50 years of no peace, no war: A VIEW FROM INSIDE NORTH KOREA

By Maggie Vascassenno and Monica Moorehead
Pyongyang, DPRK

Aug. 14, 2003--A multinational delegation from 26 different countries visited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at the end of July for a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 U.S.-led war on Korea. The leaders of North Korea have renewed their efforts to replace that armi stice with a peace treaty, and to move towards reunification of the 70 million Korean people.

The north and south had been temporarily divided into occupation zones in the closing days of World War II. U.S. troops moved into the south and Korean guerrilla forces accompanied Soviet troops in libera ting the north from Japanese colonial rule. The Soviet troops soon left northern Korea, but U.S. troops have remained in the south ever since. For nearly 60 years, millions of Korean families have been separated.

Close to 40,000 U.S. troops and wea pons are stationed along the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone to enforce the division.

The north has built many stirring monuments to its years of struggle. This, plus a pristine landscape and flowers everywhere, are testimony to the national pride of the Korean people. In Pyongyang alone, the U.S. and its allies dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs during the war. Not one building was left standing. Yet today, Pyongyang presents a broad vista of apartment buildings, parks and billboards that pay tribute to the heroic strug gle of the Korean people against U.S. imperialism.

The city's reconstruction, with its many magnificent public buildings, testifies to the power of socialist planning.

VISIT SITE OF U.S. WAR CRIMES

During the commemoration, a tribunal was organized here by the Korean Demo cratic Lawyers Association to expose war crimes committed by the U.S. military against the people of North Korea during the 1950-53 war. In June of 2001, an earlier tribunal had been organized by the Korea Truth Commission in New York City. However, North Korean witnesses and scholars had been denied visas by the U.S. government, and could participate only by videotape. Now, in the DPRK, these witnesses were able to present their testimony in person.

As part of the evidence gathering, the international delegates traveled to Sinchon County in South Hwanghae Province. Near the beginning of the war, over a period of 52 days, the U.S. military, working with right-wing Koreans, had killed 35,000 people there--more than a quarter of the population. The delegates saw photos and other evidence of U.S. atrocities. On Oct. 17, 1950, a Lt. Harrison had given his soldiers the order to arrest and kill all members of the Workers Party of Korea, their families and their sympathizers.

The visitors went inside an air-raid shel ter where 900 people had been burned to death. Scraped along the wall, in Korean, was, "Long live the Workers Party of Korea." They saw photos of the Sokdang Bridge, where thousands of Koreans had been tied together in pairs, weighted down and dropped off the bridge to be drowned.

The visitors were most deeply affected by the testimony of a woman who told her story while standing between two memorial mounds. As a child, she and her brothers had been torn from their mother's arms and forced into a small building with 104 other children. She said that she and two boys escaped while U.S. troops poured gasoline under the door, lobbed torches in through the roof and burned alive the rest of the children. Next door, 400 mothers suffered the same horrible death. A huge mosaic mural of the scene marks the site.

Back at the tribunal, Li Ok He, who was only a child of seven in 1950 when troops cut off her arms, gave wrenching testimony in a strong voice, ending by listing the names of her four children. In Korean they mean Shall, Get, Revenge and Forever.

These witnesses spoke with deep pain, but with equal determination to never, ever let the imperialists do again to their country what they had done 50 years ago.

KOREANS WANT PEACE BUT ARE PREPARED FOR WAR

As the U.S. continues its drive for world domination, the North Korean people are in the Pentagon's cross-hairs. After the U.S. colonial-style takeover of Iraq, will Korea be the next target? Korean speak ers made the point that while they want peace, they have a strong military and will defend their right to self-determination.

The group saw a video entitled "Korea's Answer," which chronicles all the attempts by the DPRK to use dialog to prevent another war with the U.S. It shows how the Bush administration has worked against the process of peaceful reunification and has attempted to starve the North Korean people into submission.

The U.S. cites the north's withdrawal from the 1994 Agreed Framework as grounds for threatening a preemptive nuclear attack on Korea. "Korea's Answer" shows that the U.S. government from the start violated that agreement, hoping to force the collapse of the DPRK. The U.S. had agreed to help the DPRK build light-water reactors, but then undermined their construction. And, when Korea needed them most, the U.S. unilaterally cut off oil shipments to the DPRK.

Most of the 63 delegates to the conference offered statements of solidarity. Yoomi Jeong, organizer of the U.S. delegation, spoke for the Korea Truth Com mission. Gary Campbell and Roy Wolff, Korean War veterans from the U.S., were among those present in solidarity with the Korean people's right to sovereignty.

On July 26 all the delegates marched to the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification. The Three Charters were outlined by President Kim Il Sung, leader of the wars of liberation from Japanese and U.S. imperialism, and have been further elucidated by Gen. Kim Jong Il. They are the foundation of the DPRK's stand on national reunification: it should be achieved without outside interference, there should be national unity irrespective of differences, and reunification should be peaceful.

The U.S. contingent led the march with a banner that read, "We support the June 15, 2000, North-South Joint Declaration!" Thousands of Koreans lined the boulevard, clapping, smiling and waving. Inter spersed along the march, young musicians performed under the direction of children with batons.

On July 27, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, the group witnessed a spectacular celebration at Kim Il Sung Square, where tens of thousands of Koreans in traditional dress danced in tandem to Korean songs of struggle and victory.

Vascassenno and Moorehead were members of the U.S. delegation that participated in these events.