The New Worker
The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 8th January 2016
THE DPR Korea successfully tested a hydrogen bomb this week. The Democratic Korean Foreign Office said on Wednesday that the test was for self-defence, whilst stressing that the DPRK will neither be the first to use nuclear weapons nor transfer relevant means and technology under any circumstances as long as hostile forces do not encroach upon the republic’s sovereignty.
Democratic Korea has previously conducted three nuclear tests: in 2006, 2009 and 2013 respectively. During an inspection tour of a remodelled revolutionary site in December, the DPRK’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un announced that his country had developed a hydrogen bomb.
The first H-bomb test was successfully conducted in Juche Korea at 10:00 am on Wednesday 6th January 2016.
The DPRK government said: “This test is a measure for self-defence that the DPRK has taken to protect firmly the sovereignty of the country and the vital right of the nation from the ever-growing nuclear threat and blackmail by the US-led hostile forces and to safeguard peace reliably in the Korean peninsula and for regional security...
“Genuine peace and security cannot be achieved through humiliating solicitation or compromise at the negotiating table. The present-day grim reality clearly proves once again the immutable truth that one’s destiny should be defended by one’s own efforts. Nothing is more foolish than dropping a hunting gun before herds of ferocious wolves”.
The nuclear threat from US imperialism is the main reason for the rapid buildup of Democratic Korea’s nuclear deterrent. Every year the Americans hold war games in the occupied south of the Korean peninsula, which simulate an invasion of the north by US and puppet south Korean forces.
This week the Rodong Sinmun (Daily Worker) repeated the call on Washington to abandon its military provocations. “The Korean nation has been subject to indescribable suffering and pain for a long period of time, and the relations between the DPRK and the United States deteriorated only because of the US large-scale aggressive military exercises targeting the DPRK,” the Workers’ Party of Korea daily said.
US imperialism’s annual military exercises “cooled the desire of the Koreans to reunite and constitute an obstacle to the improvement of relations between North and South.” Democratic Korea itself “has made serious efforts” to reduce tensions and to create a climate of peace on the Korean peninsula. But the Americans have repeatedly carried out joint military exercises with the south Korean forces.
“US military exercises directed against the DPRK should be stopped immediately, without any preconditions, in order to prevent war on the Korean Peninsula and to ensure world peace. This is the only way to create a peaceful climate in the region,” the article said.