June 25th -The Day the US provoked the Fatherland Liberation War bu Dr Dermot Hudson
Now 74 years , over seven decades, have passed since the US imperialists provoked the Fatherland Liberation War which is referred to by the mainstream media as the Korean War , although it was not a war between Koreans but between a small country , the DPRK , and the American empire. Indeed it was a war against Korea , against the Korean people .
The US imperialists and their south Korean puppets provoked the Fatherland Liberation War against the young Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on the 25th of June 1950 . However , the war had been planned for a long time .
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.
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 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 casualties. The DPRK was attacked a total of 2 ,617 times.
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 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 22nd 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.
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 starting at 6am so how would the US know in advance to plan the evacuation of its nationals?
A former old teacher of mine told me this story ;.n June 26th 1950 he was taking a party of children from his school around the offices of the ‘Daily Herald ‘ ( a long defunct newspaper ) when they started the visit the ticker tape coming out said ‘ south Korea attacks north Korea’ ‘ but when they were finishing the visit this had been changed to ‘north Korea attacks south Korea’ . It just shows you even then how the media manufactures the news ! .
The US threw into the war unprecedented numbers of troops and amounts of materials , including troops from 15 of their satellite countries including to our eternal shame those from Britain ..
In fact 73 million tons of war materials were used by the US in the war .The war raged on until July 27th 1953 when the US kneeled down and signed the Armistice Agreement.
The US imperialists, the ringleader of world imperialism and 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 as to destroy socialism in Asia and the world.
President KIM IL SUNG summed up the Fatherland Liberation War as follows
“The Fatherland Liberation War waged by our people was a fierce ,anti-imperialist , anti-US struggle against the allied forces of world reaction headed by US imperialism and a bitter class struggle against the enemies of the people”
The war was a struggle against US imperialism and the allied forces of world which unfortunately included the British Labour government but significantly fascist , reactionary and feudal regimes such as Apartheid South Africa, Colombia of the death squads, fascist Greece , Haile Selaissie’s Ethiopia .Surely it was not a coincidence 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!
It was also a class struggle against the capitalists and landlords in south Korea and former capitalists and landlords within the DPRK who wanted to restore the capitalist system
The Fatherland Liberation War of the Korean people proved to be a fiery crucible of the Songun idea and the Juche idea of self-reliance.
The barbarity of the US imperialists during the war was beyond human description.At least 1.2 million people were killed by the US 35,383 people were murdered by the US at Sinchon -ri and 1,050 people at Susan-ri (one third of the population of the area), just to give a few examples.
I myself have visited the Sinchon museum 5 times , 3 times to the old museum and the new expanded and modernised museum twice . I have met survivors of the massacre by US troops and also participated in an international rally at Sinchon in 2013 . In 2017 I actually made a speech at Sinchon.
The US imperialists tried to exterminate the Korean people by carrying out the war that they long planned .
The war exposed the barbarity and decadence of US imperialism . As President KIM IL SUNG said ‘Engels once called the British army the most brutal army. During the Second World War, the German fascist army surpassed the barbarism of the British army. No human brain could ever imagine more diabolic and terrible cruelty than those done by the Hitler gangsters at that time. But in Korea, the Americans have far exceeded the Hitlerites!
The aggressive and predatory nature of the US hostile policy towards the DPRK remains even after 74 years .
We must do more to expose it and campaign against it .
Dr Dermot Hudson
Chairman Korean Friendship Association UK
Official Delegate KFA for the UK
Chairman British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea
Secretary General European Regional Committee For Friendship with the Korean People
Vice-Chair OCFIPGPP
