of Korea will itself do its work to
hold the US responsible for its crimes on the Korean Peninsula
before, during and since the Korean War and demand that it sign a
peace treaty with the DPRK to end the Korean War. For the people,
this is a matter of contributing to making sure that another Korean
War does not break out and providing every support to the Korean
people’s drive to reunify their divided country. It is also a
contribution to ensuring peace around the world.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>One
of the crucial issues about which confusion is spread is that of the
danger of nuclear war. Using the nuclear threat as an instrument of
negotiations – agree with our terms or else – was a practice
introduced by the US at the time of the criminal bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945. This practice was first
heroically rejected by the Korean people in the 1950-1953 Korean War.
Subsequently the heroic Vietnamese people did the same in the context
of their War of National Liberation.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
US, together with Britain, are intent on raising hysteria on the
nuclear issue to a fever pitch in order to prevent humankind from
thinking, from actually assessing the conditions and what these
conditions reveal, and so prevent people uniting in favour of peace.
The hysteria and disinformation is an attempt to block discussion on
what can be done to turn things around in favour of the peoples. To
open a path to progress and end the retrogression which the
imperialists are pushing onto the peoples of the world, it is crucial
to broaden discussions amongst ourselves so as to not permit the
campaign of disinformation to be effective.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
conditions given rise to after World War II ended with the collapse
of the former Soviet Union. That ended the domination of two
superpowers and an equilibrium between them based on nuclear
deterrence. The so-called unipolar world which they tried to bring
into being, with the US as self-declared indispensable nation, also
no longer exists.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> </span>The
Korean War is an example of seeing where justice prevails.
Furthermore, it can be seen that the present defensive measures being
taken by the DPRK, far from being the threat to peace that is being
claimed by the US, Britain and others, is a defence against the
danger of war, a danger comes from the criminal striving of the US
for world domination.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>The
world that the people aspire to is in the grasp of the people’s
forces working to make it happen. It can be said that fighting for an
anti-war government at home will also be a contribution to ensuring
peace on the Korean Peninsula and vice versa. Friends of Korea will
certainly continue its work in favour of support and friendship with
the DPRK. This is not a narrow aim, but is a component part of
bringing into being a world where peace prevails, and countries can
follow their path of independence, security and sovereignty without
the interference of US imperialism, together with Britain and other
big powers.</span></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><b>US
Troops Out of Korea!<br /></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>
US Sign a Peace Treaty with the DPRK
Now!<br /></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>
No to the Warmongering of Britain!<br /></b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>
Unite in Favour of
Peace and Independence!</b></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-74150398966248392142023-08-08T00:05:00.000+01:002023-08-08T00:05:12.926+01:00For peace on the Korean peninsula<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf-wXj0MjxvHOohOUrjT2FgEQHCV-NcPWPTJnV8mTJ9xHHPhm7hcT5V8-GahFqepLGUP-MuyP0hMCVwnzgGUIBWD1T3LjILgWhrniqED1i_nKJR_5WqF8plds9CdGNQDxfQXzemHrPXPMdLIE41tMneM9LT-lqfiUi5B258P52ceDbdvaiycpBKXmrBTg/s1024/2215p10FoKOREA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjf-wXj0MjxvHOohOUrjT2FgEQHCV-NcPWPTJnV8mTJ9xHHPhm7hcT5V8-GahFqepLGUP-MuyP0hMCVwnzgGUIBWD1T3LjILgWhrniqED1i_nKJR_5WqF8plds9CdGNQDxfQXzemHrPXPMdLIE41tMneM9LT-lqfiUi5B258P52ceDbdvaiycpBKXmrBTg/s320/2215p10FoKOREA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">in the Sid French library</td></tr></tbody></table>by New Worker correspondent</b></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Korean solidarity campaigners met at the NCP’s Party Centre in London last weekend for a hybrid seminar to celebrate the victory of the Korean people over US imperialism and its lackeys in the Korean war and discuss the prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula and the way forward for the solidarity campaign in Britain.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> NCP leader Andy Brooks, who chaired the Friends of Korea (FoK) event, welcomed everyone to the meeting, at the Sid French library or by video link, to hear key-note openings from FoK secretary Michael Chant and Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association and an online contribution from Song Gi Kim from the Democratic Korean embassy in London. This was followed by contributions from everyone in the room and from many of the online participants across the country.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span> </span>The Korean war ended on 27th July 1953 with an armistice that promised free elections to end the partition of the Korean peninsula. But the Americans never kept their word and the country remains divided between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north and a puppet regime in the south that is propped up by tens of thousands of US troops and an American nuclear armada off the coast.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span> </span>The US has done everything possible to maintain its military presence on the Korean peninsula. But the resistance of the DPRK continues, as the Korean people proudly demonstrate their mettle and build their own future.<br /></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span> </span>Victory Day is not simply a celebration for commemorating and looking back to a chapter of resistance in a previous era. The day also serves as a reminder that the US imperialists and their lackeys are stepping up war preparations in the Asia Pacific rim, and that the terrible tragedies visited upon the Korean people during the Korean War must never again be permitted. The significance of that war is taking on new meaning today as the US imperialists beat the drums of war to attempt to justify a nuclear catastrophe that threatens the very survival of the Korean people and the peoples of the world. But it further serves as a reminder that it is the people who are the makers of history and that they themselves must prevail against war.</span></div>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-53004497507841563392023-08-02T11:45:00.003+01:002023-08-02T11:46:24.570+01:00 Remembering the Korean people’s victory<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: georgia;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwt8olsIshGUXLXxOrpcH6tZpDtLmQsfHSWhhZ5BeudPZ6vF56rq5pJ9dSxNzJ1USSZEl5EObrF53iXDUUeTznrGqM4alVddwbeafTIinJBUdZd9fVmoupb5Pk612zVxL2v30m4b6h2i5P1hzPCfPFaR-ML3vWxW7XtyBLD8hscvtPPmhfZdiXKJpZiqA/s4624/2214p10Korea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3468" data-original-width="4624" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwt8olsIshGUXLXxOrpcH6tZpDtLmQsfHSWhhZ5BeudPZ6vF56rq5pJ9dSxNzJ1USSZEl5EObrF53iXDUUeTznrGqM4alVddwbeafTIinJBUdZd9fVmoupb5Pk612zVxL2v30m4b6h2i5P1hzPCfPFaR-ML3vWxW7XtyBLD8hscvtPPmhfZdiXKJpZiqA/s320/2214p10Korea.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dermot Hudson and Song Gi Kim</td></tr></tbody></table><br />by
New Worker correspondent</span></b></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><br /></b>London comrades returned to the Chadswell centre in central London last weekend to mark the outbreak of the Korean war. The war began with an American attack on the people’s government in north Korea on 25th June 1950. It ended with the Americans signing a humiliating armistice on 27th July 1953.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Chaired
by Dermot Hudson speakers, including Theo Russell from the NCP, spoke
about the Korean people’s heroic fight against the US imperialists
and their lackeys during the war and their efforts to reconstruct
their shattered country after the guns fell silent.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Though
the American terror bombers had left north Korea in ruins, the masses
rallied round the call of Kim Il Sung and the Workers’ Party of
Korea to rebuild their shattered country and lead the drive for a
modern, independent socialist republic in the free part of the Korean
peninsula.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>Song
Gi Kim, a representative from the Democratic Korean (DPRK) embassy in
London pointed out that "in 1950 the Korean war, the fiercest
war since the Second World War, broke out. At that time no one ever
thought that the DPRK, founded two years before, would defeat the
United States, which had been boasting of being the "strongest"
in the world with a history of victory in 110 wars since its
founding.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>“As
the world media described, the war was a confrontation between the
rifle and the atomic bomb. But the result of the war turned out to be
the opposite. The DPRK, a small country in the East, created a
miracle by defeating the multi-national forces, which pounced upon a
country in the name of the United Nations for the first time in the
world."<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Dermot
Hudson, in his speech, said that the great Korean communist leader,
Kim Il Sung “not only humbled the pride of the arrogant US
imperialists but smashed the reactionary bourgeois military theory
that advocates the omnipotence of weapons over humans.<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>“The
US imperialists not only lost huge amounts of manpower and materials
but also suffered irretrievable political and moral defeats. It was a
great victory for the Korean people and opened up a new era of
anti-US, anti-imperialist struggle. Indeed Korea was the war before
Vietnam!"<br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <span> </span>And
Theo Russell pointed out that</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><b>
</b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">the
US "cannot admit responsibility for aggression against DPRK in
1950 because US still dreams of occupying the north... thus entire
might of US and Western systems of thought manipulation is mobilised
to maintain the lie. And this includes an apparatus of news,
well-financed think tanks, universities, mass media, intelligence
agencies"</span></span></span></div>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><br />
</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-11381890651358564932023-07-02T20:42:00.002+01:002023-07-02T20:42:58.910+01:00US out of Korea!<div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQgQVtj8FJetCwixgZuXAqOCRr8yZT3_mzYtRUravBlbmMr68jMkyO-XcomqDqxIrBnB1rcdQ--2y63N6B6fbPIFIKinGwrFRzt43JW3pMzXkyPmhI9QJSgfdyFZEluauvna-6s7pd9GXRYLvhGndmhY76QOZR_IAVPXxXc6qTxrI4lJoK56HjZBkAhk/s4624/2212KopreaPicP10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3468" data-original-width="4624" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeQgQVtj8FJetCwixgZuXAqOCRr8yZT3_mzYtRUravBlbmMr68jMkyO-XcomqDqxIrBnB1rcdQ--2y63N6B6fbPIFIKinGwrFRzt43JW3pMzXkyPmhI9QJSgfdyFZEluauvna-6s7pd9GXRYLvhGndmhY76QOZR_IAVPXxXc6qTxrI4lJoK56HjZBkAhk/s320/2212KopreaPicP10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>By
New Worker correspondent</b></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: left;"><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">NCP leader Andy Brooks joined a Korean solidarity protest picket outside the American embassy in London last Saturday to mark 73rd anniversary of the Korean war and to call for the end of the American occupation of south Korea.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span> </span>On 25th June 1950 the US imperialists and their south Korean puppets launched an attack on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) that devastated the entire peninsula. The Americans and their lackeys, flying the false flag of the United Nations, were beaten to a standstill and were forced to sign an armistice in 1953. They promised to hold free elections in south Korea to lead to the reunification of the country. Seventy years later the Americans still occupy south Korea, propping up a puppet regime that rejects all DPRK proposals to ease tension on the divided peninsula.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span> </span>Dermot Hudson, the chair of the Korean Friendship Association that called the protest, said that US imperialism had not abandoned its dreams of conquest. “This year reactionary warmonger Biden threatened People's Korea with nuclear annihilation saying it would be the 'end of whatever regime'. The US imperialists and south Korean puppets are stepping up their war moves plus the US is openly deploying strategic nuclear assets,” Dermot said. “The US and south Korea have this year carried out massive war exercises that were suspended by Trump . US troops and nuclear assets should be withdrawn from south Korea and a permanent peace treaty signed”.</span></div><div style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Messages of support were received from KFA Germany, KFA Switzerland, the International Central Committee for Songun Study, the Bangladesh Songun Politics Study Group and the People's Korea Initiative of Poland.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-weight: bold;"><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-64328796365730341682023-06-03T15:33:00.001+01:002023-06-03T15:33:20.587+01:00Korean solidarity in Liverpool<div style="text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1LfwQQWFWeQy-RBCTaAXIZnfWqtEBq70xZHJkL5Tr7-eKAALWVt3WICdI2G-80Q9AhooN-MOyrKY2JVROLrjXSrFQVv1bpClcUk4xbTCJwpzjxP98G3STYQP_kCp6NZ__Ltj51yCrdZ8jhmHN8fjZRwYJAYt3WGQ9-GOd-j7EhJtbn0IneZgV7G2p/s4032/2210p10Liverpool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1LfwQQWFWeQy-RBCTaAXIZnfWqtEBq70xZHJkL5Tr7-eKAALWVt3WICdI2G-80Q9AhooN-MOyrKY2JVROLrjXSrFQVv1bpClcUk4xbTCJwpzjxP98G3STYQP_kCp6NZ__Ltj51yCrdZ8jhmHN8fjZRwYJAYt3WGQ9-GOd-j7EhJtbn0IneZgV7G2p/s320/2210p10Liverpool.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>by New Worker correspondent</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: CG Times;">The Korean Friendship Association of the UK took the fight to defend People’s Korea to Merseyside by holding a vibrant afternoon meeting on Saturday 20th May at the Casa Bar in the heart of Liverpool’s university district.<br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Peter Hendy from the Liverpool NCP introduced the meeting saying that “the propaganda offensive against the DPRK remains unabated. To justify US military aggression against the DPRK the propaganda offensive remains relentless and continues unabated. For over six decades the DPRK has been subjected to US military intimidation, provocations, threats and extensive sanctions to politically isolate and destroy the DPRK economy. The US warmongers would like to destroy the DPRK”.<br /></span><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>KFA UK Chairman Dermot Hudson addressed the meeting on the subject of the US threat to People’s Korea pointing out that “In fact, the danger of war and threat to People’s Korea has increased greatly and taken a sinister turn. It is probably at its highest since the end of the Korean War or Fatherland Liberation War in 1953” . He denounced the recent US-south Korea summit and the so-called ‘Washington Declaration ‘ He also drew attention to the participation of British Royal Marines in recent military exercises in south Korea.</span><br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“The struggle to defend People’s Korea and expose the aggressive role of the US on the Korean peninsula is also part of the struggle for world peace and for anti-imperialist independence.</span><br /><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“KFA UK demands that all ongoing and planned military exercises by the US and south Korea in south Korea and the surrounding region should be cancelled . US troops should be withdrawn from south Korea along with any US nuclear weapons.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"> "Dermot concluded by saying “We in the Korean Friendship Association of the UK(KFA UK) believe in defending People’s Korea , Korea of Juche with No Ifs or Buts . The DPRK is the most independent country in the world and has a unique socialist system . The DPRK is a country that abolished taxation yet has free healthcare , free education and even free housing".</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Casa Club was born during the epic struggle of the Liverpool dockers who were sacked when they refused to cross a picket line in the 1990s. The dockers’ struggle began in September 1995 and ended in a one-sided settlement in February 1998. But some of the dockers, who had been paid £130,000 for writing a drama about the dispute for Channel Four, used the money to buy a building to set up a communal hub, not-for-profit bar and an advice centre. It is now a charitable trust that welcomes labour movement use of its rooms and facilities.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="white-space: normal;"><span style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"> </span></span><br /></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-54573929483685281492023-05-21T11:07:00.002+01:002023-05-21T11:07:42.307+01:00DPR Korea: A true people’s health system<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrBi_iQ79iGbkMBDOiVYJz4IcQtfITKUM9s_ni7KW9nGLP4fJ0n7c8Y4G08RcZsV7yX0aq5_GpdMwzeQH8iVjh-ZtrjhImeooIDeWplR1Acft94jdmKKmsCkApzz0f8YaCgDAHAoe63uD3MqMG1moa0SYu2_aD1cUs_HmcY3FE5dfyOtjTGlTOG0Fw/s650/2208p11DPRK.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="650" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrBi_iQ79iGbkMBDOiVYJz4IcQtfITKUM9s_ni7KW9nGLP4fJ0n7c8Y4G08RcZsV7yX0aq5_GpdMwzeQH8iVjh-ZtrjhImeooIDeWplR1Acft94jdmKKmsCkApzz0f8YaCgDAHAoe63uD3MqMG1moa0SYu2_aD1cUs_HmcY3FE5dfyOtjTGlTOG0Fw/s320/2208p11DPRK.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">medical students in Pyongyang</td></tr></tbody></table><b>by Dermot Hudson</b><br /><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br />The socialist healthcare system of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has a long history.<br /><span> </span>On the 1st January 2023, it was 70 years since the DPRK introduced universal, free medical care. On the 1st January 1953, it was introduced in the DPRK according to the provisions of DPRK cabinet decree No 203 “On Enforcing Free Medical Care System for the People”, which had been adopted some weeks earlier on the 13th November 1952 under the guidance of President Kim Il Sung. Prior to that, free medical care for industrial and office workers based on insurance had been introduced in 1946 (two years before the NHS was created in the UK).<br /><span> </span>The DPRK’s health service was not created under ideal conditions of peace but in the flames of war when the country was being pulverised by the carpet bombing of the aggressive US imperialists. Moreover, at the time the DPRK was not a rich or prosperous country, it was a new country which had emerged from the ruins of Japanese colonial rule.<br /><span> </span>From the 1st January 1953 all medical care in the DPRK became completely free at the point of need for all. This includes doctor's visits, hospital treatment, convalescence and medicines. Even dentistry is included and also fares to hospital are paid. There are no hidden fees such as car parking charges or charges to watch TV in hospitals. Further legalisation by the DPRK in 1960 and 1980 legally buttressed free healthcare.<br /><span> </span>The DPRK has the unique section doctor system, whereby doctors from a local clinic take charge of the surrounding area and visit people in their homes to give up check-ups and medical advice. Usually a local DPRK doctor looks after 130 households. This is a big contrast to the present NHS GP system, under which it is often impossible to see a doctor and only telephone or online consultations are possible. In the DPRK they say “Go to the doctor before you are ill”.<br /><span> </span>Special priority is given to mothers who give birth to many children, the DPRK has many triplets. Concern for the health of women is something taken very seriously. There is the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, which has over 1,000 beds. In recent years the Breast Tumour Institute of the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital was constructed.<br /><span> </span>The DPRK has a dense network of medical establishments such as general hospitals, specialised hospitals, hospitals or clinics, from the highest down to the lowest unit of administration such as ri and dong. Factories have their own medical staff and even their own hospitals.<br /><span> </span>According to data, there are as many as 9 000 public health agencies. The DPRK has witnessed the increase of hygienic and anti-epidemic bodies by 38 times, of hospitals by 53.8 times, and of doctors and pharmacists by 322 times during the period from 1946–2006.<br /><span> </span>Already in the 1970s it ranked in the advanced countries in terms of the number of doctors, medical facilities and beds for every 1 000 people. According the World Health Organisation (WHO), in 2010 the DPRK had 143 hospital beds per 10,000 of population. This compares with 24.6 per 10,000 in the UK in 2019, 28.7 per 10,000 for the USA in 2017, and 124.8 per 10,000 for south Korea in 2018. The DPRK is way ahead of other countries.<br /><span> </span>In 2010 the then director of the WHO Dr Margaret Chan said of the DPRK: “They have something which most other developing countries would envy.”<br /><span> </span>In recent years the DPRK constructed new state of the art hospitals such the Okryu Children’s Hospital, the Ryugyong Ophthalmic hospital and many others. In the DPRK, hospitals are linked together by an advanced telemedicine system.