Democracy: US vs DPRK – Towards the Annihilation of a Narrative
ON SEPTEMBER 5, 2015 BY VNGIAPAGANDAIN ANTI-IMPERIALISM, DPRK
Preliminaries

This post is meant to attack bourgeois democracy and humanize the people of the DPRK.

To better understand my arguments, you may want to read the information in these three reddit links from the informative /u/comintelligence before continuing. Concrete information on the workings of the DPRK is rare. There is a reason.

The economy of the DPRK
Elections in the DPRK
The Juche Idea

Watching the following videos with an open mind will help to understand why I’m doing this. The people of the DPRK are ideologically far removed from the average Western citizen; however, their support for their government must be genuine and not based on “totalitarian” terror, or something along those lines, given the below evidence. It is, to me, irrational to believe otherwise.

Mass Rally of North Koreans against U.N. Human Right report!
Mass Dance in Pyongyang, North Korea on May Day 2015
Local elections in North Korea (2015)
Summer Camping at North Korea’s Songdowon International Children’s Camp
Joint Meeting for Peace and Reunification of Korea Held
If anyone still feels uncomfortable with the idea of me making these arguments, please see my page on DPRK counter-narratives (and people in the DPRK dancing) that you can use for further acclimation. There are nice videos and everything.

My rhetorical strategy will be polemics, pure and simple, and I make no other pretenses. No nuance will be found below.


Round 1

Nihil humani a me alienum puto
(Nothing human is alien to me)
– Karl Marx
Parroting propaganda backed up with liberal ideological terms (“Totalitarian!”) is the easiest thing in the world to do. The plight of the anti-imperialist is to come out of a very difficult position, in the face of hegemonic opposition, and say “no, you are wrong, and it kills good people.” Not an easy thing to convince people of!

After viewing the videos above… can a government simply organize that level of popular participation without the actual support of the people? Does it make sense to say that the “regime” enjoys no support, and all it requires is some good old fashioned US bombers to tip things in the “peoples” favor? For a liberal this makes perfect sense. For the more sophisticated, they may use some anarchist-type reasoning: this would shock them out of their supposed brainwashing and release them from their status as sheeple into glorious Western subjects!

But for a Marxist this begs the question (or it should): Why not confront this apparent contradiction? Why not ask what material circumstances accounts for this level of support and the ideology behind it, instead of denying there is support when there is clear evidence that it exists – why not move beyond ideology into an historical-materialist analysis?

(Or maybe just admit that we’ve been lied to?)

Let’s look at the DPRK’s history. For this I will be pulling from Stephen Gowan’s Understanding North Korea. Japan colonizes the country in 1910 and it is used to extract extreme profits, as they treat the country with disdain (including with its use of sexual slaves as “comfort women”). In the aftermath of WW2, Japanese forces are required to remain as an occupying force in part of southern Korea, and the USSR remains in power over the North. Both of these are supposed to leave the country to allow for a re-unification. In the South, Japanese occupation increasingly turns into an American occupation, and the US sabotages re-unification of the country, as belligerence between the leftist North and occupied South begin to increase. The occupying forces have a campaign during this period to isolate and destroy leftist elements, killing many and jailing hundreds of thousands, and unrest begins becoming significant. Eventually this leads to a war with the US wherein 3 million Korean civilians lose their lives. More bombs are dropped on Korea than were used in the whole of the European theater of WW2, and the entire North is leveled to the ground, with Pyongyang being left completely flattened.

Not mentioned by Gowans is that there was, in fact, germ warfare used against North Korea during the Korean War. A report was made in 1950s on what this warfare consisted of, The International Scientific Commission Report on Bacterial Warfare during the Korean War. Here is what the Korean Central News Agency reports on the issue (emphasis added):

The U.S. imperialist aggression forces who had put the northern half of Korea under their temporary occupation during the June 25 war were beaten back by the Korean People’s Army and took to flight when they spread in a crafty manner a number of contagious disease germs including smallpox in many areas including Pyongyang, Yangdok County of South Phyongan Province, and Kowon and Jangjin counties of South Hamgyong Province between November 29 to December 8, 1950.

A top secret document dated September 21, 1951 which ordered the “large experiment of specified pathogens in actual situation to see their effects for germ warfare in operational situation” was discovered at the U.S. national archives in 2010.

In November 1951 the U.S. imperialists dropped the first germ bomb in the areas north of the River Chongchon and south of the River Amnok and in Yangdok, Hamhung and Wonsan with the involvement of the U.S. third bomber wing in the Kunsan air base and the 19th bomber wing under the command of the U.S. air force in the Far East based on Okinawa.

Entering 1952 they began an all-out germ warfare, massively dropping germ bombs in all areas of the northern half of Korea.

They made no scruple of using even internationally banned chemical weapons, to say nothing of germ weapons.

