MORE PREGNANT WOMEN HAVE AIDS

 By Dasmani Laary

The National AIDS Control Programme has released the 2016 HIV sentinel survey report stating current prevalence rate of the viral disease and making projections for the future.

The report shows an increase in prevalence rate among pregnant women – representing a second consecutive time of rising incidence among the Ghanaian pregnant women.

The HIV sentinel survey is a cross sectional survey targeting pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in selected areas in the country.

In the last 11 years, health officials say, the HIV Sentinel Survey data have been used as the primary data source for the National HIV and AIDS estimates.

The HIV prevalence for 2016 was 2.4 per cent which represents a second consecutive upsurge from the 2014 prevalence of 1.6 per cent and 1.8 per cent in 2015.

The Volta and Brong Ahafo Regions recorded the highest prevalence rate of 2.7 per cent while the Northern Region registered the lowest, recording 0.7 per cent.

HIV prevalence was higher in urban areas (2.5 per cent) than rural (1.9 per cent) while the young population (15-24 years), a proxy for new infections remained unchanged at 1.1 per cent.

Mrs Tina Mensah, the Deputy Health Minister, said making information of disease control available and health policy development was a major priority of government.

She said the Survey had, since its inception, enabled the Ministry to monitor trends of the disease in the country and provided useful information for policy direction and interventions to address the HIV epidemic.

“Being one of the 35 United Nations AIDS fast-track countries, there is a tremendous expectation of Ghana to demonstrate leadership in the global efforts to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030,” she said.

Mrs Mensah urged Ghanaians to renew their passion and effort to cut down new infections since the disease remained a threat to the country’s socio-economic aspirations.

“We must halt mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the shortest possible time through the delivery of sustained anti-retroviral therapy whilst minimising Sexually Transmitted Infections amongst young people,” she said.

The Ghana Health Service and partner organisations led by the Country Coordinating Mechanism of the Global Fund were called upon to ensure speedy and successful submission of a joint HIV/TB concept note for new funding to cover 2018-2020.

Editorial

MACRON’S TRUTH

Emmanuel Macron, the newly elected President of France has spoken the truth to the displeasure of right wing politicians.

He has described colonialism as a “crime against humanity” and suggested that under today’s standards colonialists would have been dragged to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Who can disagree with this?

Colonialism was nothing less than organised plunder by the elites in the colonial metropolis.

They stole the lands and resources in them from the colonised people. The colonised people were forced to labour for free and they were subjected to all kinds of torture. Colonialism was just slavery.

Given Macron’s honesty about colonialism, it would be useful to find out if his government would be willing to pay substantial reparations for the crimes committed against all colonised peoples.

These crimes should not go unpunished.

Local News:

Heavy dependence on final exam backward – Human Rights Lawyer 

Ghanaian students writing WAEC Exams

By Jerry Tsatro Mordy

A Human Rights lawyer, Edmund Foley, is urging managers of the country’s educational institutions to reconsider the use of final examination as the main tool for assessing final year students.

According to Mr. Foley, the weight placed on final examinations puts a lot of stress on students and in some cases, compels them to circumvent the system just so they do not to miss their graduation.

His comments follow revelations by Sarah Danya, a former student of the Jirapa Nursing Training College that, she was compelled to opt for induced delivery a couple of weeks to her due time, just to be able to take part in the licensing examination while she was in her final year.

A student write examination answers on thighs in malpractice

Many final year students of training institutions across the country, who get pregnant ahead of their final examination, endure a lot of stress. 

JoyNews reported Wednesday, that the Principal of Gushiegu Nursing Training College, Winnefred Wondong, prevented a final year student, Cecilia Awuni from continuing with the rest of the licensing examination because she was found to be carrying a four-month pregnancy. Cecilia had written three of the six papers earlier and was expected to finish on Friday, May 12.    

But she was removed from the exam hall and told to go and come back after delivery and complete the course.

Contributing to the discussion on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM on Thursday, May 11, Mr. Foley said Mrs Wondong’s decision violates the fundamental human rights of the student as enshrined in the Constitution.

“The constitution of this country is very clear on administrative bodies and administrative officials. They are required to act fairly and reasonably and comply with the requirements imposed on them by law,” he said.

