Year 2005 No. 44, April 8, 2005 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBBOOKS | SUBSCRIBE |
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Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :
The Stand towards the Threats and Disinformation Levelled at the DPRK An Election Issue
Interview with Counsellor of the DPRK Embassy in London
US Apology Needed for Resumption of Nuclear Talks: DPRK Official
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On the eve of the election announcement by Tony Blair, the Foreign Office stepped up its malevolent campaign against the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea on the so-called human rights issue.
The BBCs Newsnight programme on April 4 carried an item where Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell appeared with two defectors from the DPRK who related their alleged experiences as political prisoners. Earlier in the day, Rammell had appeared with these same two persons at a news conference, alleging that the DPRK probably has the worst human rights situation than anywhere in the world.
Despite the goodwill of the DPRK in entering into dialogue with the British government on issues of concern, the Labour government has been doing the bidding of the Bush administration in stepping up absurd and fabricated allegations against the DPRK and its government. RCPB(ML) calls on the British people to reject with contempt the false charges on the so-called violation of human rights.
Just because the DPRK is refusing to make concessions to the US administration of George W Bush, to cave in to its threats and abandon the political and social system that the people of the DPRK have chosen, it is being labelled as an outpost of tyranny. The DPRK has quite correctly concluded that to make concessions to the imperialists would be a disastrous course and no solution to the problem of US aggression. The US administration has developed its doctrine of pre-emptive strike, and the DPRK has justly responded by strengthening its defence against such a strike and developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent resource to prevent war and safeguard its very existence.
It is the US which is the aggressive party. It is the cause of tensions on the Korean peninsula with the presence of some 37,000 US troops, an estimated 1,000 missiles with nuclear warheads that are scattered over south Korea, as well as combat-ready warplanes, ships and submarines. All this is in violation of the 1953 Armistice Agreement, never mind creating conditions for finally signing a peace treaty. The fact that the US is embarked on this course is proof that the aim of the US in Korea is war and occupation and not peace.
The British government has seen its role, as they did in the events leading up to the aggression against Iraq, as providing justifications for the aggressive US policy by elaborating on the issue of human rights and accusing the DPRK of their violation. The truth is that the Labour government is completely two-faced on this issue. It tries to assert that there can be only one yardstick for democracy, whether or not a country adopts the western system of representative democracy. It gives itself the right to demand of any state that it must adopt this system, or be the target of hostile propaganda up to and including invasion and occupation. Yet such is the nature of representative democracy in Britain that the government is criminalising political protest, suspending provisions of the Human Rights Act, and even eliminating the centuries-old safeguard of habeas corpus. In doing so it is excluding sections of society from being accorded their civil rights. Then they become so arrogant and high and mighty with the socialist DPRK!
RCPB(ML) demands that the US imperialists and its closest ally the British government drop their hostile policy towards the DPRK, and stop spreading disinformation about the DPRK and its positions.
On Tuesday, April 5, Workers Daily interviewed Thae Yong Ho, Counsellor at the Embassy of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in London .
WDIE: Could you please comment on the allegations made by Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell on the Newsnight programme?
Thae Yong Ho: These allegations are fabrications.
At the 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights taking place in Geneva from March 14 to April 22, the Commission heard a report directed against the DPRK which accused the country of not abiding by human rights standards. This report appears to be an integral part of the plot to denigrate the DPRK with fabricated hostile propaganda which is being persistently pursued by the US and Britain . US imperialism would fabricate anything which would lead to stifling the DPRK and overthrowing its state system. Britain is evidently part of this plot.
Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell attended the proceedings of the UN Human Rights Commission and put out a press release there. He also took the documentary there which Newsnight subsequently showed, and organised a press conference with the two alleged defectors.
Since the US is frustrated at not being able to re-convene the six-party talks with a view to disarming the DPRK, the US has asked Britain to pursue this course of action. Their plan is that the US concentrates on the nuclear issue, while the British government picks up the human rights cause. Thus together they are intensifying their hostile campaign against the DPRK world-wide.
