>
>to be a burden for the socialist movement around the world-
>-or will we be able to turn things around and hasten the
>day when much-needed social revolutions can sweep away
>reaction all over?
>
>These are the questions we must answer.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <009401bfa990$5eb2bca0$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] More U.S. war crimes in Korea exposed
>Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 19:46:51 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 20, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>BEFORE VIETNAM THERE WAS KOREA:
>MORE U.S. WAR CRIMES EXPOSED
>
>By Scott Scheffer
>
>On March 21 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
>Democratic People's Republic of Korea--north Korea--
>published an important memorandum on U.S. war crimes
>against the population between 1950 and 1953.
>
>The memorandum is based on a study by the Women's
>International Democratic Federation.
>
>It documents a bombing campaign that purposely destroyed
>the country's entire industrial and agricultural base.
>
>It exposes the use of napalm bombs and germ warfare in a
>campaign to kill noncombatants.
>
>It gives dates, numbers and locations of mass arrests and
>mass executions--including the county of Sinchon, where
>U.S. troops murdered 35,000 people during a 52-day
>occupation. The report describes how hundreds were herded
>into a building at Sinchon that was then set afire.
>
>Other examples are equally gruesome.
>
>In their presentation to the ministry, the representative
>of the Women's Federation said: "Every fact proves that
>this was a war of mass destruction, in which ... more
>houses and food rather than military targets and war
>supplies were destroyed, and more women and aged men than
>combatants killed. This war was against life itself."
>
>This memorandum was added to a growing body of evidence
>that could be used to charge Pentagon officials with war
>crimes, according to the Geneva Convention and the
>principles set forth in the Nuremburg trials.
>
>A WAR OF ANNIHILATION
>
>Two important arguments have been strengthened over the
>last six months.
>
>The first is that during the 1950-53 Korean war the U.S.
>military under Gen. Douglas MacArthur did not limit its
>brutal attacks to military targets. Instead it targeted the
>civilian population and infrastructure. It carried out a
>terrible war with the goal of totally destroying the north.
>
>The second is that the civilian population of the south,
>which was ostensibly being protected by the U.S. military,
>was also targeted. The evidence now shows that U.S.
>strategy was aimed at subduing the resistance movement in
>the south just as much as waging a counter-revolutionary
>war against the north.
>
>Because of McCarthyism and the right-wing atmosphere
>whipped up by the ruling class in the United States during
>the early 1950s, a mass anti-war movement in response to
>the U.S. war in Korea never developed. That fact has made
>it easy for the Pentagon to cover up the ugly truth.
>
>Now the veil is being lifted on one of the most concealed
>episodes in the violent history of U.S. imperialism.
>
>In late 1999 the Associated Press published an account of
>the 1950 NoGun-ri massacre, in which U.S. fighter planes
>strafed south Korean civilians--children, women and the
>aged. Since then the floodgates have opened.
>
>More and more victims have come forward. Accounts of
>nearly 40 other U.S. attacks against south Koreans during
>the war have come out.
>
>Add this to the recent memorandum from the Foreign
>Ministry of the DPRK, and a clearer picture of what the
>United States did to the Korean people emerges.
>
>Between 1950 and 1953, under the auspices of the United
>Nations, MacArthur's army tried to destroy the socialist
>government of north Korea. The U.S. military used more
>bombs on the small country of north Korea than against all
>of Europe in World War II.
>
>They leveled every building over one story, wiped out
>countless villages, bombed factories and irrigation dams,
>and killed millions of people in the process.
>
> In the end they didn't defeat the new people's
>government--but 37,000 U.S. soldiers are still stationed at
>the 38th parallel, menacing the DPRK.
>
>U.S. TROOPS ATTACKED ANTI-IMPERIALISTS IN SOUTH
>
>In order to launch the war against the north, the U.S.
>first had to defeat the south Korean movement for
>reunification and independence.
>
>Korea had been unified for 5,000 years until Washington
>divided it at the 38th parallel in 1945, against the will
>of the Korean people.
>
>The entire country had been colonized by Japan from 1910
>to 1945. The north was liberated from the Japanese by an
>army under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and other anti-
>imperialist leaders, supported by the Soviet Union. Their
>intention was to reorganize society for the benefit of the
>working masses, and to put the factories and farms to work
>for the benefit of everyone.
>
>The same spirit that motivated the communist fighters in
>the north was pervasive in the south too.
>
>In 1945 when U.S. troops arrived in the south to replace
>the Japanese, they met strong resistance from Koreans who
>wanted to be unified with the north and independent of any
>imperialist countries. This broad movement had its roots in
>the 35-year struggle for independence from Japanese
>imperialism. It was highly organized and resisted the U.S.