That notwithstanding, Mr. Foley wants the institutions to adopt creative means of assessing the students so that the candidates do not get “pushed to final exams”.

Another student in exam malpractice

“Continuous assessment throughout a semester and then a less weighty final exam makes sense but not this militaristic testing model that we have in our schools [which] pushes people to do things that are not right”.

Cecilia’s husband, James Ajusiyine told Kojo Yankson that “the decision to bar her (Cecilia) from writing the exams is rather making her sick than the actual pregnancy."

Dr. Paddy Aryeetey, Obstetrician and a Gynaecologist at the Resolve Clinic said the decision to ask the student to go home makes no sense. “This is violence of women against women. It makes no sense!” 

Meanwhile, Registrar of the Nurses and Midwifery Council, Felix Nyanteh says his outfit will instruct the Principal to arrange for the candidate to write a supplementary paper at a later date.

Help parents to appreciate importance of education - Director

By Kwabia Owusu-Mensah   

Madam Amina Achiaa, acting District Director of Education for the Sekyere Afram Plains, has called for NGOs and civil society organizations, engaged in the promotion of child welfare and education in rural communities, to do more to sensitize parents and community leaders on the importance of education.

She said they should be assisted to appreciate that education was the most effective tool for fighting poverty.

It was the best investment, any parent could make to assure their children of a secured future, she added.

Speaking to local media on the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) project, which is being implemented in the district, Madam Achiaa said helping everybody to prioritize education, was the way forward to achieve universal basic education for all.

The CBE, a five-year project, seeks to provide out-of-school children with literacy, numeracy and life skills to help transition them into formal education system.

It is being implemented in 43 districts in five regions - Upper East, Upper West, Northern, Brong Ahafo and Ashanti.

The project, which commenced in 2013 and is expected to end by September 2018, is being implemented by the government with assistance from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) at the cost of £23.3 million.

The goal is to create opportunity for disadvantaged children in rural and hard-to-reach communities, especially girls, by equipping them with literacy, numeracy and life skills that would enable them to be enrolled into the formal education system.

It is also to help increase gender equality and participation in basic education, improve quality of teaching and learning outcomes in rural communities and strengthen community ownership and management of the CBE learning centres.

Over 200,000 children have been targeted to benefit.

Madam Achiaa said the CBE had helped not only to increase access to basic education in Sekyere Afram Plains, but also improved schools infrastructure and the provision of teaching and learning materials.

She underlined the need to sustain the interest of parents and community members to retain children in school.

Government will reform power sector- Boakye Agyarko

Boakye Agyarko, Minister of Energy

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah

Mr Boakye Agyarko, the Minister of Energy has reiterated Government’s commitment to reform the country’s power sector to meet the exponential demands of industry, businesses and households.

He said there had been attempts by the successive governments to bring the needed transformation under the Ghana Power Compact, otherwise known as the Millennium Challenge Account Programme intended to stimulate private investment and create financially viable power sector to reduce poverty.

He said the reforms being implemented under the Compact Two Programme, together with Government actions, hold the key to arresting permanently the country’s perennial power crisis.

Mr Agyarko made the remarks at the inauguration of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Private Sector Participation (PSP) Stakeholder Committee in Accra.

The seven-member committee comprising representatives from governmental institutions, private sector and civil society organisations, was entrusted with the responsibility of reviewing, at the request of the board of the Millennium Development Authority, specific reports, agreements and documents related to the implementation of the Compact.

It would also provide advice and useful inputs on decision-making process on various aspects of the ECG PSP activity and bring greater understanding among Ghanaians regarding the implementation of the Compact.

Members of the Committee included; Mrs Majorie Adbin of the Private Enterprise Foundation, Mr Ernest Afriyie Asare, the Energy Foundation, Michael Adumatta Nyantakyi, the Public Utilities Workers Union and Mr Ben Boakye, Africa Centre for Energy Policy.

Others are; Mr Albert Sam, the Ghana Journalists Association, Mr. Samuel Richard Ziggah, the National Association of Local Government Authority and Mr Kofi Bentil, the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education.

