People's Democracy

SOUTH KOREA

Moves Afoot to Disband Pro-Unification Party

ACCORDING to a report issued by the secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea on October 24, 2013, a South Korean conservative group has urged the country’s ministry of justice, often considered to be a pliant body, to form a "team of experts to take measures against political parties and organisations violating (the) constitution," and has staged the farce of making a legal examination to facilitate the disbanding of the Unified Progressive Party. It has decided to move the equally pliant constitutional court to try the case and is inviting lawyers for the trial.

According to the report, a coterie in the "Saenuri Party," on the occasion of a state inspection of the "National Assembly," set the issue of disbandment of the Unified Progressive Party on top of its agenda. It is now busy fanning up hysteria, and talking about the "enemy of liberal democracy."

The moves of this South Korean conservative group for the disbandment of the Unified Progressive Party have been described as a shocking fascist rowdyism, unprecedented in history. The said group has called for disbanding of the Unified Progressive Party, on the plea that it has links with the DPRK.

The secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea has described it as an unpardonable provocation and challenge to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The report pointed out that the said group has been talking about a "political party following the north" and of a "plotted rebellion." “This is illogical sophism that can be made only by those obsessed by confrontation with fellow countrymen.” The report said.

It is quite natural that large sections in South Korea are now denouncing the group's moves for disbandment of the Unified Progressive Party as "an act violating democracy," a "neo-fascist act" and "an act of raising the wind of McCarthyism."

The group is also trying to get the Teachers Union disbanded, calling it the "heart of forces following the north" and an "inside enemy." It is even seeking to get Jaju Minbo, a progressive internet paper, shut down.

The suppression of the paper is aimed at removal of the core of progressive forces in South Korea, demoralise all the forces standing for reunification through an alliance with the north, silence the forces that stand for democracy and reform, and prepare the ground for the long-term stay of conservatives in power.

In this regard, the Central Committee of the Korean Social Democratic Party (KSDP) too issued a statement on October 26, 2013, saying the present-day conservative ruling forces and the coteries of the "Saenuri Party" of South Korea have set up a "special team for measures against unconstitutional political parties and organisations" at the judicial level. They have labelled the Unified Progressive Party as an "unconstitutional political party following the north" and are busy making misuse of law for forcible dissolution of the party. They had blustered that they would stage a trial for formally dissolving this party soon.

The KSDP Central Committee has condemned this move as the height of a dirty fascist, politically motivated farce being played by the conservative ruling forces in South Korea. This is aimed at an indiscriminate crackdown on even legitimate political parties and organisations. This is to realise their ambition for staying in power for an indefinite period and achieve their partisan purpose. In this way, South Korea is now becoming a country of a fascist mayhem, where political freedom and human rights are being trampled down.

To the KSDP, what merits serious attention is that the said conservative group is seeking to justify its base political intrigues by labelling the Unified Progressive Party as a force “seeking the collapse of the system,” and a force that is alleged to be “linked with the north." In a bid to mislead public opinion, the programme of the Unified Progressive Party has been described as a "camouflaged programme of the north." The KSDP has warned that if the South Korean conservative group is allowed to fulfil its design to stamp out the Unified Progressive Party, this would mean a still harsher fascist rule for the South Korean people.

The KSDP statement has expressed the hope that the unbiased public opinion and political parties of the world would pay due attention to the grave situation prevailing in South Korea and extend their solidarity to the South Korean people.