>occupation in every way--up to and including armed guerilla
>warfare.
>
>In almost all cities and towns throughout the south,
>people's committees had taken on the authority and
>responsibilities of government as the Japanese puppet
>regime crumbled. The Seoul people's committee declared a
>new Republic of Korea. Backed up by armed Korean partisans,
>they tried to confiscate the land of the rich Japanese
>landlords and the less numerous Korean landlords.
>
>Like their comrades in the north, they planned to
>redistribute the wealth in order to build a country free of
>exploitation and inequality. Among other progressive goals,
>they wanted land reform and women's rights.
>
>The book "Korea's Place in the Sun" by U.S. historian
>Bruce Cumings describes this period.
>
>PEOPLE'S RESISTANCE IN NORTH AND SOUTH
>
>The United States, after defeating the Japanese empire,
>intended to take its place as the colonial master of Korea.
>But the Korean people's desire for unification and
>independence conflicted with that strategy.
>
>In the five years of U.S. military occupation that
>preceded the actual war, a violent campaign was launched
>against the resistance movement. It included the massacre
>of up to 80,000 people from the island of Cheju when its
>inhabitants rose up to protest the division of Korea.
>
>This was carried out by the U.S.-installed Syngman Rhee
>regime. At the same time, south Korean soldiers mutinied at
>Yosu in Sunchon when they were ordered to Cheju to help put
>down the rebellion.
>
>The U.S. army intervened directly to put down this mutiny.
>Many of the soldiers escaped and joined the guerrilla
>resistance.
>
>During that pre-war period hundreds of strikes and student
>rebellions were violently suppressed. Anyone suspected of
>being a leader or having sympathy for the movement was
>arrested. Thousands were rounded up and put into
>"conversion camps."
>
>Later, at the outbreak of the war with the north, most of
>these political prisoners--about 100,000--were taken out
>and executed.
>
>Even after all this, the movement for reunification has
>remained strong in Korea. The Democratic People's Republic
>of Korea has rebuilt itself and, seemingly against all
>odds, has retained its sovereignty.
>
>The recent exposures of U.S. atrocities in Korea have
>helped people here gain a new understanding of that chapter
>in history. June 24 is the 50th anniversary of the start of
>that war. On that day a major event in New York will
>condemn U.S. war crimes against the people of Korea before,
>during and after the war.
>
>Brian Becker, co-director of the International Action
>Center and chairperson of the U.S. Out of Korea Committee,
>says: "In spite of crimes committed by the Pentagon, the
>Korean war represents the first defeat of U.S. imperialism.
>The U.S. was unable to conquer north Korea and return that
>part of the peninsula to colonial-type slavery. We demand
>that the 37,000 U.S. troops leave south Korea, and that
>reparations be paid to all victims of U.S. war crimes."
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <009a01bfa990$77a79780$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] On the picket line: 4/20/2000
>Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 19:47:33 -0400
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Apr. 20, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>ON THE PICKET LINE
>
>STUDENTS & WORKERS TOGETHER
>
>On both coasts, and in the North and South and Middle
>West, labor activism on campuses surged in late March and
>early April. Much of the action was focused on the issue of
>sweatshops. On the eve of the April 7 founding meeting of
>the Workers' Rights Consortium at New York University,
>students swung into action to press administrators to join
>the WRC. The consortium is an independent body made up of
>labor, religious and other representatives, convened to
>review conditions for workers around the world who
>manufacture university-logo gear sold at campus bookstores.
>To avoid genuine monitoring, the universities prefer the
>"Fair Labor Association," a fake "self-policing" body
>created by the Clinton White House to provide a cover for
>sweatshop exploiters.
>
>Meanwhile, those who do the work that keeps the
>universities themselves running--food-service workers, for
>example, and janitors and maintenance workers--were also
>taking action. Students showed solidarity with them, too.
>
>This survey gives just a taste of the mobilization
>sweeping the campuses.
>
>TULANE
>
>At 12:15 a.m. on March 29, members of United Students
>Against Sweatshops at Tulane University in New Orleans
>occupied the president's office in Gibson Hall. For the
>next week, they spent every night in Tulane President Scott
>Cowen's office. Despite threats of arrest and expulsion,
>they refused to leave until Tulane agreed to withdraw from
>the FLA and join the WRC instead. The students had first
>issued the call to pull out of the FLA and join the WRC in
>January. The university administration refused, saying it
>need ed another year to decide what to do. So the students
>stepped up the struggle.
>
>At the sit-in junior Dan Lutz said: "The FLA is
>desperately lobbying our administration and administrations
>around the country to remain members. They want to kill the
>momentum of the national student anti-sweat movement.
