Voice of Revolution

Step up opposition to war Plans against Korea

Salute the Struggle of the Korean People for Reunification

The Korean people south and north are standing as one against U.S. provocations and war plans and organizing for reunification. As the U.S. mounts the largest war drill since Vietnam in the waters near Korea, the Koreans are pressing forward with efforts to bring about the peaceful and independent reunification of Korea. Theirs is a just stand for peace. Reunification directly blocks current U.S. efforts to launch war against Korea and embroil all of Asia, and the world, in a third world war. It is a stand consistent with the deeply felt desire of all Koreans to unite their nation and heal the wounds of division, imposed by the U.S.

In demonstrations north and south on June 25, the 56th anniversary of the U.S. war against Korea (1950-53), Koreans vigorously opposed U.S. war crimes and U.S. provocations today. Demonstrations continue to be organized at U.S. bases in Korea while common efforts are developing to achieve reunification. Throughout Korea, in the U.S. and worldwide, the peoples are demanding U.S. Troops Out of Korea Now! Bring All U.S. Troops Home Now!

The U.S. is attempting to whip up fear to disorient the anti-war movement, using disinformation concerning the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). As it did with Iraq, and Vietnam before, and in launching the Korean War, the U.S. is painting the DPRK as a "threat." The U.S., according to war-president George W. Bush, is not a threat. The U.S. - with the world's largest nuclear arsenal, with its past use of nuclear weapons and its open first strike nuclear policy, with its war drills near Korea involving 22,000 troops, 280 bombers, 40 warships and 6 submarines, with its use of chemical and biological weapons, in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, with its policy of pre-emptive war and unjust and illegal wars against Iraq and Afghanistan - is not a threat! Yet the DPRK, which has not committed any act of aggression and is prepared to sign a non-aggression pact with the U.S. and has called for bilateral talks on matters of security, supposedly is a threat. The claims that Korea is a threat and the U.S. is not are yet more government lies to justify aggression.

Given the experience with Iraq and the government lie of Iraq's "threat" of "weapons of mass destruction," and given the many other examples of the U.S. concocting "threats" to justify war and repression, there is no reason to trust the government when it brands the DPRK as a "threat." There is every reason to reject U.S. lies and demand Hands Off Korea! U.S. Disarm Now!

Let no one be fooled by U.S. efforts to justify yet more aggression, using the claim that a country is, or might be, or maybe could be developing nuclear weapons. The DPRK and all the Korean people have the right to defend themselves and their sovereignty and to refuse to submit to U.S. dictate.

Reunification is a problem for the Koreans themselves, together, to solve and one they are actively moving forward on. The U.S. is interfering to stop reunification for it knows full well that the Korean people are a formidable force for peace and progress. In standing against U.S. war plans and actively working for reunification, the Korean people are representing all the world's people organizing to block world war and defend humanity. Americans are one with the world's anti-war movement and must step up opposition to war against Korea, as they are to war against Iraq.

Support the Reunification of Korea! All U.S. Troops Home Now!

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U.S. Launches "RIMPAC 2006"

Major Military Provocation Against Korean People

On June 25, 2006, the 56th anniversary of the launch of the U.S. war against Korea, the U.S. launched large-scale military provocations in the Pacific near the Korean peninsula. Called "Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2006," the military war drills include 22,000 soldiers, 40 ships, 6 submarines, and 280 bombers. Mike Brown, the main commander of the military forces involved told reporters it was the largest military exercise by the U.S. in the area since the war in Vietnam. The war drills run from June 25 - July 28 and involve Australia, Canada, Chile, Peru, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This open military provocation against the Korean people adds to the more than 50 years of U.S. aggressive policy toward Korea. The many and frequent provocations include hundreds of encroachments on Korean airspace, moving additional naval forces into the area, and repositioning the nearly 40,000 troops occupying south Korea in preparation for attack. The current RIMPAC is the twentieth in a series of such war drills conducted periodically since 1971.

The increasing U.S. brinkmanship, its disinformation about a "threat" from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) when it is the U.S. that is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, its campaign and continuing provocations against the DPRK have created an extremely volatile situation on the Korean peninsula. With nuclear weapons on land and sea in the area and threats of first-strike use, the U.S. could launch another war against the Korean people at any time.

The resolute struggle of the Korean people and their opposition to U.S. threats and provocations are a force for peace on the Korean peninsula, as well as in Asia and the world. It is the U.S. that is the threat and source of war, embroiling not only Korea, but Japan as well. For Americans, opposing the criminal role of the U.S. imperialists against Korea, including continued U.S. efforts to block reunification and provoke conflict is an essential part of the growing anti-war movement.

