The Marxist-Leninist Daily

Every day actions are held in north and south Korea demanding that the U.S. get its troops and nuclear weapons out of Korea and that it sign a permanent peace treaty with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Such actions are also being held in the United States and other countries.

Recently, in response to increased U.S. provocations and warmongering which pose the serious danger of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, the DPRK nullified the Armistice Agreement the U.S. signed in 1953 to end the Korean War and declared that if the U.S. carries out its threats, it too will use nuclear weapons against the U.S. The U.S. and its allies, including Canada, responded by trying to get world public opinion to blame the DPRK and its possession of nuclear weapons for the nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula. This is of course not true.

For 60 years, since the U.S. was forced to sign the Armistice Agreement in 1953, it has refused to abide by the terms of the Agreement, most importantly, the terms which specify that it will get out of Korea and that it will sign a permanent peace treaty were violated. It has permanently stationed troops and bases in south Korea, causing a tremendous economic burden and suffering for the people of South Korea as a result of the impunity these troops enjoy and the crimes they commit. The U.S. has filled south Korea with nuclear weapons and in recent years it conducts yearly war exercises with war scenarios that launch a nuclear attack against the DPRK. Nuclear powered warships are deployed in Korean waters and media disinformation fills the airwaves with gingoistic propaganda.

However, try as it might, the U.S. aim to bring about regime change in the north and its continuing occupation of the south fails to win support. For 60 years, the U.S. has failed to win support and it is not able to convince the people today either. Not only in the north and south of Korea are actions against war and the U.S. danger held every day, but also in places such as Okinawa where the people are virulently against the U.S. imperialist naval base imposed there when the U.S. established its military presence after dropping nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki following Japan's defeat in World War Two.

It is very important that the peoples of the world go all out to support the opposition to the U.S. imperialist warmongering on the Korean peninsula and demand that the U.S. sign a permanent peace agreement with the DPRK now!

South Korean Peace Activists Start Petition for Peace Dialogue

On April 9, south Korean peace activists held a press conference at Kwang Hwa Moon Plaza outside government buildings in downtown Seoul to publicize their campaign to get 100,000 signatures for their petition that the government restart a peace dialogue with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Patriotic Organizations Join Forces Against War

In Daejeon, located about 150 km south of Seoul, more than 50 organizations held a joint press conference on April 8 to announce a new anti-war formation and launch an appeal directed at the U.S. and south Korean governments for peace on the Korean peninsula.

Anti-War Action in Seoul

A rally denouncing the joint military drills between south Korea and the United States was held near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, April 3. The signs read "U.S. Weapons of War -- OUT!"

Historic Jeju People's Uprising
Finds Expression Today in Opposition to
U.S. Military Occupation of South Korea

Protests against the construction of a naval base on Jeju Island have been held for the last several years. Pictured here, activists from the Jeju Pan-Island Committee to Stop the Military Base block the entrance to the construction site for the base on April 12, 2013. The banner reads "Demand a stop to the Navy’s illegal construction! Conduct a joint investigation into environmental effects!" (Save Jeju Now!)

Sixty-five years ago, on April 3, 1948, the people of Jeju Island rose up against the U.S. occupation and division of their country and to affirm the Korean people's right to be. This event lives on in the historical memory of the entire Korean people and finds expression today in the ongoing opposition of the Jeju Islanders to the U.S. military occupation of south Korea and the building of a naval base on their island, off the southern coast of Korea.

The Korean people who played a role second to none in the defeat of Japan and the Axis forces at the end of the Second World War were prevented from enjoying the fruits of their victory by the U.S. imperialists.

After the liberation of Korea on August 15, 1945, the Americans hastened to establish a zone of occupation south of the 38th parallel, leaving the northern part of Korea to the Soviet Union which was still engaged in ensuring the defeat of Japanese militarism in that part of Asia. While the Soviet Union removed itself following the war, the U.S. occupation has remained, first through the Japanese colonial administration -- the very same one that the Korean people defeated during the war -- and then by establishing a brutal military dictatorship of south Korean puppets that continued to commit terrible crimes against the people and keep the Korean nation divided.

