BY ARGIRIS MALAPANIS AND SAMANTHA KERN
PYONGYANG, Korea - "Korea Is One!" read the banner, in English and Korean, that 10 representatives of youth organizations from around the world held as they marched to the terminal of the international airport here from the plane that brought them from Beijing July 18. They were joined by several other delegates who were already in the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The 14-member fact-finding delegation, sponsored by the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) and hosted by the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League of Korea, released a statement to the press at the airport. "We came here to express our full support to and solidarity with the young people of Korea in their struggle against imperialism and for the peaceful reunification of their homeland without interference from any foreign powers," it said. Through seeing first-hand the concrete wall that divides the Korean peninsula in half and meeting Korean youth and others, the delegation will find the truth about Korea and spread it to young people around the world. "Through this trip we will strengthen our solidarity campaign with the Korean people demanding the tearing down of the concrete wall -a symbol of Korea's division and physical obstacle to its reunification - and the withdrawal of the 40,000 U.S. troops and their nuclear weapons stationed in south Korea."

Iraklis Tsaldaridis of the Communist Youth of Greece read the statement to the press. The next day Rodong Sinmun, the daily newspaper of the Workers Party of Korea, carried an article on the delegation's arrival along with a photo of the group holding the banner at the airport.

"WFDY sponsored the week-long trip in July, which is designated as the international month in solidarity with the Korean people," said Mun Chol, one of the main organizers of the delegation. He is a vice-president of WFDY and one of the two representatives of the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League at the federation's headquarters in Budapest.

Activities in the DPRK this month will culminate with celebrations marking the 45th anniversary of the end of the 1950-53 Korean War on July 27. "That day marks the Korean people's victorious resistance to the brutal war led by the U.S. government, which was aimed at the imperialist subjugation of the entire Korean peninsula," said José Ramón Rodríguez, of the Union of Young Communists of Cuba, in an interview later. "Washington's assault failed to overturn the DPRK because the Korean people refused to bend their knees. Just like the Cuban people have refused to bend our knees to the Yankee imperialists. It was a victory for every progressive human being, for everyone fighting against imperialism."

Despite facing vastly superior firepower, the Korean People's Army, with the help of experienced volunteer troops from China, was able to fight the U.S.-led United Nations forces to a standstill in 1953 at roughly the 38th parallel, thus ending the Korean War. Thousands of U.S. and Korean troops currently patrol both sides of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the 38th parallel, because a state of war still formally exists; Washington and Seoul have refused to sign a peace treaty. The border is a tense area. In 1977 the south Korean government built, with U.S. aid, a heavily fortified concrete wall along the entire length of the DMZ, 150 miles, on the southern side of the demarcation line.

Rodríguez, who is a university student here, was designated by the UJC of Cuba to be its representative on the delegation. He pointed out that another important anniversary in 1953 coincides with the end of the Korean War. July 26 marks the 45th anniversary of the assault on Moncada by Cuban revolutionaries, the start of the insurrection that a few years later opened the socialist revolution in the Americas.

The delegation includes Singh Harchand, who is heading the group and is the general secretary of WFDY and a leader of the youth of the Communist Party of India; Raul Narodoslavsky, president of Kinderland, the organization of pioneers of the Communist Party of Austria; Christiano Aristimunha of the October 8 Revolutionary Youth of Brazil; Toshio Ishimatsu of the Socialist Youth League of Japan; Aleksey Alexandrovic Meglegev of the Russian Communist Youth Federation; and Samantha Kern of the Young Socialists and Argiris Malapanis of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States. Virtually all the youth organizations represented are affiliated with the World Federation of Democratic Youth. The only exception is the Mongolian Democratic Youth Federation, represented by Tsogot Tungalag, secretary of international relations. This youth group is linked with the governing party of Mongolia and belongs to the International Socialist Union of Youth, the federation of youth groups affiliated with social democratic parties.

The program of the delegation includes visits to the Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang, the Demilitarized Zone, rural areas, and a meeting with veterans of the Korean War.  
 
 
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