RAF out of Korea!

by New Worker correspondent

NEW COMMUNIST Party leader Andy Brooks and other comrades joined demonstrators outside the Ministry of Defence in London last week to protest at the deployment of the RAF in south Korea. The picket, opposite Downing Street, was called by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) to protest against the participation of British armed forces in war exercises currently taking place in south Korea.

KFA Chair Dermot Hudson said: “We are shocked and outraged by the decision of the British government to send four Eurofighter Typhoon combat jets, Voyager tanker aircraft and C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft to take part in the so-called ‘Invincible  Shield’ military exercises  of the US imperialists and south Korean puppets against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

“This is just disgraceful. The DPRK poses no military threat to Britain. There is absolutely no need for Britain to become involved in the Korean peninsula. According to official British military statistics 1,000 British soldiers died in Korea during the 1950-53 Fatherland Liberation War. Of course the real numbers are probably much higher than that. But there was no reason for even one British soldier to die in Korea, or indeed, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia or northern Ireland.

 “It was a war that Britain should have kept out. Now the Government plans to send fighter planes and other aircraft to join anti-DPRK war exercises. There is every danger of a second Korean War that British forces will be dragged into, only this time the casualty rate would be much higher. Britain should stay out of Korea and not repeat the shameful history of the Korean War!”