Down with the south Korea puppet regime!

 

By New Worker 

correspondent

SUPPORTERS of the Korean revolution returned to the picket the south Korean embassy to protest against the oppressive regime, whose leader was greeted at Buckingham Palace last week. New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks joined the demonstration called by the UK Korean Friendship Association outside the embassy in London on 7^th November to protest against the state visit of fascist puppet Park Geun Hye last week.

              Dermot Hudson, KFA Official Delegate and chair of the Juché Idea Study Group, opened the picket by saying: “The south Korean embassy is a joke and should not exist as south Korea is not a state. South Korea has no independence; south Korea is totally dependent on the United States and indeed was created by the US.

“Today south Korean puppet ruler Park Geun Hye is on a state visit to the UK and is being entertained at the expense of the British taxpayer despite huge cutbacks in public spending. Park is as dictator like her father Park Chung Hee.”

General Park Chung Hee came to power in a military coup in 1961 and ruled with an iron fist until he was assassinated by the head of his own intelligence service during a power struggle in 1979. His daughter is now following in her father’s footsteps by banning the Unified Progressive Party as well as the Teachers Union.

The demonstrators waved the DPR Korea flag in front of the puppet embassy as well as the UK KFA banner and maintained a barrage of slogans throughout the 90-minute afternoon protest action.

The picketers exchanged banter with a couple of journalists from NK News, an anti-DPRK front that poses as an independent news agency, and a man who said he was a north Korean defector living in London. They also had to put up with the unwelcome attention of a member of the puppet embassy staff who went around taking close-up photographs of the protesters in an amateurish attempt to intimidate the demonstrators and presumably for the records of the south Korean intelligence service!

Celebrating a job well done!

By New Worker correspondent

Comrade Thae proposes the toast

IN DEMOCRATIC Korea print workers always hold a ceremony to mark the completion of a job and we did the same in London on 16^th October to celebrate the publication of a keynote speech by Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the New Communist Party of Britain.

 Comrade Thae Yongho from the London embassy of the DPR Korea came to the NCP Party Centre to congratulate the Party workers who produced Marshal Kim Jong Un's talk Let Us Add Eternal Brilliance to Comrade Kim Jong Il's Great Idea and Achievements of the Songun Revolution for the first time in Britain.

The talk was published in Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the Workers' Party of Korea, and Joson Inmingun, organ of the Korean People's Army, on 25^th August (Day of Songun), Juché 102 (2013).

The talk deals with the Songun revolutionary feats of leader Kim Jong Il and clarifies the essence and originality of the idea of the Songun revolution and the tasks to be carried out to successfully accomplish the revolutionary cause of Songun.

The pamphlet costs £1.50 including postage from NCP Lit, PO Box 73 London SW11 2PQ.

Workers Party of Korea celebrated in London

by New Worker correspondent

Leslie Larkum and Michael Chant

Comrades from several different organisations came together last Saturday in South London to celebrate the formation of the Workers Party of Korea on October 10th  at a social organised by the Friends of Korea.

Youg Ho Thae, minister at the DPRK embassy, explained the history of the formation of the Workers Party of Korea, which was directly descended from the Down With Imperialism Union by the young, patriotic student leader Kim Il Sung in October 1926.

During the anti-Japanese war there was a communist party cell in each guerrilla unit. It was only practically possible to establish the Communist Party of North Korea after the North was liberated in 1945.

After the defeat of the Japanese in 1945 country Kim il Sung raised the question of forming a unified communist movement, and following the foundation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in September 1948 the communist parties of north and south came together to form the Workers Party of Korea on  October 10 that year.

Comrade Thae pointed out that “since World War 2 the country which had used chemical weapons more than any other is the US, which has the largest stockpile of these weapons in the world. Even now, tens of thousands of children are being born in Vietnam with terrible deformities”.

He added that the deadline for the US to eliminate these weapons under the Chemical Weapons Convention was this year, “but now Washington has said this would not be possible for another 10 or 12 years”.

