LET US PREVENT A NATIONAL PARTITION AND REUNIFY THE COUNTRY
Speech at the Pyongyang Mass Rally to Welcome the Party and Government Delegation
of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
By KIM IL SUNG
June 23, 1973
(Excerpt)
Comrades and friends, Today the international situation is developing in favor of socialism and the revolutionary forces and to the disadvantage of imperialism and the reactionary forces.
In the face of the growing forces of socialism and the national-liberation, working-class and democratic movements, imperialism is on the decline and is finding itself in a more difficult situation with every passing day. To find a way out, the imperialists are resorting to more cunning double-dealing tactics.
The United States is carrying on aggressive and interventionist activities in many parts of the world under the pretence of “peace” and is trying to maintain its colonial domination by suppressing small nations by force while improving its relations with big ones.
This is fully proved by its aggressive actions and intervention against Korea, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Laos, a number of Arab countries, Cuba and many other nations of the world.
The United States wants to hold onto south Korea for ever as a major stronghold to save its colonial ruling system which is falling into total disarray in Asia.
Adopting two-faced tactics under the “Nixon doctrine”, the United States is not willing to desist from its plans to instigate south Korea’s bellicose elements to make Koreans fight Koreans, perpetuate the division of Korea and create two Koreas, even after the North-South Joint Statement was published and dialogue started between the two parts of Korea.
In step with these US machinations, the south Korean authorities are also employing double-dealing tactics. They are scheming to perpetuate the division of the nation and are exerting every effort to reinforce their military strength, claiming to practice “peaceful reunification” on the one hand and, on the other, openly clamoring for “confrontation with dialogue”, “competition with dialogue” and “coexistence with dialogue”.
Because of all this the dialogue between the north and south of Korea is not progressing as it should and a big obstacle still lies in the way to reunification, despite the consistent, sincere efforts of our Party and the Government of our Republic for the country’s independent, peaceful reunification. Consequently the bright prospect for national reunification which was opened before our nation when the historic North-South Joint Statement was published a year ago is being dam aged.
Because of our earnest desire to get over the difficult situation created today and bring about the people’s long-cherished aspiration for peaceful national reunification as soon as possible, we hereby reaffirm before the world the policy of our Party and the Government of our Republic for independent, peaceful reunification:
1. To improve the present relations between the north and south of Korea and accelerate the peaceful reunification of the country, it is necessary, first of all, to eliminate military confrontation and ease tension between the north and south.
To remove military confrontation and alleviate tension between north and south is a matter of pressing urgency and vital importance at present in dispelling the misunderstanding and mistrust and deepening mutual understanding and trust, creating an atmosphere of great national unity, ameliorating the relations between the north and south and bringing about the peaceful reunification of the country.
The military confrontation between north and south with huge armed forces in itself constitutes not only a major factor which threatens peace in our country but also a source of misunderstanding and mis trust.
Only when this fundamental question is solved can tension and mistrust between the north and south be removed, a climate of trust be created and all problems be settled successfully on the basis of mutual trust. It is unnatural to advocate peaceful reunification and hold a dialogue, with a dagger in one’s pocket. Unless the dagger is taken out and laid down, it is impossible to create an atmosphere of mutual trust or find satisfactory solutions to any problems, large or small, related to the country’s reunification, including that of achieving collaboration and interchange between the north and south.
Therefore, as the first step for the peaceful reunification of the country, we have more than once advanced to the south Korean authorities the five-point proposal: to cease the reinforcement of armies and the arms race, make all foreign troops withdraw, reduce armed forces and armaments, stop the introduction of weapons from abroad and to conclude a peace agreement.
However, the south Korean authorities are determined to postpone the solution of this urgent problem and gradually solve matters of secondary importance through different stages. Actually this is intended not to increase mutual trust and promote great national unity, but to maintain and freeze the territorial division, keeping the painful wound of national partition unhealed.
If they truly desire peaceful reunification and seek the practical solution of the reunification question, the south Korean authorities must renounce this position and take the course of removing military confrontation.
2. To improve north-south relations and expedite the country’s reunification, it is necessary to bring about multilateral collaboration and interchange between the north and south in the political, military, diplo matic, economic and cultural fields.
Multilateral collaboration and interchange between the north and south are of tremendous importance in reuniting the severed ties of the nation and providing preconditions for reunification. Only when such collaboration and interchange are brought about, will it be possible to consolidate the peace agreement to be concluded between north and south.
The south Korean authorities propose in words that both sides “completely open” their societies to each other, but in actual fact they are afraid of tearing down any of the barriers between the north and south and are dead set against interchange and collaboration between the two parts of the country.
