(cache) The Marxist-Leninist Daily

June 25 marks the 59th anniversary of launching of the Korean War, an illegal war of aggression organized by the U.S. imperialists under the flag of the United Nations. The significance of the Korean War takes on new meaning today as the U.S. imperialists, led by Barack Obama, along with the puppet regime of Lee Myung Bak in south Korea and the Japanese militarists beat the war drums over the Korean peninsula to justify another Korean War, a nuclear war that threatens the very survival of the Korean people and peoples of the world. It must not pass!

The U.S. war mongers and their method of disinformation and propaganda for war seek to blame the DPRK for being a "nuclear threat" to the U.S., south Korea and the rest of the world but this goes against the direct experience with U.S. imperialism as the most barbaric force that humanity has encountered, which is armed to the teeth with nuclear and other weapons and operates on the fascist dictum "might makes right" to blackmail any nation or people who affirm their collective right to be, just as the DPRK is leading the Korean people in doing.

June 15, 2009: 100,000 people rally at the Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang to denounce the
United Nations Security Council resolution calling for sanctions against the DPRK.

Just as hundreds of millions of people opposed the U.S.-led illegal war of aggression against the Korean people in 1950, so today the Canadian working class and people as well as all the peace loving people of the world must not permit the U.S. to try and justify another Korean War.

At 5:00 am on June 25, 1950, U.S. troops alongside troops of the U.S.-installed regime of Syngman Rhee crossed the 38th parallel and invaded north Korea. The U.S. had forcibly divided the Korean nation in 1946 and instigated civil war in 1950. The U.S. then launched its invasion of Korea under the pretext of helping one country, the Republic of Korea (ROK), defend itself against the "aggression" of another, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), denying the reality that Korea was and is one nation. The U.S. then engineered a vote in the United Nations to carry on its invasion plans under auspices of the UN and with the participation of its allies, including Canada.

Hugh Deane, a U.S. navy reporter who was an eyewitness to the Korean War notes that the U.S. began the Korean War well before June 25, 1950. In his book The Korean War 1945-1953, Deane points out that upon arrival in Korea on September 9 1945, the U.S. military:

"...found already in place a thriving Korean's People's Republic organized and led by jubilant patriots who had emerged from a strong, broad underground with a sense of historic mission. The U.S. was thus involved from the first day. Allying itself with Korean collaborators, the Japanese-trained police, youthful terrorist groups, the dominant landlord class and returned rightist exiles like Sunman Rhee, the United States occupation brought about the destruction of the People's Republic and its supportive newborn organizations -- trade unions, peasant association, and all sorts of cultural groups. Cruelties beyond measure led to the establishment in 1948 of a separatist southern regime sponsored by the U.S.-dominated United Nations and headed by Rhee, who began many trips to the podium with the promise to invade the north and free its enslaved population." (pg.18)

Following the ruthless suppression of the peoples' committees, the Communist Party, leftist forces and south Korean patriots., the U.S. rigged up the Syngman Rhee puppet regime in the south and organized the south Korean puppet army. In 1949, the U.S. supplied its puppet army with 105,000 rifles, 2,000 machine guns, more than 50 million bullets, 5,000 military trucks, 79 warships and 20 fighter aircraft. The south Korean puppet army was expanded to 150,000 troops by 1950 which outnumbered the Korean People's Army of the north, which had about 80,000 to 90,000 troops. In January 1950 the U.S. concluded with its south Korean puppets the 'Mutual Defence and Aid Treaty.' These measures were in preparation for the military takeover of all of Korea.

The U.S. imperialists and their allies including Canada committed untold crimes in the three years of the Korean War. The DPRK was literally razed to the ground. On Pyongyang, the capital of the DPRK, alone, 428,748 bombs were dropped by the U.S. -- one per resident. The U.S. also used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons against the Korean people and carried out numerous military massacres of civilians in its attempt to terrorize the entire Korean people into submission to the U.S. dictate. But despite the loss of over 4 million mostly civilian lives, the heroic struggle of the Korean people showed the world that the U.S. imperialists' military might is no match for a people united in the just cause of national and social liberation.