During the indiscriminate bombing of Nampho City on May 6, 1951, the U.S. spread toxic gas, killing 1,379 inhabitants. On July 6 and September 1 it dropped tear, asphyxiating, and other toxic gases in the area of Wonsan and several areas of South and North Hwanghae provinces, poisoning and killing many people.

They even made no scruple of mixing poisonous substances in sweets, biscuits, taffy, toasts, canned food, shellfish and other foodstuff and bank notes before dropping them from planes.

The U.S. imperialists used prisoners from our side as guinea pigs for germ and chemical warfare in wanton violation of international agreement on treatment of POWs and killed them in a barbarous way.

Side-note: Some pilots were interrogated by North Korea during the war and admitted to germ warfare. When they returned to the US it was claimed that this happened because of communist brainwashing and harsh interrogation. This was used as a justification to create a program to train military personnel how to withstand torture; this program is what morphed into the modern torture program, though the US has a history of torture outside of this. It is, however, interesting to note that part of the justification for having a torture program was founded in a cover-up of US use of germ warfare in Korea.
After the war ends, the DPRK develops its economy extraordinarily quickly, with coming support from the USSR and China. The DPRK is a more economically successful country than its southern neighbor up until the 1980s, once South Korea becomes a development project for the West and unrest leads to a democratization of the country. When the Soviet bloc disintegrates, the DPRK loses its main trading partner, and during the 1990s starvation spreads as sanctions choke the country and natural conditions generate problems with internal food production. The DPRK eventually recovers from this dark period.

Often those disparaging the DPRK on the left obscure the horrors of imperialism behind superficial attempts at comparisons of social forms (never substance, mind you, they don’t have enough information to do that) reliant on propaganda instead of concrete facts of how the DPRK works. They can even go so far as compare it to a place like South Vietnam or another US proxy dictatorship, conflating an imperialist ideological construction (the pervasive lies about the DPRK) with an imperialist concrete construction (the horrors visited upon Vietnam). The level of chauvinism in many Western Marxists, especially those of the more individualistic camps, frankly disheartens me more than the good people of the DPRK ever could!

Round 2

De omnibus dubitandum
(Doubt everything)
– Karl Marx

Typically when elections in the DPRK are brought up (here is the link on elections from the top again) the response is to make a joke along the lines of, “well, of course there are elections! And Un wins 100% every time!” [Ghoulish imperialist laughs follow.] The 100% is of course an unavoidable consequence of an uncontested ballot. The election system is set up to work this way: candidates are chosen by consensus in separate mass meetings that result in the uncontested ballot. Even disregarding this, I think it’s presumptuous to suspect that if they had a superfluously contested ballot you’d get much of a different result. So, the question of which country, the US or the DPRK, is more substantively democratic is open despite possible ideological issues – which country has people working in specifically undemocratic institutions their entire lives? The US does. The vast majority of workers have very little say in what they do and who they work for. Meanwhile, the DPRK has democratic elections that affect their workplaces directly. They have free housing and are untaxed, and they always have a job available. No one starves to push wages lower. (They starve because of sanctions from imperialists and betrayals from revisionists.)

Here is some relevant information that can be found in a document detailing the DPRK’s parliamentary system from 1992 (emphasis added).

A voter casts a ballot personally to a deputy in candidacy so that this will may be directly reflected in an election of deputies and does so in a place where secret ballot is thoroughly maintained.

An announcement of election day varies a bit, but usually in case of election of deputies to the SPA [Supreme People’s Assembly] it is made 60 days before and in case of election of deputies to provincial, city and county People’s Assemblies it is made 30 days before.

Following is the composition of deputies to the 9th SPA elected on April 22, 1990. The total number of deputies are 687.

Of these:

– Workers of factories and enterprises take up 37 per cent, cooperative farmers 10.4 per cent, and the rest is shared by officials or parties, power organs, economic institutions and social organizations, servicemen of the Korean People’s Army and the Korean People’s Security Forces, officials in the fields of science and technology, education, public health, culture and art, religious people and officials of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan and its subordinate organizations.

– Members of the Workers’ Party of Korea take up 87.5 per cent (601 seats), members of the Korean Social Democratic Party 7.4 per cent (51 seats), member of Chondoist Chongu Party 3.2 per cent (22 seats) and independent deputies 1.9 per cent (13 seats). Women take up 20.1 per cent (138 seats). And the rate of deputies who are awarded the titles of Hero of Republic and Labour Hero and other highest orders of the State and honour titles is 63.8 per cent and the rate of those who have won academic degrees and scholarship such as Ph.D and professorship and other scientists, technicians and experts is 64.5 per cent.

– As for the ages of the deputies, the rate of those below 35 is 2.9 per cent, the rate of those from 36 to 55 is 56.8 per cent, and the rate of those over 55 is 40.3 per cent.

