Jack Willey spoke at the forum in New York's Garment District, and Steve Clark was the featured speaker in Brooklyn, New York; Newark, New Jersey; and Los Angeles. Willey and Clark are members of the SWP Political Committee. Forum supporters from San Francisco joined the audience at the Los Angeles event.

The delegation, which includes YS representative Olympia Newton, will be in north Korea for two weeks to participate in events marking two national holidays, and is part of the communist movement's response to Washington's bellicose actions and barrage of lies aimed at the DPRK.

Solidarity with north Korea is vitally needed at this time, said Jack Willey in his talk, because Washington has intensified its military threats and propaganda war against Pyongyang and the Korean working people. The U.S. rulers, he said, seek to deal blows to north Korea as an example to all those who dare to stand up to capitalist brutality and imperialist war.

"The U.S. government takes this stance because of the long and proud history of resistance by the Korean people," first to Japanese colonial rule and then to U.S. imperialism, he said. The Korean workers and peasants dealt Washington its first military defeat as an imperialist power in the 1950–53 Korean War. Part of the "untold story of that war," Willey said, "was the depth of opposition to the aggression among working people in the United States."

In response to imperialist threats, he said, "communists support north Korea's preparation to defend itself by whatever means they deem necessary," including the development of missile technology and nuclear weapons. At the same time, said Willey, working people should call on Washington to normalize relations between the two countries.

The intransigent stand on the part of the DPRK in face of Washington's threats led to high-level talks between the governments in the north and south in early April. Officials announced afterward their intention to rapidly restore rail and road links between the divided parts of the peninsula, and scheduled a further round of talks.

In response to a questioner in New Jersey, Clark noted the mass support across the Korean peninsula for national reunification. The imperialists and the rulers in south Korea fear this demand, he said, noting that union battles in the south tend to become intertwined with the unification struggle. The working class has substantial weight across the peninsula, said Clark, owing to a significant degree of industrialization. Such development was originally given a boost by the Japanese capitalists as they sought to exploit the plentiful supply of labor to be found in their Korean colony.

Clark and Willey emphasized that the delegation to the DPRK will help expand the opportunities for the party and Young Socialists to bring the truth to workers, farmers, and youth in the United States about the Korean people's century-long resistance to imperialist domination and the country's bloody partition.  
 
 
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