U.S. Troops Out of Korea!

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DPRK's Stand on "RIMPAC-2006"

Pyongyang, June 23 (KCNA) - The army and people of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will always follow with a high degree of revolutionary vigilance the moves of the United States and its followers against the DPRK, moves that are inching closer to the line of danger as the days go by. The army and people will decisively react against the reckless provocations of the aggressors with strong measures for self-defense. A spokesman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland declared this in a statement issued on Friday in connection with the U.S.-led large joint military exercises (RIMPAC-2006) to be staged in the waters of the Pacific from June 25 to July 29.

The statement said:

As a matter of fact, the exercises targeted against the DPRK are more provocative and dangerous than the previous ones in terms of their scale and aggressive nature.

The U.S. fixed June 25, the day the U.S. started the Korean War in the last century, as the date for launching the exercises. This once again clearly indicates their loud-mouthed peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is nothing but a deceptive artifice to start a new war.

The U.S. talks about "dialogue," "peace" and "stability in Northeast Asia" but, in actuality, gets frantic in its preparations for a nuclear war, whetting the sword for aggression. This behavior is an unpardonable mockery of the public at home and abroad and a blatant act of disturbing the peace.

The reality clearly shows who is chiefly to blame for harassing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and pushing the situation to the brink of a war.

The U.S. can never flee from the responsibility for having beclouded the prospect of a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue and the six-way talks and created a very grave situation on the Korean Peninsula through its hostile policy toward the DPRK and frantic war exercises against it.

The south Korean authorities decided to participate again in the war exercises with huge forces, availing themselves of the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK. This is a blatant perfidy to the June 15 joint declaration adopted between the north and the south of Korea, a dangerous provocation as it will endanger the overall inter-Korean relations and is a treacherous act of escalating the confrontation and tension on the Korean Peninsula.

They would be well advised to ponder over the serious consequences to be entailed by their participation in the projected joint military exercises, unconditionally stop all joint military exercises with the U.S. and clarify its stand to settle the fundamental issue of defusing the military tension on the Korean Peninsula.

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Pyongtech Farmers Resist U.S. Military Base

Below are excerpts from an interview with the Rev. Kyu Hyun Mun, chairperson of the Solidarity for Peace and Reunification organization in South Korea, translated by Yoomi Jeong of the Korea Truth Commission. Rev. Mun is involved in the struggle of farmers in Pyongtech, south Korea, against the expansion of U.S. military bases on their land.

The Pyongtech farmers' claim is this: They are willing to give up the farming land they have cultivated for generations if it is in the national interest. But if it is for U.S. aggression, the farmers are adamant not to give up their land. The farmers deeply believe their struggle is not just their own, but a step toward world peace and justice, a struggle for a better livelihood for all.

These are farmers who have historically suffered at the hands of foreign interests. First the Japanese military came and forcibly took their land away from them. Then in 1945, the United States occupied Pyongtech at the end of World War II, made the Japanese military bases their own, and expanded them, taking even more land from the Pyongtech farmers.

The farmers had to move to new land, prime that land for agriculture and cultivate it, without government compensation or subsidies. They did this by themselves with their own hands.

The farmers believe that the cultivating of food is the cultivating of life, and their own contribution to world peace. The Chinese character for "peace" depicts rice entering the mouth. The land now being forcibly taken from them - almost 320 acres, a huge amount of land - can produce six months' worth of rice for all of Pyongtech's 360,000 citizens.

They are amazed at the current situation - the south Korean government, at the behest of the United States, forcibly taking land from them. Recently, the head of the farmers' committee was arrested. My older brother is now on a hunger strike outside Cheong Wa Dae, the office of the president.

The farmers believe the Pyongtech struggle is one for democracy, peace, justice and human rights. And we believe that the Pyongtech farmers will prevail soon. They have one demand: renegotiation between south Korea and the United States and the south Korean farmers. The south Korean government made a deal with the United States without the consultation of the farmers. The hope is that through negotiations the United States will give up on turning Pyongtech into another U.S. rapid-deployment site.

We appeal for your solidarity, which will strengthen our determination to struggle for justice and peace. We extend our deepest solidarity and gratitude to those of you who have been involved in the Korean struggle all these years.

