A TRIP TO THE COUNTRY OF THE SUN PART 2 By Shaun Pickford

 

While I was in the DPRK , I was able to have met once again our close comrades and friends at the Pyongyang Mission of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front of south Korea. The ANDF is the foremost organisation struggling for the independent reunification of Korea and for an anti-imperialist democracy in south Korea. Since the formation of the ANDF in August 1969, many of the organisation's activists paid the ultimate price for the liberation struggle in south Korea, execution at the hands of the south Korean regime, most notably the south Korean journalist and campaigner Kim Jong Tae.

 

Over lunch at the ANDF mission, Dermot Hudson and I discussed the worsening situation on the Korean peninsula with Zo In Min and other ANDF comrades. The issue was raised that it is the United States which is the main obstruction in the way of peace and reunification of Korea. There are roughly about 40,000 US troops and approximately a thousand American nuclear weapons stationed in south Korea. The United States is which  is continually staging provocative war exercises such as "Hoguk", "Team Spirit" and "Foal Eagle/Key Resolve".

 

Left to the Korean people themselves, the issue of Korea's peace and reunification would have been solved long ago. From the first days of Korea's division, President KIM IL SUNG worked flat out for reunification. KIM IL SUNG proposed that the Korean people could achieve reunification overcoming the divergences in ideology and class. It was KIM JONG IL who put forward uriminzokkirri or by-our-nation itself method, that the Korean people can attain the peaceful and independent reunification of the Korean peninsula by themselves, north, south and overseas. A practical embodiment of this strategy was the June 2000 north-south agreement and the October 2007 north-south summit in Pyongyang.

 

The ANDF informed us comprehensively about the struggle for democracy in south Korea. Our delegation heard how the Li Myong Bak regime was surpressing the aspirations of the south Korean people for labour and human rights under the signboard of security-orientated rule. It is the Li Myoung Bak regime that is inventing such incidents as the "Cheonan sinking" and the "Yonphyong Island shelling". The south Korean puppets are presently hellbent on aggravating the northern half of Korea with their sinister smear campaign against the supreme leadership of the DPRK. Lee Myoung Bak and his clan of warmongers, believe that the DPRK will be affected by an"Egyptian-style change" and "Libyan-style victory", but the Lee Myoung Bak group's dangerous deliriums will not work with the northern part of Korea. The Lee Myoung Bak is the heir to the blood soaked history of  Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee. In May 1980, the regime of Chun Doo Hwan, a figure who inspires Li Myoung Bak, committed one of the biggest massacres in modern Korean history in the city of Kwangju, with something within the region of 4,000 civilian casualties.

 

On a previous visit to Korea, I was in a position to see the concrete wall built by the south Korean authorities ,which the divides the Korean peninsula into two and the DMZ at Panmunjon. The division of Korea remains a burning topic in international affairs, and with this matter in mind, I attended the International Conference on Korean Reunification held at the Yanggakdo Hotel on April 11th 2012. Our delegation resolved at the reunification conference to increase solidarity with the Korean people's cause of peace and reunification.

 

The main purpose of my visit in Pyongyang I was to take part in the World Juche Congress, which convened on April 12th and April 13th 2012. Taking part in the congress were delegations from a diversity of political and social backgrounds, and from a wide range of anti-imperialist parties and movements, such as the New Communist Party of Britain and the Free Homeland Movement of Brazil. Participating delegations were from many countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. I would even go as far to say that it was the most representative conference in the chronicles of the international Juche study movement. On March 5th 2011, the Bangladeshi Juche Study Group proposed holding a grand congress to mark the centenary of the birth of President KIM IL SUNG. 

 

The venue for the Congress was the Peoples Palace of Culture, which was built in 1973. Over the next two days there was to be an intense debate on the originality and the creativity of the Juche philosophy and of the Songun Politics. Congress delegates gleaned many absorbing papers and speeches. The congress was an opportunity for an exchange of views and suggestions between the Juche Idea adherents from different parts of the world

 

The 2012 World Congress can be viewed as a landmark event in the venture to disseminate the Juche Idea on a global scale. At the Congress there was an affirmation, that the Juche Idea is a philosophy capable of dealing with the complicated realities of the 21st century. Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is an ideology for those peoples and nations who yearn for independence, overcoming the globalization "new world order" projects of the imperialists.

 

For the Juche followers to have the World Congress on the Kimilsungist-Kimjongilist ideology held in Pyongyang in time for the 100th birth anniversary of President KIM IL SUNG and on the 30th anniversary of the publication of the seminal work "On The Juche Idea" by General Secretary KIM JONG IL was of enormous consequence. In the same week in the Congress as was having its deliberations, KIM JONG UN published his work entitled "Let Us Brilliantly Accomplish The Revolutionary Cause of Juche, Holding The Great Comrade KIM JONG IL In High Esteem As The Eternal General Secretary of Our Party". This work authored by KIM JONG UN, produced a great deal of excitement among congress delegates. 

 

 

The delegation of which I was a member of, was fortunate to have attended several DPRK state functions. On Friday April 13th the statues of the President and of the General Secretary were unveiled on the Mansu Hill, Pyongyang. I regarded being present at the official ceremony to unveil the newly built statues of KIM IL SUNG and of KIM JONG IL a really great honour. Dermot and I joined a crowd of several thousands on the steps of the Mansu Hill overlooking Pyongyang, so as to view the official proceedings. The new statues of KIM IL SUNG and of KIM JONG IL graphically shows the respect and love of the Korean people for the President KIM IL SUNG and General Secretary KIM JONG IL, who did so much for the renaissance of the Korean nation.The statues portray smiling KIM IL SUNG who indicates the way ahead with his hand held forward and smiling KIM JONG IL blessing Songun Korea prosperous present day while looking far into its bright future. Our delegation had the distinction of placing a flower basket, on behalf of the Juche Idea Study Group of Britain , on to the newly constructed monument on the Mansu Hill.