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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1970-08-21 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 5
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REPRESSION IN THE SOUTH [image of a gun all the way to the right] was presented by the U.S. had been drafted weeks before the outbreak of war on June 25. But another major war in Asia had already started. In quick succession, Truman sent thousands of additional ground troops, bombers, and warships to Korea, and declared that the U.S. would patrol the Straits of Formosa (over 700 miles south of Korea) to "neutralize the area. In the face of such a huge attack, the inexperienced DPRK army with the aid of Chinese troops (who had entered the war as MacArthur's forces threatened to invade China itself) held the enemy to a stalemate. With the county in ruins and hundreds of thousands of people dead or wounded, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea signed an armistice with the U.S. and Rhee government representatives on July 27, 1953. For the Koreans their great ordeal was a victory: the Korean War was the first time that American imperialism was stopped in an attempt to conquer new territory. In the seventeen years since the Armistice was signed, the U.S. has strengthened its control over the southern part of Korea. Syngman Rhee's fascist regime was finally overthrown by a popular uprising in 1960, but a year later, through z military coup that was openly supported by the U.S. embassy, the smarter, younger, and more ruthless Pak Chung Hee was put into his place. Since then, 60,000 U.S. troops in the South have been supplied with tractical nuclear weapons, the 700,000-man army of Pak dictatorship has been outfitted with all the newest military equipment, and U.S.-armed reconnaissance planes and boats invade DPRK territory regularly. Both the Pueblo incident in 1968 and the shooting-down of the EC-121 spy plane in 1969 point up the continuing aggression of the United States against Korea. And every such incident brings the outbreak of another Korean War closer. Premier Kin II Sung of the DPRK has frequently presented peace plans to Pak and his American supporters. The only barrier to progress towards reunification is the continued presence of U.S. troops, the unpopular Pak dictatorship, like the regimes of Theiu and Lon Nol inn Southesat Asia, would soon fall to the power of the majority of the people of the country. * * * Twelve and a half million Koreans today are independent, healthy, well-educated, well, clothed, well-fed and are working hard to build a technologically advanced society that will benefit them and everyone else in the underdeveloped world. They live in the mountainous North, in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. At the end of the Korean War, in 1953, over 80% of North Korea's economy was in ashes. The population of the North was faced with the monumental task of building a strong economy and a just society practically from scratch. Though less than one-fifth of North Korea's land is fit for farming (as compared to most of the South), the North is rich in natural resources. Determined to construct factories and farms that would belong to and benefit themselves and not Chinese, Japanese, or American invaders, as in the past, the people of the North began to forge a future out of their natural resources. In the first ten years after the end of the brutal war, the average rate of growth of industrial production in the DPRK was 34.8%, probably the highest rate of any country in history. As the base of steel, coal, and hydroelectric facilities grew, so did the entire economy, despite the fact that over one-fourth of all investment has consistently had to go to pay for the defense of the nation against another full-scale attack by the United States and its pet dictatorship in South Korea. What makes the Korean miracle so much more phenomenal and increases its relevance as a model for other underdeveloped nations is the principle of independence and self-reliance that the North Koreans have followed throughout their climb upwards. The Korean term for it is [underline]Juche (pronounced chew-[underline]chay). With the enthusiastic application of [underline]Juche, the North Koreans have made their small country over 95% self-sufficient in industrial products and completely self-sufficient in agricultural goods. Kim I1 Sung and the 1,500,member Korean Workers Party have not promoted [underline]Juche just to build big machines or to help future generations. The benefits of this new industrial power are being reaped best health systems in the world, provided free charge. Farmers who before 1953 were victims of the unchanging drudgery of most Asian peasants now live in cooperative villages, each of which has its own nurseries, libraries, hospitals, schools up to college level, and cultural centers which distribute books and papers, show films, and provide space for cultural and political meetings. Per-capita income for a North Korean in 1967 was nine times greater than immediately after liberation in 1946. And a worker;s wages go much farther in the DPRK of 1970-- rents are negligible in the newly-built houses which are being constructed at a rapid speed, rice and other foodstuffs are solid at very low prices; and fuel, electricity and water are supplied for less than hal the cost of producing them. There are no taxes in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But economics forms only the base, though the vitally necessary one, of the socialist