Campaigning for Democratic Korea

by New Worker correspondent

   THE UK Korean Friendship Association held a highly successful annual general meeting last Saturday in central London, at which UK KFA members, including a local councillor, were joined by members of the Spanish KFA and comrade Kwang Song Yu from the DPRK Embassy.

Messages of support were received from the worldwide KFA President, Alejandro Cao De Benos, and international KFA branches and sections including US, Belgium, Switzerland,  Austria, Poland, Singapore and Spain.

In his message Cao De Benos recalled that the KFA-UK “is our very first international branch”, and said: “Each person helping, even a little, is worth 100 who just remain idle. I want to encourage you to assist and suggest projects and action, to reach the biggest awareness in the general population.”

He said 2015 was a very important year for both the DPRK and the KFA itself, and invited comrades to join the Spanish KFA’s 15^th Anniversary celebration at the DPRK Embassy in Madrid in November.

Dermot Hudson, the UK KFA official delegate and chairperson, reported on the activities of the past year, which included protests at the US and puppet south Korean embassies, a public meeting in Liverpool, and a skype conference on the chemical weapons issue.

Theo Russell, UK KFA communications secretary, gave a report of work which highlighted several leaflets prepared for particular campaigns designed to provide information and education on Korea, and be used as a future resource.

He also delivered a message of solidarity from the New Communist Party in which he said that apart from general campaigns on Korea: “The Korean Friendship Association, and our party also work on a higher political level to encourage and help people in Britain to learn about and understand the teachings of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un, and the Juché philosophy”. He said the KFA faced an enormous task in Britain: “But the hope is to convince people of all political persuasions in Britain of the justice of Korea’s struggle for complete independence, reunification and peace, and to build the strongest possible friendship between our countries.”

The meeting discussed a number of important campaign priorities. The 27^th June is  the start of the Month of Solidarity with the People of Korea, a tradition begun in 1960 by the Afro-Asian People's Solidarity Organisation, for which the UK KFA will hold a picket of the US embassy on June 25th.

Those present were also in agreement on the need to step up support and publicity on the work of the Anti-Imperialist National Democratic Front of south Korea, which is little known in Britain. A letter to dear respected Marshal Kim Jong Un was adopted, along with a resolution condemning the US stockpiling of anthrax toxins in south Korea.