National reunification is the most cherished desire and primary task of the Koreans. In the whole course of the struggle for one Korea the three principles of independence, peaceful reunification and great national unity are the mainstay to be adhered to and implemented consistently.
It was in the early 1970s that the three principles were put forward. At the time the south Korean people were getting more enthusiastic about peaceful reunification and anti-fascist struggle for democracy while the US imperialists were driven into a corner at home and abroad. In an attempt to escape from the plight, the imperialists fancied themselves as if they were changing their policy from cold war to peace and from confrontation to dialogue by putting up the so-called “peace strategy.”
On the basis of a scientific analysis of the internal and external situations President Kim Il Sung of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea suggested a policy of having wide-ranging negotiation and dialogue between the north and the south. Having opened the way to the inter-Korean dialogue by the suggestion, he knew that a milestone could be set in the national struggle against division if they took advantage of the changing situation. Thus he expounded just and fair principles of national reunification that would be easily acceptable to any of the Koreans and make it possible to expand the channel of dialogue. The principles demand that the problem of making one Korea should be solved independently without any foreign intervention and in a peaceful way true to the idea of promoting national unity. The principles became the keynote of the joint statement of the north and the south released on July 4, 1972.
What comes first of the principles is to achieve reunification in an independent way without relying on foreign forces or being affected by foreign intervention. Reunion of the north and south is the matter of establishing the sovereignty of the Korean nation throughout the country. Therefore, it is the responsibility and task of all the Korean people, which no one else could do for them. From this respect, Kim Il Sung set the principle of independence as item of crucial importance and core of the three principles. Korea was forcibly divided by the foreign forces, instead of the Koreans’ internal contradictions. In the middle of last century the US imperialists, resisting the ardent desire of the Korean people, occupied the southern half of Korea militarily and separated the nation into two, seeking their own predatory interest. For scores of years since then they have maintained a hostile policy against the DPRK that has kept following the road of anti-imperialism and independence. Engaged in a vicious campaign to invade the north and check the effort for national reunification, they have persistently pursued the “two Koreas” policy while pushing ahead with preparations for another war and making ceaseless provocations.
The Workers’ Party of Korea and the DPRK government have worked hard consistently to achieve reunification by the nation’s own efforts. The June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, which are the banner in the effort for one Korea in the 21st century, carry the firm resolution of the WPK and the DPRK government to win the historic cause of national reunification by the nation’s own efforts.
The task of Korean reunification rests with the Korean people and the country’s reunification should be achieved by the concerted efforts of the Koreans—this is the gist of the two joint declarations. The implementation of the declarations opened a new time when the distrust- and confrontation-oriented inter-Korean relations spanning more than half a century were changing into those of concerted efforts to promote north-south reconciliation and unity and the reunification movement jumped up onto a higher stage.
The movement is currently faced with a great obstacle thanks to the imperialists’ scheme for another war. But all the Korean people are forcing their way forward under the banner of “By our nation itself” invariably, with the conviction that a decisive breakthrough will come in their effort for one Korea when they maintain the stand of national independence and patriotism.
The second principle goes that great national unity should be achieved transcending the difference in thought, ideal and social system. This principle provides the decisive guarantee for independent and peaceful reunification. To make the north and the south into one again is far from a matter of triumph by one side over the other; it is a problem of reconnecting the severed veins of the nation and achieving its unity as a traditionally homogeneous nation. To value and keep the national soul irrespective of their thoughts, systems, political views and religious beliefs—this was the assertion of President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il in their lifetime regarding the theory on national unity. By publishing immortal classic works like Ten-point Programme of the Great Unity of the Whole Nation for the Reunification of the Country and Let Us Reunify the Country Independently and Peacefully Through the Great Unity of the Entire Nation, the leaders provided all the Koreans in the north, south and abroad to be united as one rising above the differences in thought, ideal, political view and religious belief. The patriotic idea and all-embracing politics of the WPK that subordinates all things to the cause of reunification and steadily improves the national unity won over even those who had had a past contradictory to the patriotic cause of reunification and rallied Koreans of all strata under the banner of unity.
Last but not least, there is the principle of winning reunification in a peaceful way without recourse to arms. This refers to the basic method of reunifying the country. Understanding the essence of the reunification problem and valuing the desire of the entire nation, President Kim Il Sung suggested the principle of reunifying the country in a peaceful way, thus indicating a proper method to solve the reunification problem in the interest of all the Koreans.
The most practical course of peaceful reunification without any conflict between the north and the south is to introduce the federal mode. Earlier in the 1980s Kim Il Sung put forward the proposal of founding a Democratic Federal Republic of Koryo. It was to establish a federal republic in which the north and the south exercise regional autonomy with equal rights and duties on the condition that they recognize and tolerate each other’s idea and social system. The proposal of reunifying the country in the mode of one nation and one state, two systems and two governments is the just and fair way of peaceful reunification which would do no harm to both sides and prevent any one side from seeking superiority or interest.
The WPK and the DPRK government have made a lot of practical proposals for dialogue and negotiation, seeing them as the way for the north and the south to avoid bloody conflicts and solve the problem of reunification smoothly in a peaceful way. This year, in particular, they, through a special proposal of the DPRK National Defence Commission and a government statement, reiterated their principled stand to the matter of easing the currently acute and complicated tension, and have taken sincere steps to the end.
But the south Korean authorities hurled abuses at the just and fair proposals and invited the US imperialist aggression forces’ nuclear-powered carrier fleets and Aegis-level destroyers into the East Sea of Korea and the South Sea of Korea to have north-targeted war exercises. This nipped the atmosphere of improvement of the north-south relations in the bud.
The powerful nuclear deterrent of the DPRK serves as an iron shield for the peace of the Korean peninsula and national security while thwarting the reckless provocations of the Americans and the south Korean authorities in their attempt to start a nuclear war.
Invariable is the determination of the WPK and the DPRK government to shatter the moves of the US and the anti-reunification forces for confrontation and open a new road to peaceful reunification with a concerted effort of the north and the south.
