Thursday, 18 July 2019

On the Fatherland Liberation War of the Korean People-speech delivered by Dr Dermot Hudson to the seminar of the Brazilian Centre for Songun Politics at Rio State University July 11th


                                                                           

Thank you for inviting me to speak at your seminar .It is a great honour to be here with comrades and friends from Brazilian Centre for the Study of Songun Politics and a great honour to be at Rio State University.
  Today I am going to speak about the Korean War or as it is called in People’s Korea , the Fatherland Liberation War . In 16 days’ time it will be 66 years since US general Mark Clark put his signature on the Korean Armistice Agreement and wearily declared “In carrying out the instructions of my government, I gained the unenviable distinction of being the first United States commander in history to sign an armistice without victory. “The purpose of my speech to this seminar  is to answer two false ideas about the Fatherland Liberation War .The first and biggest one that is contained in history books and repeated over and over again is that the DPRK was responsible for the outbreak of the war. The second one is that the war was not a defeat for the US . Of course there are other myths and misunderstandings, some who worship big countries belittle the self-reliant efforts of the Korean people led by great generalissimo KIM IL SUNG and attribute the victory of the DPRK to other countries .However  today I will focus on the two big myths .
 I think it is relevant to start with pointing out that Korea is one country not two . Before 1945 there was no north or south Korea. Korea from ancient times was one nation and one people. In 1945 an American colonel, one Dean Rusk , who later became a leading figure in US politics, draw a line with a ruler and a pencil across a map of Korea , at the 38th parallel , disregarding natural boundaries such as rivers and counties and provinces . The US troops invaded south Korea on the 8th of September 1945 and created a puppet state. Thus Korea a peaceful, united and homogenous nation was divided by the actions of the Yankee imperialists. Of course it is impossible to invade your own country .However the issue of who provoked the Korean War , is a key issue because it is still used to demonise the DPRK and was invoked as a pretext for the US launching one of the most  barbarous war ever in history . A war in which the US killed 4.2 million Korean people.
The US imperialists, the ringleader of the world imperialism and the international reactionaries, provoked a war in Korea on the 25th of June 1950 by instigating their south Korean puppets to attack the young Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The US imperialists were hungry for profits and conquest. The US imperialists fought an unjust aggressive war against the Korean people. The US imperialists launched a war of conquest against the DPRK , a war to destroy the Juche-based people's democratic system in the DPRK as well to destroy socialism in Asia and the world.
 The USA had long coveted Korea. In the 19th century they sent various expeditions to Korea. In 1866 the US “General Sherman” sailed up the Taedong river into Pyongyang but it was destroyed due to the struggle of the local people led by Kim Ung U (great grandfather of President Kim Il Sung) . They sent other scouts into Korea and committed plunder.
The US concluded the so called “Korea US - Treaty “ with the Korean feudal government  in 1882. The US seized the gold mines in Korea . Although in the early 20th century Korea became a Japanese colony, the Yanks held the gold mining concessions in Korea The US was actually opposed to Korean independence. During the negotiations at Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam between the 3 big powers the US proposed that Korea should be put under “Trusteeship” for 40 years. Trusteeship would essentially be just another form of colonialism.
. After Korea was liberated in 1945 US troops occupied south Korea on the 8th of September nearly 3 weeks after Japan had been defeated on August 15. At first they ruled through a direct military administration and then through  the puppet regime of Syngham Rhee . Rhee was a corrupt fascist despot hated by the south Korean people .Rhee was discredited as he had embezzled funds from the Korean independence movement in the 1920s. Rhee was fanatically anti-communist. One American writer said of Syngham Rhee ““He is two centuries before fascism—a true Bourbon. “
The US took over the land in south Korea that had been owned by the Japanese and became the biggest landlord in south Korea. In south Korea the people’s committees were dissolved by the US occupation troops , the Communist Party was banned. Leftists and patriots were brutally suppressed. Rhee’s troops along with US troops put down uprisings in Cheju island, killing at least 30,000 people , and  the army mutiny at Ryosu .
