June 2000 

Mass Protests and Arrests as U.S. Navy Resumes Bombing
of Vieques, Air Force Bombs Koon-I, South Korea

     AP                                                                                                                                                              David Gutenfelder/AP

    

(Left) Some of those arrested June 27 on Vieques trying to block Navy bombing, here being shipped to Roosevelt Roads naval base. (Right) Korean demonstrators face wall of riot police outside U.S. Air Force bombing range at Koon-I, June 17.

In a brazen display of imperial arrogance, the U.S. Navy resumed bombardment of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques on Sunday, June 25. A little over a year before, Navy bombs killed a civilian guard at the bombing range, sparking mass protests and a year-long occupation. On May 4, federal agents cleared the target area of protesters, arresting more than 220 for “trespassing.” The Pentagon announced that ships and warplanes from the USS George Washington Battle Group would drop a total of 130,000 “dummy” bombs and shells on the island before embarking on a military tour of the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. The U.S. military arrested 36 Puerto Rican demonstrators on Sunday, June 25, holding nine at the huge Roosevelt Roads base at Ceiba. On Tuesday, Vieques fishing boats surrounded a Naval patrol boat while on the island 162 demonstrators were arrested trying to stop the bombing.

As protests continue in Puerto Rico and on the U.S. mainland, Democratic president Clinton called a “summit meeting” with leaders of Puerto Rican political parties to discuss the “status” of the world’s largest colony, which Yankee imperialism uses as a giant aircraft carrier to dominate the Caribbean and all Latin America. The U.S. military, president and Congress have no right to determine Puerto Rico’s status, which is the right of the Puerto Rican people. Proletarian internationalists call for mobilizing the combative Puerto Rican working class to shut down all the U.S. bases. We demand that all charges against the more than 600 protesters arrested in recent weeks be dropped and all victims of U.S. colonial repression be freed. The U.S. armed forces and all their bombs and troops must get the hell out of Vieques and all Puerto Rico, now!

The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International fight to liberate the island from the imperialist yoke; we call for independence for Puerto Rico and a voluntary socialist federation of the Caribbean, closely linked to defense of Cuba against counterrevolution and the fight for socialist revolution in Puerto Rico, on the U.S. mainland and internationally.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world from Vieques, a remarkably similar struggle is underway in South Korea, on a small island and nearby village 55 miles southwest of Seoul. Since U.S. imperialism’s Korean War – which killed over two million Korean civilians in the early ’50s – the U.S. Army has used the area for bombing and strafing practice at a range (Koon-I) provided free of charge by the South Korean government under the “Status of Forces Agreement” (SOFA). On May 8 of this year, an Air Force A-10 (heavily used as a tank-killer in the war on Yugoslavia) experienced engine trouble and jettisoned six 500-pound bombs on the village of Maehyang-ri. Some 170 houses were damaged as the bombs exploded, injuring seven villagers. After a whitewash “inquiry” carried out with the Seoul authorities, in mid-June the U.S. military declared the Koon-I incident closed and that they would soon resume bombing.

But on June 17, villagers, students and trade unionists protested at Maehyang-ri in a militant demonstration of an estimated 3,000 people chanting “Close down Koon-I” and “This is our land! Let’s drive out the U.S. troops!” They were joined by workers from the nearby Kia Motors plant, a bastion of the dissident Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. A brigade of a hundred workers took down police barricades, trading punches and rocks with the cops as they did so. The government mobilized 6,000 riot police who bloodied demonstrators, injuring at least 20. Three days later, a group of protesters sought to occupy the range, as Vieques demonstrators are again attempting in protest of the renewed bombings on the Puerto Rican island. The Korean student union, Hanchongnyon, has said it will keep sending members to Koon-I even if there is a fatality, as a sit-in of about 2,000 continues outside the range.

Photos: David Guttenfelder/AP

Above: Kia auto workers attack police barricades outside USAF
Koon-I bombing range, June 17. Below: protester grabs cop's 
ropt shield. U.S. out of Korea!

