Vol. 73/No. 36      September 21, 2009

September 4, 2009

Kim Jong Il
General Secretary
Workers’ Party of Korea
Pyongyang,
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

Dear Comrade Kim Jong Il,

The Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists send revolutionary greetings on the 61st anniversary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. We reaffirm our commitment to the struggle by working people on both sides of the 38th parallel to end the partition imposed on Korea by the U.S. government at the close of World War II. We salute the DPRK’s recent initiatives on cross-border transport, family reunions, and other matters. These steps give the lie to cynical efforts by both Washington and Seoul to deny their responsibility for the fact that—fifty-six years after the cease-fire in the murderous Korean War—no peace treaty has yet been signed ending that imperialist-instigated conflict.

The Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists stand in solidarity with the DPRK and Korean people in demanding a halt to sanctions imposed on your country, including the imperial decrees dictated in June by Washington and unanimously adopted by the United Nations Security Council. With those draconian sanctions as a pretext, U.S.-backed brigands reigning over the United Arab Emirates seized and confiscated North Korean cargo last month. Earlier in August the Indian government “intercepted” a Korean ship on the high seas. And in June a U.S. warship stalked a DPRK freighter for weeks, as the White House trumpeted claims the vessel was transporting “contraband” to Myanmar.

Meanwhile, the U.S. rulers continue expanding their deceitfully named “ballistic missile defense” programs, today targeting the peoples and governments of Korea and Iran above all. Washington is joining with Tokyo to deploy Aegis missile-equipped warships off Korean waters. And the U.S. military is increasing force levels in Afghanistan to some 70,000 troops, while maintaining some 130,000 soldiers in Iraq.

Despite hype by U.S. officials about “green shoots” at home and abroad, the capitalist rulers still confront a global depression. While they talk about “deleveraging” their massive debt load—in home mortgages (way beyond “subprime”), commercial real estate, credit cards, and more—this is merely a euphemism for what is truly posed by the crisis of their social system. They must destroy enormous amounts of capital—throwing hundreds of millions out of work; gutting the living standards, social wage, and job conditions of working people; junking plant and equipment worldwide on an immense scale; and, in the process, escalating trade clashes and militarization and wars in every corner of the earth.

But working people—from the United States and Canada, across Europe, to New Zealand, South Korea, and elsewhere—are waging defensive fights to maintain our wages, our jobs, and our unions. In face of the slump in the bosses’ demand for labor, foreign-born workers are resisting assaults on their right to live and work. Here in the United States supporters of women’s equality have responded to new attacks on a woman’s right to choose abortion.

As we join with workers and youth in labor actions and social protests like these, the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists explain the need to put an end to the dictatorship of capital, whose devastating consequences for humanity are becoming clearer to millions. The working class needs to organize and lead a proletarian revolution to take state power out of the hands of the capitalist ruling families. This is part of a worldwide struggle, one demanding internationalist solidarity with embattled working people everywhere, including with the Korean people and the decades-long fight to reunify your homeland.

The Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists congratulate you on this 61st anniversary of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. We welcome the DPRK’s latest initiatives to advance peace and national unity in Korea. And we stand together with our brothers and sisters in Korea and worldwide in demanding: End the sanctions against the Korean people! Stop the piracy against the DPRK’s ships and cargo, under United Nations or any other auspices. U.S. troops, “anti-ballistic missile” ships, and weapons—conventional and nuclear—out of Korea and the Pacific!

Korea is one!

Comradely,

Steve Clark
for the SWP Political Committee

Ben Joyce
for the Young Socialists  
 
 
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