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was founded on September 9th 1948. The US regarded it as a thorn in their side, right from the start. The US had not wanted a socialist regime in the north of Korea. Moreover, the Korean peninsula had a key strategic position, it was the bridgehead into north east Asia and indeed the entire Asian continent. By conquering the DPRK the US would have troops on the border of the People’s Republic of China and the USSR. This the existence of the DPRK blocked the US’s stepping stone into north east Asia. The victory of the Chinese revolution gave a further impetus to the US to militarily move against the DPRK.
In those days rather than referring to the “containment “of communism, the US talked about the “Rollback “ of communism . John Foster Dulles, US secretary of state was a well-known architect of this policy. Dulles had made a lot of money through dealings with the German Nazi party in the 1930s ..Dulles wrote a book called “War or Peace “ arguing for “liberating “ the socialist countries . He said “We should make it clear ............ in Eastern Europe and Asia , that we do not accept the status quo ........ and eventual liberation is an essential and enduring part of our foreign policy” . In other words the aims of the US was to crush socialism by means of force whether direct military force or other kinds of force.
Internally the US banned the Communist Party and unleashed a wave of anti-communist hysteria known as McCarthyism in which even non-communist liberals were persecuted.
Dissenting opinions were crushed by people being hounded out of jobs , vilified in the media and in some cases imprisoned ( in the most extreme example Ethel and Julius Rosenberg , 2 US communists , were executed on trumped up espionage charges).
The US embarked on a programme of increasing military expenditure. Externally it became very expansionist, establishing military bases all over the world including in south Korea.
The DPRK, a young people’s democracy in the far east , was seen by the US policymakers as a prime testing ground for “rollback “.. The US imperialists would stand better chance of winning a physical war against the socialist world in Asia than trying to wage a war in Europe against the Soviet Union as in Europe the Soviet had a buffer zone between it and the US and their allies . If the US and NATO militarily destroyed East Germany they would still have to also invade Poland before they could put troops on the border of the USSR but by invading the DPRK they could have troops on the borders of the Soviet Union in one swoop . Such a prospect must have been very tempting for the US warmaniacs.
The U.S. imperialists who decided to take the DPRK as the first target of attack for realizing the wild dream of world domination after their illegal occupation of south Korea worked out a plan for the Korean war and made all preparations for it.
They desperately armed the south Korean puppet army with modern war means and raised its war capabilities to use it as the shock force for the war of aggression against the DPRK.
According to an official document released by the U.S. Congress, they handed over more than 145,000 rifles, some 2,000 machine guns and submachine guns, over 2,000 pieces of various calibres, 4,900 odd vehicles, 79 warships and others to the south Korean puppet army in 1949 alone. It is noticeable that the south Korean puppet navy was greatly expanded.
The number of the south Korean puppet troops who were armed with such war equipment and means and trained in the American way reached more than 100,000 as of September 1949. The south Korean puppet troops were controlled by the US through the “American Military Advisory Group in south Korea.
On January 26th 1950 the US concluded the US-south Korea Mutual Defence Treaty.  On the 14th of April 1950   a then secret directive of  US National Security Council directive NSC 68 authorised the start of the Korean war.
The U.S. imperialists deployed most of the south Korean puppet army on the front along the 38th parallel and incessantly perpetrated armed provocations against the DPRK. In1949 the south Korean puppet army intruded into areas of the DPRK such as Mt Songak, Mt Unpha and other areas causing a lot of damage and causalities. The DPRK was attacked a total of 2 ,617 times.
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The US and south Korea built or expanded airfields, harbours, roads and others in south Korea in an extensive way. At the same time, they worked out a prearranged plan to conceal the armed aggression after the outbreak of the Korean War in an attempt to shift the responsibility for the war provocation on the DPRK.
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the main advocate  and author of the US imperialist anti-communist “Rollback “ strategy visited south Korea in June 1950 only days before the war broke out . His visit cannot have been a coincidence. This is reinforced by the fact that Dulles even visited frontline areas.
 Dulles met with discredited south Korean puppet ruler Syngham Rhee . Rhee had several times talked publicly about “marching north “ and reunifying Korea .Dulles took the south Korean defence minister with him to actually inspect the 38th parallel. This was 6 days before war broke out. Dulles said to the south Korean puppet army “No strong enemy whatever would stand against you. But I hope you will strive ever harder because the day is not so far off when you’ll have to display your great might for your own sake."
