People's Democracy

40 YEARS AGO

US Puppet Regime In S Korea In Deep Crisis

THE ratification by the South Korean National Assembly of the Japan-South Korea treaty for normalisation of relations between the two countries has created a situation of grave crisis for the US puppet regime of Pak Chung Hee.

Hailed as ‘a considerable triumph’ of US diplomacy, the signing of treaty has caused widespread concern and anger among large sections of the people of South Korea, who have long and bitter memories of Japanese colonialism in Korea. Hatred of Japanese imperialism is deep-seated in the heart of every Korean.

The treaty of ‘rapproachement’ was schemed and pressed into acceptance by Washington, as part of a wider plan to integrate South Korea and Japan, its two chief Asian allies, into its military designs in the North and South-Eastern regions of Asia.

The treaty is a concession given to Japanese monopolists at the cost of South Korea. The US Administration is making every effort to revive Japanese militarism, which it hopes can be depended upon to police the Far East for its US patrons. A South Korean official mourned that when South Koreans were losing their lives in the jungles of Vietnam, the US government was placing orders with Japanese manufacturers for war materials which could be had from South Korea.

Massive protest demonstrations and clashes with President Pak’s armed policemen had preceded the ratification of the treaty. So unpopular was the treaty that all opposition members boycotted the session of the Assembly which was summoned to ratify it. Apprehending the fate of the Syngman Rhee regime, which was brought down by the militant action of students in Seoul, President Pak sent them off to a vacation twenty days before the treaty was to be presented for ratification.   

President Pak got the treaty ratified to the satisfaction of his US masters, but the South Korean people have made their verdict clear. Since the signing of treaty, Seoul has become a battle-ground for students denouncing the treaty and Pak’s troops.

During the last week of August, there were big five-day-long demonstrations of students. Correspondents of the Japanese daily, Asahi Shimbun, reported that students were openly shouting slogans against the United States (“Yankees, Keep Off”) and President Pak, which is a new development in South Korea’s decade of turmoil. Even President Pak’s threat to close down all educational institutions permanently went unheeded by students of the Yonesi University and the Korea University, who marched through prohibited areas until they ran into a massive wall of heavily armed troops.

About a thousand students were arrested and another one thousand injured in the clashes between the troops and demonstrators on August 29, when soldiers armed with teargas, grenades and fixed bayonets invaded the two university campuses in Seoul. Three retired generals who were former members of President Pak’s junta were gaoled.

A clear evidence of the magnitude of the crisis of President Pak’s regime is his decision to order back into Seoul one entire division of frontline troops from the northern border. According to latest reports President Pak has declared Seoul “a garrison town” and handed it to the army.

The US satellite Pak regime has no future. The so-called basic relations treaty, which the South Korean government signed at US order, will soon transform the country into a colony of both US and Japanese imperialism. The more the president obliges his masters by sending South Korean lads as cannonfodders for USA’s war of aggression and by inviting Japanese monopolists to exploit South Korea and her people, the faster he pushes the country down on the road to ruin. The fate which has overtaken earlier US puppets awaits President Pak Chung Hee.

---- People’s Democracy, September 12, 1965