The U.S. imperialists were handed an ignominious defeat and were forced to retreat south of the 38th parallel where they continued their offensive against the Korean people, an offensive which continues today. The refusal of the U.S. to date to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK to replace the Armistice Agreement the U.S. was forced to sign at the end of the Korean War on July 27, 1953 shows that the U.S. has not abandoned its aim of launching another war on the Korean peninsula for self-serving geopolitical aims.

The aim of the U.S. today is the same as it was then -- to take over the entire Korean peninsula as a launching pad for its takeover of Asia and then the world. The U.S. justification for doing so remains as bankrupt as ever. All the attempts of the U.S. to realize its domination of the region -- its occupation of the Korean peninsula with over 30,000 troops as well as its military bases, the ongoing attempts to sabotage the Korean people movement for national reunification, and its engineering of various fascistic puppet regimes in the south, including the present regime of Lee Myung Bak and its continuous disinformation and propaganda that the "problem" in Korea is the "threat" from the DPRK -- have failed to silence the 70 million Koreans who are demanding with one voice the peaceful and independent reunification of their homeland, free from U.S. imperialist interference. The criminal role of the U.S. imperialists in Korea, from 1945 to the present, has been exposed for the whole world to see and the resolute struggle of the Korean people stands as an example for all the peoples of the world fighting against imperialist domination.

On this occasion, TML sends its revolutionary greetings to the entire Korean people who fought heroically during the Korean War and since then to reunify the Korean nation and win complete freedom and independence. TML expresses its utmost confidence that the attempts by the U.S. imperialists to reverse the verdict of history will meet with the same ignominious failure as before, and that the Korean people through their own efforts will oust U.S. occupation troops from the south of their country, and reunify their country through their own efforts, peacefully and without outside interference.

U.S. Imperialists, Provoker of Korean War

The Korean people still bear a deep grudge against the crimes of the U.S. imperialists, the provoker and criminal of the Korean war (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953) though more than 50 years have passed since the war.

The U.S. imperialists, who decided to make the DPRK the first target of attack for realizing the wild dream of world domination after their illegal occupation of south Korea, worked out a plan for the Korean war and made all preparations for it. They desperately armed the south Korean puppet army with modern war means and raised its war capabilities to use it as the shock force for the war of aggression against the DPRK.

According to an official document released by the U.S. Congress, they handed over more than 145,000 rifles, some 2,000 machine guns and submachine guns, over 2,000 pieces of various calibre weapons, 4,900-odd vehicles, 79 warships and other items to the south Korean puppet army in 1949 alone. The number of the south Korean puppet troops who were armed with such war equipment and means and trained in the American way reached more than 100,000 as of September 1949.

The U.S. imperialists deployed most of the south Korean puppet army on the front along the 38th parallel and incessantly perpetrated armed provocations against the DPRK.

They built or expanded airfields, harbours, roads and others in south Korea in an extensive way. At the same time, they worked out a prearranged plan to conceal the armed aggression after the outbreak of the Korean war in an attempt to shift the responsibility for the war provocation on the DPRK. As can be seen, the Korean war was a war of aggression started by the U.S. imperialists with full preparation.

The U.S. magazine Life disclosed the fact that it was the first since the beginning of history that the Korean war had been fully prepared before its start. The historical facts evidently show that the U.S. imperialists are the provoker of the Korean war and the heinous enemy who imposed a dreadful holocaust upon the Korean people. Nevertheless, they, who resorted to every conceivable trick to shift the responsibility for the outbreak of the Korean war to the DPRK while distorting history, are running amuck to provoke another Korean war today.

The United Nations Security Council, at the instigation of the U.S., adopted a "resolution on sanctions" against the DPRK on June 12, taking issue with its second nuclear test. This is another foul product of the U.S.-led international oppression to disarm the DPRK and to suffocate it economically to force the Korean people to give up their ideas and system.