Addressing the south Korean puppet “national assembly “ he said "You are not alone. You will never be alone so long as you continue to play worthily your part in the great design for the freedom of human beings.”. What did this mean? . It was basically the green light for the south Korean puppets to ignite the Fatherland Liberation War.
After visiting south Korea Dulles stopped off in Tokyo and met with General Bradley and General Douglas McArthur as well US defence secretary Johnson . Again this meeting cannot have been coincidental. On the 22rd of June Dulles stated, somewhat cryptically and enigmatically, “The United States will soon take some positive action “ It was evident that the meeting was to finalise the provocation of the Korean War.
A book by ex-Soviet specialists and some former DPRK commander called “Echoes of the Korean War” pointed out by  1950 the south Korean puppet army had 95,000 troops most of which were deployed along the 38th parallel or within  close proximity to it whereas the DPRK had about 74,000 troops.
Some figures actually put the size of the Syngham Rhee puppet army as 150,000  troops . This would have meant that they outnumbered the the KPA by 2 to 1 .South Korea’s population was nearly double that of the DPRK’s so it would have been difficult for the DPRK to “invade” the south . The US population was nearly 20 times than of the DPRK and its landmass many times greater than the DPRK. The US had emerged victorious in the second  world war and had won many wars.
 The DPRK was a young country which had just began creating regular armed forces and building munitions factories. Would the DPRK choose to take on the might of the “Greater American Empire “ , the answer is no. It is also inconceivable that the Soviet Union which had lost 20 million people during the Second World War and the newly founded People’s Republic of China would choose to support a war by the DPRK.
McArthur himself said that at the time of the outbreak of the Korean War the DPRK was not had completely mobilised its army. The report of McArthur’s command on the 30th of July 1950 stated only 6 divisions of the north Korean KPA were mobilised on the day the war broke out. Other sources such as British Army captain Julian Tunstall pointed that “On June 25 the Rhee army had six fully equipped divisions sitting just below or quite close to the 38th parallel ... So far it can be judged the KPA had 2 below combat strength divisions on or near the 38th the parallel.”
Other sources such as the CIA and south Korean intelligence services state that there was no evidence prior to June 25th 1950 that the DPRK had prepared forces for an attack on the south .
Ri Song Ga former commander of the 8th Division of the south Korean puppet army  stated  “we had to go into battle from the dawn of 25th June”
On the 23rd of June south Korean puppet forces began an artillery bombardment of the areas north of the 38th parallel.
On the early morning of the 25th June the south Korean forces under the command of the American Military Advisory Group started the attack on the DPRK . The 17th regiment of the south Korean puppet army pushed forward in Taetan and Pyoksong and the First Infantry attacked in the Kaesong area . They intruded 12 kilometres into DPRK territory. The DPRK demanded they stop at once but this was ignored so the DPRK went over to the counteroffensive. It should be noted that the DPRK only launched the counter-offensive after warning south Korea to halt its attack.
The “New York Tribune” of 26 June 1950 reported “south Korean troops  drove across the 38th parallel, which forms the frontier, to capture the  manufacturing town of Haeju,just north of the line”.South Korean radio itself reported that their troops had captured Haeju. Clearly it would have been impossible for the south Koreans to capture unless they had attacked first.
 The well-known US journalist John Gunther wrote in his book “Riddle of McArthur” that a US staff officer in Tokyo on the 25th of June was called to the phone and came back and whispered, “A big story has just broken. The South Koreans have attacked North Korea."’
Some 650 US women and children were evacuated by the Norwegian ship the Reinford at 3am in the morning. US accounts put the war as staring at 6am so how would the US know in advance to plan the evacuation of its nationals?
Choe Dok Sin ,former South Korean Army commander, south Korean foreign minister and South Korean ambassador to the UN stated he saw the secret order of Syngham Rhee(south Korean puppet dictator) to start the war .