The Energy Minister said government, last week, announced its position regarding the structure of the concession arrangements under the Compact Programme after it had considered the sentiments of the various stakeholders and the interest of the country with the ultimate goal of turning around the financial and operational fortunes of the ECG.

The Minister added that he had launched the Capacity Scan (CapScan) Activity which falls under the Regulatory Strengthening and Capacity Building of the Compact Two Programme, aimed at improving the regulatory and policy environment of the power sector.

Mr Agyarko, in a separate interview with the media, disclosed that from May 23, it would commence bidders’ conference to consider various entities interested in holding shares in the ECG concession since a minimum of 51 percent of Ghanaian entities must be shareholders in the deal.

He said Ghanaian entities must contribute up to a minimum of 51 percent of financial resources in the ECG concession, while 100 million dollars would be given to the country every year from the Millennium Challenge Account, saying it implied that Ghanaian entities must provide 50 million dollars every year for the next five years as part of the Compact Agreement.

The Minister noted that the Compact Two Programme would expire in 2021 and Ghana must undertake certain activities that would enable it to access the grant within the specified period because failure to meet the deadline would mean that $190 million dollars of the grant would be returned to the US government treasury.

Meanwhile, Mr Agyarko allayed the fears of the public that the concessioner that would take-over the operations of the ECG would lay-off workers, saying it would be a private sector participation and not total privatisation of the ECG, therefore, there would be no involuntary loss of jobs.

He said the assets of the ECG would be leased to the concessioner to use after which they would be returned to the government.

However, he said, the concessioner was required to invest additional US$500 million dollars upgrading those assets in order to operate effectively and efficiently.

Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu, the Board Chairperson of the Millennium Development Authority, who administered the Oath of Secrecy to the Committee Members, said in order to attain the best outcome for the people of Ghana, it was important to engage all key stakeholders in the ECG PSP process to ensure greater understanding and transparency.

She, therefore, tasked the Committee to work diligently and always seek the best interest of the citizenry.

Mr Kofi Bentil of the IMANI Centre for Policy and Education, a Member of the Committee, on behalf of his colleagues, said it would work diligently to ensure that the right thing was done for the good of the people of Ghana.

GNA

Volta Region to lead cashew production

Dr Archibald Letsa

By A.B. Kafui Kanyi

Dr Archibald Yao Letsa, Volta Regional Minister has appealed to the Competitive Cashew Initiative and the German Development Co-operation (GIZ), to help increase cashew production in the Region.

He said the Region had a vast potential to become the leading cashew producer in the country and pleaded with the institutions to consider the Region on their promotional agenda.

Dr Letsa made the appeal in a speech read on his behalf at the 4th edition of the master training programme on cashew value chain promotion for 12 cashew producing countries in Africa in Ho.

He said the Region could boast of major strides in cashew production and high levels of productivity with about 800 kilogramme per tree.

He called for the needed technical and “other necessary” support for increased production.

Dr Letsa said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture had developed 7.5 acres of scion garden in the Nkwanta South District with five acres of the scion garden meant for the development of improved planting materials, saying: “Volta has future in cashew production.”

Mr Collins Ntim, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development said efforts were being made for the country to overtake Cote d’Ivoire as the leading producer of cashew in Africa.

“Cote d’Ivoire is currently producing 700,000 metric tonnes a year and we produce 600,000 metric tonnes, so just give us some eight years. The President has tasked us and in eight years we shall overtake them,” he stated.

Mr Ntim said the Ministry was therefore liaising with the Department of Agriculture in 60 districts to develop high quality cashew seedlings for plantations.

 

Cashew Fruits

Mr Seth Osei-Akoto, Crop Service Director, Ministry of Food and Agriculture, said three central nurseries had been established to produce 200,000 improved planting materials a year to increase cashew production.

Madam Rita Weidinger, Executive Director, Competitive Cashew Initiative noted that Ghana was leading in crop research and needed a regulatory framework to position it to catch up with Cote d’Ivoire in a few years.

She said Ghana held a lot of potentials for production and processing of cashew and asked the country to give more attention to the crop for its prospects in climate change mitigation.

Madam Weidinger commended the government for its commitment to the cashew sector, through support to farmers and competitive pricing, which was attracting and making farmers eager to plant cashew.

The training programme is under the auspices of the Competitive Cashew Initiative in collaboration with the Africa Cashew Alliance and funded by GIZ.

The first session in Ho will cover the cashew value chain concept, the dynamics of the cashew market and training material development.

The highlight will be a field visit to the largest cashew processing factory in the sub-region- USIBRAS, in Prampram.

Foreign News:

FRANCE:

Macron calls France’s colonial past a ‘crime against humanity’

Emmanuel Macron

By Michael Stothard

French President Emmanuel Macron stepped up his condemnation of France’s colonial past in Algeria few weeks before the election that elected him President, rejecting fierce criticism from the country’s conservative right.

Touching on one of the most sensitive periods of French history, Mr Macron said in an interview with leading centre-right daily Le Figaro that the 132-year colonisation of Algeria involved “crimes and acts of barbarism” that would today be acknowledged as “crimes against humanity”.

He made these comments on his trip to Algiers a few weeks ago where Mr Macron called on France to apologise for past crimes, particularly those committed in the bloody Algerian war of independence that ended in 1962.

Alleged torture and massacres by the French government during the eight-year civil war remains a hugely polarising issue on both sides of the Mediterranean and in French politics, with French authorities long refusing to apologise.

 Mr Macron’s intervention on Algeria was his most striking since the 39-year-old former banker surged into a position as a favourite to win the presidential election.

The independent candidate, a former economy minister, had taken advantage of a loss of support for François Fillon, the centre-right candidate, who had been embroiled in an investigation over his use of state funds to employ his wife and family. Mr Macron’s suggestion that France should say sorry drew a sharp rebuke from his rivals on the political right.

Mr Fillon condemned a “hatred of our history,” and a “perpetual repentance that is unworthy of a candidate for the presidency of the republic”. Why Macron was on the rise in France Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Front National, said on Facebook: “Is there anything worse when you want to become president than going abroad to accuse the country you want to lead of crimes against humanity?”

In recent years France has taken steps to smooth relations with Algeria, which says that 1.5m people were killed during the civil war. President François Hollande in 2012 recognised the “bloody repression” of Algerian protesters by police in Paris in October 1961 and also France’s poor treatment of the Harkis — Algerians who had fought for France. But he stopped short of apologising. French rightwing politicians have in the past tried to move in the other direction. In 2005, the Republican party passed a law recognising “the positive role of the French presence overseas”, although it was later overturned, while Mr Fillon last year likened France’s colonial past to a “cultural exchange”.

Thomas Guénolé, a lecturer at Sciences-Po, said that Mr Macron’s comments could appeal to voters of North African origin, the second-largest ethnic group in France. “The logic of calling colonialism a crime against humanity is that the slogan will appeal to the segment of French voters with Maghreb origins,” he said, adding that it was part of selling the “Macron brand” as widely as possible. Macron makes a principled stand on France’s colonial past The presidential candidate’s gamble  paid off. This is not the first time Mr Macron has tackled the controversial issue of Algeria.

Last year, he told French magazine Le Point: “Yes, there was torture in Algeria, but there was also the emergence of a state, or wealth, of a middle class . . . This is the reality of colonialism.

There are elements of civilisation and elements of barbarism.”

His comments came as the polls, by Sciences Po study centre Cevipof, showed Mr Macron on course to take 23 per cent of the votes in the first round of the presidential election in April, compared with just 18.5 per cent for Mr Fillon. This put Mr Macron in the second round run-off in May with far-right candidate Ms Le Pen, who is expected to take 26 per cent of the votes in the first round. Mr Macron was then be expected to beat Le Pen in the second round as happened later.

However, half of voters said they have not made a final decision. The war that still haunts France 132 years of French colonial rule ended in 1962 after a brutal eight-year war which France prolonged in the hope of keeping a grip on Saharan oilfields. Independence prompted the enforced exodus from Algeria of 1m French colonists, the so-called pieds noirs, who returned to France nursing a sense of betrayal by their mother country. Despite guarantees of safety from the Algerian and French governments, Algerians who worked for the French were persecuted as collaborators. As many as 100,000 were reportedly killed.

Instability post-independence sent a further influx of Algerians to France, where they form by far the largest immigrant community.

In the face of unemployment and marginalisation some have turned to radical Islam. Relations between the two countries since independence have been cool, with Algiers periodically lashing out at France for failing to repent for its colonial past.

How Capitalism Treats People with Disabilities 

By Paul Bennett

A look at how capitalism treats people wi th disabilities.

There are various forms of disability, and plenty of room for arguments about definition. Under the Equality Act of 2010, an impairment has to be long-term (twelve months or more) and ‘substantial’ (so not trivial). The Act lays down certain ‘rights’ covering areas such as education and employment. It is all very well saying that ‘As a disabled person, you have rights to protect you from discrimination’ (gov.uk), but rights under capitalism mean very little and it is the reality of people’s situations that matters.

There are two basic approaches to characterising disability. The standard medical model sees it as something intrinsic to an individual’s condition, while the alternative social model ‘identifies systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by society (purposely or inadvertently) that mean society is the main contributory factor in disabling people’ (Wikipedia). Under the social model, an individual’s condition only leads to them being disabled under certain societally-determined circumstances, a claim which should be borne in mind in reading what follows.

There is no doubt that, in practice, people with disabilities encounter all sorts of problems and difficulties, from accommodation to work and travel. A Guardian article (8 January) gave a number of examples relating to people in their twenties and thirties. For instance, two brothers with Duchenne muscular dystrophy live with their parents and younger sisters. Under pressure from a charity, the local council is paying for personal assistants for them, but this arrangement is shared between them both, making it very difficult for them to live separate lives. One of them would like to go to university, but cannot do so, as the financial situation means his brother would have to go with him. Another woman has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and autism, and was housed for a while in a cold and damp fifth-floor flat, where the lift hardly ever worked.

It is common to hear of those who have a choice between eating and heating, but disabled people face this even more starkly because of high heating costs. According to the charity Scope (13 January), one in four has struggled to pay their energy bills, and many are forced to use expensive pre-payment meters. People turn off their heating even though it is cold, they wear a coat indoors, they wrap themselves in a blanket, they go to bed early, and they can spend up to twice as much on energy as the average household. As the charity’s chief executive has stated, ‘Life costs more if you are disabled. Scope research shows that these costs add up to on average £550 a month, and higher energy bills play a significant part.’ Vicious cuts to benefits and arbitrary decisions to withdraw support make things even worse.

Around one-third of adults with disabilities live in low-income households, which is twice the rate for those without disabilities. This is because they are less likely to be working, with only forty percent of people who are disabled but are not lone parents being in work. Almost half the unemployed are disabled. Three and a half million adults ‘report a longstanding illness or disability which limits their activity’ (poverty.org.uk), while other sources give seven million with a disability in the UK. Such longstanding impairments are more common the less well-off people are, with poverty probably being both caused by and a cause of the disability. Globally, about one person in ten has a disability: they are disproportionately likely to be illiterate and subjected to violence.

Over the years governments have proposed various schemes to increase the number of disabled people who have jobs, but the proportion in paid work has changed very little. Furthermore, having a job does not in itself solve the problems. A blind teacher has written (Guardian, 13 February) of how he enjoyed and was good at his job, even though things like marking and keeping student records took him longer than sighted colleagues. But as the paperwork increased, he was less able to cope and became a support coordinator for disabled students. But even here the emphasis on numbers and speed and ‘efficiency’ made him appear less competent, and the workplace became ‘racked by rumour and rivalry’.

Under the law, employers have to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure that workers with disabilities are not seriously disadvantaged when doing their jobs. This can cover everything from installing ramps or letting people work on the ground floor to providing a special computer keyboard. But, as noted earlier, people with disabilities are less likely to be employed. Further, there is evidence that when in work they are more likely to suffer various kinds of ill-treatment, such as being subject to intimidating behaviour, having their opinions ignored or being treated unfairly.

Internet access is also much harder for people with disabilities. ‘According to the Office for National Statistics, in May 2015, 27% of disabled adults had never used the internet, compared to 11% of non-disabled adults’ (Guardian 29/06/15). Assistive computing can help disabled people use computers, and many do find the internet a great help, such as doing their weekly shop online rather than struggling round a supermarket. But the fact remains that a crucial part of communicating with government or local councils or support organisations is effectively barred to many people with a disability.

People with disabilities are not just workers but also consumers: their spending power is often referred to as the purple pound (compare the grey pound and the pink pound), and is supposedly worth well over two hundred billion pounds. Companies that ignore the needs of disabled customers may miss out on sales: ‘Three quarters of disabled people and their families have left a shop or business because of poor customer service or a lack of disability awareness’ (Business Disability Forum 03/05/16). M&S are one example of a company with a range of clothes for disabled children (not available in their shops, though).

While there have definitely been improvements in recent years, travel can still be a major problem too, especially, though not only, for people who use wheelchairs. The BBC’s Frank Gardner, who was paralysed in the legs when shot while reporting, has commented that he sometimes gets left on a plane for a while when an airbridge is not used (using one costs the airline money). In a well-publicised recent case, a woman was forced to wet herself on a train journey as there was no disabled toilet available.

If we look at things from the standpoint of the social model of disability, it would be reasonable to aim for a world where as few people as possible are disabled, or at least where as few as possible are disadvantaged because of any disability. This would be a world where production is keyed to fitting work to humans rather than the other way round, where those with special needs get the support they require, where goods and services truly meet human need. Despite the best efforts of many well-meaning people, a society based on the profit motive cannot be transformed into such a world.

North Korea:

Why Does North Korea Want Nukes?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects new ICBM missiles

By Paul Atwood

We are fighting in Korea so we won’t have to fight in Wichita, or in Chicago, or in New Orleans, or in San Francisco Bay. –President Harry S Truman, 1952.

Why has this tiny nation of 24 million people invested so much of its limited resources in acquiring nuclear weapons? North Korea is universally condemned as a bizarre and failed state, its nuclear posture denounced as irrational.

Yet North Korea’s stance cannot be separated out from its turbulent history during the 20th Century, especially its four decade long occupation by Japan, the forced division of the Korean peninsula after World War II, and, of course, the subsequent utterly devastating war with the United States from 1950-1953 that ended in an armistice in which a technical state of war still exists.

Korea is an ancient nation and culture, achieving national unity in 608 CE, and despite its near envelopment by gigantic China it has retained its own unique language and traditions throughout its recorded history. National independence came to an end in 1910 after five years of war when Japan, taking advantage of Chinese weakness, invaded and occupied Korea using impressed labor for the industries Japan created for the benefit of its own economy. As always the case for colonization the Japanese easily found collaborators among the Korean elite Koreans to manage their first colony.

Naturally a nationalist resistance movement emerged rapidly and, given the history of the early 20thCentury, it was not long before communists began to play a significant role in Korea’s effort to regain its independence. The primary form of resistance came in the form of “peoples’ committees” which became deeply rooted throughout the entire peninsula, pointedly in the south as well. It was from these deeply political and nationalistic village and city committees that guerrilla groups engaged the Japanese throughout WWII. The parallels with similar organizations in Vietnam against the Japanese, and later against the French and Americans, are obvious. Another analogous similarity is that Franklin Roosevelt also wanted a Great Power trusteeship for Korea, as for Vietnam. Needless to say both Britain and France objected to this plan.

When Russia entered the war against Japanese in August of 1945 the end of Japanese rule was at hand regardless of the atomic bomb. As events turned out Japan surrendered on 15 August when Soviet troops had occupied much of the northern peninsula. It should be noted that American forces played no role in the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule. However, because the Soviets, as allies of the U.S., wished to remain on friendly terms they agreed to the division of Korea between Soviet and American forces. The young Dean Rusk, later to become Secretary of State under Kennedy and Johnson, arbitrarily drew a line of division across the 38th Parallel because, as he said, that would leave the capital city, Seoul, in the American zone.

Written reports at the time criticized Washington for “allowing” the Red Army into Korea but the fact was it was the other way around. The Soviets could easily have occupied the entirety of Korea but chose not to do so, instead opting for a negotiated settlement with the U.S. over the future of Korea. Theoretically the peninsula would be reunited after some agreement between the two victors at some future date.

However, the U.S. immediately began to favor those Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese in the exploitation of their own country and its people, largely the landed elites, and Washington began to arm the provisional government it set up to root out the peoples’ committees. For their part the Soviets supported the communist nationalist leader, Kim Il-Sung who had led the guerrilla army against Japan at great cost in lives.

In 1947 the United Nations authorized elections in Korea, but the election monitors were all American allies so the Soviets and communist Koreans refused to participate. By then the Cold War was in full swing, the critical alliance between Washington and Moscow that had defeated Nazi Germany had already been sundered. As would later also occur in Vietnam in 1956, the U.S. oversaw elections only in the south of Korea and only those candidates approved by Washington. Syngman Rhee became South Korea’s first president protected by the new American armed and trained Army of the Republic of Korea. This ROK was commanded by officers who had served the Japanese occupation including one who had been decorated by Emperor Hirohito himself and who had tried to track down and kill Kim Il Sung for the Japanese.

With Korea thus seemingly divided permanently both Russian and American troops withdrew in 1948 though they left “advisers” behind. On both sides of the new artificial border pressures mounted for a forcible reunification. The fact remained that much of rural southern Korea was still loyal to the peoples committees. This did not necessarily mean that they were committed communists but they were virulent nationalists who recognized the role that Kim’s forces had played against the Japanese. Rhee’s forces then began to systematically root out Kim’s supporters. Meanwhile the American advisers had constantly to keep Rhee’s forces from crossing the border to invade the north.

In 1948 guerrilla war broke out against the Rhee regime on the southern island of Cheju, the population of which ultimately rose in wholesale revolt. The suppression of the rebellion was guided by many American agents soon to become part of the Central Intelligence Agency and by military advisers. Eventually the entire population was removed to the coast and kept in guarded compounds and between 20,000 and 30,000 villagers died. Simultaneously elements of the ROK army refused to participate in this war against their own people and this mutiny was brutally suppressed by those ROK soldiers who would obey such orders. Over one thousand of the mutineers escaped to join Kim’s guerrillas in the mountains.

Though Washington claimed that these rebellions were fomented by the communists no evidence surfaced that the Soviets provided anything other than moral support. Most of the rebels captured or killed had Japanese or American weapons.

In North Korea the political system had evolved in response to decades of foreign occupation and war. Though it was always assumed to be a Soviet satellite, North Korea more nearly bears comparison to Tito’s Yugoslavia. The North Koreans were always able to balance the tensions between the Soviets and the Chinese to their own advantage. During the period when the Comintern exercised most influence over national communist parties not a single Korean communist served in any capacity and the number of Soviet advisers in the north was never high.

Nineteen forty-nine marked a watershed year. The Chinese Communist Revolution, the Soviet Atomic Bomb, the massive reorganization of the National Security State in the U.S. all occurred that year. In 1950 Washington issued its famous National Security Paper-68 (NSC-68) which outlined the agenda for a global anti-communist campaign, requiring the tripling of the American defense budget. Congress balked at this all-encompassing blueprint when in the deathless words of Secretary of State Dean Acheson “Thank God! Korea came along.” Only months before Acheson had made a speech in which he pointedly omitted Korea from America’s “Defense perimeter.”

The Korean War seemed to vindicate everything written and said about the” international communist conspiracy. In popular myth on June 25, 1950 the North Korean Army suddenly attacked without warning, overwhelming surprised ROK defenders. In fact the entire 38th Parallel had been progressively militarized and there had been numerous cross border incursions by both sides going back to 1949. On numerous occasions Syngman Rhee had to be restrained by American advisers from invading the north. The Korean civil war was all but inevitable. Given postwar American plans for access globally to resources, markets and cheaper labor power any form of national liberation, communist or liberal democratic, was to be opposed. Acheson and his second, Dean Rusk, told President Truman that “we must draw the line here!” Truman decided to request authorization for American intervention from the United Nations and bypassed Congress thereby leading to widespread opposition and, later, a return to Republican rule under Dwight Eisenhower..