Speaking on behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML), Michael Chant told the meeting that the Korean communists led by Kim Il Sung had worked to solve the problems faced by the Korean people step by step, and made the people the decision-makers.

The formation of the Workers Party of Korea by Kim Il Sung as the mass party of the Korean people, he said, “has enabled the people to unite with one will to develop the country”.

Dermot Hudson of the Korean Friendship Association recalled that the song used as the anthem of the Korean People’s Army, the Red Flag, was written by a British socialist, and that as a song identified with the DPRK it is still illegal to sing it in south Korea.

He said “the Workers Party of Korea is surging forward under the banner of Songun leadership of dear respected leaders Kim Jong Il”, with new housing and leisure facilities and long-range rockets”.

The Workers Party of Korea is continuing the struggles against dogmatism, factionalism, revisionism and “raising the banner of socialism high in Korea and in Asia”, he said.

Bringing greetings from the NCP, Theo Russell said 10th  October  was an important day for communists the world over, when “a new party of the toiling masses was formed on Korean soil, the Workers Party of Korea”.

He said the party had made unique contributions to the international movement: the Juche idea which had unleashed the enormous creative energy of the masses, and the concept of self-reliance and the Songun army first policy, which are admired by small nations around the world attempting to resist imperialist bullying and diktat.

The meeting was followed by music provided by Michael Chant and Lesley Larkum, who performed Let us love our motherland, Arirang, and the national anthem of the DPRK on the violin and keyboard.

• Celebrating the 68th anniversary of the WPK (Workers Weekly)

FREE RO SU HUI NOW!

By New Worker correspondent

Last year a veteran south Korean peace activist was jailed by the south Korean puppet regime after he returned from a visit to the north. Ro Su Hui was sentenced to four years in prison under south Korea’s draconian anti-communist “National Security Law” and last week pickets were again outside the south Korean embassy in London to demand his release.

NCP leader Andy Brooks joined other friends of the Korean people at the protest organised by the International Campaign for the Release of Ro Su Hui and the UK Korean Friendship Association.

 Dermot Hudson, the secretary of the international campaign, read out demands for Ro Su Hui’s release throughout the picket as well as messages of support from the Swiss Korea Committee and other groups. Dermot said: " we are here today to protest against the jailing of Mr Ro Su Hui and also the recent arrest of Mr Lee Seok Ki an assemblyman from the Unified Progressive Party.

We strongly denounce the south Korean so-called authorities (in reality a gang of fascist puppets who grovel to the American imperialists) for the 4 year jail sentence imposed on vice -chairman Mr Ro Su Hui .

This is an outrageous and despotic act against Mr Ro who had simply campaigned for peace and reunification. All he did was to visit the northern half of his own country, this should not be considered a crime.

Mr Ro was subjected to brutal treatment when he crossed back into south Korea and was held without trial for more than 6 months in south Korea. Mr Ro is is over the age of 65 and he is suffering from cancer. This is a most inhuman act of the south Korean regime”.

            Protesters leafleted passers-by while others read out statements and maintained a barrage of slogans throughout the afternoon demonstration, including a lively rendering of  "south Korea is a fascist regime " to the tune of the Beatles’ "Yellow Submarine"!

• Video of the picket

An afternoon for Korea

By New Worker correspondent

FRIENDS of the Korean revolution returned to the historic Lucas Arms in north London on Saturday for a further celebration of the foundation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Academics and school students joined Korean solidarity workers to take part in the meeting called by the British Juché Idea Study Group at the Kings Cross pub, which has been a working class venue for many years and was the place where the Committee to Defeat Revisionism for Communist Unity was founded to challenge the leadership of the old Communist Party of Great Britain in 1963.

             Dermot Hudson opened the meeting by saying that the 65^th anniversary of the DPRK was proudly celebrated by the successful Worker-Peasant Red Guard parade in the DPRK on September. He also paid tribute to Madame Kim Jong Suk the mother of Korea who passed away 64 years ago on the 22^nd September.

