North-South Joint Declarations Provide Guidelines for Resolving Outstanding Problems Facing the Korean People

Reunification arch in Pyongyang, DPRK

The anniversaries of two important joint declarations signed between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) occur in April and June. On June 15, 2000, the North-South Joint Declaration was signed by the late DPRK leader Kim Jong Il and the late ROK President Kim Dae-jung, in Pyongyang, the capital of the DPRK. The June 15 Joint Declaration created the foundation for the Korean people in north and south to strengthen ties and work together to find solutions to common problems. In doing so they took practical measures to advance national reunification on their own terms, and move forward together as one united and independent country towards a bright, prosperous future. 

On April 27, 2018, the historic Panmunjom Declaration on Peace, Prosperity and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula was signed by DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and ROK leader Moon Jae-in at  Panmunjom where the U.S. divided Korea in 1945. These historic declarations inspire the Korean people whose desire to achieve the peaceful reunification of their country free of outside interference is paramount. The people and families which comprise the Korean nation which is one people, with a history of more than 5,000 years, have been divided since the Korean War as a result of the U.S. refusal to sign a peace treaty and implement the terms of the Armistice Agreement the U.S. was forced to sign with the DPRK when, despite all its military might and the crimes it committed against the people of Korea, it was not able to occupy the entire Korean Peninsula.

Subsequently, from 2000 to 2008 under the leadership of presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun who adhered to the Joint Declaration, headway was made in strengthening inter-Korean relations, including the establishment of the Kaesong Industrial Complex just north of the Demilitarized Zone in 2002. This successful project undertaken by the DPRK and ROK for mutual benefit involved 123 south Korean companies, employing 800 workers from the ROK and 53,000 from the DPRK producing a wide variety of textiles, ceramics and other products for the domestic and export markets.

The June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration was followed by the October 4, 2007 Agreement between the ROK and DPRK, which further developed and strengthened the progress made as a result of the June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration.

The U.S., however, would not permit the peaceful resolution of outstanding problems on the Korean Peninsula. It stepped up its interference in the affairs of the ROK to get these positive developments rolled back. It got two anti-communist, corrupt people elected, as presidents of the ROK, Lee Myung-bak, a former mayor of Seoul, and then Park Gyeun-hye, daughter of the second ROK president Park Chung-hee, an anti-communist dictator who had served in the imperialist Japanese army. They began to sabotage the work done by the previous administrations to foster and normalize ties with the DPRK. This included Park Gyeun-hye's unilateral decision to end the joint project at Kaesong in 2016.

After Park Gyeun-hye was impeached for corruption, in the May 2017 ROK presidential election Moon Jae-in succeeded in becoming president based on his pledge to revitalize north-south relations. By cooperating with the leadership of the DPRK, this led to the adoption of the second historic joint declaration -- the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula, signed between Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in on April 27, 2018. This historic agreement reaffirmed all previous agreements and went further, by declaring, among other important measures, that the two sides would refrain from engaging in military provocations. This declaration was justly celebrated by the Korean people and peace-loving humanity as a big step forward for inter-Korean relations and for peace on the Korean Peninsula and around the world.

What has continued to be a block to the aspirations of the Korean people and their nation-building project is the machinations and perfidy of the U.S. imperialists, who were responsible for the division of Korea in the first place in 1945 and who continue to keep Korea divided today as well as a powder keg for U.S. weapons of all types, including nuclear arms.

Besides other things, the U.S. has systematically used the UN Security Council and its allies in the Korean War, such as Canada, to impose ever harsher economic sanctions on the DPRK to strangle it into submission. The military, economic and political domination and militarization of the ROK by the U.S. imperialists and their attempts to strangle the DPRK into submission are all aimed at realizing the striving of the U.S. imperialists to control all the affairs of the countries in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. In the process, the U.S. has further weaponized the ROK in order to maintain a foothold for its armed forces on the mainland of north-east Asia and to serve as a forward staging ground to threaten China and Russia.

The ROK is also one of the biggest purchasers of U.S. weapons. Despite the fact that Point 2 of the Panmunjom Declaration states that the ROK and DPRK will "make joint efforts to alleviate the acute military tension and practically eliminate the danger of war on the Korean Peninsula," in practice this has not yet been possible and activists for peace and reunification continue to work assiduously to disentangle the south from the U.S. military and its aggressive aims in the region.[1]

Whatever the self-serving machinations of the U.S. imperialists and their appeasers in Canada and elsewhere, the fact remains that the decisive factor for peace on the Korean Peninsula and the reunification of the Korean nation are the Korean people themselves, along with the peace-loving peoples of the world taking action in concert with them. It is this spirit that is enshrined in the June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration, which the Korean people will never permit to be erased. It is their defiance of U.S. threats and dictate that give expression to the three principles guiding the Korean reunification movement: reunification will be achieved independently without outside interference, through the political unity of the Korean people despite their ideological differences, and peacefully.

There is no better time than the 21st anniversary of the June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration, for the Canadian people to step up providing support for the courageous and determined struggle of the Korean people to achieve peace, reunification and progress for Korea.

Korean athletes from the north and south enter opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Olympics, February 9, 2018, under the reunification flag.

Note

1. In 1953 following the Korean War, the ROK-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty was imposed by the U.S. which forces the ROK to take part in the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle war games that are thinly veiled attempts to threaten the DPRK and its supporters China and Russia.

This article was published in

Volume 51 Number 15 - June 15, 2021

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2021/Articles/MS51156.HTM

    

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