The term of office of the SPA is 4 years.

Turning to the US, popular opinion in the US is known to have essentially no effect on policy that is supported by elites. Elections are basically bought in the US. The vast majority of lived life in the US is determined by an anarchic system filled beyond the brim with corporate propaganda that people have no democratic influence on. The US has a cult around a government system that is objectively not in the interests of working people, has a cult around a military that serves as the violent arm of US hegemony over the world and is the agent for killing millions of working people, and has a cult around an election process that quite purposefully relies on mass delusion. Let’s keep things in perspective.

Now let’s look at some interaction between these two democracies. After WW2, North Koreans had their efforts for trying to decolonize their peninsula rewarded by having their country bombed to rubble (really the entire thing), having germ warfare being used against them, having mass atrocities performed against them (and sometimes blamed on them afterwards), and having millions upon millions of their people die in the worst ways. This is the substance of US “democracy” – this war was fought by feeding the citizens of the US constant propaganda, having leaders working specifically in the interests of the elites, and having an election process performed on the basis of propagating mass delusion. Which “democracy” kills millions of people by propagating specifically mass delusion – it is the US. THIS IS A FAR MORE SUBSTANTIVE ANTI-DEMOCRACY THAN EVEN THE WORST DPRK DETRACTORS CAN COME UP WITH FROM AN OBJECTIVE STANDPOINT.

The U.S. imperialist aggression forces who had put the northern half of Korea under their temporary occupation during the June 25 war were beaten back by the Korean People’s Army and took to flight when they spread in a crafty manner a number of contagious disease germs including smallpox in many areas including Pyongyang, Yangdok County of South Phyongan Province, and Kowon and Jangjin counties of South Hamgyong Province between November 29 to December 8, 1950.

A top secret document dated September 21, 1951 which ordered the “large experiment of specified pathogens in actual situation to see their effects for germ warfare in operational situation” was discovered at the U.S. national archives in 2010.

In November 1951 the U.S. imperialists dropped the first germ bomb in the areas north of the River Chongchon and south of the River Amnok and in Yangdok, Hamhung and Wonsan with the involvement of the U.S. third bomber wing in the Kunsan air base and the 19th bomber wing under the command of the U.S. air force in the Far East based on Okinawa.

Entering 1952 they began an all-out germ warfare, massively dropping germ bombs in all areas of the northern half of Korea.

They made no scruple of using even internationally banned chemical weapons, to say nothing of germ weapons.

During the indiscriminate bombing of Nampho City on May 6, 1951, the U.S. spread toxic gas, killing 1,379 inhabitants. On July 6 and September 1 it dropped tear, asphyxiating, and other toxic gases in the area of Wonsan and several areas of South and North Hwanghae provinces, poisoning and killing many people.

They even made no scruple of mixing poisonous substances in sweets, biscuits, taffy, toasts, canned food, shellfish and other foodstuff and bank notes before dropping them from planes.

The U.S. imperialists used prisoners from our side as guinea pigs for germ and chemical warfare in wanton violation of international agreement on treatment of POWs and killed them in a barbarous way.
Side-note: Some pilots were interrogated by North Korea during the war and admitted to germ warfare. When they returned to the US it was claimed that this happened because of communist brainwashing and harsh interrogation. This was used as a justification to create a program to train military personnel how to withstand torture; this program is what morphed into the modern torture program, though the US has a history of torture outside of this. It is, however, interesting to note that part of the justification for having a torture program was founded in a cover-up of US use of germ warfare in Korea.

I’m not holding the DPRK up as a goal for a socialist movement (because the goal is to not be under imperialist siege – not something the DPRK has a choice in) – I want to disarm the vileness of people’s reactions to it. The vileness in Western media, and especially among Western people, is in my opinion far more disturbing than the idolization of the Kims, because even the average person could easily be led to believe that a war with the DPRK would be humanitarian. However, the citizens of the DPRK have, despite how anyone personally feels about it, come out of a thoroughly anti-US, anti-imperialist milieu, and such a thing would result in millions dead and would be a losing fight due to the dedication of the DPRK people, who by all (undistorted) appearances seem to actually vigorously stand behind their social system.

Round 3

Question 17: What will be your first measure once you have established democracy?
Answer: Guaranteeing the subsistence of the proletariat.
– Friedrich Engels

However, while recognizing the democracy, are we still not left with the monolithic ideological system? From my research, I do believe we are. But the application of historical materialism requires us not to, like idealists, settle for this just being the way North Koreans are or anything that simple. That would, of course, be racist (someone should tell the liberals). Ideologies arise out of material conditions. Let’s look at more of the material conditions that underlie this specific superstructure.

There is a clear issue with a monolithic ideological system in the DPRK – what has created it? Why does this exist? Looking at this from a materialist standpoint, the primary culprit is US imperialism with all its sanctions, propaganda, and military aggressions – supposedly a country that respects democracy as it sponsors coups and has “civil society” groups whose purpose is openly to influence elections in other countries (not stated but obvious to everyone: for US geopolitical interests), and even influence the appearance and results of civil unrest.

Now, under this kind of siege, what would a successful defense require? It would require precisely unity. Weak links, under such conditions, could hardly be afforded. The people of the DPRK are aware of this. Does this not, at least partially, explain the monolithic ideology? Does this not, concretely, enable a defense against the kind of aggressions we’ve seen in Syria, Ukraine, and Latin America? I think socialists should acknowledge how much it can take to really defend a country from imperialism, and they should place the blame for the situation squarely where it belongs: imperialism.

Let’s, for a bit, abstract away any support for the “regime” and say that the regime is oppressive, but maintain an acknowledgement of this ideological unity… this leaves us with a question: should they defend themselves? This is where we’re led to. Do you think you could get them to agree to stop defending themselves so that they can become a nice pleasant capitalist paradise? Or is there a magical Trotskyist cell that will be able to emerge, with the backing of Western European Trotskyist cells coming to power, of course, so that they can supersede their current system into an if not full, than a mostly full communism? Of course not, so how about we confront contingency as it actually exists.

So we will look at what would be a likely outcome of imperialism winning in a relatively positive scenario (relative because there is no truly positive scenario).

A relatively positive scenario: An internal faction with interests in the special economic zones (SEZs) gains influence over higher-ranking officials and begins reforms to liberalize the government. These reforms cause internal unrest, which is propagandized by the West as a fight for further liberalization. The liberal elements in government seize this opportunity to begin to dissolve the current government structure and implement a liberalization of the media. External Western or Western-influenced media begins propagandizing to the people of the DPRK, fracturing even more a society that has become uncertain of itself. This allows for further liberalization, as confusion spreads. The economy begins to liberalize significantly; those with interests in the SEZs begin to take over the economy as public enterprises are privatized, foreign money is brought in to “develop” the economy, and services begin to cost money. Homelessness rises from almost 0% to 15% and higher as joblessness is required to put downward pressure on wages to secure foreign capital, crime increases, food insecurity increases, and medical services become increasingly precarious. Re-unification with South Korea is used as leverage by imperialism for further liberalization, and the government of the DPRK eventually dissolves under the above pressures. A liberal government is established and structural adjustment is imposed, one reason of which is in order to destroy the economy so that the Western views on the DPRK remain justified. Homelessness again shoots up, and social ills spread. The life expectancy drops significantly. The ideological clashes of integrating the society into a liberal order and being forced to believe lies causes a rise in mental illness, despair, and deep disillusionment. Hundreds of thousands die prematurely as a result of a significantly lowered average life span, infant mortality increases, and deaths from preventable diseases increase (basing this off of Soviet experience).

This is obviously horrible, and any such thing should be prevented from happening.

Anti-imperialism must be central to socialist practice. There can be no actual movement into communism without the prior destruction of imperialism, and imperialism makes socialism nearly impossible to sustain in practice by all evidence. It’s the most concrete obstruction to social progress currently facing working people.

Solidarity with the people of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea!

Conclusion


http://vngiapaganda.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/democracy-us-vs-dprk-towards-the-annihilation-of-a-narrative/

https://vngiapaganda.wordpress.com/2015/09/05/democracy-us-vs-dprk-towards-the-annihilation-of-a-narrative/

Access links at link.

Interview: Understanding and Defending North Korea

What follows is an extensive interview with Yongho Thae, Minister of the Embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in London, conducted by Carlos Martinez. This important interview is as relevant today as when it was conducted in 2013.

The western media narrative claims that DPR Korea’s nuclear programme is a major threat to world peace. Why does the DPRK have nuclear weapons?

When the western press comments on the nuclear programme of the DPRK, it never talks about the core reasons behind that programme; it is only interested in justifying US bullying; it wants people to be blind to the underlying logic of our position. Our policy is simple and easy to understand: we need a nuclear deterrent.

Before I go into this issue, I’d like to clarify that it is still the DPRK’s policy to denuclearise the Korean peninsula. It has always been our policy to get our country out of the threat of nuclear war. In order to reach that aim, there was no choice but to develop our own nuclear capacity.

