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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1970-08-21 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 4
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KOREA TODAY [photo] REVOLUTION IN THE NORTH, AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES TAKE OFF FOR KOREA NEW YORK (LNS) - - A delegation of American revolutionaries en route to Korea send the following message, written in a Moscow airport, to Liberation News Service's office in New York: Sisters and Brothers -- We are a group of 11 people writing to you from Moscow Airport where we are waiting to take a supersonic plane to Pyongyang, Democratic People's Republic of Korea. We were invited to make this trip by the International Section of the Black Panther Party. In Korea, we will be the guests of the Committee for the Reunification of Korea. The revolutionary movement groups represented in our delegation include the Black Panther Party, the San Francisco Red Guard, Women's Liberation, the Peace and Freedom Party, Newsreel, and Movement for a Democratic Military. The purposes of this U.S. people's delegation is to express solidarity with the struggles of the Korean people and to bring back to Babylon information about their communist society and their war against U.S. imperialism. Many of us were raised on Korean War propaganda which totally distorted all of the basic facts of U.S. aggression against the people of Korea. The Vietnam War has clearly revealed to us the horrors of an aggressive war which is very similar to the one fought 20 years ago in Korea. It is crucial to re-examine that missing period of our history in order to understand the events that will surely unfold in Korea in the coming months. The Korean people have vowed to free their fatherland from U.S. imperialism and unite the country. We have come to understand that black people in the United States are treated as an internal colony, and are subject to the same genocidal aggression by U.S. imperialism as are the peoples of Asia. The Pentagon has a global strategy for dealing with liberation struggles whether they be inside or outside the U.S. This strategy will increasingly apply to any anti-imperialist movement. Since the peoples of the world have a common enemy; we must begin to think of the revolution as an international struggle against U.S. imperialism. Our struggle in the U.S. is a genuine part of of the total revolutionary assault on this enemy. Understanding the Korean people's struggle, and communicating this to the American movement is a crucial step in developing this internationalist perspective. POWER TO THE PEOPLE! -- Patricia Sumi, Jan Austin, Ann Froines, Gina Blumenfeld, Eldridge Cleaver, Robert Scheer, Randy Rappaport, Alex Hing, Elaine Brown, Andy Truskier, Janet Kranzberg. Liberation News Service Korean in 1970. A nation of 41 million separated by a border bristling with tanks, troops, and artillery. In the North 12 1/2 million people -- a thriving socialist state, economically self-sufficient, providing free medical care and free education and one of the highest standards of living in Asia. In the South, a brutal military dictatorship backed up by 60,000 U.S. troops in over 100 bases, armed with tactical nuclear weapons. Over 30 million people living in poverty are made to compete for teh dwindling store of American products at wildly inflated prices. How did Korea get this way? A chunky peninsula jutting off the northeast end of China, only a few hundred miles from Japan, Korea with its abundant natural resources -- manganese, iron ore, gold and miles of fertile land has been a pawn of great powers for most of its history. Till the end of the 19th century, Korea was a virtual colony of the Chinese Empire. When the Chinese people began to topple the oppression of 3000 years of feudal rule in their own country, both Japan and the United States stepped in to bid for the now-vacant role of Korea's "protector." However, the Japanese defeat in World War II left the U.S. as the only strong capitalist power in East Asia. And General MacArthur was only too glad to take control of the southern half of Korea as part of the U.S. occupation of Japanese territories. But most Koreans were looking forward to being able finally to run their own affairs. During the war, "people's committees" made up of every part of the population from Catholic priests to communist guerrillas, sprouted up throughout Korea to provide a kind of grass-roots democracy to towns and villages and to coordinate the struggle against the Japanese. When Soviet troops in an agreement with the U.S. occupied the northern half of Korea, they recognized the people's committees 4 as legitimate governing bodies in the area. The U.S. Military Command had a different idea. Brushing off the southern representatives of the people's committees as irrelevant, the American occupiers began to set up a government south of the agreed upon 38th parallel. This government was to carry out U.S. wishes faithfully, not the least of them being to repress the people's committees and all other militant manifestations of pro-independence sentiment. Syngham Rhee, an undistinguished conservative nationalist who had been living in the United States for thirty years while battling Japanese troops, was brought back to Korea, and by 1948 emerged as President of the newly-christened Republic of Korea with its capitol in Seoul. The election process which made Rhee president was something less than a model of democratic procedures. The U.S. Military Command had realized early in the game that its chosen candidate would do poorly in the areas north of the 38th parallel where most people supported the government of the