If the U.S. imperialists start another war, ignorant of the ignominious defeat they had sustained in the past Korean war, the army and people of Korea will determinedly answer "sanctions" with retaliation and "confrontation" with all-out confrontation, the counter-measure based on the Songun idea, wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all and achieve the cause of national reunification without fail.

U.S. Can Never Evade Blame for Present
Crisis on Korean Peninsula

It is not the DPRK but the U.S. that poses a military threat and it is none other than the U.S. that works hard to provoke a war on the Korean Peninsula. With no rhetoric can the U.S. deny these facts or evade the responsibility for having driven the situation on the peninsula to the present serious crisis, according to a report in Rodong Sinmun [organ of the Worker's Party of Korea -- Ed.] last Tuesday.

It cites facts to prove that the U.S. has strained the situation in systematic violation of the Korean Armistice Agreement and perpetrated lots of big and small military provocations against the DPRK. The DPRK has taken measures to bolster up its war deterrent to protect socialism from the U.S. moves to ignite a new war and it, therefore, serves as a just and powerful weapon for safeguarding the country and a shield for ensuring peace, the article notes, and says:

The U.S., taking issue with these measures, instigated the UNSC to adopt a "resolution on sanctions" against the DPRK. Lurking behind this is a sinister intention to launch a war of aggression against the DPRK on an open and legitimate basis under the name of the UN and swallow up the whole of Korea and then bring its military boundary in Northeast Asia close to China and Russia.

It is a mode of independent counteraction for the DPRK to counter those with rifles with artillery pieces and those who brandish a nuclear stick with a powerful nuclear deterrent.

It is the only way for the DPRK to survive to fight a bloody battle against the enemy and win victory. It is ridiculous for the U.S. to pass the buck for the present grave crisis on the Korean Peninsula to the DPRK. The DPRK will decisively counter the U.S. imperialists' hostile acts against it by dint of Songun. It is little short of committing a suicide for the U.S. to push the situation on the peninsula to the worst crisis.

U.S. Massive Deployment of Forces in Waters
Around Korean Peninsula

In a report in Minju Joson [organ of the DPRK government -- Ed.], the U.S. 7th fleet combat group led by nuclear-powered carrier USS Ronald Reagan left its mainland by an order of the U.S. military to immediately go into action in the waters around the Korean Peninsula. And 12 F-22s were newly deployed in the Kadena base of Japan and the U.S. ground forces present in south Korea were put on emergency alert.

These moves rendered the situation on the Korean Peninsula so strained that the serious political and military tension there reminds one of the eve of a war. It is none other than the U.S. that has pushed the situation on the peninsula to such an acute phase of confrontation.

The U.S. administration has hatched plots to disarm the DPRK and stamp out its ideology and bring down its system prompted by its inveterate hostility toward it. At present the U.S. is busy rapidly dispatching the U.S. forces claimed to be the most elite military group to areas around the peninsula in a bid to browbeat the DPRK. But this is no more than disgraceful behaviour of the foolish.

"Sanctions" and pressure oft-repeated by the U.S. can never work on the DPRK. It is the mode of counteraction of the DPRK based on the Songun politics to resolutely counter the U.S. "sanctions" with retaliation and "confrontation" with all-outconfrontation. The U.S. would be well advised to stop its foolish acts and drop at once its futile hostile policy toward the DPRK.

We Accuse -- Excerpts from Report of Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF)

TML is printing below excerpts from the report that was tabled by the Women's International Democratic Federation's International Commission which visited the DPRK during the Korean War to investigate atrocities that were committed by the U.S. military and forces of the UN as well as south Korean troops during that war:

