On
August 15 1945 Korea was liberated from Japanese imperialist
colonial rule thanks to the arduous armed struggle waged by the
anti-Japanese partisans led by the great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG .
Cheers reverberated the length and breadth of the land of the Morning
Calm! Japanese imperialist rule which had appeared so strong and
permanent crumbled virtually in an instant. On August 15 1945 Korea
was liberated at last from Japanese imperialist rule. 36 years of
oppressive rule by the fascist Japanese and their decadent Samurai
culture vanished in a twinkling.
In the northern part of Korea people’s committees , organs of
popular rule were established by the people. The old oppressive
Japanese ruling machinery was destroyed. the Provisional People's
Committee of North Korea (PPCNK), a new type of government, was
established on February 8, Juche 35 (1946). The entire Korean people
elected Comrade KIM IL SUNG, the peerless patriot and national hero,
Chairman of the PPCNK . Many vitally important democratic reforms
were carried out soon after liberation , within 7 months of
liberation the historic Agrarian reform which eliminated feudal
exploitation was carried out rapidly . Nationalisation of basic
industries was carried and progressive legalisation on workers rights
and sexual equality was enacted. The Labour Law enacted in 1946 even
give workers and office workers free medical treatment on an
insurance basis , some 2 years before the NHS was created in
Britain.
In contrast to this progress in the northern half
of Korea , reaction reigned in south Korea . Tragically Korea had
been divided . A US colonel had simply drawn a line with a ruler
across a map of Korea at the 38th parallel , thus 5000
years of history as a unified nation was destroyed by the stroke of
a pencil and the destiny of small nations trifled with by big powers.
The US imperialists fixed the 38th parallel as the demarcation line
and occupied south Korea on the pretext of "disarming the
Japanese troops in the south of the 38 degrees north latitude".
They reigned over it as colonial rulers, throwing a grave obstacle in
the path of building a new society by the south Korean people.
It
needs to be clear to a wider audience that the US played no part
whatsoever in the liberation of Korea , their troops did not arrive
in Korea until 3 weeks after liberation, indeed they were in no
position to advance to Korea. There was also no need for them to go
into south Korea as Korea had already been liberated. I would like to
draw the audience's attention to one fact . When I first visited the
DPRK in 1992 I went to the Korean Revolution Museum. There I saw a
map of the anti-Japanese revolutionary armed struggle led by
President Kim Il Sung . Some were surprised to see that this struggle
had been waged not only in north Korea but in the south as well.
Someone asked why wasn't a unified Korean government set up as there
were progressive and revolutionary forces in the south as well. The
guide replied “the US imperialists , did terrible things , they
divided Korea “.
As
the great leader President KIM IL SUNG said
“The
US imperialists occupied south Korea, reactionaries from home and
abroad,and the former stooges of Japanese imperialism became lackeys
of US imperialism and opposed the Korean people. We were confronted
with the aggressive policy of the US imperialists who were not only
opposed to the Korean revolution and the building of an independent
unified state by the Korean people but were also seeking to extend
their influence to north Korea”
US
imperialism had coveted Korea for a long time. In 1866 they sent
their pirate ship the General Sherman up the Taedong River. Later
they concluded the so -called Friendship Treaty with Korea. Now in
1945 they seized one half of Korea.
Prior
to the entry of their armed forces into south Korea, the US
imperialists, under the pretext of "maintaining public
peace in south Korea", kept intact the government-general in the
period of Japanese imperialist rule and retained the defeated
generals of the Japanese army, war criminals, in their posts.
The
US imperialists, therefore, denied the liberated south Korean people
freedom of all political activities for building an independent and
sovereign country and issued one "proclamation" after
another, forcing them to "submit" to the colonial rule by
the governor-general of Korea.
On
September 2, 1945, in his "proclamation" entitled "To
All People in South Korea", John Hodges, former commander of the
US 24th Army Corps, announced that "proclamations and orders
issued to the people shall be made public through the existing
government offices"(meaning organs of Japanese rule and that
"orders" from the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers
"shall be strictly followed and executed, and any person who
unfortunately disobeys them shall suffer punishment".
