On the 75th founding anniversary of the Workers Party of Korea (WPK)

I would like first to say how honoured I am, as Chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), to have the opportunity to participate in the International E-seminar “Korea: Ever-Victorious with Independence”.

My warmest greetings to the Organizing Committee of the International Festival in Praise of the Great Persons of Mt. Paektu and the Indonesia-Korea Friendship and Cultural Exchange which have co-sponsored this event to mark the historic 75th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). For 75 years the WPK has been a guiding force of the Korean people in their efforts to build a prosperous socialist society that has achieved remarkable social and physical developments through collective ingenuity, determination and endeavour.

The fact you have been able to organize this important international gathering on-line despite the COVID-19 pandemic is an example of the strength and vitality of the Korean people, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and its allies, friends and supporters around the globe.

This event provides a unique opportunity to honour outstanding and seasoned revolutionary leaders who inspire not only the Korean people but people of the world – President KIM IL SUNG, Leader KIM JONG IL and His Excellency KIM JONG UN. Under their leadership the people of Korea have maintained their unique society and have strengthened their independence.

The people of the world benefit from the everlasting legacy of President Kim Il Sung: resolute and militant struggle for national independence, democracy, socialism and peace against imperialism and all reaction. Comrade Kim Il Sung excelled in fighting for the national liberation of the Korean people.

He led revolutionary wars to victory against Japanese imperialism and then against U.S. imperialism and its massive war of aggression. To achieve every victory, he mobilized the Korean people. He upheld working class leadership through the Korean Workers’ Party in completing the people’s democratic revolution and in carrying out socialist revolution and socialist construction in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in accordance with the principle of self-reliance. Guided by his wise leadership and indomitable spirit, the Korean people scored great achievements in the social, economic, political, cultural, scientific and educational fields under the banner of socialism.

At the same time, they heroically withstood and have overcome armed provocations, economic blockade and all kinds of pressures, interferences and maneuvers by the imperialists and their agents. After the passing of President KIM IL SUNG in 1994, the great Leader Comrade KIM JONG IL took the helm of the party, the state and the armed forces and transformed the DPRK into a bulwark of world socialism.

Guided by the WPK, socialist Korea withstood the collapse of socialism in eastern Europe as well as in the Soviet Union and the DPRK developed a space exploration program and its own nuclear weapon! Today the Supreme Leader Comrade KIM JONG UN is heading the party, the state and the armed forces. The revolutionary record of these leaders is as magnificent as Mt. Paektu, the ancestral home and safeguard of the Korean people. At this point, I would like to tell you a little about my organization.

The League is a global anti-imperialist and democratic united front organization. We are proud to say its over 400 mass organizations in 45 countries and territories are fighting imperialism and reaction on five continents. From its founding in 2001 the ILPS has maintained warm relations with the DPRK, working to expose the black propaganda and decades of lies targeting the Korean people, while firmly opposing the stiff sanctions and the military provocations and standing up to fight, with progressive peace-loving people around the globe, for the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula.

I would like to mention that the ILPS General Secretary, Liza Maza, participated in the women’s crossing of the Demilitarized Zone in support of peace in Korea. Also, a Memorial stone in the name of now Chairperson Emeritus of the ILPS, Prof. Jose Maria Sison, was permanently placed in the wall of the Memorial Tower of the 3 Charters of the National Reunification.

The ILPS recognizes the historic role that the Korean people, led by comrade Kim Il Sung, played in the defeat of the Japanese imperialists and the end of the war in the Pacific and the liberation of their country from decades of violent colonial occupation.

But, as you know, it was not long before another imperialist power entered the scene and forced the division of the country, eventually provoking a bloody three-year war in which millions of Koreans died, inhumane crimes were committed, and the country was devastated. Over 250,000 US military sent to the peninsula were joined by some 500,000 troops from its Korean proxy, the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea), as well as troops from the imperialist country where I live, Australia, and 14 other countries (28,000 in all), included primarily so the US imperialist aggression could be hidden under a UN flag.

At its request, the DPRK was eventually supported by volunteers from a recently liberated Peoples Republic of China and received assistance from the then Soviet Union, with which it shared common borders. I realize that the start of that war 70 years ago was marked with important ceremonies this past June 25.

I note that the mercenary troops of the ROK have since fought alongside US imperialist forces in Vietnam and Afghanistan and were deployed in Iraq. DPRK military, meanwhile, have only been mobilized to liberate and defend the Korean people within the Korean peninsula. The Korean people thus defended their freedom and independence and eventually defeated the aggressors in the Great Fatherland Liberation War against the US-led imperialist aggression, leading to the Armistice Agreement in 1953 which was tantamount to a surrender document on the part of Washington.

The expansion of the US empire was stopped at the 38th parallel. Despite constant efforts by the DPR of Korea to suggest replacing that Agreement by a Peace Treaty, Washington and its puppet South Korea regime have refused, and a state of war still officially exists.