<br /><span> </span>A delegation of the British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea and the Korean Friendship Association of the UK was able to visit the Okryu Children’s Hospital that was completed in 2013. It has a total of 32,000 square metres of floor space, making it quite large – larger than many UK hospitals. We were only able to see a small part of the hospital as there was not enough time, however, what we saw was most impressive. The hospital was positively ornate, with marble floors and pillars. The hospital was decorated in light colours that gave a warm and cheerful atmosphere to the place. In the UK hospitals are usually regarded with fear and apprehension, but this hospital seemed such a welcoming place. We saw rooms for rehabilitating disabled children. There was a school within the hospital so that children do not miss schooling when they are in the hospital. We also saw a telemedicine room. Here the hospital is linked to other children's hospitals in the country so that doctors in different hospitals can consult with each other instantly.<br /><span> </span>I also visited the Ryugyong Ophthalmic Hospital in February 2019. This was opened in 2016 and took only seven months to construct. It has eight floors with 100 inpatient beds. The hospital offers both inpatient and outpatient treatment. There is one doctor per room. The hospital was spotlessly clean.<br /><span> </span>The DPRK’s healthcare system is self-reliant and operated with 100 per cent DPRK resources and labour, no foreign doctors or nurses work in DPRK hospitals. The DPRK medical care system showed its resilience when COVID‑19 struck the country in May 2022. The healthcare system was assisted by the Korean People’s Army (KPA), who were mobilised to help. The COVID‑19 epidemic was overcome within 91 days and the fatality rate was minimal. This was achieved without the dubious so-called ‘aid’ of the imperialist countries and south Korea.<br /><span> </span>The universal, free medical care system of the DPRK is a true product of the people-oriented system, the socialist system and the popular policies of the Workers Party of Korea.<br /><br /> </span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><br /></span></div><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-5312819402863286742023-04-22T22:01:00.005+01:002023-04-22T22:04:09.025+01:00 Honouring a great Korean revolutionary<p><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhO2VgLSYqPYnjRhnNMQOXmtnoFybVYK3O2yurxSiQrqBXyeE04XG_Fv5X9fiaq5-a0nxhVCHbTRrFsrckvqFNDCIGNL9ftbhQXqaXSnRdnFcm4wBT2DgGTFbMSYiH7Wl08mp_tqcaLCVMzXuQfgZLzXAWNr8irTAGxPNBtC2hfV3sel2rNCIzI0n/s3468/2205p10KFA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3468" data-original-width="2490" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguhO2VgLSYqPYnjRhnNMQOXmtnoFybVYK3O2yurxSiQrqBXyeE04XG_Fv5X9fiaq5-a0nxhVCHbTRrFsrckvqFNDCIGNL9ftbhQXqaXSnRdnFcm4wBT2DgGTFbMSYiH7Wl08mp_tqcaLCVMzXuQfgZLzXAWNr8irTAGxPNBtC2hfV3sel2rNCIzI0n/s320/2205p10KFA.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dermot Hudson and Theo Russell</td></tr></tbody></table>By
New Worker correspondent</b></p>
<span style="font-family: georgia;">Kim Il Sung was born on 15th April 1912 and his birthday has long been celebrated as the Day of the Sun in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and by everyone who stands by the DPRK. And on that day last week solidarity activists gathered at the Cock Tavern in London to recall the outstanding achievements of the leader of the Korean revolution. <br /><span> </span>Speakers included Dermot Hudson, the chair of the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) that organised the meeting and NCP national organiser, Theo Russell. The Democratic Korean embassy in London sent a tribute that was read out at the meeting and messages were received from Korean friendship groups in Germany, Poland and Switzerland. <br /><span> </span>In his tribute Dermot Hudson praised the successful test firing of the Democratic Korean ballistic missile as a great victory for Juche and self-reliance – the Korean-style socialism pioneered by Kim Il Sung that is followed by his successors in the people’s republic today. <br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung was a great anti-imperialist revolutionary who turned the DPRK into a fortress of militant anti-imperialism and totally opposed the line of compromise with imperialism. His life from beginning to end was one of principled and constant struggle against imperialism and for independence’. <br /><span> </span>Theo Russell praised the life of Kim Il Sung as that of a great revolutionary . He said that the achievements of the DPRK are great and are due to the Juche philosophy authored by the great leader of the Korean people who worked tirelessly throughout his life for the communist cause. <br /><span> </span>Shaun Pickford, the head of Staffordshire KFA focused on the international dimension of the DPRK and the Juche Idea. The first Juche idea study group was formed in Mali , West Africa and since then many international seminars on the Juche Idea have followed. <br /><span> </span>This was followed by a general discussion on Juche and life in the DPRK and ended with the traditional refreshments and informal chat amongst friends of Korea old and new. <br /></span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-54646831272993211472023-03-13T12:31:00.003+00:002023-03-13T12:31:52.848+00:00Down with the puppet regime!<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2pv_8ysTRhnpj0a16ha3SaTK_VybjZdB34PDN9aGortZbkOKbLUs33ked3U73CQQ8BgsSK9wm5jMT_F3C1UOknvJKpRP14FeH4I72yyWTnieyIJRHXrGamqdZDZWTnfL-oDja_oJhVHmbhfnPiIxehcc6G7lxQcvlWofVGEJ44EoolzFrzrsLkBv/s4624/2199p3Photostory%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3468" data-original-width="4624" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2pv_8ysTRhnpj0a16ha3SaTK_VybjZdB34PDN9aGortZbkOKbLUs33ked3U73CQQ8BgsSK9wm5jMT_F3C1UOknvJKpRP14FeH4I72yyWTnieyIJRHXrGamqdZDZWTnfL-oDja_oJhVHmbhfnPiIxehcc6G7lxQcvlWofVGEJ44EoolzFrzrsLkBv/s320/2199p3Photostory%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>by New Worker correspondent </b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NCP leader Andy Brooks joined London comrades protesting outside the south Korean embassy in London last weekend. The picket called by the Korean Friendship Association</span><span style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (KFA) was to protest against the forthcoming war exercises and </span><span style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre-wrap;">the current wave of repression unleashed in </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia;">south</span><span style="font-family: georgia; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Korea against the people by the US puppet regime. KFA Chair Dermot</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Hudson in his address exposed the fascist and repressive nature of south Korea citing the recent raid on the HQ of the south Korean Confederation of Trade Unions as well as arrests of leftist and progressive activists . He stressed that south Korea is a puppet regime with no legitimacy , a creation of the US imperialists and that south Korea is simply the occupied southern half of the DPRK.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-55839528107643480562023-01-08T14:47:00.000+00:002023-01-08T14:47:13.513+00:00People’s Korea’s Defence : guaranteeing the socialist system<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>A Friends of Korea committee seminar was held at the NCP Centre in London to </i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;">commemorate on the anniversary of the passing of dear leader Kim Jong Il, who died on 17th December 2011. Chaired by Andy Brooks the symposium heard papers from Dermot Hudson and Michael Chant and video link contributions from supporters in London, the Midlands, the North and Scotland. This is the contribution from Dermot Hudson, the chair of the Korean Friendship Association.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span><i style="font-family: georgia;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1113" data-original-width="1500" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnzOBrb-zMfRn5zsT3GPSYB0L62oNsdiV58oJsU2ZrifDLqHmtYpbMrxyRQ8MqodOF2wA9v40Z2HlLC3EdirI1QN6-G2-PDWXeLeuUo_mI1A9a_IJNaR0oL0yDNI_0Zw6AxF8fcnfQQUtcSU9aNwaoSJgW_htUi9abpk3Ddnf-WLLazMvv0nGY9UqQ/w400-h296/londinium2191A.webp" title="Kim Jong Un" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Jong Un</td></tr></tbody></table></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As we are gathered to remember comrade Kim Jong Il it is important for us to study the DPR Korea’s great achievements in the work of national defence . Indeed Kim Jong Il’s whole life was associated with the Songun (army first ) revolutionary leadership which began when he gave guidance to the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su 105th Tank Division of the Korean People’s Army.</span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> </span>The issue of the DPRK’s successful defence upbuilding is one that has come into sharp focus . On the 15th December the Academy of Defence Science tested a high-thrust solid-fuel motor with a thrust of 140tf, the first of its kind in the country, at the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground. This important test has provided a sure sci-tech guarantee for the development of another new-type strategic weapon system. <br /><span> </span>This year has seen truly amazing and phenomenal advances in DPRK missile technology.The imperialists and their south Korean puppets have complained that the DPRK has carried out approximately 60 or so missile tests during the past year and have clamoured for more UN sanctions while imposing their own unilateral sanctions .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> On the 24th March the new type ICBM Hwasongpho-17 was tested.The missile, launched at Pyongyang International Airport, travelled up to a maximum altitude of 6 248.5 km and flew a distance of 1 090 km for 4,052s before accurately hitting the pre-set area in open waters of the East Sea of Korea. This was the first time for 5 years that the DPRK tested an ICBM , though tests of medium and short range missiles had been carried out in the intervening period .</div><span> </span>On the 18th November in the presence of Kim Jong Un, the general secretary of the Workers Party of Korea, the Hwasong Pho 17 ICBM was successfully tested at Pyongyang International Airport . The Hwasong Pho 17 reached a maximum altitude of 6,040.9 km and flew a distance of 999.2 km for 4,135s before accurately landing on the preset area in open waters of the East Sea of Korea. <br /><span> </span>Kim Jong Un was accompanied by his daughter and his wife comrade Ri Sol Ju and comrade Kim Yo Jong , vice department director of the Central Committee of the WPK . The presence of the young daughter of the Korean leader symbolised the fact that the DPRK’s nukes guarantee the future of the DPRK’s children . <br /><span> </span>The new type Hwasong-pho 17 ICBM has the ability to strike the US mainland . Thus it greatly strengthens and augments the DPRK's self-defensive potential . <br /><span> </span>The DPRK’s ballistic missile tests fully reflect the will of the leadership of the Workers Party of Korea and the government of the DPRK to consistently bolster the national defence capacity of the DPRK in line with the decisions made by the 8th Congress of the Workers Party of Korea .