From: www.workers.org

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Broad Support for Korean Reunification

Peoples worldwide are expressing their support for the peaceful and independent reunification of Korea and denouncing U.S. efforts to start another war against Korea. In the U.S. major demonstrations have included contingents carrying the Korean reunification flag and banners demanding U.S. Troops Out of Korea. As the government steps up its war plans against Korea, various organizations are strengthening their ties with the Korean people and stepping up efforts to bring all U.S. troops home, from Iraq, from Korea, all the troops.

In Britain on June 10 various anti-war organizations and trade unions joined in supporting the struggle of the Korean people to bring about reunification, an important part of defending the peace and preventing war. The U.S. government was denounced for its threats, with activists making clear that the threat of nuclear war comes from the U.S., not from Korea. As in Iraq, the U.S. has embroiled Britain in its war plans, with Britain participating in the large war drill now being conducted near the Korean peninsula.

Reunification stands directly against U.S. efforts to wage war against Korea and in Asia. Efforts are continuing by the Koreans north and south to achieve reunification. In the U.S., Britain and elsewhere, the peoples stand as one in support of Korean unification and against U.S. war and aggression.

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U.S. Further Militarizing Japan

Patriot Missiles Targeted Against Korea

The U.S. is stepping up its war plans against the Korean people and further embroiling Japan in its planned aggression. For the first time, the U.S. will deploy advanced Patriot interceptor missiles on Japanese soil. The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles are expected to be placed on U.S. bases on Okinawa by the end of the year. The missiles are said to be designed to intercept ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft. Three or four surface-to-air missile batteries, each containing up to 16 missiles, are planned. An additional 500-600 troops will be moved to Okinawa. The U.S. is also planning to send the Shiloh, an Aegis-equipped destroyer into Japanese waters in the next two weeks. The destroyer has advanced weaponry capable of launching air, land and sea attacks.

The placement of the missiles and warship Shiloh is part of the on-going provocations against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). The announcement about the missile placement was made at the same time as the largest military war drill by the U.S. since Vietnam is taking place near the Korean peninsula. The war drill already involves 22,000 soldiers, 40 ships and 280 planes.

Against the will of both the Korean and Japanese people, the U.S. is embroiling Japan in its aggression, including participation in the war drills. The Japanese government also recently announced that it will "consider all options" against the DPRK if it launches a missile. Along with the option of military action - something which is against the Japanese Constitution - food is also being used as a weapon. The Japanese government is following U.S. dictate with threats of blocking food and oil shipments.

The U.S. war games and provocations are all being done in the name of a "threat" from the DPRK, in the form if a possible testing of a missile. Even according to the U.S., the DPRK could be simply launching a satellite and at most is testing, not using, a missile. Senator John W. Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said the DPRK "Could be launching a satellite, a weather satellite or any type of satellite that might be launched by this system." He added that the possibility of any type of attack is "remote." Yet the U.S. is preparing to shoot down the missile, something considered an act of war.

There has been no aggression or planned aggression by the DPRK. Faced with U.S. plans to launch a nuclear first-strike, the DPRK has continued its measures to defend itself, including militarily defending its sovereignty. The U.S. is the one arming and preparing for war and now threatening to shoot down any effort by the DPRK simply to test a missile-something within its rights to do and that the U.S. regularly does. For example, the U.S. and Japan tested the PAC-3 interceptor off Hawaii in mid-June, requiring launching a missile and the interceptor.

Testing missiles is not a crime, nor a basis for war action by the U.S. Planning, preparing and doing propaganda for aggressive war, as the U.S. is doing against Korea, are crimes against the peace.

The DPRK has urged talks and again called on the U.S. to enter into bilateral talks on mutual security and aid. The U.S. refuses to do so. The DPRK has also offered to sign a non-aggression pact with the U.S. The U.S. refuses to do so. The DPRK also invited the top U.S. nuclear negotiator to visit, something also supported by the south Koreans. The U.S. has so far refused. Instead, it is further militarizing south Korea and Japan and creating conditions for launching war. The aim of such a war is to eliminate the fierce resistance of the Korean people to U.S. aggression and dominate all of Asia.

Widespread opposition continues in Japan and Korea against the U.S. threats and military presence. The people of Okinawa have long demanded the removal of U.S. troops and bases, while demonstrations are also continuing against U.S. troops in Korea and the placement of the Patriot missiles. Tens of thousands also demonstrated in the DPRK on June 25, the anniversary of the launch of the U.S. aggressive war against Korea in 1950. They expressed their readiness to defend their right to determine their own course and defend their sovereignty, demanding that the U.S. get out of Korea and stop its provocations.