people's committees, which had already initiated a full-scale campaign to abolish illiteracy and had nationalized the primitive industrial facilities the Japanese had built in the mineral-rich north. So, the Truman administration rammed a resolution through the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea, which was packed by nations favorable to the U.S. It called for "separate elections" to be held in the southern half of the peninsula where over two-thirds of Korea's population lives. With the establishment of Rhee's garrison state in the South, Koreans north of the 38th parallel had little choice but to forego hopes for the time being of unifying their country under an independent regime. In September, 1948, representatives from both halves of Korea set up the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) with its capitol in Pyongyang, a city of one million inhabitants. The newly-constituted government requested the withdrawal of all foreign troops from its territory, and the last Soviet troops left in December. But the larger American occupation army stayed where it was and began to train and equip a colonial army in the south. MacArthur, Rhee, and Dulles (who was at this time U.S. delegate to the U.N.) were unanimous in feeling that the policy of the southern regime should be to unify the country under a pro-U.S. capitalist system and that this aim could be accomplished in the end only by force. The ensure that no unification would be unfriendly to U.S. interests, the U.S. Congress passed a "Korean Aid Bill" in February, 1950, to deprive Rhee's regime of all military and other aid if it ever formed a coalition government including members of the Korean Workers Party, Korea's communist party and the leading political force in the DPRK. Tensions near the artificial border were ready to explode. Both the DPRK and Rhee's government moved troops and tanks up to the parallel, and in the morning of June 25th, Rhee's troops. apparently without the direct consent but certainly with the knowledge of their U.S. advisers, invaded the northern half of Korea. Their fellow Koreans who intercepted the attack were ready for it. The DPRK Army counter-attacked and swept through the southern part of the peninsula, liberating Seoul and securing practically the whole country in less than three months. The Truman administration was at first set back by the phenomental weakness of Rhee's army, but Harry had other cards up his sleeve. On June 27, the United Nations Security Council met without the USSR present and with a DPRK representative barred from attending. The U.S. convinced the Council to pass a resolution condemning the DPRK as an "invader" and pledging U.N. support for armed forces to fight in Korea. A year later in hearings before the Senate Appropriations Committee, John Hickerson, Assistant Secretary of State for U.N. Affairs, admitted that the resolution which 4 VOL. 1, No. 4 AIN'T I
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KOREA TODAY [photo] REVOLUTION IN THE NORTH, AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARIES TAKE OFF FOR KOREA NEW YORK (LNS) - - A delegation of American revolutionaries en route to Korea send the following message, written in a Moscow airport, to Liberation News Service's office in New York: Sisters and Brothers -- We are a group of 11 people writing to you from Moscow Airport where we are waiting to take a supersonic plane to Pyongyang, Democratic People's Republic of Korea. We were invited to make this trip by the International Section of the Black Panther Party. In Korea, we will be the guests of the Committee for the Reunification of Korea. The revolutionary movement groups represented in our delegation include the Black Panther Party, the San Francisco Red Guard, Women's Liberation, the Peace and Freedom Party, Newsreel, and Movement for a Democratic Military. The purposes of this U.S. people's delegation is to express solidarity with the struggles of the Korean people and to bring back to Babylon information about their communist society and their war against U.S. imperialism. Many of us were raised on Korean War propaganda which totally distorted all of the basic facts of U.S. aggression against the people of Korea. The Vietnam War has clearly revealed to us the horrors of an aggressive war which is very similar to the one fought 20 years ago in Korea. It is crucial to re-examine that missing period of our history in order to understand the events that will surely unfold in Korea in the coming months. The Korean people have vowed to free their fatherland from U.S. imperialism and unite the country. We have come to understand that black people in the United States are treated as an internal colony, and are subject to the same genocidal aggression by U.S. imperialism as are the peoples of Asia. The Pentagon has a global strategy for dealing with liberation struggles whether they be inside or outside the U.S. This strategy will increasingly apply to any anti-imperialist movement. Since the peoples of the world have a common enemy; we must begin to think of the revolution as an international struggle against U.S. imperialism. Our struggle in the U.S. is a genuine part of of the total revolutionary assault on this enemy. Understanding the Korean people's struggle, and communicating this to the American movement is a crucial step in developing this internationalist perspective. POWER TO THE PEOPLE! -- Patricia Sumi, Jan Austin, Ann Froines, Gina Blumenfeld, Eldridge Cleaver, Robert Scheer, Randy Rappaport, Alex Hing, Elaine Brown, Andy Truskier, Janet Kranzberg. Liberation News Service Korean in 1970. A nation of 41 million separated by a border bristling with tanks, troops, and artillery. In the North 12 1/2 