UNAC Statement on the Upcoming U.S.-North Korea Summit
The strong-armed tactics and bluster from the Trump
administration was deflated due to the diplomacy between North and South Korea
initiated by South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who was elected partly on the
promise to cool down the tension between North and South Korea. Today, polls show that Moon enjoys a
popularity rating of 85% in South Korea.
The results of the diplomacy became visible to the entire world at the
recent Winter Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, as a joint team from the North
and the South marched into the stadium carrying a flag representing a unified
Korea. The entire stadium of thousands,
including dignitaries from the various countries represented, took to their
feet in prolonged celebration, demonstrating the desire of the entire world for
peace. The only people who remained
seated were Vice President Pence and the right-wing president of Japan, Shinzo
Abe.
It became clear to the Trump administration that the
strong-armed tactics were not working, so he changed his tune and started
speaking about Kim Jong Un in more friendly terms, claiming that his belligerent
threats worked and resulted in better relations.
While the Trump administration started speaking in
more friendly terms towards North Korea and Kim Jong Un, he appointed Mike
Pompeo to the position of Secretary of State and John Bolton as National Security
Advisor. Both men have advocated military action against N. Korea in the past. In a recent interview, Bolton called for the
Libyan solution for North Korea.
Libya was a country that started a nuclear program to
deter threats from imperialist powers who wanted their oil and a more
subservient government in Libya. Libya agreed to give up its nuclear program on
the guarantee that the government would not be continually threatened with
regime change. However, the U.S. and
NATO did not keep to their side of the agreement. They started bombing Libya and, with the help
of mercenaries paid for by Qatar, overthrew the government and created another
failed state rife with war, human trafficking, and misery for the Libyan people. Hillary Clinton, during her campaign for
president, famously quipped about Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi, who was
killed by a pro-western military faction.
Clinton said, “We came, we saw, he died” before giving out a maniacal
laugh. People, including the corporate media, understood and commented on what
Bolton meant by the “Libyan solution” for North Korea: He wanted the same done to North Korea that had
been done to Libya.
North Korea has already made agreements with the U.S.
and its Western allies in the past and has had the experience of seeing the U.S.
renege on its agreements. It is also
instructive to see how the U.S. recently trashed the non-proliferation treaty
with Iran. These examples should give
pause to the leadership in North Korea as they meet with Trump in Singapore.
In the U.S. corporate media and among politicians from
both the Democratic and Republican parties, North Korea is portrayed as a
threat to the United States. This is
always done when the U.S. wants to build support for regime change wars against
governments that are not totally subservient to the dictates of Washington and
Wall Street. In such narratives, the
truth is never important. By the U.S.
government’s false account, we went to war with Iraq because Iraq had weapons
of mass destruction and were a threat to us.
Of course, Iraqi oil and Hussain’s independent stance had nothing to do
with it. So, a war was started that may have been responsible for the deaths of
as many as 1.5 million people, caused refugees to flee the war-torn country and
inflamed that entire region of the world.
The reality today is not that North Korea is a threat
to the U.S. but that the U.S. is a threat to North Korea. The U.S. maintains a string of bases in South
Korea and keeps a force of close to 30,000 troops in that country. They hold yearly war games right at the North
Korean border that have been described as practice invasions of North
Korea. During the Korean War, the U.S.
led coalition killed a large portion of the population of North Korea and
carpet bombed the entire country. They
then started bombing the dams, which is illegal by international law during
warfare. After the Korean War was fought
to a standstill, an armistice was agreed upon to end the fighting. But the North Koreans also wanted a peace
treaty to end the war. From then until
now, the U.S. has refused to sign a peace treaty, making it clear that their
aim is still the same: regime change in
North Korea and U.S. dominance in the region.
Of course, North Korea is well-aware of what happened
in Libya and has seen that when the U.S. was the only country in the world with
nuclear bombs, it did not hesitate to use them.
In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the U.S. dropped atomic bombs that in a flash
destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Today, the U.S. is the main aggressor in the
world. While North Korea has never
attacked another country, the U.S. does so continuously. The U.S. military is in 172 foreign countries
and maintains foreign military bases numbering about 20 times that of all other
countries combined.
For these reasons, as U.S. antiwar advocates, we do
not make demands on the government of North Korea or its people. Peaceful reunification and denuclearization,
both desirable outcomes, can only come from the democratic desires and actions
of the Korean peoples, not by the military imposition of U.S. imperialism.
As leaders of a major antiwar coalition in the U.S., we
demand:
Bring all the U.S. troops home from Korea and all
foreign countries!
Close the U.S. military base in South Korea and end
all military exercises and threats to directed at North Korea!
End all Sanctions on North Korea!
Ban all nuclear weapons, starting with those from the
U.S.!
Self-determination for the peoples of North and South
Korea!