After the Second World War, the US was the only country in the world that had nuclear weapons. In order to further their strategy of global domination, they decided to use an atomic bomb against Japan. The facts show that there was no need for the US to use such a weapon in that situation. In Europe, in May 1945, Hitler was defeated and the war ended. In the Pacific, the tide had turned totally against Japanese imperialism. It was obvious that the Soviet army would take part in the war against Japan, and Japan was losing the war with the US. It was just a matter of time before the Japanese war effort collapsed. Japan could not win against the combined forces of the Soviet Union, Europe, China and the US, so they were looking for a way out. There was absolutely no need for the US to use nuclear weapons. Inside the US establishment, there were fierce arguments as to whether these weapons should be used. The people of the world didn’t understand about the destructive power of nuclear weapons – only US leaders knew. They wanted the world to find out about how mighty these weapons were, so that the world would be forced to go along with US policy. In order to achieve this aim, they didn’t take into account how many lives would be lost. To them, the lives of ordinary Japanese people are like the lives of dogs, of animals. They would kill as many as possible in support of their geopolitical aims.

So the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Later on the USSR developed nuclear weapons too. As time went on, the Soviet nuclear arsenal played the role of counterbalancing the possibility of US nuclear weapon usage. That is the main reason that the US couldn’t use these weapons in the second half of the 20th century. Later on the nuclear weapons club was expanded to include China, Britain and France. In terms of world peace as a whole, the enlargement of the nuclear club would intuitively be seen as a bad thing, but the reality was that the possession of nuclear weapons by China and the Soviet Union was able to check the use of nuclear weapons by anyone for any purposes. I think this is a fact we should admit.

As far as Korea is concerned, you know that Korea is just next door to Japan. Many Japanese lived in Korea, because Korea was a colony of Japan. Our media system at the time was run by Japanese. So when Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred, we heard about it and we understood very well the scale of this disaster. The Korean people understood very well how many people were killed in the space of just a minute. So the Korean people have a very direct experience of nuclear warfare from the beginning.

The Korean War started in 1950. The Americans thought they could easily win this war, because they had all the advanced conventional weapons and they mobilised 16 satellite countries. At this time China was only just liberated – the People’s Republic of China was just one year old. Meanwhile the Soviet Union was still recovering from the vast destruction of the Second World War. So, the US thought it could easily win the Korean War. However, they found out that their arrogance was misplaced. In fact, the Korean War was the first war that checked US ambitions.

The Korean People’s Army and the Chinese volunteers fought with incredible strength against the US. From the US point of view, this was a war against communism. But the communists had the full support of the people of these countries. Korea and China were rural countries, where the people were motivated by the idea of getting their own land. It is the Communist Party – the Workers’ Party of Korea – that distributed land equally to all farmers. So the WPK had the full support of the people, and the masses of the people took part in the Korean War. They knew the situation of their brothers and sisters in South Korea – dominated by landlords and US interests – and understood that if the DPRK lost the war, the rule of the landlords would be restored and the land reform reversed. So that is why the ordinary Korean people got involved. Everybody got involved and did not hesitate to make every sacrifice.

When he saw that the war was not going according to plan, Eisenhower asked his advisers: how can we win this war? The American generals suggested using the nuclear threat. The US felt that if they warned the population that they were going to drop a nuclear bomb, the people would flee from the front. Having witnessed the effects of nuclear warfare just five years previously, millions of people fled North Korea and went to the south. The result of this is that there are still 10 million separated families.

So you can see that the Korean people are the direct victims of nuclear bullying – us more so than anybody in the world. The nuclear issue is not an abstract one for us; it is something we have to take very seriously.

After the Korean War, the US never stopped its hostile policy towards Korea. Today they say that they cannot normalise relations with the DPRK because the DPRK has nuclear weapons. But in the 60s, 70s and 80s, we didn’t have nuclear weapons – did they normalise relations then? No. Rather, they continued trying to dominate the Korean peninsula with their own military force. It is the US that introduced nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. In the 70s, in order to check the influence of the Soviet Union, they deployed nuclear weapons in Europe and also in South Korea. The US never stopped threatening the DPRK with these weapons, which were just next to us, the other side of the demilitarised zone. Korea is a very small country, with a high population density. It is quite clear that if the US used its nuclear weapons, the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe would be unimaginable.

The DPRK government had to find a strategy to prevent the US from using these weapons against us. In the 1970s, there were discussions among the big powers as to how they could prevent nuclear war. What the big five countries agreed is that they would stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Only five countries would be allowed to have nuclear weapons; the others would not. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was born in 1970. The NPT clearly states that nuclear power states cannot use nuclear weapons for the purpose of threatening or endangering non-nuclear states. So the DPRK thought that if we joined the NPT, we would be able to get rid of the nuclear threat from the US. Therefore we joined. However, the US never withdrew its right of pre-emptive nuclear strike. They always said that, once US interests are threatened, they always have the right to use their nuclear weapons for pre-emptive purposes. So it’s quite obvious that the NPT cannot ensure our safety. On this basis, we decided to withdraw and to formulate a different strategy to protect ourselves.

