shook the country dictatorship.
organised. Police stations, defence.
traces the origins of today's struggles. regime to try to smash the massive mobilisations that month. Then, hundreds thousands of Korean people went on strike against the The cities of Kwangju, Mokpo and Polkyo were seized. Committees of citizens and students were armouries, and a military vehicle factory were raided to obtain weapons The key to understanding these events lies in the war that began 30 years ago this week. Jonathan Silberman of for MacArthur's policy especially national capitalist system, with the prospect aid desperately needed by the Korean people. In the naval aid could have clinched it early on.
the Truman Stalin's treachery.
end of the war, mintary casuales al 144,0l fered the most terrible devastation:
of napalm on the North *By the end of the war, Korea naa dropped rom y.om to o.om beginning of the war; 80,000 at the a government policy burning everything in war. British months of war, 22 villages Led to the ground in the Wonju sector alone.
Dulles Us planes airport in the security alu the troops into ar But the war continued " were ller "11 started by the aggressive moves of the North Korean. refugees were loft to face the peace'...... nunnes one remin. ne in is that me seeds o' the war — the civil war — were sown by the American • itself which denied the right of the Korea people to determine their own future and cracked down on any independent political organisation.
Nevertheless, in the name of 'peace' and "freedom', Truman authorised the bombing of 'specific military targets in North Korean'. a naval blocade of the entire Korean coast, and the use of American ground troops Far from the claims that the war was a plot by the USSR. the Moscow bureaucrats tailed to give adequat‹ first months of the war, the South Korean army was almost swept off the Korean peninsula. Soviet air anc ins treery in adition to da us, 15 offor In addition to the US, Western and pro-Western governments sent in troops following a US resolution to the United Nations. At the America's own figures put the US-UN But it was the Korean and Chinese people who suf*By as early as September 1950, the US airforce had dropped 97,000 tons of bombs and 7.8 million gallons the population of North *The population of Pyongyang was 400,000 at the • end. Only two one raid alone. the US dropped 697 tons of bombs and 10,000 litres of napalm on the Northern capital; 6,000 civilians were killed * the imperialist armies pursued a scorched earth neir wake AreT and 300 haystacks were raz*The US used germ warfare, with untold damage The war was not limited to the Korean peninsula.
cities. On 8 October, two US planes even attacked an • Soviet Union. Finally, MacArthur got ms counte revolutional Wal against China. On 24 November, he ordered 100,000 I offensive designed to reach the Yalu — the North Korean border with China : China joined the war and the US offensive was pushed back And with it the carnage.
Altogether three million Korean and Chinese people Toreoten wen •Fwentv milhor Socialist Challenge 19 June 1980 Page 12