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-4- " What The United States and its allies did to Iraq is utterly depraved. The raids are evil use of UN security Council resolutions and a clear proof that the world is using double standards, one for Israel and the other for Arabs and Muslims." Israel's defiance of the United Nations - and the UN's meek compliance and capitulation on account of the frequently wielded US veto in the Security Council veto - is not an issue that arose at the end of last year. Israel is an outlaw State that is in defiance of scores of UN resolutions dating back not only to 1967 but to the very establishment of the State of Israel at the end of the 1940s. However much one might deplore the original partition of the land of Palestine, it is clear that what was envisaged and mandated was a two-state arrangement, an Israeli and a Palestinian. Despite more than one year of peace talks of sorts, the Israeli authorities, Labour and Likud, Still refuse to concede the fact that the Palestinian people have the same right as every other people on earth - the right to establish their own State if they so chose. And they have chosen. The juxtaposition of the present Iraqi and Israeli situations may be particularly striking - but it is far from unique. In the recent United Nations General Assembly debate on Cuba, only three countries -

-5- the USA itself, Israel and Romania - were prepared to support the USA's extension of its the almost three-and-a-half decades old blockade against Cuba to cover US subsidiaries in third countries. Likewise, in November 1975 the United Nations General Assembly voted to dissolve the "UN forces command" in Korea and to withdraw all foreign troops present in South Korea under the cover of the United Nations. There are still more than 40,000 US troops in South Korea - claiming a UN mandate that no longer exists. And just as some UN resolutions must be implemented at any cost whilst others must not be implemented at any cost, so some invasions and annexations must be overturned at any cost, whilst others must be ignored, if not instigated, encouraged and directed. Why should Iraq's actions in Kuwait have been totally unacceptable, as compared to Turkey's invasion and occupation of northern Cyprus, Morocco's invasion and annexation of the Western Sahara, Indonesia's invasion of and genocide in East Timor or, indeed, Britain's & continued occupation of the six north-eastern counties of Ireland? Writing in the International Herald Tribune two days ago, Sir Shridath Ramphal, former foreign Minister of Guyana, former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, special adviser to the

-6- last year's LEarth Summit in Rio and presently the Chancellor of three Universities, in other words not exactly a dangerous leftist, had this to say: "The military strikes against Iraq ordered in the dying days of the Bush presidency contrast sharply with international inaction in other areas. The pretext in the case of Iraq is that UN Security Council resolutions have been violated. But to most of the world's people - and many governments, however muted their public posture - it is an abuse of power, a vainglorious display of military might against an almost defenceless foe. "Why is this overkill against Iraq allowed. Because there is no one to stop it. In the Cold War era, the mutual propensity of the two Superpowers for excesses was curbed by fear of each other. Now, with the United States as the sole Superpower, there is no such balance. But there is much to lose. The use of military power without moral authority is not leadership but authoritarianism. In the end, it distorts the meaning of peace, justice, democracy and truth." Pride comes before a fall. Beset with ever-deepening economic, moral, social and political crises at home, the United States is still making more and

-7- More enemies around the world and inflaming old wounds. In historical terms their military victories are as useful as a fly conquering fly paper. As Ho Chi Minh said in one of his poems, Today the elephant is trampling the flea; But tomorrow the flea will disembowel the elephant.

