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Hands off Korea! Issued by: CPGB-ML Issued on: 26 November 2010 A dangerous situation is now prevailing on the Korean peninsula, posing risks not only to the peace of that country, but also of the region and the wider world, as a result of the incessant provocations and military moves of US imperialism and its south Korean puppets. In a military exercise codenamed Hoguk, the south Korean reactionary regime mobilised 70,000 troops, 50 warships, 90 helicopters, 500 warplanes and 600 tanks, joined by the US Marine Corps and the US Seventh Air Force, in what the socialist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) aptly described as a "rehearsal for an invasion" of their country. Moreover, the United States and south Korea chose to centre this provocative exercise on Yeonpyeong island, which, in the words of the New York Times, "sits just two miles from the Northern Limit Line, the disputed sea border which the north does not recognise, and only eight miles from the north Korean coast". Under such circumstances, missiles fired into the sea from this island cannot fail to enter and land in the sovereign, territorial waters of the DPRK, an act of aggression, indeed of war, in international law. Faced with this act of aggression, and after issuing several warnings, the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK finally took self-defensive military actions on 23 November, launching a powerful strike at the enemy’s military positions. The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (CPGB-ML) strongly denounces the heightened aggression and threats against the DPRK by imperialism and its stooges and resolutely supports all the measures taken by the DPRK to defend its sovereignty, independence and socialist system by military and other means. Even a careful study of the bourgeois press shows without any doubt that it was the DPRK that was the victim of aggression, rather than the other way round. According to an Associated Press report: "The skirmish began Tuesday when north Korea warned the south to halt military drills near their sea border ... When Seoul refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters ... the north retaliated by shelling the small island of Yeonpyeong ...” The south Korean newspaper, The Hankyoreh, carried a similar report: "Prior to the incident the south Korean military carried out a firing exercise ... in the (disputed) area around Yeonpyeong Island and Baengnyeong Island ... North Korea sent a message Tuesday morning that it would not tolerate firing in its territorial waters." The New York Times noted that south Korean "artillery units had been firing from a battery on the south Korean island of Baeknyeongdo, close to the north Korean coast" and that "the south acknowledged firing test shots in the (disputed) area". Yet despite the clear evidence presented by their own media, the imperialist powers are unanimous in seeking to pin the blame on the DPRK and in using this incident to increase military, diplomatic and economic pressure on the country. British imperialism is also playing a criminal role in this regard. Foreign Secretary William Hague, fully supported by his Labour opposite number Yvette Cooper, accused the DPRK of an "unprovoked attack". This is no different from the Hitlerian logic, according to which nazi Germany was the victim of an "unprovoked attack" by Czechoslovakia. Against this venal stand of British imperialism, the CPGB-ML calls on the working-class movement, the anti-war movement and all progressive people to support fully the just stand of the DPRK for an end to aggression and threats against the country and, in particular, to support its consistent, just and reasonable stand that the armistice agreement, that ended the fighting in Korea in July 1953, be finally replaced by a peace treaty, to be concluded between the DPRK and the United States as sovereign countries, so that the Korean people might finally have the dark clouds of war and nuclear holocaust lifted from their skies and be free to solve their own problems by themselves. Firmly support the just stand of the DPRK! Hands off Korea! [ back to Statements index ] |
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