A day to remember

by New Worker correspondent

Leslie Larkum and Yu Kwang Song

MILLIONS of Koreans celebrated the 66^th anniversary of the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea this week with parades, rallies and celebrations throughout the north of the divided peninsula. Down in the occupied south many others defied the puppet regime to hold their own events to mark 9^th September 1948 when the DPRK was established under the leadership of Kim Il Sung and the Workers’ Party of Korea.

            And last weekend British communists and supporters of the Korean revolution met for a joint meeting and social at the New Communist Party’s Centre in London to commemorate this important date in the calendar of the world communist movement.

NCP leader Andy Brooks welcomed everyone to the meeting called by the Friends of Korea committee and the Korean Friendship Association to hear openings from Lesley Larkum of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML), Yu Kwang Song from the DPRK embassy in London and KFA activists on the 9^th September and the Juché Idea.

But first of all comrades paused for a minutes silence for Eric Trevett, the NCP President who had passed away the day before after a long illness. Many paid tribute to his earnest efforts in support of the Korean revolution over the years. Eric made a number of trips to Democratic Korea over the years and met great leader Kim Il Sung three times in the early 1990s – a true friend of the Korean revolution to his last breath.

 The meeting opened with a short film on the sporting achievements of the DPRK over the years which was followed by openings by a number of Korean solidarity activists in London.

Lesley spoke about the significance of the establishment of the DPRK in 1948 and talked about what she saw with her own eyes when she visited Democratic Korea last year while KFA activists talked about the role of Juché in the revolutionary struggle against Japanese colonialism, US imperialism and the struggle to build a modern, socialist republic in north Korea.

Yu Kwang Song took up these points in his opening and during the discussion that flowed from the openings and that continued over drinks for the rest of the evening.