The US demanded an emergency meeting of the UN security council. This was held without the presence of the Soviet Union nor of the People’s Republic of China which was kept out of its legitimate seat. No  one from the DPRK was allowed to present their case before the UNSC
Instead the UNSC carried a resolution blaming the DPRK for starting the war and authorising the use of force by UN member nations. Effectively the UNSC was just a kangaroo court for US imperialism. Basically it was a legal justification for the US to rope in a number of other states into the war. The resolution itself was actually contrary to the UN charter which stipulates that the UN could not intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, in the case of the Korean peninsula there were 2 governments established, so any conflict was not a conflict between different nations but essentially a civil war  between rival government so the UN was intervening on one side .
The evidence presented to blame the DPRK was simply a telegram from US ambassador in Seoul John S Muccio. This telegram is a very subjective and sketchy document which refers to ‘reports ‘ etc . As the US ambassador to south Korea, the ambassador of the key belligerent in the Korean War,  Muccio can hardly have been an objective and impartial witness ! More to the point he was not at the 38th parallel on the day so therefore   his so-called  “information “was nothing more than recycled claims of the south Koreans and US military . It is actually thought that Muccio;s “telegram “ was  prepared in advance  and duly used as so-called evidence.
However another giveaway clue to who started the Korean war was the fact that the US admitted its “UN resolution “had been prepared in advance . Assistant Secretary of State John D Hickerson said “We had a skeleton of a resolution, but only in very rough form.”How could US diplomats know that a war was going to start in Korea and prepare a resolution . Moreover the speed that the slow moving, cumbersome and bureaucratic UN moved at to call a meeting and carry the resolution is something quite surprising especially when considering that was in the era before  the internet , email and skype . Normally it can take days and weeks even months to get a resolution through the UN Security Council.  In a congressional hearing the US admitted that its armed forces went into action before the resolution was carried.
The US threw huge armed forces into the war including those armed forces of its satellite countries . To my eternal shame, Britain sent troops to fight against the Korean people on the side of the US. Young British men were basically cannon fodder  for US imperialism . It is significant that the UK found itself fighting not only on the same side as US imperialism but with Apartheid South Africa, Colombia of the death squads, fascist Greece , Haile Selaissie's Ethiopia and other very reactionary regimes against an independent , progressive ,democratic and anti-imperialist government . Thus the Korean war was a totally reactionary one that held back the liberation struggle of the Korean people and the reunification of Korea.
 Indeed the British role in Korea for the past 150 years has been a most shameful one. It was Britain that secretly helped Japan to invade Korea and colonise Korea.
   The government  of Clement Attlee  , which is praised in some quarters but  was actually responsible  for surrendering Britain's independence by taking the UK into NATO  and  also purging communists from the civil service ,was a willing  accomplice in the aggression against the Korean people. Attlee sent young men to fight in Korea against the Korean People's Army commanded by the great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG. In order to pay for the cost of sending the troops to Korea prescription charges were increased.
   Among the British forces sent to the Korean front was the Royal Ulster Rifles which had suppressed the Irish people and committed many atrocities during the northern Ireland troubles. The British Army held back the reunification of Korea in the 1950s and also held back the reunification of Ireland.
The second myth is that the US was not defeated.  The reason why the Fatherland Liberation War or Korean war is often called the unknown war is that the US does not like to acknowledge its defeat . The right wing and extremely anti-communist  US military historian Bevin Alexander , who himself had been a US army officer during the Korean War, referred to the Fatherland Liberation War as being ‘the first war we lost’
  The Fatherland Liberation War was a truly herculean and titanic struggle which saw the Korean people defeat US imperialism for the first time in world history. It was a David and Goliath Struggle.
 When the war broke out on the 25 June 1950 , the odds against young People's Korea surviving let alone defeating US imperialism seemed very slim indeed because the US had a population  more than 20 times the size of the DPRK's and nearly 100 times the size of the DPRK in terms of landmass. Moreover the US had waged over a 100 wars of aggression and had emerged as the victor in the Second World War . As part of the allied forces  the US had seen off Imperial Japan , Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.  The US had emerged as the boss of world imperialism . It had a huge military machine and a global empire of military bases across the world .The US was and is the bulwark of modern colonialism, international gendarme and strangler of independence and national liberation .On top of this  the DPRK  not only to had to fight against the US but also the forces of the south Korean puppets , armies from 15 satellite countries of the US and the Japanese fighting secretly in Korea wearing the uniforms of the south Korean puppet army .
The Korean people led by the great revolutionary leader and national hero Marshal KIM IL SUNG, a true military strategic genius and ever-victorious iron-willed brilliant commander fought a fierce anti- imperialist, anti- US struggle against US imperialism and the allied forces of international reaction. It was a fierce class struggle against the enemies of the people. The US fought a truly racist and genocidal war. The order of the US commanders was to shoot everything in white and most Korean civilians wore white. It was no coincidence that George Lincoln Rockwell the founder and leader of the American Nazi Party served as a lieutenant commander in the US imperialist forces during the war.
The Fatherland Liberation War was a just national liberation war as well as a fierce anti-US, anti-imperialist struggle and a class struggle against the enemies of the people .It was a sacred war for Korean reunification .At the same time was a war to defend the independence and freedom of the Korean people . Also it was a war to defend peace and security and the eastern outpost of the socialist camp.
                     How could a small country like People's Korea fight against the US and its puppets and vassals? The answer was in the powerful revolutionary leadership of Marshal KIM IL SUNG , the  Juche idea and the Songun idea as well as the heroic self-sacrificing spirit of the Korean people and the young Korean People's Army. The Korean people fought in the spirit of self-reliance and fortitude guided by the Juche .The great revolutionary leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG stated“We must solve our problems no matter who is helping us and what help we get......Victory must be won by our strength” The efforts of the Korean people that were primary in defeating the US imperialist aggressors.
  Some people like to draw attention to the internationalist assistance given to the Korean and in particular point to China and the USSR. Of course it is true that such assistance was given and not just by big countries but by all socialist countries. Moreover in the capitalist countries the working class and revolutionary movement opposed the war by holding demonstrations and strikes. In the UK  the Communist Party of Great Britain and “Daily Worker “ opposed the war , as did some Labour MPs to their credit,for example the famous Welsh MP S O Davies. Even in the US there were protests against the war. In the oppressed colonial countries the revolutionary peoples intensified their anti-imperialist struggles. In particular the revolutionary forces of Malaya and Thailand stepped up their armed struggle. However the best internationalist aid and assistance has no effect unless the revolutionary forces of a given unite and wage a powerful struggle. History knows many examples of revolutions that were given unstinting assistance but came to nothing because the internal revolutionary forces were not strong enough and the quality of leadership was lacking.
 The great leader comrade KIM IL SUNG always stressed that the outcome of war is not determined by weapons alone but the ideology of those holding the weapons.
During the Fatherland Liberation War totally new tactics based on the Juche Idea were applied. For example the Korean People’s Army developed tunnel warfare, a new concept. An article by overseas Korean writer Han Ho Suk wrote that  North Korea's expertise in digging tunnels for warfare was demonstrated during the Vietnam War. North Korea sent about 100 tunnel warfare experts to Vietnam to help dig the 250 km tunnels for the North Vietnamese and Viet Gong troops in South Vietnam. The tunnels were instrumental in the Vietnamese victor
  On the 25th June 1950 at dawn guns boomed and jets of flame shot out . The south Korean puppets intruded several kilometres deep into the territory of People' Korea. The south Korean puppet army, under the direct command of the US Military Advisory Group , had  launched an armed invasion all along the 38th parallel on a preconceived war plan. The south Korean puppets started their  aggression against the DPRK over the whole length of the 38th parallel, intruding one-two kilome­tres deep in the directions of Haeju, Kumchon and Cholwon. The south Korean puppets bragged their radio they had captured Haeju(which categorically disproves the account of US, Western and south Korean historians the  DPRK attacked first) . The destiny of the DPRK was hanging in the balance, what could it do against the onslaught of the south Korean puppets who were backed by the biggest military power in history ?  The great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG  called meeting of the Cabinet of the DPRK and  demanded that the south Korean puppets stop their aggression at once . The south Korean puppets refused to do so . So the great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG ,declaring that the Yankees had misjudged the Koreans, ordered the Korean People's Army and Korean Peoples Security Forces to go over to an immediate counter-offensive.
   Thus the KPA and KPSF went over to an immediate counter-offensive  pushing the south Korean puppets back .This was something unprecedented in the history of warfare! . Generally when a state is attacked or invaded by another state it takes some time to even adopt a defensive posture to resist the aggression. However thanks to the original Juche-orientated revolutionary military thought and strategy the forces of the DPRK were able to launch a decisive counter-offensive after halting the south Korean puppets in their tracks and allowing them no breathing space.