>Negotiations with our administration have failed, and so we
>have decided to take more direct action."
>
>Forty-two students continued to occu py Gibson Hall.
>Hundreds of supporters staged daily rallies outside, and
>set up tents and shacks behind the administration building
>where they camped out in support of those sitting in.
>
>PURDUE
>
>Six Purdue University students in West Lafayette, Ind.,
>began a hunger strike March 27. They said they would fast
>until the administration agrees not to sell gear with the
>Purdue logo if it is made by super-exploited workers. Since
>the hunger strike began, the fasters and supporters have
>camped out in tents in the center of the campus.
>
>University Vice President Joe Bennett said the
>administration objects to allowing an outside group like
>the WRC to dictate a code of conduct. Yet Purdue President
>Steven Beering asked to be allowed to send a delegation to
>the WRC's founding meeting. The request was refused.
>
>KENTUCKY
>
>Police in Lexington arrested 12 students at the University
>of Kentucky at 1:30 a.m. April 3. The students had sat in
>at the administration building for seven hours, demanding
>that UK pull out of the FLA and join the WRC. According to
>a participant, about 100 students linked arms outside the
>building to protect the occupiers, but police broke
>through, violently attacking the protesters and hauling the
>12 off to jail. The anti-sweatshop demonstrators proceeded
>to the jail, where they held a vigil until their comrades
>were released.
>
>SUNY-ALBANY
>
>Students, professors, workers and community supporters sat
>in outside the offices of Karen Hitchcock, president of the
>State University of New York at Albany, on March 30. The
>occupation was spontaneous. It followed a rally in support
>of food-service workers on the SUNY campus. SUNY has
>contracts for its food-service operations with Sodexho-
>Marriott, part of the notorious anti-union Marriott Hotel
>chain. Sodexho-Marriott refuses to negotiate a contract
>with Hotel and Restaurant Local 471.
>
>After the rally, some 30 people went to the president's
>office with letters demand ing a living wage for SUNY
>workers, an end to Sodexho-Marriott's intimidation and
>harassment against union organizers, and that Sodexho-
>Marriott divest from the prison-labor exploiter Corrections
>Corp. of America. When Hitchcock refused to accept the
>letters, the sit-in began. After several hours she said she
>would meet with students but not with union or community
>representatives. The occupiers said they would stay until
>she agreed to meet with the Student-Clergy-Labor Coalition.
>
>OHIO STATE
>
>Lunchtime rallies on April 5 and 6 in Columbus sent the
>message: Students stand with Ohio State University's 2,000
>service and trade workers who are demanding decent pay and
>working conditions. On April 1 members of Communications
>Workers Local 4501 voted by a 92-percent margin to strike
>at the end of the month if their contract demands are not
>met. The OSU janitors, bus drivers, electricians and other
>service workers say health and safety conditions are
>terrible. One-quarter of the workers make less than $8 an
>hour. A speaker at one rally said his co-workers hadn't
>been able to come because they were on their way to second
>jobs.
>
>IOWA, OREGON, WESLEYAN
>
>Students also occupied administration offices to demand an
>end to sweatshop logo labor on April 3 at the University of
>Iowa in Iowa City and April 4 at the University of Oregon
>in Eugene. At Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn.,
>students sat in to demand better treatment for university
>workers.
>
>BROWN
>
>Days before the WRC was to hold its founding meeting, a
>sweatshop profiteer took a swipe at the WRC at Brown
>University. The Nike Corp. has been a prime target of anti-
>sweatshop campaigns in the labor movement and on campuses
>because of its anti-worker abuses in factories around the
>world. In late March Nike announced it was terminating its
>contract to sell hockey equipment to Brown. The reason:
>Brown's involvement in the WRC.
>
>Students at the Providence, R.I., school had been among
>the first to force a major university administration to
>agree to join the WRC. With the agreement, Brown pledged
>that it would not sell clothes and other gear if they were
>made under sweatshop conditions. To determine whether Brown
>gear was manufactured in sweatshop conditions, Brown would
>rely on the WRC's findings. Bad news for Nike. Nike and
>most other companies prefer the FLA.
>
>Thanks to the efforts of student activists who have
>protested, marched and sat in, 29 colleges now belong to
>the consortium. By breaking its contract at Brown, Nike is
>trying to pressure all 29 to pull out of the WRC. Trim
>Bissell of the Campaign for Labor Rights said, "The entire
>thrust of the WRC monitoring technique is to support
>workers who are organizing real unions in the sweatshops
>where they work and seeking collective-bargaining
>agreements to clean up sweatshop abuses."
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
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