revolution in North Korea. Having been the victims of savage aggression by imperialist powers throughout their history, the Koreans are busy getting ready, mentally and physically, for the next attack. The Koreans call a "cadre army." In addition to the regular armed forces, almost 2 million North Koreans are mobilized into the militia. Furthermore, the North Koreans are internationalists. They follow closely the struggle of their brothers and sisters in the Indochinese countries, and have warm relations with both the Cubans and the Chinese. IN the squabbles of the world Communist movement. the DPRK behind Kim Sung has managed to stay friendly with both Peking and Moscow. [underline]Juche also operates in external affairs: the Koreans have shown the tremendous success of their revolution and feel no need or desire to follow obediently behind policies set by the leaders of another socialist country. This independence makes the North Koreans all the more able to play a significant role in the world revolution as it progresses. *** South of the famous 38th parallel, on the broad flatlands which stretch almost to touch Japan, 28 million Koreans live, struggling to survive in a society where most of the property is owned by Americans and by a few very rich Koreans. In South Korea, unemployment averages about 20%, and 62,000 American soldiers have the run if the country in the name of South Korea's "security." The corporate press in the U.S. which has consistently blacked out all news of North Korea's great successes, also lets very little leak out about the situation in South Korea. There is good reason for such a vacuum of information about the South: the reality, if truthfully portrayed, would show up "our free world ally" to be an American economic colony run by a military dictatorship to the detriment of its people. The southern part of the Korean peninsula has always been the granary of the ountry. The land of SOuth Korea is still owned by a tiny elite of rich Koreans and by a growing number of huge American corporations, but now the granary's supply has not kept up with the growing needs of the population, In 1969, more than a million tons of grain had to be imported to South Korea, and it is not likely that this problem will lessen. Without full-scale mechanization- and collectivization of agriculture, the food-producing sector of the South Korean economy will remain a throwback to feudal times. The only part of the economy that is really progressing in the South is the one that contributes almost nothing to the development of the country. More and more American electronic firms like Motorola Co. are setting up plants to take advantage of the most abundant "natural resources" around -- cheap labor. As more and more foreign manufactures like Motorola are attracted to South Korea, the country;s "growth rate" on paper will continue to rise, without helping the people of South Korea at all. Most South Koreans don't realize what their sisters and brothers have accomplished up North. Lack of medical care, rundown housing, high unemployment, and a cheap plasticized American culture designed to please the occupying American troops, State Department officials, and traveling businessmen, all seem unchangeable facts of life to the large majority of the South's inhabitants. And to insure that the truth about the North will not be found out, South Korea;s dictator Chung Hee Pak has had hundreds of repressive laws passed which make the advocacy of any contact with the North or of reunification punishable by sentences ranging from five years in prison to the death penalty. In addiction, all the mass media are strictly censored, demonstrations against the government or its American friends are banned, and the mildest protest runs the risk of being branded as "acting in the interest of anti-state organizations or communist circles outside the country." The picture is grim, but there are growing reasons to be optimistic. Of the over 500,000 Koreans who live in Japan, three times as many belong to the pro-DPRK political association than belong to its rival pro-Southern organization. More and more South Korean army soldiers are deserting in Vietnam and being repatriated, in their request, to the North. And a revolutionary struggle in the South has begun in earnest. The South Korean Revolutionary Party for Unification (RPU) which has been in clandestine formation in parts of the country for the last decade, has recently published a manifesto and program, calling for an armed struggle to overthrow the Pak regime in order to build one socialist society in a reunited Korea. It is crucial for Americans to realize that events in Korea could heat up again at any moment. Pak and his American advisors are starting to feel the pressure of resistance to their domestic policies in South Korea, and they may think that a few air raids into the DPRK (disguised as an "invasion from the North") would be just the thing to get people's minds off their property and the high rate of unemployment in the South. The people of the DPRK by no means want another war which would devastate their country again, wiping out the last 17 years. But they know that the only way to keep war from breaking out is to show Nixon and Pak that they are ready to fight to defend themselves if attacked. Kim I1 Sung, along with, more and more Koreans in both halves of the country, realize that "Unless the state and social system of the United States of America undergoes a fundamental change, the policies of U.S. imperialism can never change all of a sudden from aggressive ones to peaceful ones...." A WOMAN? August 21, 1970 5