We support the position of the Korean people and the DPR of Korea that the Agreement must be replaced by a peace treaty requiring the withdrawal of US military forces and nuclear weapons and paving the way for the peaceful reunification of Korea. The DPRK recently reached out to its brothers and sisters in South Korea and some gains were made, but soon the South Korean provocations recommenced. Clearly the South Korean government, despite indications it was less aggressive than its predecessors, is still tied closely to Washington’s military, political and economic apron strings.

Yearly US military maneuvers, which have involved Japanese and other troops, including Australia, have now restarted after a short hiatus during the period when Kim Jong Un agreed to meet with US President Donald Trump. Trump’s overtures turned out, not surprisingly, to be a farce. US imperialism was seeking the end of the DPRK, something the Korean people will not abide.

As soon as Trump realized his deception and lies had been exposed, and the Korean people had no intention of letting the US run the show, the imperialist aggression restarted with Washington mobilizing its 28000 troops and its 15 overseas military bases in the peninsula, along with troops from South Korea, Japan and elsewhere. COVID obliging, this year’s military maneuvers were computerized simulations, which in the past have included a “pre-emptive” nuclear strike against the DPRK as well as an invasion and decapitation of its leadership.

Of course such sabre rattling from the US and allies requires constant military preparedness in the DPRK, which means diverting critical resources from its civilian economy to military preparedness. In such a world, the ILPS supports the right of the DPRK to develop nuclear weapons as part of its deterrence and self-defence strategy. US bombs killed 20 percent of the population and levelled more cities in North Korea between 1950-53 than they had done in Japan and Germany during World War II.

Without its development of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, the DPRK would have become the easy target of high intensity aggression like Iraq, Libya and Syria. It was the United States which started the nuclearization of the Korean peninsula in 1957 when it unilaterally abrogated paragraph 13 (d) of the Armistice Agreement (which prohibited the introduction of atomic weapons among other weapons of mass destruction) and in 1958 when it proceeded to deploy in South Korea nuclear-armed Honest John missiles and 280 mm atomic cannons and in 1959 the nuclear armed Matador cruise missiles capable of reaching China and the then Soviet Union.

In military exercises with the south Korean puppet regime, the US has deployed ships and planes armed with nuclear weapons. The DPRK has made significant advances in its weapons development program, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can potentially reach US bases in Guam, Alaska and beyond; a hydrogen bomb which can be loaded onto an ICBM; solid-fueled missiles that reduce launch times from hours to minutes; and fortified missile batteries that are difficult to track by enemy satellites.

Time and again, the DPRK has made it clear that its nuclear program is only meant as a deterrent from possible nuclear attack from the United States, the only country in history that has actually used nuclear bombs against civilian populations.

We, the ILPS, stand for the eventual destruction of all nuclear weapons. But until then every country has the right to develop nuclear weapons to break the nuclear monopoly of imperialist powers and prevent them from using nuclear blackmail to bully other countries. Besides the unremitting military pressure, the ILPS also opposes the economic warfare through severe sanctions against the DPRK, which are of course designed to hurt the Korean people and create economic chaos.

The sanctions include food, medicine, loans, banking transactions and so-called dual use exports (civilian good that could be adapted to military purposes), which have included chlorine, syringes, x-ray equipment, medical isotopes, blood transfusion bags, and even graphite for pencils. Despite these unrelenting military aggressions and sanctions the DPRK continues to exist and ensure its population has quality education, health care, housing and food.

How many other countries, including the Philippines that I have visited, could take credit for ensuring such conditions for their working people? Finally, the continuing division of the Korean peninsula is one of the world’s major injustices. The arbitrary designation of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) near the 38th parallel forced the separation of many Korean families. The reunification of families separated by the war remains one of the long-running issues between the two Koreas. It also forms the basis of the strong desire for the peaceful reunification of the country.

Korea is a shining example for all world’s peoples as they face the devastation being wrought by the crisis of the world capitalist system, the intensification of exploitation and oppression and the spread of state terrorism, fascism and wars of aggression. In this regard, we support the Korean people in upholding, defending and further developing all the victories that they have won under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and his successors. During the past 75 years the WPK has led the Korean people along the road of socialism and independence. You can be sure the ILPS will be beside the Korean people in the years to come.

The ILPS continues to call on all its global regional committees, country and territorial chapters and member-organizations to carry out a campaign of information and mass protest in order to expose, condemn and oppose the persistent hostile and aggressive policy of the US against the DPRK and the Korean people, the long running economic blockade and sanctions, the military build-up which has long included nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and military exercises and other war provocations of US imperialism, its imperialist allies and its south Korean puppets in the Korean Peninsula, in the vicinity and in further areas of the Asia-Pacific region. I look forward to reading as well as listening to the other presentations during this E-Seminar.

Thank you for this opportunity to address you all.