Dear Sir,
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Dear friends,
First of all, let me thank both the APRCKPR and the Indonesia "Korea Friendship Cultural Exchange to have organized this E-Seminar to mark the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and to have proposed me to deliver a speech. Along with the members of France-Korea Friendship Association (in French, Association d'amitié franco-coréenne), I wish you a huge success in your solidarity activities with the Korean people building a powerful and prosperous country.
The foundation of the DPRK was the landmark to build a new society, based on the democratic principles applied as soon as 1946 by President Kim Il Sung, as following his victorious struggle against the Japanese for the Liberation of the fatherland : agricultural reform for the peasantry, equality between women and men, nationalization of the means of production...
A huge effort was also conducted in order to eradicate illiteracy. Leader Kim Jong Il and President Kim Jong Un has carried on the same policy in building peace and socialism, towards the unification of their country which had been divided after the Liberation from Japan because of the great powers.
Nevertheless, American imperialism has went on trying to overthrow the DPRK and its system, and still tries to provoke a regime change, as it has done in other parts of the world. Now the DPRK is the most sanctioned country in the world under the auspices of the Security Council of the United Nations. No other country in the world has been sanctioned because of its space program. Other countries in the world have a nuclear deterrent but are not submitted to sanctions. Why should DPRK be the only exception?
As was proved by the wars in Irak in 2003 and Libya in 2011, DPRK has some good reasons not to demilitarize unilaterally and to have developed a nuclear deterrent which is now effective. Even after the breakthrough both in interkorean relations and peace in North East Asia as following the Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea, the Trump administration decided to impose unilateral sanctions against the DPRK and its people, neglecting that the Korean people don't want war in the Korean peninsula and that President Kim Jong Un invited President Moon Jae In for a summit in Pyongyang.
A spokeman from UNICEF declared, in January, that sanctions could kill 60 000 children. We have to strongly denounce such an inhumane policy and demand the end to all sanctions which aim is clearly to trigger a collapse of the DPRK!
As a friendship association, we hosted in Paris on June 23rd and 24th 2017 an international conference to promote a peaceful unification of the Korean peninsula, along with delegates of the Korean Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries and representatives of friendship association from 12 countries. Promoting peace and lifting the sanctions represent our main task in the current situation: we organize public lectures, spoke in French medias (both national and local ones), published books and outlets.
We decided to answer not only to progressive medias and organizations, but also to everyone who do not accept the path to a new war in Korea which would be a disaster and could lead to the deaths of millions of people. In that order, we have to build the broadest front.
In particular, the French Peace movement published a special issue concerning Korea in late November, I wrote a 2-page article in which I explained that the DPRK was the only nuclear country to have supported, in Autumn 2016, a UN resolution to promote the full denuclearization of the world, as asked by the international coalition ICAN who got the Peace Nobel Prize in 2017.
Considering the hostile behaviour of the Trump administration, the Koreans were not able to go further on this way But no one should forget that the President Kim Il Sung had always considered that the world should be free of nuclear weapons. Too many Koreans suffered from the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Afterwards, General MacArthur threatened again to use nuclear weapons during the Korean war and to create a cobalt radioactive belt on the Korean-Chinese boundary. But denuclearization of the whole peninsula can not happen without a peace treaty, the withdrawal of all American troops from South Korea and an international cooperation, including other powers, to ensure peace and stability in North East Asia.
The DPRK has security concerns which have to be fully taken into consideration by the other parts, and especially by the United States. We will go on promoting dialogue on such bases, considering that there should not be any infringement of the sovereignty of any country in the world.
I thank you for your attention. [kk]
Benoit Quennedey
President of France Korea Friendship Association (AAFC)