The world situation changed again after 11 September 2001. After this, Bush said that if the US wants to protect its safety, then it must remove the ‘axis of evil’ countries from the earth. The three countries he listed as members of this ‘axis of evil’ were Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Bush said that, in order to remove these evils from the earth, the US would not hesitate even to use nuclear weapons. Events since then have proved that this was not a simply rhetorical threat – they have carried out this threat against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now it comes to North Korea. There was DPRK Framework Agreement between the Clinton administration and the DPRK in 1994, but the Bush administration cancelled this, saying that America should not negotiate with evil. The neo-cons said that ‘evil states’ should be removed by force. Having witnessed what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, we came to realise that we couldn’t put a stop to the threat from the US with conventional weapons alone. So we realised that we needed our own nuclear weapons in order to defend the DPRK and its people.

In additional to the direct nuclear threat, I must point out that there is also the issue of the ‘nuclear umbrella’. The US extends its nuclear umbrella to its friends, such as Japan, South Korea and the Nato countries. But Russia and China aren’t willing to open up a nuclear umbrella to other countries, because they are afraid of the response from the US. We realised that no country will protect us from US nuclear weapons, and therefore we came to understand that we must develop our own.

We can say now that the choice to develop our own nuclear deterrent force was a correct decision. What happened to Libya? When Gaddafi wanted to improve Libya’s relations with the US and UK, the imperialists said that in order to attract international investment he would have to give up his weapons programmes. Gaddafi even said that he would visit the DPRK to convince us to give up our nuclear programme. But once Libya dismantled all its nuclear programmes and this was confirmed by western intelligence, the west changed its tune. This led to a situation where Gaddafi could not protect Libya’s sovereignty; he could not even protect his own life. This is an important historical lesson.

The DPRK wants to protect its security. We ask the US to give up its hostile policy; to give up its military threat; to normalise relations with the DPRK; to replace the armistice treaty with a peace treaty. Only when the American military threat against the DPRK is removed; only when peace-guaranteeing mechanisms are established on the Korean peninsula; only then can we talk of giving up our nuclear weapons. In other words, the US should take the issue seriously; it should take a positive approach to solve this matter.

We are proud that, even though there is a huge US military presence in the Korean peninsula and in northeast Asia, so far we have been very successful in preventing another war on the Korean peninsula. The US war machine never stops. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria… every day, hundreds of innocent people are dying because of imperialist policy led by the US. But after the Korean War finished in 1953, the DPRK has been able to maintain peace on the Korean peninsula, and we think this is a great achievement.

Were you hopeful that, with the election of Barack Obama, the US position on Korea would improve?

Well, Obama’s policy is different from that of Bush and the conservatives. Instead of solving these problems directly, he is moving to a position of ‘strategic neglect’. Obama wants to keep the issue as it is rather than taking real steps to improve the situation. The current administration says that there are too many pending issues for the US to solve.

There have been some interesting visits to the DPRK recently, for example by Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and by Dennis Rodman, the basketball star. Do these perhaps – even in a very small way – indicate that there are some people within US ruling circles that are interested in improving relations with the DPRK?

It’s very difficult to say whether those visits will have a positive influence. What the DPRK wants to do is to deliver a message to the American people that the DPRK is always willing to address and solve problems; that the DPRK wants to improve its relations with the US; that the DPRK does not consider the US as its permanent enemy. We hope that these visits of prominent US citizens will help to convey this message.

Do any of the other imperialist powers – for example Britain, France, Australia – have a more constructive position in relation to the DPRK, or do they follow the US lead?

There is a bit of a different approach. For instance, the US government has never extended diplomatic recognition to the DPRK as a sovereign state, whereas US allies such as Britain and Australia do accept our existence; these countries support a policy of engagement with the DPRK.

Does the US still maintain nuclear weapons in South Korea?

That is really hard to say, because US nuclear weapons are more sophisticated and modernised compared with the 70s and 80s. They have more nuclear submarines. They have weapons that are smaller and more difficult to detect. So it is difficult to say if there are nuclear weapons permanently stationed in South Korea. But it is very obvious that US nuclear weapons visit South Korea on a regular basis. Just recently, the US engaged in joint military exercises with Japan and South Korea. For those exercises, the US aircraft carrier George Washington entered the South Korean harbour of Busan for three days. What kind of planes are carried on the George Washington? Fighters and bombers that can easily drop nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

In March 2013, the US introduced B52 bombers on the Korean peninsula for military exercises, simulating nuclear bombing raids on North Korea.

The US policy is to neither deny nor confirm whether they have nuclear weapons on South Korea. But the fact is that they can introduce these weapons and launch a strike at any time, so whether these weapons are actually there on the ground right now is not so relevant.

You’ve lived here in London for some time and presumably have some idea about how British people think about North Korea. The stereotype is that it’s an ‘undemocratic’ country where people don’t have the right to vote; where people don’t have any freedom of speech; they don’t have the right to criticise the government; they don’t have the right to participate in the running of the country. Is that a fair characterisation?