23/9/93. NCP & Comt Liaise Mtg, Conway Hall. Comrades and Friends: I would like to thank both the New Communist Party and Communist Liaison for inviting me to speak at this important joint meeting. Hopefully, it will make a contribution to strengthening communist unity on a principled anti-imperialist basis and so increase the overall strength and effectiveness of the broad progressive forces movement. Within the last hour the result of the voting at the International Olympic Committee meeting in Monte Carlo will have been announced. If China has succeeded in winning the right to stage the 2000 Olympics in its capital city, Beijing, it will have done so in the teeth of a most extraordinary and unsavoury political campaign involving such an array of forces as government ministers, newspapers and disgruntled sports coaches. On his recent visit to Australia, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd declared his support for Manchester's Olympic bid. That, of course, was only natural, but what was clearly unaccept- able was Hurd's rider that, in the all too likely event of the Manchester bid being unsuccessful, then anywhere would be preferable to Beijing. This is the same man who rushed to declare his support for Yeltsin's latest coup, saying that his onents had weaker democratic credentials as, to a greater or lesser extent, ✓ they were in favour of restoring the communist system. Voters in Poland, Lithuania and, perhaps, Britain, too, should note that democracy is only democracy when you vote for capitalism. In the period leading up to today's IOC vote there has been one anti-Chinese incident after another. Without a shred of evidence, women athletes like Wang Junxia have seen their new world records, set at China's National Games, rubbished and disparaged. Typical was British team manager Joan Allison: "I believe these girls are taking drugs. You just can't go out and run those times – certainly not at 20." The black champion sprinter Linford Christie has the perspective to take a more mature view: "I think it's wrong that people are saying what they are saying at the moment. They have been tested. They have been going through the right procedures. What they have done will improve athletics all round the world." The anti-China campaign has also focussed on the question of human rights, blithely ignoring the fact that in a world where hundreds of millions lack even the most basic subsistence, the Chinese government has successfully shoulder- ✓ the responsibility of feeding, clothing and housing a quarter of humanity. Likewise without evidence, the Clinton administration tried to sour the atmosphere by claiming that China was preparing to carry out a nuclear test. The United States has also raised the question of China's textile exports – part of a long campaign of economic attrition, which includes attempts to remove China's Most Favoured Nation status and denying its attempts to join GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, allegedly on the grounds that the Chinese domestic market is not fully open. One wonders how Japan could have (❗) ✓ qualified for membership. Both Pakistan and China have recently been subject to sanctions because of China's alleged missile exports. Perhaps US intelligence on this matter was as inaccurate as that regarding the Chinese merchant vessel, the Yinhe, which was trailed and harassed by US forces and satellites from Singapore to the Persian Gulf on the grounds that its cargo contained ingredients for chemical weapons bound for Iran. An eventual inspection proved the charge to be groundless, but the USA has offered no apology or compensation. On a broader level, there is an international conspiracy, headed by the USA and Britain, to manipulate the questions of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet so as to ✓ split, partition and shatter China, as was the fate of the former Soviet Union. One question that arises is, if the United States, Britain and other imperialist

and reactionary forces are brazen enough to try and bully such a large and powerful country as China, then what contempt and brutality will they show to smaller and weaker countries? ✓ Reacting to the harassment of the Yinhe, a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry noted: "Recently, the US has so often wilfully brought pressure to bear on other countries on the ground of its so-called 'intelligence' which was no more than hearsay or self-invented stories. This is a show of hegemonism and power politics pure and simple. The Yinhe incident is only one example in this regard." } ✓ Another key example this year has been the nuclear allegations against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the demands that it open its sovereign military bases to so-called 'special inspection'. This year Pakistan narrowly escaped being put on the US State Department's notorious 'hit-list' of so-called 'terrorist states'. Sudan was not so lucky, joining Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Cuba and People's Korea. According to some reports, the USA is attempting to hold Sudan responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Ce tre in New York – a clear case of "hearsay and self-invented stories". ✓ Long-standing US blockades remain in force against Cuba, People's Korea and Vietnam. In the cases of Iraq and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia there is a ✓ concerted genocidal attempt to squeeze these countries out of existence. In both these instances the western defenders of human rights have succeeded in destroying the health care and life support systems of two third world states ✓ that formerly offered their entire population an advanced and modern medical and welfare system. Likewise, the air embargo on Libya means that medicines that need rapid transportation at certain temperatures can no longer be imported and many burns victims cannot be adequately or promptly treated. No wonder a supposed humanitarian mission to counter famine can turn into the most brutal occupation of Somalia, a scenario that is also being rehearsed for southern Sudan. It is therefore clear whose interests are served by the 'New World Order'. James Connolly predicted that the partition of Ireland would result in a "carnival ✓ of reaction" and this phrase well describes today's global reality. Liberation movements such as the ANC and PLO are being forced to make cessions that they would not have previously contemplated. Whether it is the Rio Grande in North America or the Odder Neisse in Europe, those who demand that the socialist and progressive countries open their borders are themselves building walls and armed fortresses to keep out the millions of dispossessed who are deemed unworthy of claiming their share of the fruits of global civilisation, whilst there is a steady rise of far-right and fascist parties, such as the National Front in France, the Republicans in Germany and, as we have seen, the BNP in Britain. What can be done in such a situation? During the recent visit to China by Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, the Times of India printed a front-page cartoon of the Prime Ministerial talks with the caption: "By the way Mr Peng, before signing any agreement should we have to get clearance from Clinton." Fortunately, although the Yeltsin regime reneged on its pledge to supply India with cyrogenic rocket technology, India and China, which together, as Lenin himself noted in his landmark article 'Backward Europe, Advanced Asia', Lenin @ account for an absolute majority of the human race, successfully concluded a wide range of agreements covering such areas as peace on their borders, development of cross-border trade, and cooperation in such areas as the environment and the broadcast media. Narasimha Rao has also, this week, visited Iran, and in an interview with the

