Make Canada a Zone for Peace!
Nefarious Parliamentary Defence
Committee Meeting to Study Perceived
“Threat” from DPRK
– Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) –
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) decries the decision of the Standing Committee on National Defence to meet September 14 to “undertake a study of Canada’s abilities to defend itself and our allies in the event of an attack by North Korea on the North American continent.”
The House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence met on August 22, in an emergency meeting to consider the request for this meeting submitted by Conservative MP James Bezan, supported by the NDP. The original motion was changed based on an amendment from Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen to have the hearing in public rather than in camera.
The final motion passed by the Committee with the support of all three so-called major political parties with seats in the Parliament states:
“That, given the recent developments in North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, the committee conduct a public hearing before Parliament resumes with government officials and subject matter experts to further understand Canada’s current threat assessment of North Korea and Canada’s abilities to defend itself and our allies in the event of an attack by North Korea on the North American continent using intercontinental ballistic missiles, conventional weapons and/or non-conventional weapons of mass destruction.”
The three parties should explain to the people why they think that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), a small country thousands of kilometres away, would want to attack Canada or the United States “using intercontinental ballistic missiles, conventional weapons and/or non-conventional weapons of mass destruction”? Many countries possess similar weapons as those mentioned in the motion. Why do these politicians consider the DPRK’s possession of these weapons a threat to Canada? The DPRK has attacked no one and has not threatened anyone. It has consistently said it will defend itself from attacks including the brutal naval and air blockades imposed by the United States.
The U.S. and its military allies have deployed massive military forces of mass destruction in and around the Korean peninsula and in Japan, and regularly carry out war games on the Korean Peninsula simulating an invasion of the DPRK. The DPRK has quite legitimately armed itself in defence of its sovereignty, as the U.S. could carry out a sudden attack at any time, something it has already done with devastating consequences against Korea in 1950 and has shown itself willing to do against any country that does not submit to its demands.
Why would the DPRK want war with the U.S. or be “begging for war” as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN so crudely put it? Such an assertion is based on anti-communism and blatant racism against an ancient people who have consistently suffered Japanese and U.S. colonial invasion of their territory since 1911.
The DPRK has consistently said it wants a peace treaty to replace the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War. The U.S. refuses to sign a peace treaty. It even refuses suggestions from China and Russia to abandon its war games on the Korean Peninsula to ease tensions, and instead is threatening those two countries by installing in South Korea its most sophisticated anti-ballistic missile system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD).
Every time the DPRK makes a step towards peaceful reunification with the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the south, the U.S. intervenes to wreck the arrangements. The entire scenario of a perceived threat from the DPRK is a diversion to take the people away from seeing that the U.S. is the aggressor in East Asia as part of its campaign for global hegemony. The U.S. has a thousand foreign military bases around the world threatening everyone, while the DPRK has none.
Canada’s parties with seats in the House of Commons could at least acknowledge that Canada is a member of the U.S.-led forces still at war with the DPRK since 1950. As part of making Canada a zone for peace, the government should be pressuring the U.S. to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK to replace the armistice. Instead, the motion and study by the Defence Committee throws fuel on President Trump’s threat of “fire and fury” directed not just against the DPRK but all Koreans and the entire world.
As a participant in the Korean War, Canada must abide by the terms of the Armistice Agreement and pressure the U.S. to do the same. The armistice required the removal of all U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula. Instead, the U.S. has increased its military presence both in Korea and Japan, and after 64 years still refuses to sign a peace agreement and pledge not to invade the DPRK. The U.S. insists the DPRK should be defenceless and an easy target for invasion and regime change. Canada and the parties with seats in the House of Commons should explain why they are going along with this U.S. warmongering and penalizing of the DPRK.
Liberal MP Gerretsen’s comments show the intent of using the hearings as a diversion from striving for peace to striving for war. He says regarding the study, “I think there is a lot of public interest in this and the public will want to be made aware of the exact questions that we have. I think these are questions that are top of mind for a lot of Canadians. That’s why I think it’s very important that it be conducted in such a way that it gives the greatest access to the public receiving the information.”
Whatever questions Gerretsen says are top of mind for Canadians are not the questions that are top of mind for Canadians. They are a diversion from the real problems the people face both at home and abroad, including the problem of how to achieve peace without resorting to the use of force. The motion itself shows that the three parties with seats on the National Defence Committee are not interested in informing their members and Canadians about who the aggressor is and who the victim is on the Korean Peninsula. They do not start from a position of how we can contribute to the peaceful resolution of conflicts internationally. On the contrary, the Committee seeks to use its standing to stir up anti-communist and racist divisions amongst Canadians by presenting the DPRK as a maniacal threat to Canada while in fact the U.S. military threatens the entire Korean Peninsula and the world with nuclear annihilation.
From the members’ comments, the Committee hopes to use the hearings to incite hatred against Korea and Koreans and present arguments that Canada should join the U.S. missile defence program further embroiling Canada in U.S. war preparations. Canadians should resolutely reject these preparations for war. Canadians must not allow these politicians to spout their warmongering unopposed. Join together to oppose the warmongering of the Government of Canada and the Standing Committee on National Defence of the House of Commons and to make Canada a zone for peace!
