The Japanese government's decision to cut off its minimal food aid to north Korea - which faces shortages as a result of a series of natural disasters - on the pretext of weapons tests by the DPRK government is cynical and hypocritical. It is an affront to a people colonized with brutal force by Japanese imperialism for most of the first half of this century.
The DPRK faces continual threats and provocations from Washington, Tokyo, and the south Korean regime in Seoul. This includes military maneuvers involving tens of thousands troops off the north Korean coast and the permanent stationing of 40,000 U.S. troops in the south, whose arsenal includes nuclear weapons. For more than two decades, the Korea has been physically divided by a huge wall running 150 miles across the entire width of the peninsula. This wall was erected by the south Korean government, with Washington's help.
This imperialist aggression against the DPRK does not cease because the Korean people - after decades of Japanese rule followed by U.S. attempts to take over the peninsula following World War II - had the audacity to claim their country for themselves. They fought the U.S. armed forces to a stalemate in the 1950-53 war instigated by Washington, at the cost of some 4 million Korean lives.
Washington's latest accusations that the DPRK government is building an underground nuclear weapons facility - even before the cement is allegedly poured - should also be denounced. The world's largest imperial bully, and the only government to ever drop atomic bombs on human beings, has no right to dictate how any nation can defend itself.
The north Korean government has consistently sought to advance the fight for the reunification of the Korean peninsula - which is the desire of the big majority of the Korean people. Working people, particularly in the United States, should demand that Washington remove all its troops and weapons from Korea now, end its criminal embargo of the DPRK, and support the reunification of the country, which has been kept divided for half a century by U.S. force.