The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) stands in unwavering solidarity with the People’s Democracy Party (PDP) and its members, who are facing an egregious and fascist crackdown from the authoritarian regime of south Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol.
On 30 August 2024, the national security investigation division of Seoul’s metropolitan police launched a brutal raid on the PDP’s office and on the private residences of party members, accusing them of breaching the National Security Act.
According to the PDP press office: “The warrant used, and the execution of the search, were marked by severe misconduct and hostility. Authorities bizarrely linked the PDP to the now-defunct Corean Alliance for Independent Reunification and Democracy – an organisation that dissolved eight years ago and bears no resemblance to the PDP in terms of goals or structure.
“During the raid, police unjustly detained PDP members who were not mentioned in the warrant, committing clear human rights violations and illegal acts.”
Since coming to office in 2022, President Yoon Suk-yeol has consistently revealed his fascistic propensities, both through his dangerous and escalation of militarisation and through his ceaseless and inflammatory anti-opposition rhetoric, which has labelled a wide variety of independent voices as “anti-state forces” and framed those who resist US imperialist occupation of the south as “enemies of the state”.
Yoon’s time in office has been marked by an increasingly hostile and aggressive attitude towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Joint war exercises targeting the northern socialist state have been steadily increasing both in size and in frequency, and now include Japanese military forces as well as US ones, much to the shame and chagrin of the vast majority of Korean people, for whom the Japanese colonial period and anti-Japanese colonial struggle remain an extremely painful part of their national history.
During his remarks at Korea’s liberation day celebrations, Yoon failed to acknowledge Japan’s historical wrongs towards the Korean people – the latest in a series of indicators that his regime wishes to ‘heal the breach’ with Japan through a process marked not by justice and recompense but by servility and subordination.
This trampling of the Korean people’s dignity in the dust is being spurred on by the desire of Yoon’s US masters to use Korean territory as a battleground and Korean soldiers as cannon fodder in its planned wars against the DPRK and the People’s Republic of China. To this end, Yoon has been increasingly militarising domestic governance by reinstating key figures linked to martial law, underscoring his intent to stifle dissent and impose authoritarian rule.
On 12 August, he nominated former military commander Kim Yong-hyun as defence minister, and he has also sought to give the presidential security service overall charge of military and police operations (although this proposal has for now been somewhat modified after public outcry).
Military personnel from the former defence security command, who had been dismissed for their role in drafting a ‘martial law review document’, have been reinstated to significant offices, hinting at a potential alignment with south Korea’s militaristic faction – a move reminiscent of past coups.
As tensions rise globally and Yoon inflames conflict with the north, he is pushing the Korean Peninsula ever closer to war, risking the lives and future of millions.
On 19 August, during the Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises, Yoon alleged that “anti-state forces” were covertly undermining south Korea’s “democratic system”. This followed his government’s controversial destruction of a monument to anti-Japanese resistance fighter Hong Beom-do last August and Yoon’s disparaging remarks about those protesting the effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The persecution of figures like Kim Byeong-dong, chairman of the PDP’s Gyeong-gi branch, under fabricated charges typifies the criminalisation of political dissent in south Korea. The use of the National Security Act to target anyone advocating for independent reunification or for real democracy exposes the Yoon regime’s fear of the people’s growing desire for sovereignty and peace.
Just as we are presently seeing across the imperialist world, the excuse of ‘national security’ is being used in south Korea to systematically target and dismantle all democratic pretence: the right to free speech, to political organisation and to peaceful assembly, signalling a significant shift towards open fascist dictatorship.
We condemn without reservation the Yoon administration’s efforts to dissolve the PDP and crush all opposition, which are being carried out at the behest of south Korea’s US colonial masters and have nothing to do with the interests of the Korean people.
Such actions must be seen as part of imperialist preparations for planned military aggressions in east Asia. This goal, which is also being pursued via the formation of military alliances such as Aukus and the expansion of Nato into the Pacific, poses a grave threat not only to Korea but to global peace and stability.
We stand in solidarity with the PDP and all anti-imperialist forces in south Korea. Their struggle is our struggle. The fight for true independence in Korea, free from both domestic fascism and foreign imperialist domination, is part of the global battle against capitalism, imperialism and war.
The global imperialist war drive, led by the USA, must be stopped. The peoples of the world must reject the military provocations and war exercises that threaten to engulf east Asia in conflict.
The Korean and Chinese peoples alike have the right to self-determination, to reunification and to peace, free to determine their own futures without external interference or colonial occupation.
All imprisoned PDP activists must be released, and the notorious National Security Act must be abolished. The path to democracy and independence, to peace and prosperity in Korea lies in the people’s right to reunify their country and together determine their shared future.
Stop the repression against the People’s Democracy Party!
Down with Yoon Suk-yeol! Stop the US imperialist war drive!
Long live internationalist solidarity!
Victory to the global anti-imperialist resistance!