The
successive "orders" and "proclamations" of the US
imperialists were aimed at preventing, with the help of Japanese
imperialism, the establishment of an independent government by the
Korean people themselves before the landing of their troops,
trampling upon the democratic rights and freedom of the south Korean
people and creating conditions favourable to their occupation of
south Korea and colonial rule in it.
Having
completed the preparations for the occupation of south Korea, the US
imperialists landed the "advance contingent" of the 24th
Army Corps in Inchon on September 7, 1945. The following day, on
September 8, two-division forces of the 24th Army Corps 45,000
strong started occupation of south Korea under the direct command of
Hodges. Hordes of US Gis, ghastly
gum chewing creatures , swarmed into south Korea. Right from the
start they committed atrocities and barbarities against the Korean
people.
Simultaneously
with this, MacArthur successively made public his proclamations
Nos 1, 2 and 3 dated September 7, which were dropped from planes all
over south Korea.
In
"Proclamation" No. 1 MacArthur announced the institution of
a military occupation system in south Korea, preservation of the
property of landlords and capitalists and prohibition of free
political activities. Moreover, he declared that inhabitants in south
Korea were duty bound to unconditionally obey his orders and that
"acts of resistance to the occupying forces or any acts which
may disturb public peace and safety will be punished severely",
and forced the use of English as the official language for all
purposes.
These
"proclamations" constituted flagrant violations of the
sovereignty of the Korean people. They were a prelude to the
enforcement of a cruel military government which the US
imperialists could not bring into reality even in vanquished Japan.
They were also a declaration to the whole world of the US occupation
of south Korea and the beginning of their colonial rule. . An
American journalist Mark Gayn wrote "We were not a liberation
army. We rushed there in order to occupy it, in order to watch
whether the Koreans obey the conditions of surrender. From the first
days of our landing we have acted as the enemy of the Koreans."
Under
the pretext of military administration a
governor-general-ruling-system was virtually established. Along with
the establishment of the "Military Government Office," the
so-called "court-martials" were set up in Seoul and all
provinces and a "military court" in each county to restrict
and suppress the free activities of the Korean people.
President
Kim Il Sung said:
"While
professing themselves to be ‘champions of democracy’ in Korea,the
Americans practically established the US
governor-general-ruling-system in place of the Japanese one, under
the signboard of the military administration."
As
a result, a signboard of the "US Military Government Office"
was hung out on the former building of the Japanese
"Government-General Office," the old fascist machines and
ruling methods were retained and inherited and colonial
sovereign power was transferred to the US imperialists. . It is
relevant to point the US imperialists became the colonial exploiter
in south Korea as it seized Japanese property in south Korea which
accounted for about 80 per cent of property in south Korea. The
US imperialists renamed in February 1946 the
"Oriental
Development Company", the former Japanese agency for
plundering land and grain, as the "New Korea Company" and
expropriated the total arable land of south Korea. At that time, the
total property held by the "New Korea Company" reached the
sum of 1,250 million dollars; it owned 286,767 jongbo of cultivated
land to which more than 554,000 farm households, or 27 per cent of
the total farm households of south Korea, owed their existence.
This meant that through the "New Korea Company" the US
imperialists became the biggest landlord in south Korea who had
acquired nearly one-tenth of over 2,670,000 hectaresof the arable
land and 27 per cent of the farm households in south Korea
In
this way, the history of colonial rule of US imperialism started in
south Korea, replacing that of Japanese imperialism. From that time
south Korea began to be reduced to a US imperialist military base for
a new war.
US
imperialist occupation of south Korea spelt the greatest national
misfortune to the liberated Korean people. It was the root cause
of a calamity of territorial bisection and national division which
the Korean people had never experienced during their long history of
five thousand years. It gave rise to a hotbed of a new war in Korea,
and the US imperialist policy of turning south Korea into a military
base entered the stage of full-scale realization.