Following their victory over the Japanese on August 15, 1945, the Korean people wasted no time in organizing themselves as a victorious people to establish the Korean People's Republic which they proclaimed in Seoul on September 6, 1945. This nascent republic was dismantled by force by the U.S. imperialists who arrived in south Korea two days later to "officially" receive the Japanese surrender and to put in place a "democratic" government that would be subservient to U.S. interests in south Korea.

From that moment until today, the Korean people have waged a determined political struggle including guerilla warfare to oppose these high-handed and brutal measures of the U.S. military government in south Korea. Nowhere in the south did this resistance take more concentrated form than on Jeju Island where the islanders were brutalized and mistreated by the U.S. administration and their local stooges for opposing the re-colonization of their country.

According to information from the April 3 Research Institute, the Jeju People's Uprising began April 3, 1948, and raged for almost two years island-wide, continuing in various forms till September 1954.

The event that triggered the uprising took place on March 1, 1948 when the islanders not only marked Korean Independence Movement Day but also protested the fraudulent elections planned for May 10 by the U.S. with the support of the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea aimed at installing a U.S. puppet government in the south. At the demonstration, police from the mainland opened fire on the people, killing six and wounding several others. In response, the people attacked local police stations, burned polling stations for the May 10 elections and attacked reactionary government and military officials. The U.S. military government and their local paramilitary forces retaliated with great force, killing and imprisoning suspected "leftists" and "communists" and other patriotic forces. By April 3, a full-scale rebellion had begun. From then on the people organized themselves into guerilla bands, calling themselves the "People's Army" and struck fear in the hearts of the enemy despite the superior military force of their enemy -- the U.S. occupation forces and the Syngman Rhee government installed by the U.S. in the south. The Jeju people waged a guerilla war for a full two years against a greater military force of U.S. and local paramilitary forces.

Of the 250,000 people living on Jeju Island, it is estimated that up to 80,000 people were killed. Upwards of 5,000 people fled to Japan as refugees. Countless others were "disappeared." Over 40,000 homes were destroyed and of 400 villages only 170 were left standing. The bodies of people killed and buried in mass graves are still being discovered today.

For over 50 years it was forbidden for Jeju Islanders or anyone in south Korea to speak openly about the Jeju Uprising. Those who did faced imprisonment. Only in January 2000 was a special law passed in south Korea that required the government to look into the truth of what is called the 4.3 Incident. The Jeju Island Uprising and the bloody repression that followed has also been part of the guilty verdict brought against successive U.S. governments since the Second World War for crimes against humanity, crimes against peace and war crimes at various Korea Truth Commission War Crimes tribunals.

Today the spirit of the Jeju Island Uprising lives on in the militant struggles of the people of Jeju to resist the building of a large U.S.-south Korean naval base on Jeju, strategically located to militarily threaten China and control the waters around the Korean peninsula and the South China Sea. The people of Jeju Island are in the forefront of demanding that U.S. troops leave Korea and an end to the U.S.-south Korean military exercises which threaten the being of the Korean people. Their just struggle has been supported by the anti-war activists in south Korea, their northern compatriots in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as well as peace and justice-loving people around the world.

(Sources: www.jejuweekly.com Korea International War Crimes Tribunal: Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea 1945-2001)

U.S. Financial Sanctions Against the DPRK as the Godfather of Nuclear Tests on Korean Peninsula

A few weeks ago I was invited to comment on what I felt the change in China's government and the Communist Party leadership will mean for the future of China and for the UN.[1] I am not an expert on China, but I have by now had the experience of observing China's activity at the UN and particularly in the Security Council for almost seven years.

What I have observed recently, is that in some areas, like the Syrian conflict, China continues to insist on its long standing principle to support negotiations and to work toward a political settlement of the conflict. But in other areas, particularly the situation with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) China has seemed to be subordinating its emphasis on the peaceful settlement of conflicts to go along with the coercive actions proposed by the US government against the DPRK.[2]

One recent example occurred when the DPRK launched a satellite in December 2012. Some members of the Security Council complained that this was a violation of a resolution forbidding the DPRK from launching a ballistic missile. Though both a satellite launch and a ballistic missile launch use a rocket to do the launch, these forms of launches are not the same.

As Professor Bruce Cumings, the noted historian on the subject of the Korean Peninsula, explained in a talk he gave at Columbia University on March 2, 2013[3]:

The satellite launch by the DPRK did not have these three characteristics. As such, the satellite launch was significantly different from a ballistic missile launch.