Hindustan Times' called for Iran, India and China to work together so as to put ] forward an Asian voice in world affairs. India's first Prime Minister and a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, Jawaharlal Nehru, in common with many of the 20th century's pioneers of the Nehru on I. national liberation movement, looked to Ireland's long fight for its national freedom as both an example and an inspiration. He first visited Ireland on the invitation of the newly-founded Sinn Fein in 1907 and his prison letters to his daughter Indira, published under the title 'Glimpses of World History', return several times to Ireland's fight for liberty. With President Mary Robinson due to Robinson make an official visit to India beginning this coming Monday, it is a suitable time to remind ourselves that the forces of independence also exist in Europe. Another practical way to reclaim the world from the clutches of the 'new world order' was suggested in a recent article in the 'International Herald Tribune', admittedly as a dreaded prospect to be avoided if at all possible, namely the formation of an 'Asian socialist common market', grouping China, People's Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar (formerly Burma) and perhaps Mongolia, some of the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union and conceivably, depending on how events unfold, even the Russian Far East. The Non-Aligned Movement as a whole needs to be strengthened and reinvigorated, keeping to its basic and essential principle of anti-imperialist independence. But this, by itself, is not enough or perhaps impossible. The socialist and communist forces also need to be strengthened and rebuilt on both the national and international scale. There must be heightened solidarity with the presently-existing socialist countries and support for all practical steps to strengthen their unity with one another. Bodies like the Sao Paolo Forum can Sao Paolo Forum play an important role, but the most significant concrete step so far has been the publication in April last year of the historic Pyongyang Declaration, 'Let Us Py Dedash. Defend and Advance the Cause of Socialism', which has to date been signed by more than 190 parties, organisations and movements on the five continents. The New Communist Party is an original signatory of this Declaration and if Cherish ! the unity of British communists and their unity with the reemerging world movement. Ultimately, the imperialists' 'new world order' will be unravelled as it goes against the interests of the majority of humanity, who are increasingly getting anised to resist it. Thank you. Keith Bennett September 23 1993

Defence of Korean independence and Korean socialism is defence of the future of humanity Speech of Keith Bennett to the World Conference for the Korean People's Cause of Peace, Security, Sovereignty and Reunification Lisbon May 30-31 1993 Dear Friends: The United Nations was founded in the context of the victorious international struggle against German fascism and Japanese imperialism. Based on the democratisation of international law and the rights of peoples, its ostensible aim from its foundation was to "save future generations from the scourge of war". Yet from 1950-53, this world body had its name and authority usurped by the US imperialists, the most heinous international aggressors of our era who took up the tattered mantle of Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, to wage a bloody war in Korea. At that time US imperialism was at the height of its power, but even together with its allies and satellites it could not succeed in subduing the heroic Korean people. This July 27, the 40th anniversary of the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War will be celebrated by all the friends of Korea, all anti-imperialists and socialists, as a common festival testifying to the vitality of the cause of independence. At the start of this decade, the United Nations was again usurped to act as a shock force in attempting to restore the old order of domination and subjugation by waging war against Iraq. Now, once more, the United States has manipulated the UN Security Council as part of its schemes to attack Korea. As is well-known, there is a real and very dangerous nuclear threat on the Korean peninsula - it is the threat posed by the more than 1,000 nuclear weapons kept by the United States in the south of Korea which it continues to occupy. It is also the threat posed by dangerous and provocative military exercises, such as 'Team Spirit', a simulated nuclear attack on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Whether a country joins the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or not, and whether or not it signs a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, are matters related to the exercise of its sovereignty. Likewise, there is nothing in the NPT that precludes a country from withdrawing, nor is there any mention of sanctions or penalties should such an eventuality arise. Rather, the Treaty allows for withdrawal to safeguard the supreme interests of the country - precisely the situation that the DPRK confronted when the US instigated some officials of the IAEA to demand the opening of its non-nuclear military bases vital to the security of the country at the very time when Team Spirit was underway and a war could have been ignited on the Korean peninsula at any time. Clearly, therefore, the matter of Korea's withdrawal from the NPT, to the extent that it may be seen as a matter of international concern, needs to be addressed in the forum of high-level talks between the authorities of the DPRK and those of the United States, whose constant terrorist threats of nuclear annihilation, and recent provocations in particular, have led Korea to take this just and timely measure. Korea's withdrawal from the NPT is not a matter that falls within the legitimate domain of the UN Security Council. Not only is the recent Security Council resolution illegitimate, it is also invalid, as the UN Charter explicitly states that such decisions of the Security Council are taken "by an affirmative vote of seven of its members in which the voices of all permanent members are included". Yet, the People's Republic of China, one of the five permanent members, did not support the resolution. As a non-nuclear state, the DPRK joined the NPT and signed a Safeguards Agreement in an attempt to defend its independence and security, not so as to give them up. Throughout the period of its membership it fulfilled its treaty obligations in all good faith and still aims to resolve matters on the basis of dialogue and negotiations. It is quite prepared to return to the Treaty if its independence and sovereignty are guaranteed. But as a March 12 statement of the Korean goverriment put it: "If we submissively accept an unjust inspection by the IAEA, it would legitimise the espionage acts by the United States, a belligerent party vis a vis the DPRK, and set the beginning of the full exposure of all our military installations. Under our specific conditions, in which the country still remains divided and exposed to the constant nuclear threats from the United States, it will be totally inconceivable to lay our military sites open to the enemies." As the case of Iraq shows, and as the Korean government statement notes:

• "It is an old method of the United States to satisfy its demands one by one, that is to demand the opening of one military base today and another tomorrow." Between March 13 and 19, three leading British daily newspapers, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, published editorial comments supporting military attacks on People's Korea. This is the serious context in which friends of Korea in our country have sought to explain the real situation in Korea, the actual source of the nuclear threat in the region, and to build a united and effective movement that can defend Korea's independence and its unique socialist system centred on the popular masses. We further aim to build friendship with the Korean people and to press the British government to break with its ignoble past and its present reactionary policies and, instead, establish full diplomatic relations with the DPRK and encourage commercial, cultural and other people-to-people exchanges on the principles of independence, equality, non-interference in internal affairs and mutual benefit. Rather than backing and encouraging the United States in its plots to isolate and stifle Korean independence and Korean socialism, the British government should apologise to the Korean people for its history of hostility and aggression not least for its disgraceful and murderous participation in the war of 1950-53 for which due reaparation should be made. It is the height of hypocrisy for Britain to wax hysterical over the non-existent nuclear threat from the DPRK when it has exported huge amounts of plutonium to Japan on several occasions and when it is planning to do the same with south Korea and even to open an office of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd in Seoul. Britain is in no position to lecture any other country on the nuclear issue. Its own nuclear tests have been conducted without regard to the health and lives of Native Americans and Australian Aborigines; nor, indeed, for those of its own service personnel. In 1982 its ships carried nuclear weapons during the aggressive war against Argentina, in defiance of its NPT obligations as a nuclear state not to threaten a non-nuclear country in this fashion. The Sellafield nuclear plant in north-east England has brought record levels of cancer and leukemia to the people living on the other side of the Irish Sea. The protests and concern of the Irish government and of all the political parties in Ireland remain unheeded. There is yet another aspect of hypocrisy that needs to be addressed. Whilst the nuclear issue is used to pressure and bully Third World countries such as Korea, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Pakistan and India, neither the IAEA nor the UN Security Council have ever taken a single measure against Israel on account of its nuclear arsenal. In the case of South Africa, the IAEA conducted 115 rounds of inspections and never pressed for a special inspection, which they demanded after just six inspections in Korea. Yet the whole world knew that the South African racist regime had developed nuclear weapons, just as it knows of the nuclear threat posed by the zionist regime in the Middle East and beyond. Surely, it is the height of cynicism for de Klerk to claim the destruction of the country's nuclear arsenal only as the birth of a non-racial democracy and a government led by the African National Congress draws near. The Korean nuclear issue has been created by the United States, supported by its allied imperialist powers and various supplicant and client regimes, because it wants to destroy Korean independence and socialism. If it were not the nuclear issue it would be something else. Under the wise leadership of the Workers' Party of Korea, its great leader President Kim Il Sung and esteemed Secretary Kim Jong II, the Korean people have built a flourishing new society on the ruins of war and the legacy of enforced colonial backwardness. Independent in politics, self- sustaining in economy and self-reliant in defence, Korea displays the superiority of socialism, a system that the Korean people chose for themselves and which they have defended with their blood and lives, no matter which way the wind blows and no matter what sanctions, pressures and threats it might face. The Korean people have selflessly extended the hand of solidarity and practical assistance to others struggling for independence, freedom, development and socialism. Particularly since the adoption of the Pyongyang Declaration a little over a year ago, the Korean people, led by their Party, have stood in the forefront of a mighty international

campaign to defend socialist ideology and to overcome the temporary setbacks and regroup and rebuild the socialist forces on a genuinely global scale. Inspired by the teachings of President Kim Il Sung and Secretary Kim Jong Il, the Korean people are bravely and honourably discharging their responsiblilities to history and humanity. Now more than ever before it is time to repay a little of our debt to the Korean people. We must work harder than ever to build a massive movement of solidarity with the Korean people in every corner of the globe. We must do so regardless of our various political, philosophical, religious and other differences. No petty sectarian disputes should be allowed to stand in the way of our unity. The struggle of the Korean people is the epicentre of the struggle for the future of humanity whether it will progress towards independence and socialism or relapse into new-colonialism and barbarism. We should all have confidence that the Korean people will once again come through a period of grim trials to win a victory that will not only consolidate their independence but also contribute to expediting the independence of all. Let us be proud to stand side-by-side with our Korean brothers and sisters as they defend their achievements and build their future.