Izvestia, February 5, 1949
At the Paris session of the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization a majority, obedient to the American delegation, approved the report of the so-called UN Commission on Korea. Contrary to logic and contrary to the will of the Korean people, the puppet “government” of Syngman Rhee, which was imposed upon the Korean people with the help of the American occupation forces, was recognized as “legal.” Debate on the Korean question in the UNO was, in its very essence, out of order, not only because such questions are beyond the competence of the UNO, but also because the method of settling the Korean problem had already been provided in December 1945 by the Moscow Agreement of Foreign Ministers of the USSR, the USA, and Great Britain. Those who took the initiative in raising this question in the UNO were motivated by far-reaching political considerations. The legalization of the Seoul régime, from the point of view of the American expansionists, helped to create a more convenient screen for the prosecution of their policy of converting Southern Korea into a military and political springboard, and as Washington planned, was designed to raise to a certain extent the stock of Syngman Rhee and his clique abroad, and chiefly within Korea.
The reputation of Syngman Rhee’s clique as a group of professional traitors to its own people, however, is daily becoming stronger. The Seoul “government” is bartering the sovereignty and national resources of the country. An agreement was signed in Seoul on December 10 concerning American “aid” to Southern Korea in accordance with the “Marshall Plan.” The US representative in Korea, J. Muccio-Bruchelli, characterized the signing of this agreement as an “historic event.” Articles I and IX of the agreement, however, reveal most fully the gist of this “historical event.” According to these articles, the “government” of Syngman Rhee pledges itself to grant the US capitalists the right to first priority in the field of capital investments in the economy, and to guarantee the development of the export industry “in the shortest possible time.” Furthermore, special provisions are made for Korea to assist the United States of America in the delivery of materials produced in Korea and needed in the USA, and likewise to take special steps toward the fulfillment of these terms, including assistance in increasing the production of the designated materials.
Thus the Seoul “Agreement” legally guarantees the American monopolies a commanding position in the economy of Southern Korea, which is already virtually controlled by American capital. More than 30 percent of the industrial enterprises of Southern Korea are in the hands of American companies. The mining industry, the electrical and automobile industries, and the “Korean Rubber” and “Fusan Rubber” concerns belong altogether to American companies. American businessmen have invested $3,000,000 in the mining of the nonferrous metals in the provinces of Kyongsang Pukto (Northern Kyongsang), Kangwon-to, Kyongsang Namto (Southern Kyongsang), and Jolla Namto (Southern Jolla).
Typically colonial characteristics in the economy of Southern Korea are being preserved through the efforts of the American expansionists and their Korean supporters. The annual production of steel in Southern Korea has decreased from 75,000 tons in 1944 to 8,072 tons in 1947, and at the present time has dwindled down to nothing. The largest branch of industry—textiles—has declined, and its productivity hardly reaches one-sixth of the prewar level. Imports into Southern Korea are double its exports.
The arbitrary management of the American monopolists in Southern Korea has led to economic ruin. The country is falling swiftly into the vortex of inflation. Whereas the volume of bank notes in circulation amounted to 36,000,000,000 yen in October 1948, according to Syngman Rhee, it should have reached 55,000,000,000 yen.
The full weight of the consequences of American policy in Southern Korea falls, first and foremost, upon the laboring elements of the population. The number of unemployed in Southern Korea who are on the verge of starvation is growing. But the plight of those who work is not much better, as a result of the catastrophic inflationary rise in prices. Last year rising prices on goods outstripped the rise in wages by three and one-half times. Agriculture, where feudal relations continue to prevail, is degenerating. The grain deliveries fixed by Syngman Rhee's government, which doom the peasants to a starvation existence, are virtually disrupted, despite the brutal repression by the police. As a result of the peasants' resistance, only 25 percent of the plan of grain delivery was fulfilled by January 7.
This is how the widely publicized promises of the American authorities and Syngman Rhee “to stabilize the economy” have turned out.
This colonial régime is being set up by American reaction in Southern Korea with a very definite purpose. This purpose is to convert Southern Korea into an outpost of American imperialism in Asia, as the American press writes openly. While launching provocative fabrications about the “threat from the North,” the American occupation forces are making increased efforts to arm their Southern Korean “allies.” According to a report of the Tokyo correspondent of the Associated Press, the American Colonel Goodfellow, who recently visited MacArthur in Tokyo in the capacity of unofficial representative of Syngman Rhee, recommended doubling the strength of the Southern Korean “army,” bringing it up to 100,000 men. This “army,” together with the armed police, numbering, according to the same source, 30,000 men, and the militarized youth organizations of a fascist type, is regarded by the American militarists as a weapon for crushing the national movement of liberation and as a reserve force for all sorts of ventures.
At the same time the American military administration concluded a slavish agreement with the “government” of Syngman Rhee, securing a number of districts in Southern Korea for the armed forces of the USA and granting the American military authorities preferential rights and privileges in these districts. The American occupation of Southern Korea, which is costing the Korean people about 10,000,000 yen every month, continues, and there are no signs that the USA is preparing to withdraw its troops. The transfer of American troops, which occurred recently in Southern Korea, cannot seriously be regarded as an evacuation, as the American press is attempting to assure its readers.
In the light of such facts, the political camouflage, upon which the Anglo-American majority in the UNO has been counting so heavily, is clearly a failure. The Korean people are refusing to recognize the American puppets. The movement against the puppet régime of Syngman Rhee and his foreign patrons has assumed such proportions that one-fourth of Southern Korea has been declared under martial law. Unrestrained police terror reigns throughout the country. Last November alone, military tribunals passed 504 death sentences, as reported by the Tokyo correspondent of the Associated Press. The number of persons arrested for violating the law on government security, by which the Southern Korean police conceals its terrorism against the democratic forces of the country, is estimated to be in the thousands. Under this law, court proceedings have been instituted against 2,400 persons in Seoul. The troops of Syngman Rhee, with the active participation of the American occupation units, are dealing brutally with the insurgents on the Island of Cheju. According to the latest reports, guerilla warfare continues in the districts of Yosy (Ryosu) and Sunts'on (provice of Jolla Namto), the recent arena of a big rebellion.
Indignation against the traitorous régime of Syngman Rhee is embracing ever wider segments of the Southern Korean population, reaching even that citadel of reaction—the puppet “National Assembly.” According to the report of the Seoul correspondent for the New York Times, forty members of the “National Assembly” demanded the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Southern Korea.
The Korean people have never resigned themselves, and never shall resign themselves, to an alien domination of their country. The movement for a unified, independent, democratic Korea is enveloping ever wider segments of the Korean people and dooming to failure all the maneuvers of the American expansionists and their agents in the camp of Korean reaction.