The DPRK submitted statements to the Security Council and to General Assembly meetings explaining that there is an international treaty recognizing all nations right to the peaceful use of space.[4] The DPRK is a signatory of that treaty. The DPRK notes that there have been many satellite launches but only their satellite launch is classified as that of the launch of a ballistic missile. This is an indication, they explain, of the hostility of the US toward the DPRK.

In this situation neither China nor any other member of the Security Council asked that the DPRK be invited to present its view of this conflict to the Security Council members as provided for in Article 31 of the UN Charter. Instead the Security Council expanded the sanctions it has imposed on the DPRK by issuing a new resolution against the DPRK, Resolution 2087 (S/RES/2087(2013)), on January 22.

Instead of the members of the Security Council providing a process to engage the DPRK in negotiations, as China and other members of the Security Council had done in a few instances in the past,[5] all the members of the Security Council went along with the US government program of coercion and punishment of the DPRK.

The DPRK has explained that in response to hostile actions by the US and the use of the Security Council to support hostile action by the US, the DPRK needs to develop its nuclear defense capability. On February 12, 2013, the DPRK conducted its third nuclear test. The Security Council then issued Resolution 2094 ( S/Res/2094(2013)) on March 7 imposing additional sanctions on the DPRK, including a set of financial sanctions which are intended to reimpose substantial financial hardship on the DPRK. These financial sanctions are part of the focus of Resolution 2094.

These sanctions, journalists were told, were negotiated by the US and China and then accepted by the other 13 members of the Security Council. This is a process similar to that which was used in creating Resolution 2087 punishing the DPRK for launching a satellite.

There is prior experience with what the US puts forward as its use of financial sanctions against the DPRK, which has been called coercive diplomacy. It is significant to recognize that the imposition of such US financial sanctions against the DPRK preceded the first nuclear test undertaken by the DPRK. In September 2005, the US government used a little known provision of the US Patriot Act, Section 311 to blacklist a bank, the Banco Delta Asia, because the DPRK had $25 million of its funds in the bank. This resulted in the funds of this bank being frozen and the DPRK losing access to the funds in its account for two years. These financial sanctions were imposed in such a manner that they represented a threat that any bank doing business with the DPRK would be vulnerable to similar sanctions, effectively denying the DPRK access to the international banking system.[6]

Prior to the imposition of these financial sanctions against the DPRK by the US, the DPRK had not tested any nuclear device. And it was only after the DPRK carried out a nuclear test that the US State Department became willing to negotiate about ending these financial sanctions.

So the US blacklisting of the Banco Delta Asia, an action taken by the US Treasury Department against the DPRK, was the Godfather of the DPRK's determination to develop its nuclear capability. There are present and past US government officials, however, who erroneously claim that the Banco Delta Asia sanctions were effective in stopping the DPRK's nuclear program.[7] The opposite is the reality. The US financial sanctions against the DPRK were one of the significant factors which the DPRK cites which convinced them of the need for a nuclear weapon as a defense against such US hostility.

Hence the financial sanctions wielded by powerful nations are the thrust to spread nuclear proliferation not a means to contain proliferation. The focus on the form of financial sanctions in Resolution 2094 demonstrates the failure of the UN Security Council to learn from past experience. The DPRK has documented how it has been the victim of a hostile policy on the part of the US since its origin as a result of the US imposed division of Korea after WWII.[8]

Over 60 years ago, the US artificially divided Korea, a nation which prior to this division had a history of over 1000 years as a single nation. After WWII, Korea was divided into two states using a US manipulated UN General Assembly process in 1948 to consolidate the division.[9] That division continues until today.

Under the Patriot Act Section 311 provision used to justify the blacklisting of the Banco Delta Asia bank, a bank in Macao, China, the US government had no obligation to present evidence to back up its claims. But in documents submitted to the US government, Stanley Au, the chief stockholder of the Banco Delta Asia, effectively demonstrated that the claims presented by the US government against his bank were fallacious.[10]

Furthermore, it is important to recognize that the action taken against the Banco Delta Asia has been described in testimony presented at US government hearings, as a politically motivated action targeting China. According to one of the former government officials who helped to plan this action, the Banco Delta Asia was intended as a "symbolic target." Describing this action at one of several hearings discussing the blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia, David Asher said[11]:

"(T)here's an old saying in Chinese, 'you kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.' We didn't go out and cite a multitude a Chinese financial institutions that have been publicly identified as working with North Korea over the years.... We did need to designate one small one though, and that one small one sent a message to all the other ones...."

Asher explained that the purpose of the action by the US government against the Banco Delta Asia was to target North Korea and its access to the international banking system. An even more important purpose for the US government officials planning this action, he clarifies, was to issue a threat to the Chinese banking system.

The imposition of similar financial sanctions by the UN Security Council in Resolution 2094 demonstrates its surrender to US pressure to create a resolution based on illegitimate processes previously undertaken by the US government. The US government action against the Banco Delta Asia in 2005 was an early foray into creating a system of punishment that its advocates falsely claim was effective to stem proliferation. But in reality, the opposite is the case. The blacklisting of the Banco Delta Asia represented an abusive use of the international finance system against a victim nation.

Financial sanctions as imposed on nations like the DPRK not only harm that nation and its people, but they also end up creating havoc in the international financial system. The international financial system was being used as a political weapon, rather than being protected so that its integrity could be maintained.

With the US Treasury Department blacklisting the Banco Delta Asia, it was not only the DPRK that lost access to its funds, but also private bank account holders at the bank had their funds frozen.

After the US Treasury Department actions against the DPRK in 2005, only one mainstream US media organization, the McClatchy Newspapers carried stories investigating the actions by the US Treasury Department against the Banco Delta Asia. Also a blog called China Matters and several other online publications like OhmyNews International, then an English edition of the Korean online publication OhmyNews, carried articles which helped to expose the US Treasury Department's false claims and the support of these US government actions by the mainstream US media.

The acquiescence by UN Security Council members to sanctions designed by the US against a smaller nation like the DPRK, both in 2006 when the Security Council passed Resolution 1718 condemning the DPRK, and more recently when the Security Council passed Resolution 2094 supporting similar sanctions, demonstrates the need for a vibrant watchdog media and for netizens who will monitor what is being done by the Security Council. It is important to have a netizen media that will probe what is behind the actions taken by the Security Council and what the real effects of such actions are on the peoples and nations that such sanctions target.

The example of the US blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia demonstrates that the use of financial sanctions by nuclear powers like the US against small nations like the DPRK will not stop nuclear proliferation. Instead, it will serve to convince small nations that they need a means to protect themselves against abuse by powerful countries like the US and UN Security Council actions supporting such abuse. It will also hasten efforts by other nations to create an alternative architecture to the current US dominance of the international financial and banking systems.

1. A shortened and edited version of an article written in response to the request appeared in a Chinese translation in the Hong Kong Commercial Daily. An html version: http://www.hkcd.com.hk/content/2013-03/11/content_3159378.htm. A pdf version: http://www.hkcd.com.hk/pdf/201303/0311/HA05311CGCC.Pdf
2. See Ronda Hauben, "US Proposed UN Security Council Resolution Against DPRK Can Only Increase Tension on the Korean Peninsula," click here
3. See Bruce Cumings, "The Fruits of Engagement with North Korea, 1994—2008", University of Chicago, talk given at Unify Korea Common Ground Conference, Korea Art Forum, Columbia University, March 2, 2013.
4. See for example, the Statement by Kim Yong Song, on Agenda item "Report of the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization", New York, February 19, 2013, p. 3.
5. Ronda Hauben, "Two Precedents for UN Security Council Action to Calm Tension in the Korean Peninsula."
click here
6. Ronda Hauben, "North Korea's 25 Million and Banco Delta Asia," click here
"Behind the Blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia: Is the policy aimed at targeting China as well as North Korea?"
click here
7. Hearing, US House of Representatives, March 5, 2013, House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The testimony of the three witnesses, and the Chairman demonstrate that there are those making the false claim that the blacklisting of Banco Delta Asia was an effective way to stop proliferation. click here
8. KCNA, "DPRK Terms U.S. Hostile Policy Main Obstacle in Resolving Nuclear Issue", Memorandum by the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, August. 31, 2012. Also submitted by the DPRK to the Security Council to be listed as an official UN document. click here
9. See the article by Jay Hauben, "People's Republic of Jeju Island 1945-1946? click here
A version of the article appears in PEAR, Yonsei Journal of International Studies, Volume 3, Issue 2, Fall/Winter 2011, pp. 277-284, click here
10. China Hand, "Stanley Au Makes His Case for Banco Delta Asia, China Matters", May 15, 2007 click here
11. US Government, "China's Proliferation to North Korea and Iran, and its role in addressing the nuclear and missile situations in both nations," Hearing before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 109th Congress, November 2006, p. 115-116, click here
   See also China Matters, "David Asher's Dead End, click here
     "Banco Delta was a symbolic target. We were trying to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. And the monkeys were big Chinese banks doing business in North Korea and we're not talking about tens of millions, we're talking hundreds of millions." David Asher, oral testimony, April 18, 2007
     Asher's opening statement and subsequent responses taken from House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, April 18, 2007