The south Korean authorities are not collaborating with their fellow countrymen now; in collusion with outside forces, they are bringing in foreign monopoly capital without limit to reduce the south Korean economy completely to a dependent economy. They are even spoiling our beautiful land by introducing polluting industries which are rejected as “rubbish” in foreign countries.
We again emphasize that if the south Korean authorities have a spark of national conscience, they should obviously strive to develop the economy in the interests of our nation through the joint exploitation of our country’s natural resources and bring about national collaboration in all spheres.
3. In order to settle the question of the country’s reunification in conformity with the will and demand of our people, it is necessary to enable the masses of people of all levels in the north and south to participate in the nationwide patriotic work for national reunification.
We consider that the dialogue between the north and south for national reunification should not be confined to the authorities of the north and south but should be held on a nationwide scale.
To this end, we propose convening a Great National Congress composed of representatives of people of all walks of life—the workers, working peasants, working intellectuals, students and soldiers in the north, and the workers, peasants, students, intellectuals, military person nel, national capitalists and petty bourgeoisie in south Korea—and the representatives of political parties and social organizations in the north and south, and comprehensively discuss and solve the question of the country’s reunification at this congress.
4. In speeding up the country’s reunification it is very important, today, to institute a north-south Confederation under the name of a single country.
It goes without saying that there may be various ways to achieve the complete reunification of the country.
Under the prevailing conditions we think that the most reasonable way for reunification is to convene the Great National Congress and achieve national unity, and on this basis, institute the north-south Confederation, leaving the two existing social systems in north and south as they are for the time being.
If the north-south Confederation is instituted, it will be good to call this federal state the Federal Republic of Koryo after Koryo, a united state which once existed on our territory and was widely known to the world. This will be a good name for the state, and acceptable to both the north and south.
The founding of the Federal Republic of Koryo will open up a decisive phase in preventing national partition, bringing about all-round contact and collaboration between the north and south and in hastening complete reunification.
5. We consider that our country should be prevented from being partitioned into “two Koreas” permanently as a result of the freezing of national division and that the north and south should also work together in the field of external affairs.
Of course we are developing state relations with all countries friendly to our Republic on the principle of equality and mutual benefit; but we resolutely oppose all intrigues designed to make use of this to create “two Koreas”.
We maintain that the north and south should not enter the UN separately, and consider that if they want to enter the UN before the reunification of the country, they should enter it as a single state under the name of the Federal Republic of Koryo, at least after the Con federation is set up.
But apart from the question of admission to the UN, if the Korean question is placed on its agenda for discussion, the representative of our Republic should be entitled to take part in it and speak as the party concerned.
Our people are a single people who have lived with the same culture and the same language through many centuries, and they cannot live separated into two parts.
Our proposal is to remove military confrontation and ease tension between the north and south, bring about multilateral collaboration and interchange between the two parts, convene the Great National Congress composed of representatives of people of all levels and political parties and social organizations in the north and south, institute the north-south Confederation under the single name of the Federal Republic of Koryo and enter the UN under that name. When this proposal for the country’s reunification is put into effect, there will be a great improvement in accomplishing the historic cause of peaceful national reunification on the principle of the North-South Joint Statement, as commonly desired by our people and the world’s people.
We expect the south Korean authorities to approach this new fair proposal of ours for reunification sincerely.
At the same time we strongly demand that the United States must face up to the rapidly changing situation of today, withdraw its troops from south Korea as soon as practicable and discontinue its aggression and intervention against our country.
If the United States thinks that it can swallow small nations one by one, while improving its relations with big powers only, or maintain its colonial domination by propping up its minions, already forsaken by the people, under the slogan of “anti-communism”, it is seriously mistaken. This policy of the United States is more likely to arouse the resistance and hatred of the majority of the world’s people and hasten its ruin.
We think that the UN should now strike at the United States’ scheme to justify the occupation of south Korea by its troops under the pretext of the UN “resolution”.
The UN must take the “UN forces” helmets off the US troops in south Korea, make them withdraw and dissolve the “United Nations Commission for the Unification and Rehabilitation of Korea” and thus remove all the obstacles it has raised to hamper the independent, peaceful reunification of Korea, in keeping with the trend of the present times towards independence and peace. This is demanded by the general world situation.
It is the Japanese militarists who are still working desperately in the international arena as the most active followers of the US imperialists in their ill-fated plots to meddle in our internal affairs. We again warn the Japanese militarists that they must also face facts squarely, give up their hostile policy against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and desist from their cunning attempts to seize an opportunity to give effect to their wild desire to invade south Korea again.