<span> </span>Earlier in 2022, on 6th January the Political Bureau of the WPK agreed to resume “temporarily suspended activities” meaning ICBM and nuclear tests , because ‘‘all the facts clearly prove once again that the hostile policy towards the DPRK will exist in the future as long as there is the hostile entity of U.S. imperialism.”. <br /><span> </span>Unlike some countries both past and present , the DPRK saw through the nature of US imperialism. After all, it was US imperialism that had divided Korea in 1945 and had started the Korean war. The DPRK ‘s policy is absolutely correct . A few years ago, when there were the summits between the DPRK and US and also the DPRK and south Korea , some people said that the DPRK would unilaterally disarm itself and even open a McDonalds in Pyongyang. Nearly 5 years on , not a single nuke or ICBM has been dismantled by the DPRK and there is no McDonalds in Pyongyang and the DPRK is consolidating its national defence capabilities . Also the DPRK is raising militant anti-US slogans and intensifying anti-US imperialist education . <br /><span> </span>It is worth mentioning Cuba here as this year also saw the 60th anniversary of Khruschov’s shameful capitulation during the Cuban Missile Crisis which saw the USSR kneel down before the US imperialists and agree to withdraw their missiles within 6 days and sell out Cuba by allowing UN inspections of Cuba. The DPRK’s independent and militant anti-imperialist stance contrasts with that of the former Soviet Union. <br /><span> </span>The DPRK ‘s correct nuclear policy has now been fully enshrined in law and is a permanent state policy of the DPRK .On the 8th September this year the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly passed the historic law on On The State Policy On The Nuclear Forces which fully legalised the DPRK’s status as a nuclear power . <br /><span> </span>The new law defines the mission of the DPRK nuclear forces as being “ to deter a war by making hostile forces have a clear understanding of the fact that the military confrontation with the DPRK brings about ruin and give up attempts at aggression and attack.” <br /><span> </span>According to the new law the DPRK ‘s use of nuclear forces can only occur under certain situations , these are defined as follows:</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> </span>• ‘In case an attack by nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction was launched or drew near is judged’ <br /><br /> • ‘In case a nuclear or non-nuclear attack by hostile forces on the state leadership and the command organisation of the state's nuclear forces was launched or drew near is judged’ <br /><br /> • ‘In case a fatal military attack against important strategic objects of the state was launched or drew near is judged’ <br /><br /> • ‘In case the need for operation for preventing the expansion and protraction of a war and taking the initiative in the war in contingency is inevitably raised.” <br /><br /> Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly pointed out that “The legalisation of the policy of the nuclear forces in accordance with the unanimous desire and iron will of all the people is of tremendous significance. With this, the position of our state as a nuclear nation has become irreversible.” <br /><span> </span>Needless to say the enemies of People’s Korea such as the Americans and their south Korean puppets, as well as the vassal states of the US are not happy about this . <br /><span> </span>Even CND has chimed in with the clamour of the US imperialists and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by saying that the DPRK’s Law on Nuclear Forces is a “very worrying development”. We answer this ‘criticism ‘ as follows: <br /><span> </span>Firstly, the DPRK’S new law on nuclear forces does not make explicit reference to ‘first strikes’ or ‘pre-emptive strikes’,although it is implied that under certain very limited situations these may be carried out. There is no blank cheque for a pre-emptive nuclear strike by the DPRK but rather the DPRK’s nuclear weapons are a last resort and a deterrent . <br /><span> </span>Secondly , the US has a nuclear first strike policy so why shouldn’t the DPRK have one ? Why do some people think the imperialists and big countries should have a monopoly on a nuclear first strike? Surely it is only fair that the DPRK should match the US policy of a nuclear first strike with its own? <br /><span> </span>Thirdly , it is the US that first developed nuclear weapons and actually used them against a non-nuclear state when it bombed Hiroshima and Nagaski in 1945 . Moreover the US considered a nuclear first strike against the DPRK during the Korean war of 1950-1953 , during the “Pueblo Incident ‘ of 1968 and the Panmunjom incident of 1976 and other occasions . The US designated the DPRK a target of a US nuclear first strike in 2002. The US stationed 1,000 nuclear weapons in south Korea , at one point the number reached 1,700 . Supposedly the US withdrew these weapons in the 1990s , however the US refused to accept international inspections to confirm this and later stated it would ‘neither confirm nor deny ‘ the existence of its nuclear weapons in south Korea. <br /><span> </span>Many believe that US nuclear weapons are still in south Korea . What is beyond all doubt is that the US and south Korea have on numerous occasions staged nuclear war exercises against the DPRK and US nuclear submarines and nuclear aircraft carriers have been in Korean waters as well US nuclear bombers overflying the Korean peninsula . <br /><span> </span>Fourthly , Korea was divided by the US in 1945 and the DPRK was invaded by the US imperialists in 1950. At least 1.2 million civilians killed and the country completely devastated . The DPRK’s nuclear deterrent will ensure this does not happen again . <br /><span> </span>Fifthly, is the DPRK supposed to fold its arms and just sit and wait to be invaded by the US imperialists . <br /><span> </span>Sixth , the experience of the 1962 Caribbean crisis in which the USSR pulled its missiles out of Cuba and allowed UN inspections after only 6 days and without consulting the Cuban leadership shows that a small country cannot rely on a big country for its defence .Moreover recent events this year show that some big countries may not be such efficient allies as some may imagine . These countries have their own problems and internal contradictions so it would be unwise for the DPRK to rely on them. <br /><span> </span>Seventh,the DPRK did all that it could to work towards a peaceful settlement of DPRK-US relations and issues on the Korean peninsula by holding two summits and one meeting with US president Trump as well as three Inter-Korean summits .It should be added that the DPRK carried out its first nuclear test 59 years after the US first introduced nuclear weapons into south Korea in violation of the Korean Armistice Agreement. <br /><span> </span>In conclusion we would point out that the DPRK’s Law on the State Policy of Nuclear Forces is about defending the DPRK’s independence and territorial integrity as well as the socialist system of the DPRK . It is regrettably that some who style themselves as ‘progressives ‘ or ‘leftists ‘ share the desire of the imperialists for the dismantling of the socialist system of the DPRK or for ‘reforms ‘ and ‘opening up ‘. <br /><span> </span>Bravo to People's Korea for declaring itself a permanent nuclear weapons state . The DPRK has rejected all attempts to disarm it and push it down a certain path . The DPRK also rejected so -called aid from south Korea which was conditional on the DPRK unilaterally disarming itself . The DPRK also rejected imperialist aid when the Covid 19 epidemic arose in the DPRK. <br /><span> </span>The DPRK’ nuclear policy and its efforts to build up the national defence capabilities are its independent right to do so which no one from whatever quarter ;whether they are the imperialists or their fake left fellow travellers should try to interfere with. The great advances in the DPRK ‘s defence abilities which are surprising its enemies are a sure guarantee for the independence of the country that comrade Kim Jong Il worked hard all his life to safeguard and also guarantee the existence of the people-centred socialist system that is the legacy of comrade Kim Jong Il as well as the cradle of happiness for the Korean people.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-70735883420869379222022-11-27T22:47:00.002+00:002022-11-27T22:47:47.670+00:00Korean friends rally in Spain<b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkM5BZ8AG82HkWsJLNsok4NJNZgoibEuFx4Xf_POMbicqeEM7xMG0I-Ry00vc5ZXP58-EYU9zIarJbet25ozT0wt7vXgkzigYKYruG9YfaVtLo_sZsxPLeCdPtK3N4V44Q-DDkiY4Vh_07bmzlOua_e_upTXd8TZ2TqtyzKjonVXjhsG4QwIJKwmq/s969/2186p10KFApic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="724" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkM5BZ8AG82HkWsJLNsok4NJNZgoibEuFx4Xf_POMbicqeEM7xMG0I-Ry00vc5ZXP58-EYU9zIarJbet25ozT0wt7vXgkzigYKYruG9YfaVtLo_sZsxPLeCdPtK3N4V44Q-DDkiY4Vh_07bmzlOua_e_upTXd8TZ2TqtyzKjonVXjhsG4QwIJKwmq/s320/2186p10KFApic.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alejandro gives delegates a tour</td></tr></tbody></table>by New Worker correspondent</b><br /><br /><span style="font-family: CG Times;">Korean solidarity activists from all round the world gathered in Spain for the annual international meeting of the Korean Friendship Association in November. A British delegation headed by Dermot Hudson, the chair of the UK KFA, joined delegates from many other countries for the conference in the historic city of Tarragona in the autonomous region of Catalonia that kicked off on 12th November, the anniversary of the foundation of the KFA in 2000.<br /><span> </span>KFA officials and members from Britain, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the USA took part in the meeting as well a delegation of the Russian based International Solidarity Group with the DPRK. The meeting was nearly double the size of the KFA International meeting in Barcelona last year and several times the size of some previous meetings. <br /><span> </span>Opening the meeting Alejandro Cao De Benos , the KFA President, said that the CIA, FBI, Interpol and MI6 could not defeat him and KFA. The FBI had tried to frame Alejandro on false charges but this had failed. But still cannot travel abroad due to the fascist Spanish authorities, the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the Spanish fascist dictator Franco, confiscating his passport. Alejandro's lawyers are fighting for the restoration of his passport and his right to travel.<br /><span> </span>A message of greetings to the meeting from the DPRK Embassy in Spain was read out by comrade Alejandro Dermot Hudson, chairman of KFA UK read out the message from the Korea -Europe Cultural Exchange Promotion Agency of the DPR Korea which praised the work of KFA noting that KFA are the true friends of the DPRK and are expanding their ranks all the time.<br /><span> </span>A message was also received from comrade Park Soo Churl the head of the Pyongyang Mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front of south Korea which said in part that "Today the DPRK enjoys the greatest heyday demonstrating its prestige as a powerful country throughout the world thanks to the outstanding leaders.<br /><span> </span>The 80 years-long history of the DPRK reflects the dignity of a party that reaches the highest level, national strength that is displayed throughout the world and the rosy future of a nation is guaranteed only when a nation is led by a great leader he said.