Issued by the Office of the Chairperson, International League of Peoples’ Struggle, September 16, 2016
The
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) successfully made its
fifth nuclear test on September 9, 2016. As expected, the US, its
European allies, its puppet in South Korea and Japan condemned the test
and called for more stringent UN sanctions. Taking the cue, the big
Western corporate media chattered in chorus about DPRK’s supposedly
tension-raising and destabilizing behavior.
It
is the height of hypocrisy for the US and its allies to condemn the
DPRK for developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent in the face of US
threats and provocations and the latter's shift from nuclear deterrence
through mutually assured destruction (MAD) to pre-emptive nuclear
first-strike option (Nuclear Use Theories- NUTS). The US does not only
seek to maintain nuclear monopoly but claims the right to a so-called
pre-emptive nuclear first-strike option.
This
must be vigorously opposed by all peace-loving people of the world
because the threat to world peace in the last half century has
principally come from US imperialism. Its wars of aggression in Korea,
Indochina, Middle-East, Africa and the Balkans is clear proof of this.
It is the only country that has used nuclear bombs against another
country killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and causing birth
defects to babies and life-threatening illnesses even decades after.
It
must be recalled that George W. Bush caused the withdrawal of the US
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Nuclear Inspections
Treaty thereby effectively breaching all nuclear non-proliferation
treaties. And yet the US has the temerity to demand from others that
they cannot have their own nuclear weapons.
The
withdrawal of the US from the nuclear non-proliferation treaties has
triggered a new arms race involving the US, Russia and China. It has
also prodded other countries such as DPRK, Iran, India, Pakistan and
Israel to develop their own nuclear weapons programs. But the US has
only condemned the DPRK and Iran, countries it has demonized as part of
the so-called axis of evil while saying nothing about India, Pakistan
and Israel. It falsely accused Iraq of having a nuclear development
program to justify a war of aggression.
DPRK's
latest nuclear test comes in the wake of the recent provocations from
the US and South Korea such as the holding of military exercises in
August and the agreement between the US and South Korea to deploy the
THAAD missile system. The deployment of this missile system is a patent
overkill because the US has nuclear submarines, long-range bombers and
intercontinental ballistic missiles on the U.S. mainland that it can
easily use against the DPRK.
This
decision to deploy the THAAD missile system has been met with
widespread protests within South Korea itself. China has also expressed
its strong opposition to such deployment considering it as a threat to
its own national security.
DPRK
has made it publicly known that its defense system is designed as
deterrent mainly against aggression from the US. It has no interest in
destroying the southern part of the country. DPRK has always called for
the peaceful reunification of the country in accordance with the deep
aspirations of the Korean people on both sides of the peninsula divided
by US imperialism.
ILPS
stands for the abolition of all nuclear weapons and all weapons of mass
destruction. But while the big powers continue to hold on to these
weapons of mass destruction and use these to bully the smaller and
weaker nations, ILPS respects the sovereign right of these nations to
nuclear weapons as a means to self-defense. ###
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