Preamble

Having received the invitation of the Women's International Democratic Federation, we have been delegated by different Women's organizations -- some of them members of WIDF and some not -- to join an international Women's Commission to investigate the atrocities committed by American and Syngman Rhee troops in Korea. We represent seventeen countries in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. The members of the Commission are -- Nora K. Rodd (Canada), Chair; Liu Chin-yang (China) Vice-chair; Ida Bachmann (Denmark) Vice-chair; Misuse Svatosova (Czechoslovakia) secretary; Trees Soenito-Heyligers (Netherlands) Assistant Secretary; Dr. Monica Felton (Great Britain); Maria Ovsyannikova (USSR); Bai Lang (China); Li Keng (China); Gilette Ziegler (France); Elizabeth Gallo (Italy); Eva Priester (Austria); Hilde Cahn (German Democratic Republic; Lilly Waechter (German Republic); Dr. Germaine Hannevard (Belgium); Li Thi Que (Vietnam) Candelaria Rodriquez (Cuba), Leonor Aguiar Vazquez (Argentina); Fatma Ben Sliman (Tunisia) Abassia Fodil (Algeria) and Kate Fleron Jacobsen(Denmark).

We women of different countries, of different nationalities, of different religious beliefs and different political views, some of us members of different political parties and others with no party affiliations, had a common task before us: to tell conscientiously and truthfully to the women who have delegated us to this commission and to all the common and peace-loving people of the world the facts as we have seen them. All the acts given below, the figures and other data, mentioned in this document have been recorded; personally by the members of the Commission. These facts are all in accordance with the evidence members saw with their own eyes and with the statements given to them by eye-witnesses and officials in Korea. The report itself was completed and signed in the time of May 16 to May 27, 1951 on Korean territory, somewhere near Pyongyang.

Declaration

After the observations made by the members of the Commission in different parts of Korea, the Commission has reached the following conclusions:

The people of Korea are subjected by American occupants to a merciless and methodical campaign of exterminations which is in contradiction not only with the principles of humanity, but also with the rules of warfare as laid down, for instance, in the Hague and Geneva Conventions. This is being done in the following ways:

a) By the systematic destruction of food, food-stores and food-factories. Forests and ripe harvests are systematically burned by incendiary bombs; fruit trees are destroyed and peasants working in their fields with their animals are killed by machine-gun fire from low-flying planes. By these means the whole people of Korea are doomed to starvation.

b) By the systematic destruction of town after town, of village after village, many of which by no stretch of the imagination could be considered to be military objectives or even industrial centres. The aim of this systematic destruction is clearly, in the first place to break the morale of the Korean population and, secondly, to wear them out physically. In these never-ceasing raids, dwellings, hospitals, schools, etc., are destroyed deliberately. Even towns which have already been turned into ash heaps and in which the surviving inhabitants are reduced to living in dug-outs, continue to be bombed.

Left: A long line of refugees fled Yongdong, South Korea, on July 26, 1950. The same day, eight miles down the road at No Gun Ri, hundreds of refugees came under fire from U.S. troops. A letter has come to light indicating the killings were part of U.S. policy. Right: In this undated photo suspected communist collaborators were rounded up in Yongdong.

c) By the systematic employing against the peaceful inhabitants weapons banned by international conventions e.g. incendiaries, petrol bombs, napalm bombs, time-bombs and constant machine-gunning of civilians from low-flying planes.

d) By exterminating the Korean population, in the districts temporarily occupied by American and Syngman Rhee force. In the period of occupation hundreds of thousands of civilians, entire families from old men to little children, have been tortured, beaten to death, burned or buried alive. Thousands of others have perished from hunger and cold in overcrowded prisons in which were thrown without charges being levelled against them, without investigation, trial or sentence. These mass tortures and mass murders surpass the crimes committed by Hitler Nazis in temporarily occupied Europe.

Evidence given by all civilians questioned points to the fact that nearly all of these crimes were either perpetrated by the U.S. soldiers and officers, or else on the orders of U.S. officers. Therefore, the full responsibility for these atrocities falls on the U.S. Supreme Command in Korea i.e., General MacArthur, General Ridgeway and others commanders of the invading forces who call themselves the forces of the United Nations Organization. Although these atrocities have been performed under the command of generals in the field, the full responsibility for them must also rest with the governments who sent their troops to Korea and whose representatives in the UN gave their votes in favour of the war in Korea.