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Reparations for U.S. War Crimes in Korea

Criminal U.S. Germ and Chemical Warfare

June 25 is the day when the U.S. imperialists launched its war of aggression against Korea. Though half a century has passed, the U.S. refuses to apologize and pay reparations for its brutal crimes of biochemical warfare against the peaceable inhabitants and cities of Korea, in gross violation of international law. The Korean War itself (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953) was a crime of aggression, launched on the pretext of a "threat" from the Koreans, much like the current war against Iraq.

In autumn of 1950, the U.S. Headquarters of the Joint Chiefs of Staff developed a plan to extensively use chemical and biological weapons. The U.S. imperialists used more than 20 kinds of germ weapons during the war. They especially targeted the northern half of Korea for germ and chemical warfare. According to the plan, the U.S. used germ weapons against civilians and cities. In the period from January to April 1952, they dropped various kinds of germ bombs in 169 areas in the northern half of Korea, 804 times. They also used various goods contaminated with poisonous insects and bacteria in more than 90 cities and counties, more than 900 times.

The U.S. also conducted human experiments using bacteria on people on their warships not far off Wonsan. In 1951 they did more than 3,000 experiments on Koreans using these germ weapons. Another U.S. crime was use of chemical weapons, a weapon of mass destruction. From February 1951 to July 1953 many chemical weapons were used in 24 cities and counties of the northern half of Korea including Kangwon and Hwanghae provinces and on battlefields. In particular, the U.S. released more than 15 million napalm bombs on military positions on the front and peaceful cities and farming and fishing villages in the rear.

The U.S. perpetrated massive bio-chemical warfare unprecedented in the history of war at that time, and still they could not defeat the Korean people. In addition to their illegal and brutal chemical and biological warfare, the U.S. dropped more than 428,000 bombs to raze factories, enterprises, educational, cultural and health institutions and houses in Pyongyang. The city was virtually razed to the ground.

In the beginning of the war alone 22,600 civilians in 11 cities and counties including Suwon and Chungju, were slaughtered. When U.S. troops landed in Inchon on September 16, 1950, they massacred some 1,300 citizens. For three days from September 28, they arrested at least 75,000 patriots and civilians, then killed more than 38,800 of them. The U.S. imperialists slaughtered more than a million civilians from the summer of 1950 to the summer of 1951. For 50-odd days occupying Sinchon County in the northern half of Korea (October 1950), the U.S. mercilessly massacred some 35,000 people, one fourth of its population.

Despite its illegal and aggressive war, massive bombings, brutal massacres and chemical and biological warfare, it is the Korean people who prevailed at that time and now today. It is the U.S., then and now, that is threatening war and must be opposed and called to account for all its war crimes in Korea today, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and elsewhere.

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Korean War Letter Reveals Pentagon Policy of Shooting and Killing Unarmed Korean Civilians

- Korea Truth Commission Joint Office and U.S. Chapter -

A letter written fifty-six years ago was recently unearthed by a Harvard historian and is getting a lot of attention. U.S. Ambassador to Seoul during the Korean War, John J. Muccio wrote the letter to U.S. Undersecretary of State, Dean Rusk. It clearly spells out the secret policy the U.S. military had of shooting Korean refugees. It is not the only evidence, but it is unambiguous and from the highest level, and because of that, very important.

On July 26, 1950, the same day that Muccio wrote the letter, U.S. troops and airplanes began a four-day massacre at the village of No gun-ri. Some 400 Korean peasants were machine gunned to death and strafed from airplanes as they desperately tried to protect themselves. Babies and old people were among its tragic victims. This was only one of many massacres of Korean civilians by U.S. troops. Some 3.5 million Korean civilians died in three years. There are survivors, witnesses and evidence of more than 135 massacres by U.S. troops similar to No gun-ri.

An international delegation organized by the Korea Truth Commission (KTC) visited south Korea in August of 2000 as part of their ongoing investigation of U.S. war crimes during the war. The Chair of the U.S. Chapter of KTC, HwaYoung Lee was one of the investigators. Lee was told by No gun-ri survivors that a U.S. military orientation that had been disseminated to refugees included instructions to wear white clothing and to make their way to railroads, where they would be led to safety by soldiers.

In Korea at that time, it was traditional for peasants to wear white clothing. A large group of them had followed the instructions very carefully on that day and made their way to a railroad track at No gun-ri. They saw a U.S. military plane circle overhead and then leave the area. When it returned the attack began. Airplanes strafed them and ground troops opened fire repeatedly as women and children sought safety under a railroad viaduct. Many were shot to death in the numerous attacks that followed. Some of the young men tried to flee into the surrounding mountains and were chased down and killed by ground troops.

