Statement by the Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada, Dec. 3, 2010
The Communist Party of Canada condemns the Canadian government’s role in helping to fan the flames of war in the Korean peninsula, and urges instead a policy of supporting broad international efforts to seek peaceful, negotiated resolutions to the historic disputes in this region.
The main source of rising tensions on the Korean peninsula has been the increasingly hawkish stand of the new South Korean government of President Lee Myung‑bak, with the encouragement of U.S. and Japanese imperialism. The recent exchange of artillery fire took place in disputed coastal territories off the western South Korea/Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) frontier. In this same area, 70,000 South Korean troops and U.S. nuclear warships have been carrying out mock invasion manoeuvres, which are a dangerous provocation against the DPRK.
The huge U.S. military presence in the peninsula and its massive support for the South Korean government are part of a strategy going back over half a century. to maintain the division of Korea and to “contain” countries which oppose U.S. hegemony in the region. As long as U.S. imperialism maintains this policy, the danger of a renewed war in the Korean peninsula will remain, with the potential for deadly consequences affecting the entire world.
We warn once again that attempts to isolate and threaten North Korea, such as blockades, sanctions or unilateral military aggression, pose grave dangers. Such moves amount to a declaration of war against the DPRK, with unforeseeable results. Renewed hostilities against the DPRK, as part of a hypocritical U.S. stance which allows its allies such as Israel to build up nuclear weapons, would harm global efforts to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to achieve universal and comprehensive disarmament.
Instead of supporting U.S. imperialism in its anti‑Korean provocations, Canada should respect the sovereignty of the DPRK, and call on the United States to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK to finally end the Korean War. We also renew our demand that Canada call for the removal of all U.S. military forces from South Korea and the Asia‑Pacific region, and that it support talks for a regional nuclear weapons‑free zone and the abolition of all nuclear weapons.