<br /><span> </span>The central theme of the meeting was the leadership of Kim Jong Un. In his keynote address Alejandro stressed that former socialist countries collapsed because they had failed to create a correct leadership system but the DPRK created an excellent leadership system. Today the DPRK is forging ahead under the leadership of Kim Jong Un. The progress in the DPRK is in sharp contrast to the corrupt and declining capitalist world .<br /><span> </span>Or as Dermot Hudson pointed out in his speech "the DPRK was able to defeat Covid 19 within 3 months and basically by relying on its own resources as it rejected the fake humanitarian aid of world imperialism and the south Korean puppets . No other country has done this. In some countries Covid 19 still prevails after nearly three years since its first outbreak".<br /><span> </span>The conference concluded with a commitment to redouble the work to build solidarity and friendship with the Korean people. And the next day Alejandro, who said that he had once declined an offer of a post in the Catalan regional government, took the delegates on a guided tour of old Tarragona including the famous Roman amphitheatre .</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-88111183571742818442022-11-06T11:58:00.002+00:002022-11-06T11:58:59.353+00:00 Picketing Broadcasting House!<span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpYko1GFaf1cCqw3vixBiNSgdnkJi59ZmRjR_TFcOiwxiT2zT0Hct_AAT_ZTlbNZS1BAcX9GRIQzX3n6bagzJ2xIGiiTUffMQLK542HCAT_de523NdAt-7lHd4cgLuufsl0P_QQwzN_ktrtXIOGUWFxLgoEXnnAh09HATXLqsiIQBpESSLViUUyPSo/s2560/2183p10KFApic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="2560" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpYko1GFaf1cCqw3vixBiNSgdnkJi59ZmRjR_TFcOiwxiT2zT0Hct_AAT_ZTlbNZS1BAcX9GRIQzX3n6bagzJ2xIGiiTUffMQLK542HCAT_de523NdAt-7lHd4cgLuufsl0P_QQwzN_ktrtXIOGUWFxLgoEXnnAh09HATXLqsiIQBpESSLViUUyPSo/s320/2183p10KFApic.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>by New Worker correspondent</b></div></b><br />NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other Korean solidarity activists protesting against the BBC bias at a picket outside Broadcasting House in central London on Saturday. The Korean Friendship Association (KFA) had called the protest to highlight the appalling bias of the BBC in its coverage of news from Korea that invariably reflects the lies of the American lie-machine and those of its south Korean puppets.<br /><span> </span>Discussions were held with passers-by and the media during the 90-minute protest that also called on people to stop funding the state broadcasting network by cancelling their BBC licence fees.<br /><span> </span>Dermot Hudson, KFA chair, said: “Recently there was an incident in the West Sea of Korea in which a south Korean puppet warship intruded into the territorial waters of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) basically invading the DPRK and violating its sovereignty but the BBC falsely reported that the DPRK had infiltrated south Korean waters and fired at south Korea…<br /><span> </span>“The BBC not only pumps out false propaganda against the DPRK but it is also a regime change agency. We should never forget the role of the BBC World Service in the past in undermining and destroying socialism in the USSR and former socialist countries. Now the BBC is trying to do the same with the DPRK and beaming its lies into the country. We must defend People's Korea from regime change, from all attempts to force 'reform' or 'opening-up' on People's Korea.<br /><span> </span>“We, the Korean Friendship Association of the UK, believe in defending People's Korea with No Ifs or Buts.<br /><span> </span>“We believe the BBC should stop lying about the DPRK and instead produce fair, accurate and objective material about People's Korea.<br /><span> </span>“We say don't pay your licence fee because if you do you are funding the BBC's lies about People's Korea."<br /></span><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-24935712213382824212022-09-23T21:58:00.006+01:002022-09-23T21:58:54.242+01:00Democratic Korea’s Line of March<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>1Korean solidarity campaigners held a seminar at the NCP Party Centre on 13th August to celebrate the 77th Anniversary of the Liberation of Korea on 15th August 1945. This is the contribution by Michael Chant, the Secretary of the Friends of Korea. </i><br /><br /> As Friends of Korea said in publicising this seminar, we aim to review the achievements of the DPRK in building Korean-style socialism, demonstrating the incomparable advances since the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the founding of the DPRK on September 9, 1948. The seminar underscores how liberation was an act of the Korean people themselves, which the US-led powers have sought in every way from that day to this to negate. The DPRK and the Korean people have never wavered from defending their right to be and their own path of development, striving for peace and for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. <br /><span> </span>In the long line of march, which itself has its origins in the desire of the Korean people for dignity and independence, and a future based on the development of the Korean nation, giving rise to the legendary leader of the Korean people, Kim Il Sung, and the Down With Imperialism Union, can be seen the historical perspective, not only of the Korean people, but of peoples everywhere, striving for freedom from subjugation by big powers, particularly today that of US imperialism, and from tyranny, and attain genuine independence and control of one’s own future and destiny. <br /><span> </span>Even before the surrender of Japan, announced on 15th August 1945, and formally signed on 2nd September, the US divided Korea by force around the 38th parallel with the aim of imposing their rule over the victorious Korean people who had contributed, second to none, to the Allied victory in the Second World War. The aim was to keep the Korean people divided and to turn the south of Korea into a US military fortress in order to wage war against China and the Soviet Union. Even though today the US state is unravelling, the US still views the Korean Peninsula as a means to attempt to dominate China and establish a bridgehead between China and Russia. <br /><span> </span>Following the Japanese surrender, the US brutally suppressed and outlawed the Korean People’s Republic that had been proclaimed by the representatives of the whole Korean people on September 6, 1945, in Seoul. The US installed the US Military Government of Korea in the south which carried out a campaign of terror against the Korean people’s resistance to US dictate and occupation. Virulent anti-communist Syngman Rhee, who had spent most of his life in the US, was installed as the first President of the so-called Republic of Korea (ROK) in July 1948. The pro-US Rhee government continued to suppress the Korean people’s widespread resistance to US military occupation through extrajudicial killings, civilian massacres, mass incarcerations and other crimes, carried out with impunity. <br /><span> </span>At this point, let us look at the tasks which were elaborated by Kim Il Sung immediately following liberation, as we are holding this seminar to celebrate the anniversary of August 15, 1945. They illustrate that mapping out a line of march, how to advance along it, where on this line of march the people’s forces are located – all this is crucial at each stage of nation-building, establishing and building a new society, and organising the people to defend their own interests, their well-being and strive for peace. In other words, it has never been, for the Korean people and their leadership, a matter of declaring that the socialist society is superior, and all that remains is implementation. This has been the experience of the international communist movement as a whole. <br /><span> </span>The Works of Kim Il Sung reproduce no less than 30 speeches and reports that Kim Il Sung made between August 15 and December 31, 1945, laying the foundations of the new, democratic Korea and its line of march. <br /><span> </span>To give just a very few examples, in the talk with political workers, titled Building of New Korea and Immediate Tasks of Communists, Kim Il Sung says, among many other guidelines based on an analysis of the situation, that “we should follow the course of liquidating the survivals of Japanese imperialism and feudalism and building a genuine democratic society. This is the very way demanded by the realities of our country and desired by the masses of people”. He urges the political workers, “You should explain and propagate our policy for nation-building unremittingly among the masses,” adding, “You should do this by rousing advanced elements to activity and setting in motion various mass media including newspapers, so that they, fully aware which is the right road for Korea to follow, forge ahead vigorously along this road.” After dealing with the tasks in founding and building a “revolutionary party of the working class”, Kim Il Sung emphasises, in relation to local government bodies, “Only when genuine people’s power is established can we use it as a weapon to smash to atoms all manoeuvres of the enemy, transform society on a democratic basis and achieve the victory of the revolution.” <br /><span> </span>He continues, “In order to frustrate all the moves of the reactionaries, ensure success in nation-building and safeguard the security of the people reliably, the power of the broad masses should be marshalled and at the same time people’s security organisations should be formed.” And, “To carry out our historic cause of nation-building successfully at present, we should firmly unite the broad sections of the people.” Kim Il Sung was making this point when “some people have not yet shaken off the influence of the vile propaganda conducted by the Japanese imperialists against communism,” as he puts it. <br /><span> </span>In a lecture given to students of the Pyongyang Worker-Peasant Political School, titled On Progressive Democracy, Kim Il Sung points out the importance of giving Korea the right orientation in the building of a new Korea and taking the road to progressive democracy. As he says, this is “a road that holds out the promise of grandeur and progress for the fatherland and eternal prosperity for the people”. Kim Il Sung points out six characteristic features of the democracy that the Korean people aspire to, a democracy, he says, which is “fundamentally different from that of Western capitalist countries, nor is it a slavish copy of that of a socialist country”. These features of the Korean people’s democracy, he says, are that it: is characterised by independence; is characterised by coalition; guarantees the masses of people freedom and equality; aims not only at independence and sovereignty, national unity and democratic freedom but also at the building of a prosperous country; aims at revolution as one of its major characteristic features; and, aims at peace. <br /><span> </span>Very soon, in the north of Korea, the Korean people mobilised under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and following his guidance, were able to found the DPRK in 1948. They took control