In another striking parallel to Vieques, the Korean villagers have demanded to know if the U.S. Air Force is using depleted uranium (DU) in its munitions. The U.S. denies using DU-coated bullets on the strafing range at Koon-I, although A-10 planes used such shells to penetrate the armor of Yugoslav tanks last year and against Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The Navy originally denied using DU weapons at Vieques as well until it was forced to admit “accidentally” firing 263 bullets tipped with depleted uranium there last year. The former head of the Pentagon’s Depleted Uranium Program, Dr. Doug Rokke, recently spoke in Vieques denouncing the dangers posed by DU to people on the island. 

On June 22, the Internationalist Group participated in a protest against the Vieques bombing in New York City’s Times Square, carrying signs calling for “Solidarity with Korean Protesters at Koon-I U.S. Bombing Range, U.S. Imperialists Out of Korea, Out of Puerto Rico!” and “Mobilize the Working Class to Drive the Imperialists Out of Vieques and All Puerto Rico, Maehyang-ri and All of Korea! For International Socialist Revolution!” But although the need for international solidarity is obvious, our call for international workers struggle against imperialism was too much for the Puerto Rican nationalist organizers, who blatantly excluded the Internationalist Group from the demonstration. This anti-communist exclusion can only harm the struggle to drive out the U.S. militarists, and must be vigorously protested.

War Criminals of Nogun-ri, Get Out of Korea!

Even as media right-wingers and Pentagon hard-liners try to discredit the reports of this heinous U.S. war crime, the facts about the mass murder in Nogun-ri have been reconfirmed. Moreover, the revelations have lifted the lid on other U.S. crimes during its genocidal 1950-53 war on North Korea, the first military battle of the anti-Soviet Cold War. Recent revelations include the bombing of hundreds of civilians taking cover in a cave and strafing of others at Tanyang in January 1951, as well as the large-scale massacre of political prisoners at Teagu. A rail workers’ club has taken the lead in denouncing the U.S. bombing of a train station at Iksan in July 1950, in which 58 workers and passengers were killed (Korea Herald, 10 September 1999).

Above: Thousands of Korean refugees in 1950 near town of Youngdong, close to village of Nogun-ri where hundreds were massacred by U.S. Army. Below: Troops of U.S. 1st Cavalry Division take village. Trotskyists called for defense of North Korea against U.S. imperialism in Korean War. (Photos: FPG, above, and Stanley Tretick/Acme, below.)

Today, 37,000 U.S. troops continue to occupy South Korea, with 100 military installations. The crimes continue, ranging from routine and flagrant violations of Korean law to cold-blooded murder. Attention has been drawn recently to the racist institution of “foreigners-only” bars catering to American GIs, where four “bar girls” have been murdered in the past year. One of the victims was Kim Sung-hi, a battered wife who had left her husband and taken their three-year-old son. Trying to support herself and her child by teaching piano, her income wouldn’t cover childcare costs, so she started working at the “foreigners-only” Amazon Bar in Itaewon. Three months later she was murdered after refusing Christopher McCarthy, corporal, U.S. Army, “additional sexual services of an unusual nature” after having had paid sex with him. McCarthy was arrested after three days, but held by the U.S. military authorities, thanks to SOFA. Claiming remorse, he only got an eight-year sentence. 

After the recent summit meeting between North and South Korea, president Kim Dae-jung of South Korea reported on June 24 that he had told North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that U.S. troops would be needed even in the event of reunification “to maintain the balance of power in Northeast Asia” – in other words, against China and to offset the influence of the U.S.’ imperialist rival Japan. Scandalously, according to Kim Dae-jung, “The North showed substantial understanding on my explanation on the need for the U.S. troops” (Reuters, 24 June). The previous day, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said U.S. troops will remain in South Korea indefinitely, stressing: “The United States is a Pacific power as well as an Atlantic power.” Meanwhile, Washington is using a mythical North Korean “threat” to justify establishing a “Star Wars” missile “defense” system (which in fact would facilitate a U.S. nuclear first strike), even as it lifts some economic sanctions on Pyongyang (enabling Coca-Cola, for example, to sell in the North). 