WDIE: April 15 is the 93rd anniversary of the birth of President Kim Il Sung, known as the Day of the Sun. How do you see the significance of marking that day for the working class and people in Britain?
Thae Yong Ho: It is important for British communists and progressive people to celebrate Suns Day by challenging the hostile campaign by Britain and the US .
We think it is very important that progressive people in Britain should be kept informed about the anti-DPRK campaign headed by the British and US imperialists.
WDIE: What has been your response to the Newsnight programme and the activities of the Foreign Office?
Thae Yong Ho: This morning I called on the Foreign Office and delivered a strong protest to the British government on behalf of our Embassy.
As I said, while the US is focusing on the nuclear issue, Britain is taking up the so-called human rights issue. Together, these two powers are attempting to stifle our socialist cause. They are attempting to mould the world according to their terms.
Tony Blair has taken up the role of furnishing proof of the accusations of George W Bush and Condoleezza Rice that the DPRK is one of the outposts of tyranny. In this way, the British government is supporting Bushs doctrine of delivering democracy, Anglo-American style, to these so-called outposts of tyranny.
WDIE: How would you sum up the approach of the DPRK to dealing with the US and Britain in this situation?
Thae Yong Ho: We have summed up that making concessions to the imperialists only leads to making more concessions, and is no solution to their aggressive stance.
One should not play games with the imperialists. On the contrary, the stand of the government of the DPRK towards the imperialists is to be principled, straightforward and categorical with them.
Games of hide and seek will not do any good. That is why we are very straightforward with the US and Britain.
WDIE: Thank you very much. You can be assured that the British communists and progressive people stand as one with the Korean people in their cause.
People's Daily Online, April 1, 2005
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will not return to six-party talks aimed to resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula unless the United States makes an apology for calling Pyongyang an "outpost of tyranny", a DPRK's envoy to the United Nations said early Friday.
"In order to reopen the talks, there should be the right justification and conditions," Han Song-ryol, deputy chief of the DPRK's mission to the United Nations, said in a telephone interview with a Yonhap correspondent in New York. "That is a clear apology from the US for the 'outpost of tyranny' remarks."
"The US can make its own choice on how to make an apology," said Han.
Han referred to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's description of the DPRK as "outpost of tyranny" in her Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year. She has rejected repeated demands from Pyongyang for an apology, saying she spoke the "truth".
In her recent Asian tour, Rice called the DPRK a "sovereign state" for the first time, which was viewed as an apparent attempt to placate the DPRK.
In the telephone interview, Han said, "Pyongyang's judgment is that (the sovereign state remarks) cannot be taken as being equivalent to an apology."
Han also made some remarks on a statement of the DPRK's Foreign Ministry which demanded that the six-party forum should be transformed into arms reduction talks.
"Now that the DPRK has become a fully fledged nuclear-armed state, the six-party talks should serve as disarmament talks where the participating countries negotiate the issue on an equal footing," a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement on Thursday.
Han said the statement was meant to stress that the latest nuclear crisis stems from US nuclear threats against the DPRK and therefore removing those threats is a fundamental solution to the issue, according to Yonhap.
Han further criticised the United States for its deployment of nuclear weapons either in the US territory or in US alien bases in the world that can attack the DPRK.
He also made it clear that his country wants to discuss transforming the nuclear forum into disarmament talks if the six-party talks reopens, saying such demand is not a precondition for resuming the multilateral talks.
"It depends on the US whether the six-party talks resume or not," the envoy said. "But, I don't think the US will drop its hostile policy (toward Pyongyang)."
The six-party talks have been stalled since last September after three rounds of talks were held among China , the DPRK, the United States , Russia , south Korea and Japan.
The fourth round of such talks failed to be convened last September as the DPRK refused to attend the talks, citing US hostile policy toward Pyongyang.