of their future and began to build a modern socialist society on the basis of self-reliance. President Kim Il Sung and the Workers’ Party of Korea, founded as the Communist Party of North Korea in 1945, also provided political and practical leadership to the Korean people’s aspiration for a reunified Korea. <br /><span> </span>However, it was following the south Korean elections of May 29, 1950, when the Syngman Rhee government suffered a major electoral setback and the forces for reunification were gaining momentum, that the US imperialists provoked and launched the Korean War on June 25, 1950, to block the independent reunification of Korea. <br /><span> </span>It is fitting to mention that it was on July 27, 1953, that the heroic forces of the Korean People’s Army, with the profound fraternal assistance of the forces of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army, achieved victory by forcing the US imperialists and their allies to come north of the 38th parallel to sign the Armistice Agreement that ended the fighting in the Fatherland Liberation War. The signing of the Armistice Agreement also signalled the first military defeat of the US following the Second World War - a humiliation which has haunted the US imperialists ever since, and for which it has yet to forgive the DPRK and the Korean people. <br /><span> </span>It should be mentioned that the people of the DPRK this year, on the anniversary of the historic date of July 27th , held a grand celebration in Pyongyang at which respected leader Kim Jong Un delivered an important speech. <br /><span> </span>Victory Day, he explained “is not merely a celebration day for commemorating and looking back to the chapter of resistance in the heroic era. The day serves as a valuable and significant occasion for us to judge whether we can proudly say before the embodiment and witnesses of history, who brought about the greatest victory in the harshest and grimmest annals, that our current struggle is an inheritance of the great tradition and to renew confidence and courage, passion and mettle.” <br /><span> </span>Kim Jong Un pointed out the significance of what has been achieved since then, saying, “Our Republic has firmly safeguarded socialism and built up formidable self-defensive strategic potentials in the fierce confrontation with the United States, which spanned nearly 70 years after the war.” Referring to the achievements since the historic defeat of the US imperialists, he said these are “even greater than the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War”. <br /><span> </span>Speaking about the present era, where the US continues colluding with hostile elements in south Korea to block the Korean people’s striving for peaceful reunification and independence, Kim Jong Un sent a “serious warning to the south Korean conservative regime and its hawks that run amuck”, who think that based on military might the entire Korean Peninsula is theirs and who “stand in the van of implementing the US hostile policy towards the DPRK”. He said that if the south Korean regime and military think about confronting the DPRK militarily and that “they can neutralise or destroy some parts of our military forces pre-emptively by resorting to some special military means and methods, they are grossly mistaken!”. Such a dangerous attempt will be stopped and the aggressive forces destroyed, he stated. <br /><span> </span>As Kim Il Sung had stated back in 1945, “The building of an independent and sovereign democratic state is in full accord with the specific realities of Korea and the will of our people. Only by building such a state can we make our country rich, strong, enlightened and bring prosperity to our nation.” <br /><span> </span>It is clear that this line of march elaborated by President Kim Il Sung has been traversed since liberation by the people of the DPRK for 77 years, all the while - under his leadership, under the leadership of Kim Jong Il and now under the respected leadership of Kim Jong Un and the Workers’ Party of Korea - characterising and resolving the tasks and issues of nation-building and building Korean-style socialism at each juncture. Friends of Korea can only warmly endorse the words of Kim Jong Un in his characterisation of the incomparable achievements of the present era. <br /><span> </span>The United States, with Britain in close alliance, is flailing about, seeking to order and divide the world. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is exemplary in confronting this world crisis, and its stand of internationalism also underpins its firm stand in promoting and safeguarding peace. The DPRK is not about to submit to the nuclear blackmail of the US. For its part, the US today is only concerned about the destruction of what it cannot control. It cannot be forgotten that the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons. This was a war crime of immense proportions. And the use of nuclear weapons was the option favoured by General MacArthur to obliterate the Korean resistance led by Kim Il Sung and to wipe out the Chinese volunteers who joined that resistance. They were not used, in part because the US military and presidency could not agree on also using nuclear weapons against China. Instead, the US carried out carpet bombing of civilians and infrastructure in Korea and used chemical and biological weapons. <br /><span> </span>It is certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that the DPRK will continue to advance along the path of building a prosperous socialist country with the people’s rights and well-being at the centre of considerations. The future is in the hands of all the people, especially the youth, as shown by the ceremony in which the national flag of the DPRK was handed over to young people at a meeting of the youth and students with war veterans. <br /><b><i><br />Salute the Heroic Korean People on 77 Years of Liberation! </i></b><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /> <br /></span><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-62752513188241717122022-08-28T11:00:00.003+01:002022-09-27T11:11:08.514+01:00 Korea’s Road to Freedom (2)<span style="font-family: CG Times;"><i>Korean solidarity campaigners held a seminar at the NCP Party Centre on 13th August to commemorate the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Korea and the outstanding achievements of the Korean communists who freed the country from Japanese colonialism and then beat back the American invaders and their lackeys during the Korean war. This is the contribution from Dermot Hudson, the Chair of the Korean Friendship Association (UK).<br /></i><b><br />by Dermot Hudson<br /></b><br /><br />Before I refer to the anniversary of Korea’s liberation, I would like to mention two very significant things.<br /><span> </span>Firstly, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK} has achieved victory over COVID‑19, which was eliminated in the DPRK 100 days after it broke out and 91 days after the DPRK switched over to a top-level emergency anti-epidemic system. The fatality rate was very low, probably the lowest in the world.<br /><span> </span>This was a great victory that only People's Korea, guided by the great Juche Idea and led by the Workers Party of Korea (WPK) and respected Marshal Kim Jong Un, could achieve. To put things into context, so-called advanced countries such as Britain, the USA and Japan after over two years are still reporting cases of Covid. South Korea recorded 128,000 new cases and 58 deaths in the last day (at the time of writing), with over 21 million people in total infected.<br /><span> </span>The DPRK's victory was achieved through self-reliance and without outside help. The DPRK correctly rejected the fake 'humanitarian aid' of imperialism and vaccines of the big capitalist pharmaceutical monopolies of the imperialist world who seek only profit. It was also because the WPK and the people's government took measures so quickly and resolutely. In the Western world some governments failed to act quickly against COVID‑19.<br /><span> </span>As Kim Jong Un wisely pointed out: "In other words, the invaluable victory we have achieved is the victory of our Party's anti-epidemic policy, the victory of our state's crisis management strategy, the victory of our people's fortitude and single-hearted unity unique to them, the great victory brought about by the superiority of our style of socialist system." This is indeed true. The victory against Covid in People's Korea is due to the single-hearted unity of the people around the Party and the leader, and the superiority of the socialist system.<br /><span> </span>We salute the victory of People's Korea in the anti-pandemic war and believe it to be a great example for the world.<br /><span> </span>Secondly, a leading member of the WPK, Kim Yo Jong, made a significant speech in which she denounced the south Korean puppets for deliberately spreading COVID‑19 into the DPRK using balloons. This is a crime against humanity committed by the so-called defectors and south Korean puppets, for which they must pay. I think we have a duty in this country to expose this crime as widely as we can.<br /><span> </span>In just under two days, the Korean people will mark the 77th anniversary of Korea’s liberation.<br />On 15th August 1945 Korea was liberated from the grim and oppressive fascist rule of Japanese imperialism thanks to the 20-year-long armed struggle conducted under the leadership of the great leader Kim Il Sung.<br /><span> </span>The anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army led by Kim Il Sung had neither a state base nor rear to rely on. The armed struggle of the anti-Japanese guerrillas was a self-reliant one that embodied the Juche Idea and the Songun ‘Army First’ Idea. Kim Il Sung cast aside the idea of relying on big powers for salvation and instead conducted an independent struggle, based on Juche, against Japanese imperialism, fully relying on the masses of the people.<br /><span> </span>The anti-Japanese armed struggle fully proved in practice the truth of Songun – that independence is achieved by the force of arms. During the anti-Japanese armed struggle the great leader generalissimo Kim Il Sung, adhering firmly to the line of Songun, rejected illusions of the national reformists and opportunists that independence could be achieved by peaceful means or by begging for it.<br /><span> </span>Some people like to say that the liberation of Korea was due to the Soviet Union or the Soviet Union and China. They like to portray People’s Korea as a creation of another country. To this, two things can be said.<br /><span> </span>Firstly, that the USSR only entered the war on the 9th August 1945, whereas the anti-Japanese armed struggle had been waged since 1930 when Kim Il Sung formed the Korean Revolutionary Army and later the Anti-Japanese People’s Guerrilla Army.<br /><span> </span>Secondly, as a friend of mine from KFA Greece said, how did the USSR and China succeed in their revolutions? It was because of the efforts of the people in those countries, so it is the same for Korea.<br /><span> </span>The Juche-oriented guerrilla tactics of Kim Il Sung and the indomitable struggle of the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army (later the Korean People's Revolutionary Army) tore the guts out of Japanese imperialism, defeating the million-strong Kwantung army of Japanese imperialism, which was finally expelled from the land of Korea.