From
the first day of their occupation of south Korea, the US imperialists
followed colonial enslavement and military base policies on the
strength of their military government.
President
Kim Il Sung said:
"The
US army set out on a policy of colonial enslavement as soon as it
occupied south Korea. In the first place, it adopted two basic
policies to attain its goal. Politically, it smothered all the
initiatives towards democracy of the liberated people, who set
themselves against its policy of colonial enslavement,
and
suppressed all the democratic forces. At the same time, it gathered
and fostered the reactionary forces to use in the implementation
of its aggressive policy aimed at splitting the Korean nation
and turning Korea into a US colony. Economically, it pursued a policy
of hampering the development of Korea’s national economy and
industry and subordinating them to the economy of the United States."
(Kim Il Sung, Works, Eng. ed., Vol. 4, p. 176.)
In
its policy of political enslavement aimed at turning south Korea into
US colony, the "US Military Government" put the main stress
on the suppression and liquidation of the democratic and
patriotic forces of the Korean people by arms and the rallying and
fostering of the reactionary forces, so that it might consolidate its
political foothold for the establishment of colonial rule in south
Korea and the domination of all Korea.
In
fact, all the policies adopted by US imperialism toward south Korea,
including that of establishment of the "US Military Government",
were, without exception, related to its aggressive design to
convert south Korea into a colonial military base and use it as a
stepping-stone for the conquest of the whole of Korea.
In
carrying out its plan of aggression on Korea, US imperialism
considered it most important of all to stamp out the sovereignty
of the Korean people and place them under its domination. As an
initial step towards this, it had to suppress and dissolve through
the "Military Government" the People’s Committees at
the point of the bayonet and prohibit the political activities of
patriotic democratic forces in all walks of life. In October
1945, Hodges announced: "The Military Government is the sole
government of Korea." The Communist Party and other progressive
forces were suppressed. As famous US writer and journalist Edgar Snow
remarked “When everything has been said about our occupation of
Korea, probably the most significant thing is that we stopped a
revolution here”.
The
US imperialists and their stooges in south Korea carried out fascist
terrorism not only against workers and peasants but against political
figures . Mr Ryo Un Hyong leader of the south Korean Peoples Party
and a respected nationalist was assassinated on the 19th
of July 1947 and even assassinated Kim Gu , a right wing
conservative figure who had come out against the US occupation of
south Korea and for peaceful reunification.
US
direct military rule in south Korea was basically colonialism and
was opposed by the south Korean people . In September 1946 there was
a general strike of south Korean workers. The US imperialists felt
the need to create a puppet regime to camouflage their rule in south
Korea . They put in power the elderly Syngham Rhee , a Korean who had
lived in the US and was trained by the US over many years. Syngham
Rhee had also embezzled funds of the nationalist movement . The
Syngham Rhee puppet regime was charactered by one famous US Asia
expert Prof Owen Lattimore as follows “ “America, which has in
China complained of the bad luck of having inherited the Kuomintang
through no fault of its own, has in Korea manufactured its own
Kuomintang. To support our proclaimed policy of world-wide opposition
to police states, we have in South Korea created a weak and
unreliable police state of our own.”
The
south Korean people fought against the Syngham Rhee puppet regime and
the US imperialists . In April 1948 the people of Jeju island rose up
against separate elections but this was put down by the US
imperialists and Sygnham Rhee puppets , who killed between 33,000 and
70,000 people (33,000 being an official estimate what was very
conservative ).
Numerous shackling and aggressive agreements , pacts and treaties
such as the ROK-US Mutual Defence Treaty of January 1950 , were
concluded. South Korea became an advance military base of the US and
a bullet shield.
Basically
the Syngham Rhee regime emerged as a neo-colonial puppet regime armed
and controlled by the Americans , an instrument of US domination It
was also basically anti-reunification regime and a regime for
carrying out US imperialism's aggressive policies in Korea and Asia.
Dermot Hudson
President ASSPUK
Chairman JISGE
Chairman JISGE
KFA UK Official Delegate
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