Korea 2

Peace in Korea Not an Impossible Dream

By Manuel E. Yepe

http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico. 

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.

Calls for talks made by China and Russia, as well as the worldwide outcry for them, outweighed U.S. threats of war and got the two Koreas to sit down and speak and dialogue to prevailed over the cannons, at least for the moment..

Trump’s aggressiveness had to give in to reason, and what seemed less likely to be achieved on the Korean peninsula was dialogue for the sake of concord, peace and national reunification.

Objectively, because of what has happened so far, the only absolute loser for this universal achievement has been the US imperialist foreign policy. It sees its role as a guarantor of South Korea’s security threatened by a hypothetical danger of absorption by Democratic and Popular Korea, the US pretext for its control strategy in that region of Asia.

What is happening on the Korean peninsula today is the result of Washington’s policy of intimidation and threats of violence against Pyongyang, which has intensified considerably since Trump came to power. However, because of the wonders of imperialist propaganda, the media in the U.S. and the many media outlets around the world that are governed by the enormous financial resources that the world’s top power devotes to this, US pressure is presented as the source of the moves toward dialogue on the peninsula.,

It is true that this policy was not invented by the current president, just as it was not he who invented U.S. imperialism, but it is demonstrable that every time a government has responded with concessions to U.S. intimidation, the threats have materialized with the exercise of greater violence. In the Middle East, the centre of Europe and Latin America provides ample evidence.

If the hopes for peace on the Korean peninsula were to be attributed to a positive foreign influence, this could only be credited to the insistence with which Beijing and Moscow have called for a respectful inter-Korean dialogue for a satisfactory solution.

But it is clear that Pyongyang enjoys the national independence that is essential for the achievement of such dialogue, and Seoul, on the other hand, lacks such freedom because of its enormous political and military dependence on the United States.

The extensive and intense US military presence in the south of the Korean peninsula has always been the main obstacle to the efforts for the reunification of the Korean homeland.

The North has never given in to Washington’s demands, and the South has always lacked the necessary autonomy to assert its interests as a formally independent nation, due to the United States’ control over its defenses and war resources.

It was this circumstantial reality that led Pyongyang to propose a development totally independent of its national defence. These include nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, productions monopolized by the highly developed nations, in which North Korea made autonomous inroads through enormous sacrifices for its objectives of expanding the material well-being of its people.

Credit goes to South Korean President Moon Jae-in who, since coming to power last May, has sought to bring the North Korean government closer to the people through dialogue and his insistence that Pyongyang participate in the Winter Games was part of that effort. It is recalled that in September 2017 President Donald Trump offended Moon, in his usual derogatory remarks, by calling him a beggar’, for his insistence on dialogue with North Korea.

Many endeavors will have contributed to the achievement of the admirable events announced today in Korea. At the same time, it must be recognized that the wisdom with which the Korean communists have defended the independence of their homeland has been decisive for the triumph of the Asian nation. It shows that the only way to curb the imperialists’ appetites in the contemporary world is by confronting all risks and not by making concessions.

It is hoped that, in the agreed-upon talks, the US President will seek to advance arguments to safeguard its atomic monopoly by calling for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as a principle for any agreement. For his part, North Korean Kim will advocate general and total denuclearization as the only form of truly democratic disarmament.

If it succeeds in achieving this goal, the much-vaunted Democratic People’s Republic of Korea will have laid the foundations for an education that the heroic Argentine and Cuban guerrilla fighter Ernesto Che Guevara has always advocated: “Imperialism cannot be granted even a little bit like this, nothing”.

April 30, 2018.

 

Supporters and Opponents of Peace in Korea 

By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico. 

Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann. 

 

According to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the surprise announcement of a summit in May between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to address the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula marks a “historic milestone” on the road to peace in the region.

Through a presidential spokesperson, Moon declared this through the South Korean delegation that traveled to Washington after the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, after the U.S. president agreed to hold the meeting proposed by Kim.

The German and Japanese governments described the event as “a success story of international pressure,” but were cautious in describing the likely consequences of such a meeting.

For their part, China and Russia, both powers with veto power in the UN Security Council, reasoned that this is “a step in the right direction”, after advocating a diplomatic solution to the conflict throughout last year. This was in open contradiction to Washington’s position, which led to the imposing of sanctions against North Korea and even to agitation for the military option.

Beijing, Pyongyang’s main ally in the region, said through a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry that the proposed major meeting is a way out of the conflict by means of a “double suspension”, in which Seoul and Washington would have to stop their military maneuvers in exchange for North Korea stopping its nuclear tests.

It is no secret to anyone that South Korea is full of people, including leaders, who object to their country’s neocolonial relationship with the United States. Many people even admire, although they do not applaud, the North Korea’s extreme defense of national sovereignty in the context of its tense relations with the US superpower. They deplore the contrasting situation of a virtual occupation of South Korea.

The invitation extended by the President of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to a dialogue would be the first meeting in history between the leaders of the United States and North Korea. It includes the offer to suspend the testing of weapons and the discussion of issues related to the North Korean nuclear program.

With Trump’s acceptance, the inter-Korean thaw of the Winter Olympics, the announcement of the summit in April, and now the dialogue at the highest level are closed. This is in stark contrast with the climax of the escalation that until last year confronted Kim and Trump. It raised tensions in the region and the world following Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests that led to heavy UN Security Council sanctions on Washington’s initiative.

It is clear that if Kim’s meeting with Trump is held in May after the inter-Korean summit, humanity will have taken a significant step towards a serious and complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Many factors and people who have contributed to this goal must be recognized, including the role played by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who will be in power for a year in May. He has made efforts to bring the country closer to its northern neighbor ever since he took office. South Korea is practically a gigantic US military base. Washington has no less than 30,000 troops of its own in an extremely tense relationship with North Korea. Using its status as the world’s only superpower, the United States systematically threatens the DPRK with all kinds of international sanctions.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the South Korean leader, perhaps the main driving force behind the rapprochement between Washington and Pyongyang, invited Trump to support the effort. He predicted that “he [Trump] will receive praise from the people, not only from the two Koreas but also from those who want peace throughout the world for accepting Kim Jong-un’s invitation,” according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap

What did not fit in well with the peace-friendly environment on the Korean peninsula was the announcement by the South Korean Ministry of Defense that the United States and South Korea will conduct new military exercises on April 1.

However, anyone who objectively analyzes developments on the Korean peninsula in the light of history’s lessons will have to recognize that the unshakable firmness of its principles with which the Korean communists have defended the independence of this Asian nation as the only way to curb the unbridled appetites of U.S. imperialism today.

March 26, 2018.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator