Statement from Korean Committee for Solidarity with World Peoples
on the anniversary of Korean War

June 25, 2003

Pyongyang, DPR KOREA

The USSR-US-British conference was held in Yalta between February 4 and 11, 1945 and it was followed by the Potsdam conference between the USSR and US from July 17 to August 2 the same year.

At the conference they had a discussion about the participation of war against Japan. The US proposed to establish a definite line of demarcation line for the operational conveniences of air and naval forces of the Soviet and US armies in all area of Korea, in case the Soviet Union would take part in the Pacific war. On the pretext of this line of demarcation, the American militarist schemed to fix the 38th parallel as the dividing line.

Quite a long time before the end of World War II, the US rulers had been particularly “interested” in the postwar settlement of the Korean question and consistently persisted in an aggressive plan for placing the whole of Korea under the “mandatory rule” of the Big Powers.

When the situation of the World War II was already getting worse to the fascist allies, the US pushed ahead with the preparation to take the areas occupied by Japan and the fascist allies in the post-war period and paid its special attention to seizing a strategic bridgehead and a vantage point for its world domination.

Out of its world domination, the US considered the West Europe, Middle East and Far East as a possible area of its occupation and then located Korea in Far East.

The US, saying that the Koreans had no ability to set up and maintain a free independent government put forward a “proposal for mandatory rule” of Korea. Under the disarming defeated Japan, the US landed its troops in Inchon of south Korea on September 8. 1945.

On August 27, 1945 John Hodges was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the US troops in south Korea and enforced “military government” on his arrival in south Korea, a ruling system that is pursued by the victorious country in the defeated state, and forcefully dissolved progressive political parties and organizations including the newly organized people’s committees.

The enforcement of the “US military government” in south Korea, not defeated country, was aimed to accelerating its war preparations to dominate the whole of Korea with south Korea as its springboard by obstructing democratic development of south Korean society and colonizing all fields of politics and economy.

In fact, according to the decision of the Moscow Three Minister’s Conference in December 1945, the Soviet-US Joint Commission should push ahead with the emergence of a unified, democratic, independent and sovereign state in Korea with the consultation of the democratic political parties and social organizations in Korea.

However, the US went against the international convention to enforce the “US military government” in south Korea and to set up a pro-US south Korean government.

On September 10th 1948, the first congress of the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) appealed to the Soviet Union and the US to withdraw their troops out of Korea.

According to this appeal, the Soviet government withdrew all its troops from Korea in the end of 1948.

The US, unable to meet the public pressure, took out a part of its troops from south Korea to deploy them in the near Japanese military bases.

However, the US kept intact its military bases as they were and large military advisor corps in south Korea to command the south Korean army cooked up by the US to strengthen war preparations.

First, the US scrupulously made its military strategic plan of the “northward expedition” to invade DPRK.

According to the “northward expedition” plan, its military operation to provoke the Korean war would be simultaneously launched on all fronts as of July or August 1949 and its main attack was focused on the west of Korea and secondary attack on the east of Korea.

The US could not but change the time of igniting war into 1950 because both the south Korean armed forces and Japan were not enough prepared to carry forward the US “northward expedition” plan and the strong anti-US and national salvation struggle of the south Korean people resulted in the rear instability.
The US was hell-bent on the organization, expansion and strengthening the puppet army for war preparation.

In November 1945 the US organized “National Defence Headquarters” under the command of US army, comprising reactionary elements, pro-Japanese elements, the former Japanese aggressor army officers and ex-servants of the Chiang Kai-shek army, and then “Coast Defence Corps”.

Insisting that 100,000 modernized armed forces were needed to attack the north Korea, the US strengthened its arms build up in a full scale.
In June 1949, ROK army was reinforced into 8 divisions and 22 regiments and its number totaled at 100,000 and in June 1950 to 160,000.

To rapidly reinforce ROK army with the American equipment, the US shipped all kinds of weapons, compat technical materials including tanks, ships and aircraft, which amounted to 190,000,000 $ in 1949.

The US expanded roads and built up ports and airdromes and military bases everywhere in south Korea, and dug trenches and built pillboxes along the area of the 38th parallel.

While stepping up war preparation, the US continued armed assaults on the area north of 38th parallel to make an excuse to provoke a war. The number of armed provocation amounted to as many as 2,617 on the area of 38th parallel only in 1949.

The US moves to provoke the Korean war reached at its zenith in 1950.

The US called Syngman Rhee to the far east headquarter in Tokyo, Japan to give him 11 articles of war training to invade north Korea and decided to assign Dulles, the former political advisor of the US president, to finally lead the Korean war provocation in May the same year.

Therefore on June 17, 1950, Dulles on a visit to south Korea as a special envoy of Truman inspected the area of 38th parallel together with the US military advisory group in Korea and military generals of south Korea to finally examine their war plan and returned to Seoul to have a secret talks with Syngman Rhee and instructed him to make a sudden attack against the north.

Later, Dulles came to Tokyo to have a secret talks with the US secretary of defense, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and the military commander-in- chief in charge of the Far-East regarding to the launch of the Korean war and openly revealed its aggressive ambition as saying that “To ensure the peace in the Far East, US intends to take its active action right now”.

At last on June 25 1950, the US and south Korean authorities launched their armed attack against the DPRK under their scrupulous plan and preparations.

To cover a truth as the war provoker and aggressor, the US shift its responsibility upon the DPRK with the premeditated manuscript and organized even “UN force” a multi-national forces including 15 satellite countries to bring them into the aggressive Korean war.

The purpose of the provocation of the Korean war by the US was to exterminate the DPRK at its cradle stage, turn the whole of Korea into its colony and simultaneously to realize its ambition for the world domination with Korea as its springboard and get rid of its catastrophic economic crisis started from 1948 in the US.

The reference materials of other countries related to the provocation of the Korean war