Kim Il Sung Opens Korea's Path to
Peace and Prosperity

View of Pyongyang, capital of the DPRK, overlooking Kim Il Sung Square and the Taedong River. Pyongyang was totally rebuilt after being razed by U.S. bombing during the Korean War.

April 15, 2013 marks the 101st anniversary of the birth of Comrade Kim Il Sung, legendary leader of the Korean people in the anti-Japanese war, founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in 1948 as a sovereign, modern and socialist society and the historic personality who provided leadership to the Korean people for the peaceful, independent reunification of their country and at every turn defended the dignity and honour of the Korean nation.

This year's anniversary comes at a time of stepped-up U.S. imperialist pressure and military provocations against the DPRK aimed at igniting a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula and destabilizing the efforts of the people of the DPRK to build their socialist economy, ensure peace on the Korean peninsula and to realize the sacred aim of the reunification of the Korean nation.

On this occasion, TML sends it warmest revolutionary greetings to the Korean people, confident in their efforts to fortify their economy, oust the U.S. imperialists from south Korea, achieve the peaceful reunification of their country and continue to uphold peace on the Korean peninsula and contribute to peace in the world and the independence and self-determination of all nations and peoples.

The letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sent to the DPRK on this occasion says amongst other things: "Today, as the DPRK writes yet another chapter in its epic struggle for the reunification of the Korean nation and for peace on the Korean Peninsula, our thoughts go to the leadership Comrade Kim Il Sung provided, first in the anti-Japanese war and then to defeat the U.S. aggression during what came to be known as the Korean War. This experience established the Juche method of self-reliance which puts the full weight of the people into the work to achieve victory. Comrade Kim Il Sung treasured the principle that all peoples should be able to live according to their chosen way of life, free from outside interference and tutelage and he embarked on the ongoing transformation of the DPRK into a thriving socialist nation on this basis. This legacy is not only treasured by the Korean people but also by all those nations and peoples who defend their sovereignty and right to be."

In a speech delivered at the First Session of the Third Supreme People's Assembly in October 1962, Kim Il Sung pointed out: "Reunification of our country is a complicated and difficult task that cannot be performed easily. Only through a hard and long-drawn-out struggle can we accomplish the great task of national reunification, for the U.S. imperialists, the overlords of world imperialism, have occupied south Korea and are now plotting frantically to unleash a new war, pursuing a policy of aggression against the whole of Korea and Asia. [...] the only way to save the present situation in south Korea [...] is to drive out the U.S. troops and achieve national reunification."

At every turn in the history of modern Korea, Kim Il Sung provided the summation of the Korean people's revolutionary experience which laid down the line of march to enable the Korean people to find their bearings under any situation and thus realize their aspiration of living in a prosperous and peaceful Korea. Today the DPRK continues to make great strides to make sure its economy thrives so as to meet the people's growing needs despite the brutal imperialist political and economic embargo imposed for the past sixty years. This is thanks to the firm course established by Kim Il Sung more than 60 years ago which guides modern Korea today. The people of the DPRK, Korean patriots in the south and around the world honour the memory of Kim Il Sung by carrying forward and defending this nation-building project, upholding the unfurled banner of the Korean reunification movement and not permitting the U.S. imperialists to compromise their independence, dignity and sovereignty one iota.

Human-Centred Nation-Building in the DPRK