Albright’s proclamation that the sun shall never set on the American empire – seconded by the South Korean president and apparently “understood” by North Korea’s leader – underlines that a capitalist reunification of Korea would not only subjugate the entire peninsula to the U.S. imperialists but fortify these war criminals’ position throughout the region. This occurs amidst increasing inter-imperialist rivalries and protectionist pressures pointing to future inter-imperialist war if the international working class does not put an end to imperialism through socialist revolution. Raising the slogan “US Troops Out! For Revolutionary Reunification!” we noted in the first issue of The Internationalist:

 “Trotskyists call for unconditional military defense of North Korea against imperialist attack and counterrevolution. At the same time, we tell the truth about the Stalinist regime of the late Kim Il Sung and his son [which has] driven North Korea into a dead end, its economy in shambles amid widespread hunger....
“The working-class upsurge in South Korea underlines the urgency of revolutionary reunification of Korea across the 38th Parallel. This means fighting for a social revolution against the capitalist magnates and militarists in the South combined with workers political revolution to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy of the Kim dynasty in the North. The repeated outbreaks of sharp class struggle by the combative South Korean working class show how real this possibility could be. This spectre stalks both the Southern chaebols and the Northern bureaucracy.”
–“Nationwide Strike Shakes South Korea,” The Internationalist No. 1 (January-February 1997)

Nationalist Exclusion Undermines Vieques Protest

Internationalist photo

Line of demonstration organizers exclude Internationalist Group 
contingent from June 22 protest against Vieques bombing.

On June 22, the Internationalist Group attended a demonstration in New York City initiated by the Vieques Support Campaign in response to reports that the bombing was about to resume. Yet our contingent, which made up close to a quarter of the picket, was excluded by the nationalist organizers for chanting “U.S. Navy out of Puerto Rico, U.S. Army out of Korea.” One of the nationalists ripped up a sign which stated: “U.S. Imperialism Out of Vieques, Puerto Rico and Out of Maehyang-ri (Koon-I Bomb Range), Korea! Mobilize Workers Power Against the Imperialist Military Bases!” A member of the nationalists’ “security” squad grotesquely told one of our comrades, “I don’t speak to white women” and demanded “do you speak Spanish?” This Third Worldist baiting did not prevent the nationalists from excluding the immigrant workers who made up most of the Internationalist Group contingent. 

Revolutionary internationalists seek to mobilize the working class in the fight against imperialist oppression around the globe, to put into practice the call: “Workers of the world, unite!” Other IG signs at the June 22 picket called to “Defend Cuba Against Counterrevolution – Smash Imperialism through Socialist Revolution” and “Stop the Execution – Free Shaka Sankofa!” the black radical prisoner on Texas’ death row executed later that night in a hideous legal lynching. In contrast, the organizers at Vieques protests seem intent on projecting a “respectable” image in line with the program of class collaboration. Earlier at the June 22 New York picket, nationalist spokesmen objected that we were stepping outside the “official” slogans by chanting “Movilizar la clase obrera, para echar a la Marina fuera” (Mobilize the working class to throw the Navy out)! 

The protest organizers are replicating the political censorship imposed by the Catholic bishops and Protestant church leaders on the huge February 22  San Juan march for Vieques when they banned “unauthorized” (in particular, independentista) banners and slogans. Whose interests does this serve? While praying for “peace for Vieques,” the spiritual guardians of colonial rule enlist the nationalists to help keep Puerto Rico “safe” for imperialist exploitation. Meanwhile, other left groups have reported attempts at censorship: the League for the Revolutionary Party was forbidden to distribute its literature at a February 21 Vieques demonstration in Philadelphia, while the Spartacist League had a sign ripped up at the large New York City Vieques march on May 5. The Internationalist Group protests all of these attempts to muzzle leftists.

