Report of UK KFA AGM June 15th

Korean Friendship Association AGM charts the way forward for friendship and solidarity with the DPRK

Activists from the UK Korean Friendship Association gathered in central London last Saturday for its AGM to chart the way forward in developing friendship and solidarity with the Korean people for the coming year.
  The KFA Official Delegate for the UK  pointed out that the month of June will see  a number of major anniversaries in the history of the Korean people, and announced that June is a month of solidarity with the DPRK.
Today, June 15th, is the anniversary of the June 15 declaration of June 2000. Also June 19th is the 49th anniversary of the start of work of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il at the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. June 25th is the 63rd anniversary of the provocation of the Korean war by the US imperialist aggressors, the sworn enemy of the Korean people and of all of progressive mankind.
It is also very important to note that July 27th is the 60th anniversary of the victory of the Korean People's Army and Korean people in the Great Fatherland Liberation War. This year will also see the 65th anniversary of the foundation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, on September 9th.?
 The speaker recalled the great developments in the DPRK over the past year, saying pride of place should go to the launch of the Kwangmysong 3-2 satellite on the 12th of December 2012 and the 3rd DPRK nuclear test on the 12th of February this year,? and spoke of cultural developments in the DPRK including the appearance of the all-female Moranbong rock group, new leisure and health facilities such as the Rungna People's Pleasure Park and the Ryugyong Health Complex, the construction of magnificent new housing at Changjon Street in central Pyongyang, and the ongoing construction of a giant ski resort at Masik.
?However in the past year we have witnessed attempts by the DPRK's enemies, chiefly the Yankee imperialists,? he added, ?to impede and slow down its development. We have seen several rounds of sanctions by the so-called UN Security Council , a marionette of the US, along with additional sanctions by the US, Japan, the EU and the UK.
In March and April the US imperialists along with the south Korean puppets carried out extensive military exercises to coincide with the imposition of sanctions. These war exercises were participated in by the UK as well as Canada, Denmark and Colombia, involving B2 and B52 nuclear-armed bombers. The DPRK gave a strong response to these provocations, which upset some but nevertheless dealt a blow to the US imperialists and defended the dignity and honour of the DPRK, as well its independence and Korean-style socialism.
?During the past year the UK KFA has stood by the DPRK. We have issued numerous statements in support of the DPRK as well as writing to the Foreign Secretary, MPs and Ministers .We have picketed the US embassy and will be picketing in again in 10 days time.
We have taken the lead in establishing the "International Committee for the Release of Mr Ro Su Hui". We have combated anti-DPRK propaganda on a weekly, and sometimes on a daily basis.
We have also issued  a number of editions of our excellent publication  "People's Korea Today", and will shortly issue another one.
During the past year the UK KFA has stood by the DPRK. We have issued numerous statements in support of the DPRK as well as writing to the Foreign Secretary, MPs and Ministers. We have picketed the US embassy and will be picketing in again in 10 days  time.
We have taken the lead in establishing the International Committee for the Release of Mr Ro Su Hui. We have combated anti-DPRK propaganda on a weekly, and sometimes on a daily basis.
We have issued  a number of editions of our excellent publication People's Korea Today, and will shortly issue another one.
UK KFA membership has increased .The UK KFA is proud that we are defending the DPRK almost every day. Let?s carry on with this splendid work.
   A KFA member and member of the Central Committee of the New Communist Party, also addressed the meeting on the topic of south Koreas turbulent history, which has effectively been hidden away by the Western media, historians and in school history teaching.
He described how the US imperialists landed in south Korea only after it had been liberated by Korean People's Revolutionary Army, set up the US Army Military Government in Korea and suppressed the people's committees in the area they seized in south Korea. Later on they and their Korea puppet forces, including many who had  collaborated with the Japanese colonialists, landowners and exploiters. brutally suppressed the uprising on Jeju Island, massacring many thousands and crushing the Workers' Party of Korea structures there. This was only the first of many mass strikes uprisings, massacres and military coups which continued in south Korea until the 1980s.
He also recalled that it was the US imperialists who first introduced nuclear weapons into the Korean peninsula in the 1958-9, declaring itself ?no longer bound? by paragraph 13(d) of the 1953 Armistice Agreement which it had signed. The US deployed nuclear armed Honest John missiles, nuclear armed cannons and nuclear armed Matador cruise missiles able to reach China and the Soviet Union.
Participants in the meeting denounced the hostile media coverage of the DPRK, particularly the ludicrous Panorama documentary" North Korea Undercover."
Proposals discussed at the meeting included stepping up the campaign for the release of peace activist Ro Su Hui, with a poster and a leaflet exposing the south Korean National Security Law, and a campaign against the economic sanctions imposed on the DPRK linked to the demand for the US to negotiate a permanent peace treaty and political settlement on the peninsula.
Discussions were held on public transport, culture, health services, housing and other aspects of the DPRK, and literature from the DPRK and the KFA was on display.
Sandwiches were served.