<br /><span> </span>The defeat of Japanese imperialism, one of the main forces and shock brigades of international fascism, made a great contribution to the victory of the worldwide anti-fascist forces. The victorious liberation struggle of the Korean people was an inspiration for the peoples of the colonial countries fighting for their independence and liberation. The 1968 World Cultural Congress in Havana adopted a document praising the anti-Japanese armed struggle waged under the leadership of Kim Il Sung.<br /><span> </span>With the victory of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, the Korean people finally gained their emancipation from the cruel shackles of Japanese colonialism and greeted a new life of independence, a life of hope for the future.<br /><span> </span>After liberation the agrarian reform that eliminated feudalism and landlordism and gave land to the peasants was carried out. Subsequently the laws on sexual equality that liberated women and the nationalisation of basic industries were also enacted.<br /><span> </span>After liberation, under the leadership of Kim Il Sung, the people of Korea built a new, thriving country of independence under the banner of self-reliance, a country which even in the words of enemies has "undiluted sovereignty”.<br /><span> </span>Today, People's Korea, the land of Juche, pulsates with independence and creativity under the leadership of respected comrade Kim Jong Un, who carries forward the great line of independence developed by Kim Il Sung.<br /><span> </span>Can I also take this opportunity to denounce the hostile policy of the British government towards the DPRK.<br /><span> </span>On 30th June 2022 the British government, including the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and the office of the Prime Minister, issued a lengthy document entitled <i>UK-Republic of Korea</i> <i>bilateral framework for closer co-operation</i> that is aimed at giving more British support to the south Korean puppet fascist regime and provoking the DPRK. A hidden agenda behind the document is regime change in People’s Korea.<br /><span> </span>Britain has always played a reactionary and imperialistic role in Korea. In the 1900s Britain connived at Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea. Later, Britain sent troops to fight against the Korean people during the Korean War. Shamefully, British troops acted as cannon fodder and mercenaries for US imperialism and its destructive and barbaric war against the Korean people. After the Korean war Britain gave huge amounts of aid (from the taxes paid by British working people) to the south Korean puppets; and British Leyland, the then state-owned motor company, assisted the motor industry in south Korea.<br /><span> </span>The bilateral framework document refers to south Korea as being a “free and open society”. Nothing could be further from the truth!<br /><span> </span>South Korea is a despotic fascist regime that operates the “National Security Law”, which is based on old Japanese colonial laws and prohibits sympathy for the DPRK or communist or leftist activities. In the past, south Korea murdered the leaders of the Revolutionary Party for Reunification, the Strategic Liberation Party and the People’s Revolutionary Party. South Korea still has political prisoners, including several “long-term unconverted prisoners”. South Korea is dominated by the Jaebols (big capitalist corporations) and a society in which there is a big gap between the rich and poor, as typified by the film <i>Parasite</i>.<br /><span> </span>The document refers to the “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation” of the DPRK, basically repeating a tired old mantra. Of course, lurking behind this is the hidden aim of overthrowing the socialist system in the DPRK and colonising the northern half of Korea. Moreover, it is taking issue with the DPRK’s legitimate right to self-defence and is a denial of the DPRK’s sovereignty.<br /><span> </span>The document also refers to “human rights” and the DPRK “opening up” to the so-called “humanitarian aid” of imperialism. This is yet another ploy to create ‘regime change’ in the DPRK and overthrow the socialist system. The DPRK does not need any ‘humanitarian aid’ from south Korea or Britain or imperialism.<br /><span> </span>There is also talk of upgrading the existing ‘Free Trade Agreement’ between Britain and south Korea. This will only result in more cheap, substandard south Korean goods being dumped in Britain. It will also mean some British monopoly capitalist firms exploiting cheap labour in south Korea.<br /><span> </span>KFA UK rejects the <i>UK-Republic of Korea bilateral framework for closer co-operation</i>. It is both a mechanism for denying the sovereignty of the DPRK and overthrowing the socialist system of the DPRK, and at the same time propping up the totally reactionary, fascistic and decadent colonial regime in south Korea.<br /><span> </span>KFA UK believes that Britain should break with old and discredited policies towards the Korean peninsula, and instead promote co-operation based on genuine friendship, mutual benefit and independence with the DPRK, the truly authentic state on the Korean peninsula.<br /><br /><b><i>Down with the south Korean puppet fascist regime!<br /><br />Hands off People’s Korea!</i></b></span><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-39748569055034951982022-08-20T21:10:00.003+01:002022-09-27T11:11:44.635+01:00Korea’s road to freedom (1)<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5634350161680082856" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6wN0Hu_3wZTYkdlx0b3jwriPlFwd8J1c-eNMLYOKi23ajywhYq5uISysqWWbv4YI7kza6jxAyPvieJEdQ1Jc96F8ORRWj_brbNfFDWjHA1nMnBOPfPb8W5aAuhb0leITpA3M1suoIfgj0O0sjKqQS6afZ7Y95WWsxAG35eT4JC5Hijd0WPyLAuvbi/s1292/2172p1Korea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="1292" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6wN0Hu_3wZTYkdlx0b3jwriPlFwd8J1c-eNMLYOKi23ajywhYq5uISysqWWbv4YI7kza6jxAyPvieJEdQ1Jc96F8ORRWj_brbNfFDWjHA1nMnBOPfPb8W5aAuhb0leITpA3M1suoIfgj0O0sjKqQS6afZ7Y95WWsxAG35eT4JC5Hijd0WPyLAuvbi/s320/2172p1Korea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></b><span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b>by New Worker correspondent </b><br /><br />Korean solidarity campaigners returned to the Sid French library at the NCP Party Centre last weekend for a seminar that focused on the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Korea and the outstanding achievements of the Korean communists who freed the country from Japanese colonialism and then went on to lead the people’s government that beat back the American invaders and their lackeys during the Korean war. <br /><span> </span>NCP leader Andy Brooks, who chaired the Friends of Korea event, welcomed everyone to the meeting and then introduced the two main speakers – Michael Chant, the secretary of the Committee and Dermot Hudson, the Chair of the Korean Friendship Association. <br /><span> </span>They both highlighted the immense achievements of the Workers Party of Korea over the past 70-odd years. Michael Chant stressed that the liberation of Korea on 15th August 1945 was not the gift of the Americans who claim that it was all down to their atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki but an act of the Korean people themselves who took up arms under the leadership of Kim Il Sung in the 1930s in the long march to end the brutal Japanese occupation. <br /><span> </span>And as Dermot Hudson said “the defeat of Japanese imperialism, one of the main forces and shock brigade of international fascism , by the partisans of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army led by the great leader Kim Il Sung made a great contribution to the victory of the worldwide anti-fascist forces”. This sparked off a deeper look at Korean-style socialism. <br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung not only grasped Marxism-Leninism but he applied it to the concrete conditions of the Korean people. He knew that once the masses realised their own strength they would become unstoppable. He knew that serving the people was the be-all and end-all for Korean communists and for the Workers’ Party of Korea that he launched in 1945. He developed Korean-style socialism and the Juché idea – which elevates the philosophical principles of Marxism-Leninism as well as its economic theories and focuses on the development of each individual worker, who can only be truly free as part of the collective will of the masses. <br /><span> </span>In the Western world Juché is often described as “self-reliance” but it is much more than that. Kim Il Sung said that working people could only become genuinely emancipated if they stood on their own feet. But the Juché idea doesn’t negate proletarian internationalism. The Soviet Union, People’s China and the people’s democracies of eastern Europe all closed ranks behind DPR Korea during the Korean war and likewise Democratic Korea has given concrete support to Egypt, Syria, Zimbabwe and many other Third World countries struggling against neo-colonialism. <br /><span> </span>The seminar reviewed the achievements of the DPRK in building Korean-style socialism, demonstrating the incomparable advances since the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 and the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on 9th September 1948. Following the foot-steps of Kim Il Sung and his successor Kim Jong Il the Workers Party of Korea with Kim Jong Un at the helm continues to defend the Korean people’s own path of development, striving for peace and for the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. <br /></span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px;"><b></b></span></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-91525854856275556072022-08-14T16:19:00.006+01:002022-08-14T16:19:50.873+01:00 Stand by Democratic Korea!<span style="font-family: CG Times;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaM11cmEr3Pa8n4tjAJbEczOrTMM41XnpkKkS99OgQV97JjPxkWzIiWWzRouRl0DbQxEopPL0-BUaDH21nkSVQgSrjWhz0_aMsWPrFs9zdAXmNHKi6YjUhi4unysJzH4R-qgl1e36rkH1iy5QNjcVqHrZctTHDuqphrx_nU-5rFXG7HTFL0L_vV-6O/s4624/2171p3PicKorea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3468" data-original-width="4624" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaM11cmEr3Pa8n4tjAJbEczOrTMM41XnpkKkS99OgQV97JjPxkWzIiWWzRouRl0DbQxEopPL0-BUaDH21nkSVQgSrjWhz0_aMsWPrFs9zdAXmNHKi6YjUhi4unysJzH4R-qgl1e36rkH1iy5QNjcVqHrZctTHDuqphrx_nU-5rFXG7HTFL0L_vV-6O/s320/2171p3PicKorea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>by New Worker correspondent</b><br /><br />NCP leader Andy Brooks joined Korean solidarity activists outside the new American embassy in Nine Elms on Saturday to demand an end to US imperialism’s occupation of south Korea. Called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) the protest called for an end to the imperialist sanctions regime against the DPR Korea and called for a halt to the annual US war-games in south Korea. KFA Chair Dermot Hudson denounced the Pacific Dragon and Ulji Freedom Shield exercises saying that the "Ulji Freedom Shield has nothing to do with freedom but everything to do with regime change; thereby extending the corrupt fascist rule of the south Korean puppets to the northern half of Korea and with establishing US imperialist colonial rule over the whole of the Korean peninsula and achieving the US domination of Asia and the Pacific".