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REPRESSION IN THE SOUTH [image of a gun all the way to the right] was presented by the U.S. had been drafted weeks before the outbreak of war on June 25. But another major war in Asia had already started. In quick succession, Truman sent thousands of additional ground troops, bombers, and warships to Korea, and declared that the U.S. would patrol the Straits of Formosa (over 700 miles south of Korea) to "neutralize the area. In the face of such a huge attack, the inexperienced DPRK army with the aid of Chinese troops (who had entered the war as MacArthur's forces threatened to invade China itself) held the enemy to a stalemate. With the county in ruins and hundreds of thousands of people dead or wounded, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea signed an armistice with the U.S. and Rhee government representatives on July 27, 1953. For the Koreans their great ordeal was a victory: the Korean War was the first time that American imperialism was stopped in an attempt to conquer new territory. In the seventeen years since the Armistice was signed, the U.S. has strengthened its control over the southern part of Korea. Syngman Rhee's fascist regime was finally overthrown by a popular uprising in 1960, but a year later, through z military coup that was openly supported by the U.S. embassy, the smarter, younger, and more ruthless Pak Chung Hee was put into his place. Since then, 60,000 U.S. troops in the South have been supplied with tractical nuclear weapons, the 700,000-man army of Pak dictatorship has been outfitted with all the newest military equipment, and U.S.-armed reconnaissance planes and boats invade DPRK territory regularly. Both the Pueblo incident in 1968 and the shooting-down of the EC-121 spy plane in 1969 point up the continuing aggression of the United States against Korea. And every such incident brings the outbreak of another Korean War closer. Premier Kin II Sung of the DPRK has frequently presented peace plans to Pak and his American supporters. The only barrier to progress towards reunification is the continued presence of U.S. troops, the unpopular Pak dictatorship, like the regimes of Theiu and Lon Nol inn Southesat Asia, would soon fall to the power of the majority of the people of the country. * * * Twelve and a half million Koreans today are independent, healthy, well-educated, well, clothed, well-fed and are working hard to build a technologically advanced society that will benefit them and everyone else in the underdeveloped world. They live in the mountainous North, in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. At the end of the Korean War, in 1953, over 80% of North Korea's economy was in ashes. The population of the North was faced with the monumental task of building a strong economy and a just society practically from scratch. Though less than one-fifth of North Korea's land is fit for farming (as compared to most of the South), the North is rich in natural resources. Determined to construct factories and farms that would belong to and benefit themselves and not Chinese, Japanese, or American invaders, as in the past, the people of the North began to forge a future out of their natural resources. In the first ten years after the end of the brutal war, the average rate of growth of industrial production in the DPRK was 34.8%, probably the highest rate of any country in history. As the base of steel, coal, and hydroelectric facilities grew, so did the entire economy, despite the fact that over one-fourth of all investment has consistently had to go to pay for the defense of the nation against another full-scale attack by the United States and its pet dictatorship in South Korea. What makes the Korean miracle so much more phenomenal and increases its relevance as a model for other underdeveloped nations is the principle of independence and self-reliance that the North Koreans have followed throughout their climb upwards. The Korean term for it is [underline]Juche (pronounced chew-[underline]chay). With the enthusiastic application of [underline]Juche, the North Koreans have made their small country over 95% self-sufficient in industrial products and completely self-sufficient in agricultural goods. Kim I1 Sung and the 1,500,member Korean Workers Party have not promoted [underline]Juche just to build big machines or to help future generations. The benefits of this new industrial power are being reaped best health systems in the world, provided free charge. Farmers who before 1953 were victims of the unchanging drudgery of most Asian peasants now live in cooperative villages, each of which has its own nurseries, libraries, hospitals, schools up to college level, and cultural centers which distribute books and papers, show films, and provide space for cultural and political meetings. Per-capita income for a North Korean in 1967 was nine times greater than immediately after liberation in 1946. And a worker;s wages go much farther in the DPRK of 1970-- rents are negligible in the newly-built houses which are being constructed at a rapid speed, rice and other foodstuffs are solid at very low prices; and fuel, electricity and water are supplied for less than hal the cost of producing them. There are no taxes in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But economics forms only the base, though the vitally necessary one, of the socialist revolution in North Korea. Having been the victims of savage aggression by imperialist powers throughout their