                  Shaun Pickford, the secretary general of the group, was unable to travel into London as his father is gravely ill. But he sent a paper that stressed the remarkable achievements of Democratic Korea over the past 65 years, including free medical care, free housing, no taxation and other benefits of the DPRK's social system. In the DPRK there is the tradition of collectivism throughout society, the spirit of single-hearted unity.

Dermot then followed with a contribution on the Juché and Songun politics that had transformed the DPR Korea into a modern socialist republic. And this was taken up Dr Hugh Goodacre, a senior lecturer in economics who explained the deep significance of anniversary of the foundation within the context of the Juché Idea. He said that in the DPRK the people are the masters of the state.  The great leader President Kim Il Sung was a great man of the people, Hugh said, who mixed with workers and farmers and even shook the ink-stained hands of academics!

Dr Goodacre, who is an accomplished linguist, demonstrated his talents by singing the national anthem of the DPRK in Korean to the applause of the audience and the meeting ended in informal discussion and a buffet.

Visiting Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Centre of Unity and Peace

Sixty-Five Fighting Years!

By New Worker correspondent

ON THE 9^th SEPTEMBER 1948 the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established in the free northern part of the Korean peninsula that had once been part of the Japanese Empire. In the DPRK it is a public holiday and hundreds of thousands of Koreans packed Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang for a spectacular military and civilian parade through the capital.

It’s a special day for Koreans on both sides of the divided country and amongst the overseas Korean community because on that day in 1948 the Korean people expressed their democratic will through popular power and immediately took the first steps towards building a new socialist life for the workers and peasants who had fought to free themselves from the Japanese yoke that had enslaved them for many decades.

 It’s also special day for communists all over the world who showed their solidarity with Democratic Korea. London was no exception. Communists and Korean solidarity activists joined diplomats, journalists and business-people at a lunch-time reception at the DPRK embassy that was opened by DPRK ambassador Hyong Hak Bong last week.

Andy Brooks, Hyong Hak Bong and Michael Chant at the reception

 The leaders of the NCP and the RCPB (ML), Andy Brooks and Michael Chant, were there along with veteran London communist Monty Goldman from the CPB, who was jailed for two months for protesting against the Korean War, as well as Daphne Liddle, the joint editor of the New Worker, and Dermot Hudson from the Korean Friendship Association.

And Comrade Hyong Hak Bong returned to south London as guest of honour at a meeting and social to honour the 65^th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea that was opened by Andy Brooks, who chairs the Friends of Korea, in south London on Sunday.

The event, at the south London headquarters of the RCPB (ML) kicked off with a spirited rendition of the DPRK national anthem and the Song of Kim Il Sung by the violinist Leslie Larkum, who has recently visited Democratic Korea. This was followed by the screening of a documentary covering the recent visit of a RCPB (ML) delegation to Democratic Korea produced by one of their own comrades.

Comrades heard lively eye-witness reports from comrades who took part in the recent 60^th anniversary celebration in the DPRK of the Korean people’s victory in the Fatherland Liberation War in July. Michael Chant, Leslie Larkum and Dermot Hudson painted a vivid picture of Democratic Korea which is led by Kim Jong Un and guided by Marxism-Leninism and the Juché Idea and also determined to struggle for reunification and defend its socialist path.

Comrade Hyong Hak Bong addresses the meeting

 And a 16-year-old student who was also in Pyongyang in July told us about his impressions of the socialist capital and his struggle to tell the truth at school about the reality of the DPRK today.

Other friends of Korea, like John McLeod of the Socialist Labour Party and Theo Russell of the NCP, who have also been to north Korea, joined in a general discussion that ended with an appeal from Hyong Hak Bong for everyone to go to the DPRK, if they can, and see for the new life for the Korean people with their own eyes. 

• Korea -- A Day to Remember  
• Joyous 65th anniversary of the founding of the DPRK