I think the general impression the British people have is shaped by the bourgeois media. What I can say is that those people who have done more serious investigation, especially those who have visited the DPRK and have seen our achievements with their own eyes, have a totally different impression of my country.

The number of British tourists has been increasing in recent years – this year alone it will be almost 500. There are nine British travel agencies who operate tours of the DPRK. Visas are never denied for tourists. I have met with some British tourists who had just returned from the DPRK, and they were so surprised to see how different it is from their impressions that they had picked up in the media. They didn’t know that the DPRK is a socialist country where there is free education, where there is free medical care, where people’s health is fully guaranteed, where there is free housing. They didn’t know all these good aspects of North Korea. Most of them, before they visit my country, imagine that our streets are full of malnourished people, that there is no decent transportation, that everyone looks sad, that there is no real cultural life, etc. But when they get to Korea they see that it is entirely different. For example, public transportation is almost free – you pay a little money but compared with what you pay in Britain or the US it is basically free. They couldn’t believe that Pyongyang city is full of big apartments and houses, built and given to the people free of charge. They were also surprised that there were so many schools, much better equipped than British state schools. They found out that North Korean children are generally at a much higher educational level than their British counterparts; that the vast majority of North Korean children enjoy free after-school activities, learning piano, violin and so on. They found out that there was no begging in the streets, no drug problems. They found out that they could leave their hotels at any time of night and go out in the streets without fearing for their safety, since there are no problems of robberies and gangs.

So they were shocked, and they asked me why the British media is so negative all the time about the DPRK and never mentions its positive aspects. My answer is that the media wants to depict the DPRK as an evil, as a type of hell, because they want to tell the British public that there is no alternative to capitalism, to imperialism. They want people to believe there is only one economic and political system; therefore it is against their interests to say anything positive about the socialist system.

So if people in this country want to visit North Korea, it’s easy to do so?

Yes. There are many well-known companies such as Regent Holidays, Voyagers, Koryo Tours and others that organise group tours. Because the media depicts the DPRK so badly, the number of people interested in visiting is actually getting bigger and bigger.

If you go on a tour, would you typically visit only Pyongyang?

No, you can visit any place you like. There are more and more options emerging all the time. For example, many tourists want to visit for just one day, so they can do a one-day trip via the border with China. Another trip we have started is a train trip, with trains going from China to Korea. Also now there is an air trip, with outdated passenger aeroplanes (typically made in the USSR in the 50s or 60s), which are quite fashionable with many tourists. Now a New Zealand company is organising a motorcycle tour of the whole Korean peninsula. One can find such tours available on the internet.

These tours have increased a lot over the last 3-4 years, as we have much more of the supporting infrastructure now, so the tourist industry is more open and diverse. We feel that it helps us to establish stronger cultural relations with other countries.

Each socialist country has had its own way of organising popular democracy and participation, for example the Soviets in the USSR, and the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution in Cuba – structures that allow people to manage the affairs of their workplaces and localities, solving their basic problems and electing people to higher bodies at regional and national levels. Is there something along these lines in North Korea?

Of course. We operate democracy at every level of our party and government. As you know, the major party of government is the Workers’ Party of Korea. This party is a mass party with a membership of millions, and is organised along democratic centralist lines. If someone in a given party structure (a cell) is not working according to the party line that has been discussed and agreed upon, then there would be a criticism by other party members and that member is given a chance to correct his behaviour. At each level of the party we use this system of criticism, self-criticism and accountability in order to maintain efficient and correct work.

We have a Supreme People’s Assembly, which could be considered the equivalent of the British parliament. Under this Supreme People’s Assembly, there are assemblies at province, city and county levels. The members are all elected, and these bodies meet frequently. They are responsible for taking important decisions, in a normal democratic way. For example, given a limited budget, they might have to take a vote as to whether to spend money on building a new kindergarten, or improving a hospital, and so on. In this way, broad masses of people are involved in the process of managing society. If the bodies don’t function correctly, there are mechanisms for people to criticise them and to appeal against bad decisions and negative work. For example, if water sanitation in a particular village needs to be improved, then local people can go to the council to protest. If their protest is taken into account and the situation is improved, that is good. If not, people can appeal higher up – to the city or province level – to make sure that the council is representing them properly.

Is the WPK the only political party in North Korea?

There are many parties and mass organisations besides the WPK, such as the Catholic Party and the Social Democratic Party. We do not consider that we have ‘ruling’ and ‘opposition’ parties – the parties are all on friendly terms and cooperate in developing our society. These other parties all participate in the people’s assemblies – as long as they get enough votes. They are even represented in the Supreme People’s Assembly.

People have a prejudice against our country that decisions are only made at the top by only one person, but how is this even possible? Running a country is a complicated process that needs the energy and creativity of many people.