history, the Koreans are busy getting ready, mentally and physically, for the next attack. The Koreans call a "cadre army." In addition to the regular armed forces, almost 2 million North Koreans are mobilized into the militia. Furthermore, the North Koreans are internationalists. They follow closely the struggle of their brothers and sisters in the Indochinese countries, and have warm relations with both the Cubans and the Chinese. IN the squabbles of the world Communist movement. the DPRK behind Kim Sung has managed to stay friendly with both Peking and Moscow. [underline]Juche also operates in external affairs: the Koreans have shown the tremendous success of their revolution and feel no need or desire to follow obediently behind policies set by the leaders of another socialist country. This independence makes the North Koreans all the more able to play a significant role in the world revolution as it progresses. *** South of the famous 38th parallel, on the broad flatlands which stretch almost to touch Japan, 28 million Koreans live, struggling to survive in a society where most of the property is owned by Americans and by a few very rich Koreans. In South Korea, unemployment averages about 20%, and 62,000 American soldiers have the run if the country in the name of South Korea's "security." The corporate press in the U.S. which has consistently blacked out all news of North Korea's great successes, also lets very little leak out about the situation in South Korea. There is good reason for such a vacuum of information about the South: the reality, if truthfully portrayed, would show up "our free world ally" to be an American economic colony run by a military dictatorship to the detriment of its people. The southern part of the Korean peninsula has always been the granary of the ountry. The land of SOuth Korea is still owned by a tiny elite of rich Koreans and by a growing number of huge American corporations, but now the granary's supply has not kept up with the growing needs of the population, In 1969, more than a million tons of grain had to be imported to South Korea, and it is not likely that this problem will lessen. Without full-scale mechanization- and collectivization of agriculture, the food-producing sector of the South Korean economy will remain a throwback to feudal times. The only part of the economy that is really progressing in the South is the one that contributes almost nothing to the development of the country. More and more American electronic firms like Motorola Co. are setting up plants to take advantage of the most abundant "natural resources" around -- cheap labor. As more and more foreign manufactures like Motorola are attracted to South Korea, the country;s "growth rate" on paper will continue to rise, without helping the people of South Korea at all. Most South Koreans don't realize what their sisters and brothers have accomplished up North. Lack of medical care, rundown housing, high unemployment, and a cheap plasticized American culture designed to please the occupying American troops, State Department officials, and traveling businessmen, all seem unchangeable facts of life to the large majority of the South's inhabitants. And to insure that the truth about the North will not be found out, South Korea;s dictator Chung Hee Pak has had hundreds of repressive laws passed which make the advocacy of any contact with the North or of reunification punishable by sentences ranging from five years in prison to the death penalty. In addiction, all the mass media are strictly censored, demonstrations against the government or its American friends are banned, and the mildest protest runs the risk of being branded as "acting in the interest of anti-state organizations or communist circles outside the country." The picture is grim, but there are growing reasons to be optimistic. Of the over 500,000 Koreans who live in Japan, three times as many belong to the pro-DPRK political association than belong to its rival pro-Southern organization. More and more South Korean army soldiers are deserting in Vietnam and being repatriated, in their request, to the North. And a revolutionary struggle in the South has begun in earnest. The South Korean Revolutionary Party for Unification (RPU) which has been in clandestine formation in parts of the country for the last decade, has recently published a manifesto and program, calling for an armed struggle to overthrow the Pak regime in order to build one socialist society in a reunited Korea. It is crucial for Americans to realize that events in Korea could heat up again at any moment. Pak and his American advisors are starting to feel the pressure of resistance to their domestic policies in South Korea, and they may think that a few air raids into the DPRK (disguised as an "invasion from the North") would be just the thing to get people's minds off their property and the high rate of unemployment in the South. The people of the DPRK by no means want another war which would devastate their country again, wiping out the last 17 years. But they know that the only way to keep war from breaking out is to show Nixon and Pak that they are ready to fight to defend themselves if attacked. Kim I1 Sung, along with, more and more Koreans in both halves of the country, realize that "Unless the state and social system of the United States of America undergoes a fundamental change, the policies of U.S. imperialism can never change all of a sudden from aggressive ones to peaceful ones...." A WOMAN? August 21, 1970 5
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