Foreign Office Chauvinism and Condescension during Delegation of DPRK to Britain

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Foreign Office Chauvinism and Condescension during Delegation of DPRK to Britain

Last month, the Vice-Foreign Minister of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kung Sok Ung, paid his first ever visit to Britain at the head of his country’s delegation.

Vice-Foreign Minister Kung’s visit was officially a private one and came only 18 months after the DPRK’s embassy was first opened in London. It should have been an occasion to strengthen friendly relations between the two countries and to encourage further bilateral exchanges. However, the Foreign Office clearly saw things rather differently. Vice-Minister Kung was welcomed to Britain by a junior minister at the Foreign Office, Bill Rammell MP for Harlow, with all the patronising condescension, chauvinism and brow-beating that has been the hallmark of the representatives of British imperialism throughout the ages.

A workshop was organised at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the second of its kind called to discuss a range of issues including the ramifications of the DPRK’s use of nuclear power and its relations with the EU, in which DPRK’s Vice-Foreign Minister was present, as well as its Ambassador to Britain, Ri Yong Ho.

Rammell’s opening remarks in his speech to the IISS workshop were an elaboration of the "welcome" he had extended to Vice-Minister Kung at the Foreign Office the previous day and give a good indication of the hectoring tone he employed throughout: "I’ll say again, the DPRK has a choice. It can take the opportunity offered to co-operate with the world. Or it can ignore the opportunity. It can ignore the genuine invitation to work together. It can continue to pretend that the DPRK is the world’s beleaguered victim. It can choose the non-cooperative route, and continue in increasingly difficult isolation. It’s a crucial choice. And the implications for the DPRK, in my view are clear. Choose co-operation, and you’re on the path to fulfilling your country’s potential…But make the wrong choice – the choice of isolation and non-co-operation – and you’ll find that the future is something that happens in other countries, while the DPRK remains stuck in reverse gear."

The arrogance of the Member for Harlow, who went on to lecture the Vice-Minister about the unacceptability of possession of nuclear weapons and human rights abuses, cannot be said to be simply a personal quality – it is a common characteristic of ministers of the British government, even junior ones. It is the arrogance and chauvinism of those who profess to be appalled by the torture of the Iraqi people, while claiming that these are the actions of a few "bad apples" and have nothing to do with the government and its reactionary, interventionist and warmongering actions around the world.

What right has the British government to lecture any other government on human rights abuses, particularly the government of a country that Britain invaded, alongside its ally the US just over 50 years ago, in which numerous infamous war crimes and human rights abuses were perpetrated? Since the cessation of that conflict, no peace treaty has been signed and the US, with Britain’s support, has maintained a divided Korea and the reactionary governments of the south of that country, which is the most gross and blatant abuse of the rights of the Korean people. Britain, with the other big powers, continues to interfere in the Korean peninsular, to act to militarise and de-stabilise the region and to deny the Korean people the right to decide the future destiny of their homeland.

The arrogant, chauvinist and warmongering outlook of the government is at odds with the sentiment of the working class and people of Britain. It reflects the reactionary aims of the big monopolies and financial institutions as they compete to plunder and devastate the world so as to dominate the global market. WDIE calls on the working class and people to make a fundamental break with this outlook, as part of their struggle to institute a government in Britain which recognises the equality of all nations and which ends all interference in the internal affairs of other countries.