    The great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG had accumulated precious experience during the 15 year long armed struggle against the Japanese imperialists. He developed original Juche-orientated military tactics, the like of which had never been seen before.
  On the third day of the war , 28 June, Seoul the south Korean puppet capital was liberated by the  KPA .This was disastrous for the south Korean puppets who had orgininally boasted of "having breakfast in Haeju, lunch in Pyongyang and dinner in Sinuiju" . This had not happened, instead the victorious DPRK wiped out the south Korean puppet forces and liberated south Korea,. The hated colonial reactionary ruling machines were smashed and land was distributed to the peasants free of charge. The US started to heavily bomb all of Korea and drew  into the war forces from some satellite countries. This did not stop the advance of the Juche-orientated Korean People's Army commanded by the great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG. The KPA smashed the Yankees at Osan .Torpedo boats of the KPA Navy sunk US cruisers and destroyers.                                
  The great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG personally commanded the Taejon liberation battle.I. The U.S. 24th division was totally destroyed in the Taejon battle on July 20, that was the 20th day after its arrival in south Korea. A  young People's Army  took prisoner Dean himself. He was the first division commander of U.S. imperialist aggression forces to be taken prisoner in the Korean War. This was  a great feat of the heroic Korean People's Army to have captured a Yankee general.
 In the first stage of the war the Korean People's Army liberated 90 per cent of the territory of south Korea and 92 of the population. A truly remarkable accomplishment that was achieved by the self-reliant revolutionary armed forces of People's Korea under the command of the great leader Marshal KIM IL SUNG .
  The US threw into the war unprecedented numbers of troops and amounts of materials.  In fact 73 million tons of war materials were used in the war .The war raged on until July 27th 1953 when the US kneeled down and signed the Armistice Agreement.
During the three-year long Fatherland Liberation War, the U.S. imperialists lost over 1,567,000 men, including more than 405,000 of their own armed forces, and an enormous amount of combat equipment and war supplies, including over 12,200 aircraft, more than 560 warships and ships, over 3,200 tanks and armoured vehicles of different types, more than 13,350 trucks and 7,690 artillery pieces of various types. The loss suffered by the US imperialists was nearly 2.3 times greater than what they had suffered in the four years of the Pacific War during World War II. Even official US statistics showed during each of the three years of the Korean War they lost double  the number of troops lost in each year of the Vietnam war.
 Former State of Secretary Marshall said that “the myth was blown away. We are not a strong country as others thought. The infamous Senator J R McCarthy admitted “we suffered a serious defeat in Korea “ . McCarthy’s remark  prompts me to think whether  Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were really executed(on the 19 of June 1953  a month before the US defeat) as scapegoats for the US defeat in the Fatherland Liberation War .As the great leader generalissimo KIM IL SUNG said “In this great struggle our people fought determinedly as one in mind under the correct leadership of the party and government and thereby withstood the harsh trials of war honourably and won a historic victory inflicting an ignominious defeat on US imperialism and its running dogs .
The US imperialists also suffered irretrievable political and moral defeats. It was a great victory for the Korean people and opened up a new era of anti-US, anti-imperialist struggle. Indeed Korea was the war before Vietnam !. The executive secretariat of the Organisation  of Solidarity with the People’s of Asia, Africa and Latin America  said on the 19th of June 1968 “ under the superb leadership of the Marshal KIM IL SUNG the People’s Army and the people of Korea who inherited the traditions of the glorious  anti-Japanese armed struggle fought heroically and defeated US Imperialism om the defence of liberty of the fatherland and the gains of the revolution, making a great contribution in the anti-imperialist national-liberation struggle  of the peoples throughout the world and the struggle for peace in Asia and the world.
This historic victory of the Korean people has shown that no force on earth can ever bring to their knees a people who fight for the independence and liberty of their country

   The victory in the Fatherland Liberation War was due to the outstanding an brilliant commanding art of the great leader Generalissimo KIM IL SUNG , a military strategic genius and ever-victorious iron-willed brilliant commander.
 





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