The Commission expresses its belief that those responsible for the crimes committed against all the Korean people must be charged as war criminals as defined by the Allied Declaration of 1943 and must be brought to trial by the peoples of the world, as was defined by the same Declaration.

The Commission calls on all the peoples of the world in the name of common humanity to urge by every means in their power that the war in Korea be brought to an end without delay and that the invading foreign troops be immediately withdrawn from Korea.

The Commission also urges all the peoples of the world to organize immediate help for the Korean people, who are threatened by hunger and disease as a result of the atrocious crimes committed by the American invading forces on Korean territory.

The Commission asks the Women's International Democratic Federation to send this document to the governments of all the countries of the world, to all women's organizations throughout the world, irrespective of whether they are members of the Federation or not, to the World Peace Council, to all organizations fighting for peace, to all humanitarian organizations, the public leaders, regardless of their political or religious views, who hold dear the cause of peace.

The Commission urgently asks the WIDF to forward this report to the United Nations Organization.

U.S. Army photos depicting the summary execution of South Korean political prisoners by the South Korean military and police at Daejeon, South Korea, over several days in July 1950. Lt. Col. Bob E. Edwards, the U.S. Army Attaché in charge of documenting the executions, was quoted as saying, "General treatment of Prisoners of War after evacuation from front has been good." It is estimted that up to 7,000 were killed at Daejeon, and tens of thousands elsewhere.
(Source: Brian Willson)

Excerpts from the Commission's Visits to Specific Sites

On May 18, 1951, The Commission visited Sinjyu, a town on the Korea-Chinese Border. This city has been almost completely destroyed. According to the official statements made by the representatives of the Sinyju City People's Committee, Sinyju had 126,000 inhabitants in July 1950 living and working in 14,000 buildings. The Commission was informed that on November 8, 1950, the town was bombed by 100 aircraft. 6,800 buildings were destroyed and more that 5,000 inhabitants killed, 4000 of whom were women and children. Of 17 primary schools 16 were destroyed. Of 17 churches of different denominations only two were left. Two municipal hospitals were destroyed by incendiary bombs although each of them were marked on the roof with a large red cross in accordance with the provision of the International Convention of the Red Cross. In one hospital, 26 patients were burned to death from the flames from the incendiary bombs...

On the May 21, the Commission visited Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Officials told the Commission that before the war, Pyongyang had a population of about 400,000. There were many large modern buildings built of brick and reinforced concrete. They were also many blocks of modern flats which, as can be seen from the remains, were fully equipped with modern methods of heating and sanitations. The city also had a large number of factories producing textiles, shoes, various food products, tobacco, wine, beer and fertilizers. Among its chief building Pyongyang possessed an opera house, nine theatres, twenty cinemas, and a modern university which had been built and equipped after 1945; 73 primary schools, twenty secondary schools, six institutes of higher education and four technical colleges. There were also twenty evening schools for adults and a large polytechnic institute which was almost completed when the war broke out.

Pyongyang is now in total ruins... Eighty percent of the city was, according to the evidence given to the Commission, destroyed as the Americans left the City (it is important to note that the Americans evacuated without fighting and destroyed the city systematically and according to a plan). On the occasion when the Commission spent a day in the city, there were five air alerts, and in the course of the day, three time-bombs, which were dropped about a week earlier, exploded at 10 minute intervals within a short distance of the place where delegates from the Commission were meeting with representatives of local organizations. The Commission was told that the city was destroyed through carpet bombing... 80 American B-29 bombers coming at intervals of 15 minutes, over a 12 hour period...

The Commission was repeatedly told of instances of the machine-gunning of civilians from the air. Members of the Commission were in an open field when they were forced to take refuge in a ditch from low-flying aircraft that were spraying machine-gun fire into open fields where peasants were at work... Walking through the debris of Pyongyang, commissioners found many used shells from aircraft machine-guns lying among the wreckage of buildings. They also found evidence of the use of new destructive weapons such as a bomb, which, when it reaches the ground or comes into contact with a building, opens without exploding. In opening, it throws out a mass of some substance which sticks to brick, wood, or other materials and which when exposed to sunlight, bursts into flames which engulfs the whole area.

