Some 50 years later, however, Washington and the capitalist regime in south Korea have been unable to maintain their cover-up of this U.S. atrocity. If William Clinton felt compelled to acknowledge that U.S. troops had indeed shot down Korean civilians fleeing the war zone in No Gun Ri--while absolving the military brass--it is only because survivors and relatives of the victims refused to keep quiet about the U.S. military's brutal assault. They courageously fought for nearly half a century to bring the truth about the slaughter to light.

A public airing of the facts shows working people around the world that its Washington who was and is the aggressor on the Korean peninsula. The Korean people have struggled for decades for national liberation, first against Japanese colonial rule and then, since World War II, against U.S. imperialist domination. As a result of massive revolutionary struggles, workers and peasants overthrew capitalist rule in the northern part of their country--a blow to Washington and a victory for working people worldwide.

In response to deep-going land reform, nationalization of industry, and other deep-going social measures in the north, which offered an example to workers and farmers in the south, the U.S. rulers waged a bloody war against the Korean people from 1950 to 1953, resulting in the deaths of more than 3 million Koreans and the destruction of cities, factories, and mines as a result of Washington's saturation bombings.

The war ended in a defeat for U.S. imperialism, which failed to crush the workers state in the north. But today Washington maintains Korea as a divided nation, with its 37,000 occupation troops deployed in the southern half of the peninsula. Washington's nuclear-tipped military missiles are aimed at Korean workers and peasants in the south as well as the north.

But the aspiration for national reunification and sovereignty is deep and growing among millions throughout Korea, who have continued to press for their demands in many ways. The fight to expose the massacre at No Gun Ri is part of this resistance, as was the march last year by thousands of villagers in south Korea who demanded U.S. troops get out of their country and close down the U.S. bombing range.

Working people in this country should support the fight for Korea's reunification and demand that Washington remove all its troops and weaponry from Korea, as well as compensate the survivors of the U.S.-organized No Gun Ri massacre.
 
 
Related article:
Washington admits 1950 massacre of Koreans  
 
 
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