The People Fight Back Martial Law! US Out of Korea!
The International League of Peoples’ Struggles United States Chapter congratulates and offers solidarity to the workers and broad masses of South Korea for overcoming the attempted imposition of nationwide martial law by the US-puppet regime of Yoon Suk Yeol. ILPS-US condemns wholeheartedly the US’s continued buffering up of the neocolonial fascist regime in South Korea to maintain its geopolitical interests in the region.
The Yoon regime has faced weekly protests against its rule, due to severe attacks on workers and massive inflation and price-gouging that only serves the corporate bureaucrat interests of the South Korean ruling class. The passing of the National Security Law that criminalizes and terror-tags nearly all dissent and pro-people organizing also has the people outraged. The Korean people have also been consistently raising their voice against the severe escalation in war provocations as the South Korean military, joined by the militaries of the US and Japan, undertake aggressive and destructive military exercises all along the Korean Peninsula while openly threatening to remove the Kim government of the DPRK. Yoon’s parliamentary opposition has also been working to gain majority support for impeachment proceedings against Yoon on charges of corruption against him and his wife.
It was in the midst of this near-complete isolation that Yoon declared martial law, hoping that his loyal factions in the Defense Department and military chain of command would support him. The parliament building was shut down and tanks deployed to the streets. However, the parliament voted unanimously to reject the martial law decree. But the decisive element was the mass mobilizations that courageously stood up to armed soldiers and defied all threats by the President until Yoon was forced to call off this attempted dictatorial coup.
The fascist US-Yoon puppet regime would be nothing without the support of US imperialism. The US attempted to remake the Korean Peninsula in its capitalist image by sheer force during the Korean War, in which all buildings over 5-stories tall and all critical infrastructure were flattened. Ever since, the US has used the state as a forward outpost against the DPRK and China, and the country hosts one of the largest concentrations of US military bases in the world. The US also relies on South Korea for its exports of electronics and weapons manufacturing, and many South Korean companies like Samsung own production sites within the US itself.
The US neocolonial hold on South Korea, in partnership with the US-Yoon regime and all regimes since the founding of the country, has only brought hardship to the people of both Korea and the US. Massive military spending drains both economies of desperately needed social services for the people. US servicemen on bases in Korea infamously disrespect and ruin nearby Korean communities while committing systemic sex trafficking of Korean women, some as young as pre-teen, and commit sexual assault with impunity. The war provocations on the Korean Peninsula put both Korean and US rank and file soldiers at risk of being cannon fodder in a war that would only benefit the imperialists and their puppets, and would bring the world to the doorstep of world war. The masses of the US have everything to gain in enjoining solidarity with the masses of South Korea.
ILPS-US calls wholeheartedly for the US out of Korea and the wider Pacific! Workers and oppressed peoples of the US, Korea, and the wider world, unite against US imperialism and all its local reactionary guard dogs for a world of peace, justice, and genuine sovereignty of all nations!