https://themilitant.com/2018/09/15/demand-us-rulers-signdemand-us-rulers-sign-peace-treaty-with-nkorea-peace-treaty-with-nkorea/
Demand US rulers sign peace treaty with NKorea
SWP: Washington’s troops, weapons out now!
By Seth Galinsky
Vol. 82/No. 35
September 24, 2018
Sept. 9 Pyongyang parade on 70th anniversary of Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea, focused on economic development, reunification of
Korea, with no display of nuclear missiles.
EPA/How Hwee Young
Sept. 9 Pyongyang parade on 70th anniversary of Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea, focused on economic development, reunification of
Korea, with no display of nuclear missiles.
The Socialist Workers Party offers “unconditional solidarity with the
Korean people’s struggle for withdrawal of all US troops and weaponry
from the peninsula’s soil, skies and waters,” Steve Clark said in a
Sept. 7 message on behalf of the SWP National Committee to Kim Jong Un,
leader of North Korea, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the
founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Working people should “redouble demands that the US government take
immediate measures to advance the talks opened in June in Singapore”
between President Donald Trump and Kim, Clark said.
That would include Washington:
•“Signing a peace treaty ending the murderous and losing war it fought
against the DPRK from 1950 to 1953;
•“Calling a halt to the joint US war games with Seoul, making permanent
the suspension this summer of the so-called Ulchi Freedom Guardian
exercises; and
•“Reaching agreement with the DPRK on a Korea free of nuclear weapons,
of any origin, and all practical steps to that end.”
Ever since U.S. imperialism’s brutal partition of the peninsula into
North and South in 1945, Clark noted, the Socialist Workers Party has
championed the Korean people’s efforts to reunify their country.
Since the Singapore summit, the North Korean government has held talks
with the government in the South and taken a number of steps that
promote reunification. This includes holding a reunion for families in
the North and South who had not seen each other since the country was
divided, and advancing joint plans to build modern rail and road links
between the South and North all the way to the Chinese and Russian borders.
North Korea celebrated the 70th anniversary of the founding of the DPRK
Sept. 9 with a large military parade. Pyongyang “notably did not show
off the intercontinental ballistic missiles that are thought to be
capable of reaching the United States,” the Washington Post reported,
as did most of the U.S. press, unlike a military parade there in April 2017.
Instead, the Post noted, the parade “was dedicated to civilian efforts
to boost the economy” as well as “reunification of the Korean Peninsula.”
“This is a big and positive statement from North Korea. Thank you to
Chairman Kim,” President Trump said in a tweet. “There is nothing like
good dialogue from two people that like each other!”
Kim and Trump exchange messages
Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in are set to meet in Pyongyang
Sept. 18-20 for their third summit this year. Moon’s National Security
Adviser Chung Eui-yong met with Kim Sept. 4 to prepare for the summit
and delivered a message from Trump to the DPRK.
Kim told Chung that he wants to “fulfill denuclearization” of the Korean
Peninsula by the end of Trump’s first term in office. Kim sent a letter
to Trump two days later.
Last month Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named former Ford Motor Co.
executive Stephen Biegun his special representative for North Korea. The
State Department announced Sept. 6 that Biegun will travel to Asia Sept.
10-15 to meet with government officials in Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing.
U.S. Maj. Gen. Michael Minihan, chief of staff for the United Nations
Command and U.S. Forces Korea, met with North Korean Lt. Gen. An Ik San
Sept. 7 to organize further steps to work together to locate and
repatriate the remains of U.S. soldiers missing in action since the
Korean War.
U.S. imperialist division of Korea
Korea was ripped in half against the will of the Korean people at the
end of World War II, part of a deal between Washington and Moscow. U.S.
troops landed in the South in 1945, taking over the role that the hated
Japanese imperialist occupation had played for four decades.
Above, mass rally in Pyongyang, North Korea, celebrates defeat of U.S.
aims in 1950-53 Korean War. Inset, by end of war only three major
buildings were left standing in Pyongyang as result of massive U.S.
bombing campaign. Some 428,000 bombs were dropped on that one city
alone.Above, mass rally in Pyongyang, North Korea, celebrates defeat of
U.S. aims in 1950-53 Korean War. Inset, by end of war only three major
buildings were left standing in Pyongyang as result of massive U.S.
bombing campaign. Some 428,000 bombs were dropped on that one city alone.
Washington installed the dictatorship of Syngman Rhee in the South, and
put Korean working people there down in blood as they tried to take
advantage of Tokyo’s defeat to advance their fight for national
independence and dignity, for land reform, labor rights, women’s
suffrage and working people’s control of factories and land.
By July 1950, before the start of the Korean War, more than 100,000
workers, peasants and youth had already been killed by the
landlord-capitalist regime and the U.S. occupation army in the South.
The U.S. rulers waged a brutal three-year war against the people of
North Korea, dropping 635,000 tons of bombs and over 32,000 tons of
napalm and leveling virtually every city there. Then President Harry
Truman told the press in November 1950 that Washington was considering
invading China and giving “active consideration” to using the atomic bomb.
But they couldn’t break the will of the Korean people. In the first ever
military defeat for U.S. imperialism, Korean fighters, with aid from
Chinese volunteers, fought the U.S.-led forces to a stalemate. In 1953
the U.S. government agreed to an armistice, ending the fighting, but to
this day has refused to sign a peace treaty.
Today the “institutions of the liberal imperialist order imposed by
Washington in the aftermath of its victory in World War II” are
decaying, Clark pointed out in his message for the SWP National
Committee. “That exploitative setup is being pulled apart by the current
US administration and by its rival ruling classes across Europe, Russia,
China and the Middle East and Asia. The weakening of the US rulers’
seven-decades-long effort to keep its boot on the Korean people’s neck
is a welcome aspect of this decay.”
The SWP joins with others around the world, Clark says, to demand, “A
nuclear-free Korean Peninsula! End all economic sanctions against the
Korean people! Sign a peace treaty with the DPRK now!
“Korea is one!”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Demand US rulers sign peace treaty with NKorea
•‘Workers need independence from capitalist state, parties’
•Iraq protests demand gov’t provide services, end to Tehran interference
•Liberals’ frenzy against Trump falters in face of workers’ distaste
•Join fight against prison censorship of ‘Militant’ in Florida, Illinois!
Feature Articles •Mexico election registers crisis for capitalist
rulers, parties
Also In This Issue •Steelworkers authorize strikes at U.S. Steel amid
contract talks
•‘Convict Chicago cop who killed Laquan McDonald’
•Workers at Whole Foods, Target take steps to organize
•Sankara books welcomed at NY Burkina Faso festival
•Kentucky UFCW workers strike at Four Roses plants
Editorials •Decay of US rulers ‘world order’ opens room to fight
On the Picket Line •Chicago hotel workers fight for health care, higher
wages
•Miami airport workers rally, press for union contract
Books of the Month •‘First years of Communist Party heroic part of our
continuity’
As I See It •Gangs, drugs and violence are built into capitalist rule
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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