On July 25, Party for Socialism and Liberation member Muna Coobtee delivered the following statement on behalf of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) at a Los Angeles vigil to demand an end to the Korean War, a war of aggression carried out by the U.S. government under the name of the United Nations. The vigil was organized by Korean American groups and progressive allies.
During the Korean War, more than 5 million Koreans perished, most of them civilians. Thirty-six thousand U.S. soldiers also died. The U.S. Air Force, flying under the flag of this great “world peace” organization, leveled every building north of the 38th parallel.
While it devastated the peninsula, the U.S.-U.N. forces were defeated in their effort to smash the socialist government in North Korea. They were driven out of the north and back below the 38th parallel by the combined military counteroffensive of the Korean People’s Army and nearly one million Chinese volunteers in December 1950.
Fifty-six years ago, on July 27, 1953, the United States and North Korea signed a truce to end the war. But the U.S. government has refused to sign a peace treaty. Thus, the two sides technically are still at war. This has given the United States a flimsy pretext to station tens of thousands of troops in South Korea for over five decades. It has also imposed economic and financial sanctions against North Korea, just like it has maintained the blockade of Cuba.
The ANSWER Coalition and its member organizations, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation, extends is warmest greetings and solidarity to our comrades and friends here tonight, and to the Korean people who justly demand peace and a formal end to the war on the Korean peninsula.
Fifty-six years ago, the United States signed an armistice to temporarily halt its war of aggression on the people of Korea. Before the armistice, a genocide committed by the U.S. imperialists and their allies in the U.N. claimed the lives of 5 million innocent Koreans and divided a whole people in two.
Despite the heroic efforts of Koreans in the North and the South for reunification and peace, the wounds created by Washington’s war have not yet healed. It is an outrage that there is no official peace treaty so many decades after the confrontation ended.
But the U.S. government does not want to end the war. It still has over 28,000 U.S. soldiers occupying the peninsula and militarizing the false border between North and South Korea. Despite the anti-war rhetoric of the Obama administration, the U.S. may be preparing for a new war. The danger is very real. The government is still threatening North Korea, its government and people, using the most racist and chauvinist characterizations that harm all Koreans.
The U.S. may not want to end the war, but we know they will soon be forced to end it. The resolve and continued work of Korean American activists like you, and anti-war allies from all communities in the United States, along with growing solidarity from progressive and oppressed people across the globe ultimately will prevail. Most importantly, the will of the Korean people on the peninsula cannot and will not be broken. Korea will be reunited!
ANSWER and the PSL will continue to struggle in the anti-war movement to make our common demands heard. We are for peace. We are for reunification. And we demand all U.S. troops out of Korea. Together, in unity and struggle, we will win.
Stop the war on Korea! Self-determination for the Korean people! End the sanctions and blockade of North Korea! Hands off Korea now!
