US Occupation of South Korea Should Be Ended

It has been seven decades since the US imperialists occupied south Korea. The history of US occupation of south Korea can be said a crime-woven history in which they trampled upon the rights to independence and dignity of the Korean people and their struggle for national reunification.

On September 8, 1945 the US imperialists set foot in south Korea under the pretext of disarmament of defeated Japan. They flagrantly violated the rights to independence and democracy of the local people, placing south Korea under “military government”. They forcibly disbanded people’s committees, democratic political parties and organizations, openly established the mechanism of military occupation and colonial domination and clamped down on the south Korean people’s struggle by force of arms. They held sway over all things including change of “regimes” and formulation of “policies”, lording it over south Korea.

Out of wild ambition to place the whole of Korea under their control they started a war on June 25, 1950, but sustained an ignominious defeat in the three-year war. Far from drawing a proper lesson from the war, they, however, have ceaselessly cooked up armed provocations against the DPRK and staged DPRK-targeted war exercises since the war.

As a result, south Korea was turned into an outpost for DPRK-targeted war and an arsenal for a nuclear war. The danger of war is always looming large on the Korean peninsula.

The GIs are unhesitatingly committing burglary and murder, rape and violence and causing traffic incidents. All these crimes are targeted on the south Korean people. The wastes from the GI bases are contaminating environment and threatening people’s life.

After occupying south Korea the US imperialists blocked the transportation, communications and travel between north and south of Korea. Whenever an atmosphere of bettering the relations between the two parts of Korea and achieving national reunification was created on the Korean peninsula, they worsened the situation by resorting to military provocations and DPRK-targeted war exercises.

They put down the April 3 Uprising and April 19 Popular Uprising by Jeju Island against national division and for national reunification. When the July 4 Joint Statement was adopted in the 1970s, they drove the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brisk of war by way of attempts to create “two Koreas” and other provocative moves.

In the 1980s the north and south of Korea held multi-channelled dialogue and exchanged home-visiting and artistic troupes. Displeased at the towering atmosphere of reunification, cooperation and exchange, the US arrested the development by extremely worsening the situation. When an agreement on inter-Korean reconciliation, non-aggression, cooperation and exchange was adopted early in the 1990s, they put a brake on its implementation, engineering the “nuclear crisis in the DPRK”.

Entering the 2000s when the north and south of Korea were heading enthusiastically for reconciliation, unity and reunification following the publication of the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, the US was ever more undisguised in its attempt to oppose Korea’s reunification.

Branding the inter-Korean dialogue, negotiation, cooperation and exchange for the implementation of the June 15 declaration as a serious state of affairs never to be overlooked, the US meddled in their internal affairs to cause obstruction. As regards the tourism of Mt. Kumgang, it barred its progress, insisting that the income from the project might be used for military spending. It attempted to stop the project of roads and railways between north and south and the construction project of Kaesong Industrial Park under the excuse of “sanction” and “approval”. Meanwhile, in a bid to turn the atmosphere of reconciliation prevailing in north and south of Korea into that of confrontation, it passed a “bill on the human rights in the DPRK” and launched anti-DPRK human rights racket, finding fault with the DPRK’s human rights situation.

Last year when the separated families and their relatives from north and south of Korea were meeting on Mt Kumgang, it enlisted various kinds of military hardware and huge armed forces in staging joint military exercises codenamed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle. Not content with this, it conducted joint landing drill Ssangryong, and combined joint aerial combat drill Max Thunders, the largest of its kind in scale. After all, it aborted north-south agreements. This year, too, it egged its puppet, south Korea, on to scatter anti-DPRK leaflets and staged Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises aimed at occupying Pyongyang.

All facts show that the US imperialists are the main culprit who tramples upon the rights to independence and dignity of the Korean nation and hinders the improvement of inter-Korean relations and Korea’s reunification.

The only way to achieve the country’s peace and reunification and national prosperity is to drive the US imperialists, the source of all misfortunes and sufferings of the Korean people, out of south Korea.