million people -- a thriving socialist state, economically self-sufficient, providing free medical care and free education and one of the highest standards of living in Asia. In the South, a brutal military dictatorship backed up by 60,000 U.S. troops in over 100 bases, armed with tactical nuclear weapons. Over 30 million people living in poverty are made to compete for teh dwindling store of American products at wildly inflated prices. How did Korea get this way? A chunky peninsula jutting off the northeast end of China, only a few hundred miles from Japan, Korea with its abundant natural resources -- manganese, iron ore, gold and miles of fertile land has been a pawn of great powers for most of its history. Till the end of the 19th century, Korea was a virtual colony of the Chinese Empire. When the Chinese people began to topple the oppression of 3000 years of feudal rule in their own country, both Japan and the United States stepped in to bid for the now-vacant role of Korea's "protector." However, the Japanese defeat in World War II left the U.S. as the only strong capitalist power in East Asia. And General MacArthur was only too glad to take control of the southern half of Korea as part of the U.S. occupation of Japanese territories. But most Koreans were looking forward to being able finally to run their own affairs. During the war, "people's committees" made up of every part of the population from Catholic priests to communist guerrillas, sprouted up throughout Korea to provide a kind of grass-roots democracy to towns and villages and to coordinate the struggle against the Japanese. When Soviet troops in an agreement with the U.S. occupied the northern half of Korea, they recognized the people's committees 4 as legitimate governing bodies in the area. The U.S. Military Command had a different idea. Brushing off the southern representatives of the people's committees as irrelevant, the American occupiers began to set up a government south of the agreed upon 38th parallel. This government was to carry out U.S. wishes faithfully, not the least of them being to repress the people's committees and all other militant manifestations of pro-independence sentiment. Syngham Rhee, an undistinguished conservative nationalist who had been living in the United States for thirty years while battling Japanese troops, was brought back to Korea, and by 1948 emerged as President of the newly-christened Republic of Korea with its capitol in Seoul. The election process which made Rhee president was something less than a model of democratic procedures. The U.S. Military Command had realized early in the game that its chosen candidate would do poorly in the areas north of the 38th parallel where most people supported the government of the people's committees, which had already initiated a full-scale campaign to abolish illiteracy and had nationalized the primitive industrial facilities the Japanese had built in the mineral-rich north. So, the Truman administration rammed a resolution through the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea, which was packed by nations favorable to the U.S. It called for "separate elections" to be held in the southern half of the peninsula where over two-thirds of Korea's population lives. With the establishment of Rhee's garrison state in the South, Koreans north of the 38th parallel had little choice but to forego hopes for the time being of unifying their country under an independent regime. In September, 1948, representatives from both halves of Korea set up the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) with its capitol in Pyongyang, a city of one million inhabitants. The newly-constituted government requested the withdrawal of all foreign troops from its territory, and the last Soviet troops left in December. But the larger American occupation army stayed where it was and began to train and equip a colonial army in the south. MacArthur, Rhee, and Dulles (who was at this time U.S. delegate to the U.N.) were unanimous in feeling that the policy of the southern regime should be to unify the country under a pro-U.S. capitalist system and that this aim could be accomplished in the end only by force. The ensure that no unification would be unfriendly to U.S. interests, the U.S. Congress passed a "Korean Aid Bill" in February, 1950, to deprive Rhee's regime of all military and other aid if it ever formed a coalition government including members of the Korean Workers Party, Korea's communist party and the leading political force in the DPRK. Tensions near the artificial border were ready to explode. Both the DPRK and Rhee's government moved troops and tanks up to the parallel, and in the morning of June 25th, Rhee's troops. apparently without the direct consent but certainly with the knowledge of their U.S. advisers, invaded the northern half of Korea. Their fellow Koreans who intercepted the attack were ready for it. The DPRK Army counter-attacked and swept through the southern part of the peninsula, liberating Seoul and securing practically the whole country in less than three months. The Truman administration was at first set back by the phenomental weakness of Rhee's army, but Harry had other cards up his sleeve. On June 27, the United Nations Security Council met without the USSR present and with a DPRK representative barred from attending. The U.S. convinced the Council to pass a resolution condemning the DPRK as an "invader" and pledging U.N. support for armed forces to fight in Korea. A year later in hearings before the Senate Appropriations Committee, John Hickerson, Assistant Secretary of State for U.N. Affairs, admitted that the resolution which 4 VOL. 1, No. 4 AIN'T I
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