One of the nationalist spokesmen on June 22 proclaimed this “our demonstration” and “a Puerto Rican protest” – an outlook that can only serve to isolate the struggle. Censorship and exclusion of opponents of U.S. imperialism gravely undercut and weaken a fight which faces very powerful enemies: the Washington overlords, the Pentagon military machine and their local satraps in the Puerto Rican bourgeoisie. Such an outlook is doubly divisive in New York, where the multiethnic character of the working people has been underlined by large-scale demonstrations against racist police terror and protests by everybody from the heavily integrated transit and hospital workers to construction workers, Latin American garment workers, South Asian cab drivers, Haitian mourners at the funeral of police victim Patrick Dorismond, and many others. 

It is particularly outrageous to ban calls for solidarity in struggle between Puerto Ricans and Koreans, both targets of U.S. imperialism. Surely the residents of Vieques would be encouraged if the villagers of Maehyang-ri took up their cause, and vice versa! By their anti-communist exclusion, the nationalists play into the imperialists’ game of divide and conquer. In fact, as we noted in our 5 May leaflet, “Navy Get the Hell Out of Vieques Now! Independence for Puerto Rico!” the attempt to appeal to U.S. patriotism has been a recurrent feature of many Vieques protests, particularly from Democratic Party capitalist politicians using Vieques as a platform for their electoral maneuvers. (NY Democrat Nydia Velázquez returned from her grandstanding arrest on the island to front for a bill to repeal the estate tax – a bonanza for the plutocrats!)

The main leaflet being passed out at the June 22 demonstration, calling on the U.S. government to “Respect these Americans and their island,” even included an American flag. Yet the Stars and Stripes are stained with the blood of the targets of American imperialism, from the conquest of Puerto Rico in 1898 and the slaughter of Filipino independence fighters to the 1937 Ponce massacre and the suppression of the 1950 Jayuya uprising, the dirty colonial wars in Korea and Vietnam, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Operation Desert Slaughter and last year’s war against Yugoslavia. The colonialists will never “respect” those they oppress – they must be defeated and driven out through revolutionary struggle!

Puerto Ricans have been regularly used as colonial cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism’s wars and, like black soldiers in the racist military, have faced rampant discrimination and been sent to die in disproportionate numbers. Indeed, the cynical sacrifice of Puerto Rican troops by the Army brass in the Korean War, where they were sent to man hopeless positions, is well known. The real interests of the workers and oppressed lay with the victory of the “other side” in Washington’s counterrevolutionary wars, and in the defeat of the U.S. war machine. 

From Vieques to Koon-I, from the Caribbean to the Pacific, the struggle against imperialism and its local junior partners can defeat these powerful enemies only if it is waged on a mass scale as an internationalist class struggle, joining the fight against the entire capitalist system of war, racism, colonial slavery and exploitation. As the 1938 founding congress of the Fourth International stated in its “Thesis on the World Role of American Imperialism”:

“The revolutionists in the United States are obliged to arouse the American workers against the sending of any armed forces against the peoples of Latin America and the Pacific and for the withdrawal of any such forces.... The parties of the Fourth International, throughout the Western Hemisphere, stand for the immediate and unconditional independence of Puerto Rico...and all other direct colonies, dependencies and protectorates of American imperialism....
“At the same time, the Fourth Internationalists point out that none of the countries of Latin America or the Pacific which are now under the domination of American imperialism to one degree or another, is able either to obtain complete freedom from foreign oppression or to retain such freedom for any length of time if it confines its struggle to the efforts of its own self.”

To join together these struggles and win victory for the exploited and oppressed, what’s urgently needed is revolutionary leadership. From Puerto Rico and the United States to Korea, revolutionary workers parties must be built on the genuine communism of Lenin and Trotsky, in the fight to reforge the world party of socialist revolution, the Fourth International. 

U.S. out of Vieques and all Puerto Rico! U.S. out of Koon-I and all Korea! Sweep away imperialism through international socialist revolution!n