I’m interested to understand how has DPRK been able to survive the last two decades, in such a difficult global political context. The Soviet Union – the biggest socialist country – collapsed; the people’s democracies in Eastern Europe no longer exist. How is it that, in a hostile international environment, the DPRK has been able to keep going?

The past two decades have been the most difficult period for us. We suddenly lost our major trading partners, out of nowhere, with no warning. This had a major impact on our economy. And with the disappearance of the USSR, the US moved to a policy of intensification, believing that our days were numbered. The US intensified its economic blockade and its military threat. They stopped all financial transactions between the DPRK and the rest of the world. The US controls the flow of foreign currency: if they say that any bank will be the target of sanctions if it does business with the DPRK, then obviously that bank has to go along with them. The US issued such an ultimatum to all companies: if they do business with North Korea, they will be subject to sanctions by the US. This is still in place. The US government thought that if they cut economic relations between the DPRK and the rest of the world, we would have to submit to them. The only reason that we have been able to survive is the single-hearted unity of the people. The people united firmly around the leadership. We worked extremely hard to solve our problems by ourselves.

If the UK one day suddenly lost its markets in the US and Europe, would it survive? If all financial transactions are stopped, how can a country survive? And yet we did survive.

Is the global situation more favourable now for North Korea and for other countries that are pursuing an independent path?

Yes. The past two decades were very difficult: not only did we have to survive economically but we also had to frustrate US military intentions; therefore we had to put a lot of investment and focus on strengthening our army, building weapons and developing our nuclear capability. Now that we have nuclear weapons, we can reduce our military investment, because even a small nuclear arsenal can play a deterrent role. We are in a position where we can make the US hesitate to attack us. Therefore we can focus more on people’s welfare now.

Do you think that the relative economic decline of the US and Western Europe will help Korea?

We have to wait and see. It is true that US economic power is declining, but precisely because of this, the US is trying to consolidate its political and military power. At the moment, this is reflected in the ‘pivot to Asia’, which is really about China. The importance of the Korean peninsula is therefore increasing, due to its proximity to China and Russia. The Korean peninsula is sort of a pivot point from which the US thinks it can exercise control over the big powers.

The war in Syria has been a key issue in world politics over the last 2-3 years. The DRPK continues to be a supporter of, and friend to, Syria. What is the basis for this relationship

In the past, our late president Kim Il Sung had very comradely relations with President Hafez al-Assad. Both leaders shared the viewpoint that they should fight against imperialist policy. Syria was always a strong supporter of Palestinian self-determination, and was an important pillar against US and Israeli policy in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the DPRK was an important pillar against US policy in the Korean peninsula. So both countries share the same policy in relation to struggling against imperialist policy worldwide. This is the basis for the solidarity between the two countries.

Historically, Syria was not our only friend in the Middle East: we were very close with Nasser’s Egypt and with Yasser Arafat and the PLO – these leaders and countries shared the same philosophy of independence and development. This shared philosophy still exists between Syria and North Korea.

Under the pretext of introducing human rights and democracy in the Middle East, the US and its partners are creating chaos. Their so-called ‘Arab Spring’ policy has created a situation where hundreds of innocent people are killed every day. People are fighting each other in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, everywhere. This is a reflection of US divide and rule policy. Israel – the most important regional partner of the US – is a small country, whereas the Arab world is quite big; so the US and Israel are afraid of the unity of the Arab world. How can they break this unity? They try to create hatred among the different political organisations, among different religious groups, among different countries. Once this hatred is created, they encourage people to fight each other. This is the ‘freedom’ they have brought: the freedom for people to kill each other. This is the strategy for guaranteeing the security of Israel.

It is essential that the Arab people understand the policy of divide and rule. This policy has been used for hundreds of years by the British Empire, the Americans and other imperialist empires. People have to unite in order to protect their children.

Over the past 10-15 years, there have been some important changes in South and Central America, the region historically considered as the US ‘backyard’. There are now progressive governments not only in Cuba, but also in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Do you think this is a promising development?

I think so, yes. The people of South America are more conscious than ever before. Previously, Latin America was dominated by US imperialism, with most governments – many of them brutal military dictatorships – directly supported by the US. But these states didn’t improve the lives of the ordinary people. So now people have come to understand that they must break the relationship of dependency with the US. They have decided to take up their own destinies. Just look at Venezuela: Venezuela has been an oil-rich country for a long time, but only once Chávez got into power was the oil wealth distributed so that ordinary people could benefit.

The DPRK has positive relations with Latin American countries. We have now opened our embassy in Brazil. We have good relations with Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela; Cuba of course. Chávez wanted to visit North Korea, but in the end his health didn’t allow it. But he always promoted good relations between Venezuela and North Korea. He is certainly very much missed.

http://www.lalkar.org/article/2382/interview-understanding-and-defending-north-korea