Activist Brian Willson was also part of the KTC delegation. Based on his experience on the trip, Willson writes about the Korean War in an article "When Will the United States Apologize for its War Crimes" on his website (http://www.brianwillson.com/awolkoreacl.html)

In the article, a chilling reference stands out; "The New York Times (Dec. 29, 1999) reported from declassified U.S. Air Force documents the "deliberate" strafings and bombings of Korean "civilians" and "people in white." Apparently, the U.S. military assured civilians that wearing white would help get them to safety, and then used it as a way to identify them and attack them as enemies.

The story of No gun-ri is only known so well because the persistence of its survivors resulted in a Pulitzer Prize winning Associated Press series. Until then, the south Korean government persecuted, threatened, red baited, and even jailed people who tried to tell what the U.S. military had done to them. When the AP series caused a stir, the Pentagon was finally forced to "investigate." Predictably, in 2001 their investigative commission concluded that hundreds were in fact killed at No gun-ri, but denied any orders from above. There was no official apology. No mention of any other U.S. attacks on civilians. They blamed jittery troops - the same thing they said about the massacre of hundreds at My Lai, Vietnam, and the same thing they are saying now in response to the growing anger over Haditha, Iraq.

They omitted the information from all of the declassified documents that is now available to anyone through a quick browser search. Letters between U.S. officers, operations reports, and military logs, spell it all out. "All Koreans moving south to be treated as enemy" says one military communiqué generated in the early days of the war. Another from April 1951, incredibly, expresses concern that the policy of shooting southward bound civilians has gone on so long that troops are growing "hesitant" to carry it out. All of that information was left out of the Pentagon's 2001 report.

The Muccio letter shows that the massacres of civilians were ordered by the Pentagon, not the result of troops cracking under the pressure of war. Targeting civilians is a war crime. But shooting refugees was secretly Pentagon policy during the Korean War. They concealed it in the decades since, and continued attacking and killing civilians in Vietnam, in Grenada, Panama, and Yugoslavia and are doing so today in Iraq and Afghanistan, because an imperialist army of occupation inevitably tries to defeat the resistance by attacking the population. The lies and cover-up are already in motion in relation to the massacre at Haditha.

The goal of the anti-war movement has to be unequivocal. End the war and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq! At the same time, the movement has to support the cause of justice for victims of U.S. troop attacks on the Korean people.

The KTC demands a comprehensive investigation of the numerous massacres of Korean civilians, a formal admission and apology from the U.S. government to the Korean people, and full reparations to the victims and their family members!

U.S. Troops and Weapons out of Korea! End Occupation Now!

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June 15, 2000

North-South Joint Declaration on Peaceful Reunification

True to the noble will of all the fellow countrymen for the peaceful reunification of the country, Chairman Kim Jong-Il of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and President Kim Dae-Jung of the Republic of Korea had a historic meeting and summit in Pyongyang from June 13 - 15, 2000.

The heads of the North and the South, considering that the recent meeting and summit, the first of their kind in history of division, are events of weighty importance in promoting mutual understanding, developing inter-Korean relations and achieving peaceful reunification, declare as follows:

1. The North and the South agreed to solve the question of the country's reunification independently by the concerted efforts of the Korean nation responsible for it.

2. The North and the South, recognizing that a proposal for federation of lower stage advanced by the North side and a proposal for confederation put forth by the South side for the reunification of the country have elements in common, agreed to work for the reunification in this direction in the future.

3. The North and the South agreed to settle humanitarian issues, including exchange of visiting groups of separated families and relatives and the issue of unconverted long-term prisoners, as early as possible on the occasion of August 15 this year.

4. The North and the South agreed to promote the balanced development of the national economy through economic cooperation and build mutual confidence by activating cooperation and exchanges in all fields, social, cultural, sports, public health, environmental and so on.

5. The North and the South agreed to hold dialogues between the authorities as soon as possible to implement the above-mentioned agreed points in the near future.

President Kim Dae-Jung cordially invited Chairman Kim Jong-Il of the DPRK National Defense Commission to visit Seoul and Chairman Kim Jong-Il agreed to visit Seoul at an appropriate time in the future.

June 15, 2006

Kim Jong-Il, DPRK, Chairman, National Defense Commission

Kim Dae-Jung, President, Republic of Korea

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