A day earlier, the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced that it is developing nuclear weapons to deter the imperialist campaign of aggression against the country and cut down the size of its army, estimated at 1 million troops.

A June 9 dispatch of the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) stated, “The DPRK’s intention to build a nuclear deterrent force is not aimed at threatening and blackmailing others but at reducing conventional weapons under a long-term plan and channeling human resources and funds into economic construction and the improvement of peoples’ lives.

“The DPRK will build a powerful physical deterrent force capable of neutralizing any sophisticated and nuclear weapons with less spending unless the U.S. gives up its hostile policy towards the DPRK.” Washington’s response to Pyongyang’s announcement was cautious. “This does not mean we are going to war,” said U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell while in Santiago, Chile, at a meeting of the Organization of American States. “We are not.” Referring to U.S. president George Bush, Powell stated, “The president continues to believe that there is an opportunity for a diplomatic solution, a political solution, but it’s a solution that must come from a multilateral forum.” The Bush administration has held the stance that any negotiated solution to the conflict with north Korea must include Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo—an effort to involve these governments in putting pressure on north Korea to abandon efforts to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Washington, for example, has been pushing China to seal off its border or cut off shipments to north Korea, unsuccessfully so far. Pyongyang, on the other hand, has been insisting on bilateral talks between the U.S. and north Korean governments.

U.S. government officials said Washington will not announce new measures against Pyongyang, in order to avoid an overt confrontation at the moment. The U.S. government, however, has already taken steps to prepare for military strikes on north Korea down the road if the current campaign of economic and political pressure doesn’t work.

At the G-8 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France, Washington won the agreement of the other six major imperialist powers represented there to begin interdictions and inspections of north Korean ships. Washington accuses Pyongyang of having shipped missiles to the Middle East, including Iran and Pakistan.

The Japanese government was the first to begin tightening the naval noose around north Korea. It deployed 1,900 “safety inspectors” to Japanese ports. These inspectors are to be used to search north Korean cargo ships, and a passenger ferry they accuse of smuggling electronics, computer parts, and other software Pyongyang needs for its missile program. The inspections are also aimed at blocking the transfer of money sent by north Koreans living in Japan to relatives back home. Tokyo has also demanded that privately owned banks suspend the sending of remittances to north Korea.

On June 10, these inspectors boarded two north Korean vessels in Maizuru—a western Japan port that last year received one quarter of the 1,344 port calls by 147 north Korean ships to Japan—and detained the Namsan 3 freighter saying the ship cannot leave until its crew fixes three alleged safety violations.A dispatch by the KCNA called the inspections “another sinister political attempt to lay siege to the DPRK.”

Meanwhile, as part of Washington’s military threats against the north Korean people, the Pentagon announced that it will begin withdrawing some 18,000 U.S. troops from the border with north Korea at the so-called demilitarized zone and from a military base occupied by U.S. forces in downtown Seoul. The troops will be stationed at least 75 miles south of the DMZ, out of the reach of north Korean artillery in case of a military conflagration.

Washington currently has 37,000 troops in south Korea, part of a U.S. military presence maintained on the peninsula since the stalemate at the end of the Korean war—the first major military setback for U.S. imperialism. It also maintains another 48,000 troops in Japan, as well as the nuclear-armed U.S. Seventh Fleet patrolling the region.

In May, U.S. Congress, with overwhelming bipartisan support, gave a green light to the Pentagon to begin testing “low-yield” nuclear weapons. Many politicians justified the decision as specifically designed to develop weapons that can destroy Pyongyang’s deep underground bunkers.  
 
 
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