</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-45813400232530528622022-06-20T20:55:00.000+01:002022-06-20T20:55:08.149+01:00Solidarity in the West Country<span style="font-family: Noticia Text;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-0VEcUpslL5t7gt5PTPPCyJUYHeNNHC_xez7jvQ7y2kF7HzDX8saOvuK4_8rAsJezp0iAO8QOCOw-a8mC_m94TzP4szIpzTsJQr2vbXn7X4UINYCXHI9Bh4Faf7PhL85ivS0Aw9W1LoUVrA4oRt3GN8x7nToYcbXcUjjKzJOUcKWngVnTxMNal5F/s1292/2165p10KFA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="969" data-original-width="1292" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq-0VEcUpslL5t7gt5PTPPCyJUYHeNNHC_xez7jvQ7y2kF7HzDX8saOvuK4_8rAsJezp0iAO8QOCOw-a8mC_m94TzP4szIpzTsJQr2vbXn7X4UINYCXHI9Bh4Faf7PhL85ivS0Aw9W1LoUVrA4oRt3GN8x7nToYcbXcUjjKzJOUcKWngVnTxMNal5F/s320/2165p10KFA.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>by New Worker correspondent </b><br /><br />Korean solidarity activists returned to Taunton last month for a seminar at the Memorial Hall in Taunton on 28th May. Alan Bolon who has worked hard building the Korean Friendship Association’s presence in the West spoke on the role of the Workers Party of Korea and KFA Chair Dermot Hudson addressed the meeting on the subject of "Defending People's Korea -exposing the lies of the mainstream media”. The guest of honour was the head of the KFA in the Netherlands who had travelled to the UK to strengthen the work of both associations on international Korean solidarity campaigns.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-30561935960942430892022-05-15T15:37:00.001+01:002022-05-15T15:37:41.143+01:00Down with the BBC!<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLRB53QI6JqP-74yRCYFCgB7wL_cTDV6nVX8ob7YNF0xnXOR8weKRZvIMmmIPyndGNlj0nnJR6jbdz-l_CdawWidHoAJJOlVSdPVHk0S73BRHwAw6WkuXUqKmylxdxAtM6Mix-daqE0-yh8tlh_NX-lazje6qsCUEQFJTkwoClNqa5penvfA/s4624/2160p10Korea.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; font-family: "CG Times"; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3468" data-original-width="4624" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLRB53QI6JqP-74yRCYFCgB7wL_cTDV6nVX8ob7YNF0xnXOR8weKRZvIMmmIPyndGNlj0nnJR6jbdz-l_CdawWidHoAJJOlVSdPVHk0S73BRHwAw6WkuXUqKmylxdxAtM6Mix-daqE0-yh8tlh_NX-lazje6qsCUEQFJTkwoClNqa5penvfA/s320/2160p10Korea.jpg" width="320" /></a> <b style="font-family: "CG Times";">By New Worker correspondent</b></p><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other Korean solidarity campaigners outside BBC headquarters in London last weekend to protest at the ongoing bias of the state-owned broadcaster.</span><br style="font-family: "CG Times";" /><span style="font-family: "CG Times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">The protest picket outside Broadcasting House called by the Korean Friendship Association highlighted “the continual ideological attack by the media representatives of world imperialism of which the BBC is part of. This tax-payer funded entity has lied and distorted the truth for decades. It lied about the Iraq war, it lied about imperialism’s attack on Yugoslavia, it lied about Syria’s war against imperialist backed terrorists, it is lying about the situation in Ukraine. They cannot be trusted…simple as that”.</span><br style="font-family: "CG Times";" /><span style="font-family: "CG Times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">KFA Chair Dermot Hudson Chairman of KFA said: “The BBC, which is known to progressive people as the British Brainwashing Corporation has consistently lied about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Its coverage of the DPRK is one sided and exaggerated to say the least. On several occasions BBC reporters have used tricks and subterfuges to enter the DPRK .</span><br style="font-family: "CG Times";" /><span style="font-family: "CG Times";"> </span><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">“The BBC has taken upon itself the role of a shock brigade in the propaganda war against People’s Korea. </span><span style="font-family: "CG Times";">The BBC is a state broadcaster closely linked to British imperialism and US imperialism... what is disgusting is that not only does the BBC lie about People’s Korea but it expects us to pay for its lies in the form of the BBC licence fee” and concluded “We, the Korean Friendship Association of the UK,believe in defending People’s Korea with no ifs or buts”.</span><div><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-58033515512011677992022-04-18T12:04:00.007+01:002022-04-18T22:07:55.012+01:00A pillar of the communist movement<b>by Andy Brooks</b><div><b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil5uSDzkOT3h59BuzubEhPqCBikzlo2ASX4TeOqlEBS6rzPwFSD0sIwcfzd-zDno51V1ZXjRncNXHOpDKHE_IlmwTauAp_G4VI1OePeiEs9FyQI18M_hHSjp8ZIB9l1DJphTRa6KaTW9vx50IJfQTlvo8fBYtyyfGkk3AjWIjq5WBybeUh6susLOJj/s611/2156p10KimPic.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="611" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil5uSDzkOT3h59BuzubEhPqCBikzlo2ASX4TeOqlEBS6rzPwFSD0sIwcfzd-zDno51V1ZXjRncNXHOpDKHE_IlmwTauAp_G4VI1OePeiEs9FyQI18M_hHSjp8ZIB9l1DJphTRa6KaTW9vx50IJfQTlvo8fBYtyyfGkk3AjWIjq5WBybeUh6susLOJj/s320/2156p10KimPic.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kim Il Sung at a victory rally in October 1945</td></tr></tbody></table></b><span style="font-family: CG Times;">The New Communist Party joined millions of Koreans and millions more throughout the world communist movement in celebrating the life and times of Kim Il Sung this week. The great leader of the Korean revolution was born on 15th April 1912 and his birthday has long been celebrated as the Day of the Sun in Democratic Korea and by everyone who stands by the DPR Korea .<br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung’s life spanned most of the 20th century. He led the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for nearly 50 years. He was giant of the international communist movement and an international statesman of great renown. During his life he met Stalin, Mao Zedong, Ché Guevara, Tito, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Hafez al Assad and Sukarno and many other Third World leaders as well as western politicians including former US president Jimmy Carter.<br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung dedicated his life to the emancipation of the Korean people, which he did until his last breath in 1994. He was a fighter, a thinker and a leader who developed and advanced Marxist-Leninist theory and led the struggle against Japanese colonialism and US aggression. <br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung was an outstanding communist whose name will forever be remembered as the founder of the modern Korean communist movement that began amongst the patriotic youth of Korea when he was a student in the 1920s.<br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung founded the communist movement that liberated the country from Japanese colonialism, defeated the might of US-led imperialism in the Korean War and led the drive to build the modern, socialist republic that exists today in the north of the divided peninsula.<br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung was a great commander in war and a great leader in peace. He led the people’s government in the north of Korea, so brutally partitioned by imperialism, that led the people in the mass struggle to build a new life after they had won their freedom in 1945.<br /><span> </span>The Workers’ Party of Korea, with Kim Il Sung at the helm, led the battle for land reform, education and socialist construction in the 1950s and 60s and then pushed forward on the engineering, technical and scientific fronts to raise living standards and the quality of life for the millions of workers and peasants who had fought for a better tomorrow.<br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung not only grasped Marxism-Leninism but he applied it to the concrete conditions of the Korean people. He knew that once the masses realised their own strength they would become unstoppable. He knew that serving the people was the be-all and end-all for the Korean communists. He developed Korean style socialism and the Juché idea – which elevates the philosophical principles of Marxism-Leninism as well as its economic theories – and focuses on the development of each individual worker, who can only be truly free as part of the collective will of the masses.<br /><span> </span>Kim Il Sung sadly passed away in 1994 but his successors are following his footsteps and now with Kim Jong Un at the helm the Korean people are marching into the 21st century to build a modern socialist republic, where every individual worker is master of his or her destiny.</span><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3834929207918853261.post-1118254323300549712022-04-11T09:41:00.000+01:002022-04-11T09:41:06.116+01:00Remembering a great Korean<p> </p><div class="post-header" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-1573219032556537844" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 570px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 1px 1px 5px; color: #222222; float: left; margin-bottom: 0.5em; padding: 5px; position: relative;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbDrD0gEkFXnoPvsqdcxpLsS-V7xiDTkzMRXda-ihuvayTVlR8fNPX8QxHDDFegBGkNv3zVDr0KXseK-Is0U3PqFUNyqJQHGd-dn0k9U2T0SFGTdAyN_2UiL5AaPeRnASk0fArv7wA0_snJkJ3d1WpDkcMMWciQ9_Ybexmf7PsCh1hlXgEBQ/s3838/2155p10Koreapic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #cc6611; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration-line: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3395" data-original-width="3838" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbDrD0gEkFXnoPvsqdcxpLsS-V7xiDTkzMRXda-ihuvayTVlR8fNPX8QxHDDFegBGkNv3zVDr0KXseK-Is0U3PqFUNyqJQHGd-dn0k9U2T0SFGTdAyN_2UiL5AaPeRnASk0fArv7wA0_snJkJ3d1WpDkcMMWciQ9_Ybexmf7PsCh1hlXgEBQ/s320/2155p10Koreapic.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px; text-align: center;">Andy Brooks speaking</td></tr></tbody></table>by New Worker correspondent<br /></b><br />Friends of Korea gathered last weekend to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of great leader Kim Il Sung, at a meeting at the Chadswell Centre called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA).<br /> The meeting began with the <i>Song of General Kim Il Sung</i> and an introduction by Dermot Hudson, the KFA Chair, on the importance of the life of the Korean revolutionary leader who led the guerrilla movement that fought the Japanese imperialism which occupied the Korean peninsula until their defeat in 1945, and later beat back the American horde and their lackeys during the Korean war in the 1950s.<br /> NCP leader Andy Brooks recalled the time he met Kim Il Sung in 1990 when the New Communist Party established fraternal relations with the Workers Party of Korea (WPK). Keith Bennett, a veteran Korean solidarity campaigner, spoke about Kim Il Sung’s life-long work with national non-aligned countries and the world communist movement.<br /> Messages were received from the London embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the RCPB (ML), and the meeting ended with the showing of a film about the life of the Korean leader.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0