From May 22 to 24 a group of delegates from the Commission visited the village of Madzen, which is 150 kilometres north of Pyongyang. They passed through cities that were almost completely destroyed. The delegates were told that the Americans had occupied the village of Madzen from October 14 till December 5, 1950. In that period they had carried out a campaign of terror against the local inhabitants including imprisonment, torture, rape of the women, and mass murder. Cha Ok Sun, a woman of 27 and mother of two children told members of the Commission that many people were killed, tortured, or imprisoned by the U.S. troops because they were from "red families."

These stories of a widespread campaign of terror, inhuman cruelties, torture, rape and mass murder against the civilian population were repeated time and time again to the members of the Commission as they criss-crossed the war-torn landscape of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. In addition the Commission saw the evidence of the mass destruction of factories, farms, museums, hospitals, schools, libraries and other public buildings through carpet bombing, the use of napalm and incendiary bombs, and the mass murder of civilians as the Korean People's Army began to drive the U.S. aggressors back down to the 38th Parallel.

Women's International Democratic Federation Letter to UNO President and UNO Security Council

The Council of the Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF) decided at its last meeting held in Berlin From February 1-5, 1951, to send an International Commission of Women to Korea, to investigate, on the spot, the ravages caused by American bombardment and the massacres of the civilian population, especially women and children.

The Commission was composed of representatives from 17 countries from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, who after an investigation which lasted for 12 days, presented the Women's International Democratic Federation with the document entitled: "Report of the Women's International Commission for the Investigation of Atrocities Committed by the U.S. and Syngman Rhee Troops in Korea." We have the honour of bringing this report to your attention.

On behalf of the 91 million women united in the Women's International Democratic Federation, we urgently request that this report be examined by various departments of the UN and further urges that your decision be in accordance with the conclusions drawn by the Commission.

The Women's International Democratic Federation demands that those who are responsible for the crimes committed against the Korean people be charged as "war criminals" as stipulated in the Allied Declaration of 1943, and tried by the peoples as stated in the said Declaration.

To put an end to these atrocities, the Women's International Democratic Federation demands that the UNO:

2) Arrive at a peaceful settlement of the Korea problem and order the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Korea;

3) Grant self-determination for the Korean people and their rights to settle their own affairs.

The Women's International Democratic Federation requests the publication of this report in official UNO documents and its distribution to all delegations of the countries represented at the UNO.

Eugenie Cotton
President, Women's International Democratic Federation
Berlin, June 11, 1951

Hail the Historic Victory of the Korean People!
U.S. Troops Out of Korea Now!

Hail the Historic Victory of the Korean People!
U.S. Troops Out of Korea Now!

U.S. Imperialists, Provoker of Korean War

U.S. Can Never Evade Blame for Present
Crisis on Korean Peninsula

U.S. Massive Deployment of Forces in Waters
Around Korean Peninsula

We Accuse -- Excerpts from Report of Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF)

Preamble

Declaration

Excerpts from the Commission's Visits to Specific Sites

Women's International Democratic Federation Letter to UNO President and UNO Security Council

Hail the Historic Victory of the Korean People! U.S. Troops Out of Korea Now!

Hail the Historic Victory of the Korean People! U.S. Troops Out of Korea Now!

U.S. Imperialists, Provoker of Korean War

U.S. Can Never Evade Blame for Present Crisis on Korean Peninsula

U.S. Massive Deployment of Forces in Waters Around Korean Peninsula

We Accuse -- Excerpts from Report of Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF)

Preamble

Declaration

Excerpts from the Commission's Visits to Specific Sites

Women's International Democratic Federation Letter to UNO President and UNO Security Council

Hail the Historic Victory of the Korean People!
U.S. Troops Out of Korea Now!

Hail the Historic Victory of the Korean People!
U.S. Troops Out of Korea Now!

U.S. Can Never Evade Blame for Present
Crisis on Korean Peninsula

U.S. Massive Deployment of Forces in Waters
Around Korean Peninsula