Jose Sison, the chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has sided with North Korea in the ongoing row about its weapons programmes.
Mr Sison praised Pyongyang for “standing its ground” against the USA and other nations amid tensions over its recent missile and H-bomb tests.
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The CPP founder outined his anti-American stance in a statement dated September 6 and released today (September 11). It is entitled We Salute & Support DPRK and Korean People for Stand Against US Nuclear Threats, Sanctions and Provocations.
The UN is currently debating an increase on sanctions against the secretive state, a move that Mr Sison characterises as “US Imperialism”.
According to Mr Sison, who spoke as chairman of the ‘International League of Peoples’ Struggle’, North Korea should be admired for asserting its national sovereignty against the US and its allies.
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The statement does not make a single mention of Kim Jong Un by name, rather it expresses “solidarity” with the “Workers’ Party of Korea, DPRK and the Korean people”.
HIS STATEMENT IN FULL:
Issued by the Office of the Chairperson (Jose Sison)
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
September 6, 2017
We, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, admire and salute the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Korean people for asserting national sovereignty, self-reliantly pursuing socialist development and strengthening the capacity for nuclear deterrence and self-defence.
US imperialism merely exposes its aggressive character and the futility of its attempts to intimidate the people of Korea and the world with threats of nuclear war, provocative war manoeuvres, illegitimate sanctions and malicious disinformation campaign directed against DPRK.
From August 21 through August 31, 2017, the US Combined Forces Command and the south Korean military conducted their annual “Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise” with approximately 17,500 US troops participating joined by south Korean military personnel from all services, as well participants from seven other allies of the US, including Australia, Canada, Columbia, Denmark, New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
This is the second of two annual war games conducted by the US and its puppet south Korea designed to simulate a “pre-emptive” nuclear strike against the DPRK as well as an invasion and decapitation of its leadership.
Just last week, US fighter jets and bombers conducted military operations over a training range east of Seoul. These included B-1B bombers capable of releasing nuclear payloads.
The DPRK has repeatedly asked the US to end these provocative and reckless military exercises held right at its doorstep in exchange for a moratorium on the DPRK’s missile testing but the US has stubbornly refused.
Jose Sison vs the USA
Instead US imperialism has been escalating its warmongering against the DPRK with Trump brazenly threatening to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if the DPRK ever endangers the US.
His Defence Secretary, James “Mad Dog” Mattis echoed this by stating recently that “Any threat to the United States or its territories including Guam or our allies will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming.”
South Korea’s puppet Defence Minister followed suit by calling for the further deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons in the Korean Peninsula.
Western media is presenting this shrill sabre-rattling as the justifiable response to the DPRK’s recent missile and nuclear tests.
The DPRK has made significant advances in its weapons development programme this year, successfully testing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can potentially reach US bases in Guam or Alaska; a hydrogen bomb with an estimated yield of up to 100 kilotons which can be loaded onto an ICBM; solid-fuelled missiles that reduce launch times from hours to minutes; and fortified missile batteries that could be hidden in forests, underneath cliff overhangs, under bridges, or positioned in other launch sites not easily tracked by enemy satellites.
“Self defence”
The DPRK’s nuclear weapons development programme is part of its deterrence and self-defence strategy against the long-running US policy of hostility towards the DPRK.
US bombs killed 20 per cent of the population and levelled more cities in North Korea between 1950-53 than they had done in Japan and Germany during World War II.
Without its development of nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, the DPRK would have become the easy target of high intensity aggression like Iraq, Libya and Syria.
US imperialism and its puppet south Korea have never signed a peace treaty with the DPRK since the armistice in 1953. The US has never recognised the DPRK diplomatically and has threatened it with annihilation ever since it was founded in 1948.
It has positioned tens of thousands of US troops, missile systems, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in 15 bases in south Korea as a constant threat to the DPRK’s existence.
And yet the US has never solved the problem of offending China and Russia by unleashing all-out aggression or nuclear war against the DPRK.
But the US persists in its scheme of pressuring China and Russia to join the US and its allies in cutting off all economic relations with the DPRK.
Threats by Trump
Trump is threatening to cut US trade with any country that conducts any economic activity with North Korea in order to trigger the latter’s collapse. The US threats of further sanctions are accompanied by a major military build-up on the Korean Peninsula and the THAAD deployment in preparation for outright war, rapid invasion and the strategy of instantly decapitating the DPRK leadership.
The ILPS condemns in the strongest terms the long and continuing record of US imperialist aggression, economic blockade, war provocations and nuclear blackmail directed against the DPRK.
We hold US imperialism and its south Korean puppets responsible for creating the extremely volatile situation in the Korean Peninsula at present.
We encourage the Korean people of north and south to aim and work for peaceful reunification and defeat all divisive schemes of US imperialism.
“Stands in solidarity”
The ILPS firmly stands in solidarity with and vigorously supports the Workers’ Party of Korea, DPRK and the Korean people in upholding and defending their national sovereignty, developing their socialist economy self-reliantly, building their capacity for self-defence, seeking the peaceful reunification of north and south Korea, replacing the armistice agreement with a peace treaty and fostering global conditions of greater freedom, cooperation, peace and development against US imperialism and all reaction.
The ILPS calls on all our global regional committees, national chapters and member-organisations to carry out a campaign of information and mass protest in order to expose, condemn and oppose the persistent hostile and aggressive policy of the US against the DPRK and the Korean people, the long running economic blockade and further sanctions, the military build-up which has long included nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and military exercises and other war provocations of US imperialism, its imperialist allies and its south Korean puppets in the Korean Peninsula, in the vicinity and in further areas of the Asia-Pacific region.
Professor Jose Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
September 6, 2017
Read more about Jose Sison, and his war of words with President Duterte here