Among the remaining mysteries of the UN decision to undertake the American led military effort to reject North Korea from the south was the USSR’s failure to make use of its veto in the Security Council. The Soviet ambassador was ostensibly boycotting the meetings in protest of the UN’s refusal to seat the Chinese communists as China’s official delegation. According to Bruce Cumings though, evidence exists that Stalin ordered the Soviet ambassador to abstain. Why? The UN resolution authorizing war could have been prevented. At that moment the Sino-Soviet split was already in evidence and Stalin may have wished to weaken China, something which actually happened as a result of that nation’s subsequent entry into the war. Or he may have wished that cloaking the UN mission under the U.S. flag would have revealed the UN to be largely under the control of the United States, which indeed it was. What is known is that Stalin refused to allow Soviet combat troops and reduced shipments of arms to Kim’s forces. Later, however Soviet pilots would engage Americans in the air. The Chinese were quick to condemn the UN action as “American imperialism” and warned of dire consequences if China itself were threatened.

The war went badly at first for the U.S. despite numerical advantages in forces. Rout after rout followed with the ROK in full retreat. Meanwhile tens of thousands of southern guerrillas who had originated in peoples’ committees fought the Americans and the ROK. At one point the North Koreans were in control of Seoul and seemed about to drive American forces into the sea. At that point the commander- in-chief of all UN forces, General Douglas MacArthur,  announced that he saw unique opportunities for the deployment of atomic weapons. This call was taken up by many in Congress.

Truman was loathe to introduce nukes and instead authorized MacArthur to conduct the famous landings at Inchon in September 1950 with few losses by the Marine Corps vaunted 1st Division. This threw North Korean troops into disarray and MacArthur began pushing them back across the 38th Parallel, the mandate imposed by the UN resolution. But the State Department claimed that the border was not recognized under international law and therefore the UN mandate had no real legal bearing. It was this that MacArthur claimed gave him the right to take the war into the north. Though the North Koreans had suffered a resounding defeat in the south, they withdrew into northern mountain redoubts forcing the American forces that followed them into bloody and costly combat, led Americans into a trap.

The Chinese had said from the beginning that any approach of foreign troops toward their border would result in “dire consequences.” Fearing an invasion of Manchuria to crush the nascent communist revolution the Chinese foreign minister, Zhou En-Lai declared that China

“will not supinely tolerate seeing their neighbors invaded by the imperialists.”

MacArthur sneered at this warning.

“… They have no airforce…if the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang there would be a great slaughter…we are the best.”

He then ordered airstrikes to lay waste thousands of square miles of northern Korea bordering China and ordered infantry divisions ever closer to its border.

It was the terrible devastation of this bombing campaign, worse than anything seen during World War II short of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that to this day dominates North Korea’s relations with the United States and drives its determination never to submit to any American diktat.

General Curtis Lemay directed this onslaught. It was he who had firebombed Tokyo in March 1945 saying it was “about time we stopped swatting at flies and gone after the manure pile.”

It was he who later said that the US “ought to bomb North Vietnam back into the stone age.” Remarking about his desire to lay waste to North Korea he said “We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea too.”

Lemay was by no means exaggerating.

On November 27, 1950 hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops suddenly crossed the border into North Korea completely overwhelming US forces. Acheson said this was the “worst defeat of American forces since Bull Run.” One famous incident was the battle at the Chosin Reservoir, where 50,000 US marines were surrounded. As they escaped their enclosure they  said they were “advancing to the rear” but in fact all American forces were being routed.

Panic took hold in Washington. Truman now said use of A-bombs was under “active consideration.” MacArthur demanded the bombs… As he put it in his memoirs:

I would have dropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombs…strung across the neck of Manchuria…and spread behind us – from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea- a belt of radioactive cobalt. It has an active life of between 60 and 120 years.

Cobalt it should be noted is at least 100 times more radioactive than uranium.

He also expressed a desire for chemicals and gas.

It is well known that MacArthur was fired for insubordination for publically announcing his desire to use nukes. Actually, Truman himself put the nukes at ready and threatened to use them if China launched air raids against American forces. But he did not want to put them under MacArthur’s command because he feared MacArthur would conduct a preemptive strike against China anyway.

By June 1951, one year after the beginning of the war, the communists had pushed UN forces back across the 38th parallel. Chinese ground forces might have been able to push the entire UN force off the peninsula entirely but that would not have negated US naval and air forces, and would have probably resulted in nuclear strikes against the Chinese mainland and that brought the real risk of Soviet entry and all out nuclear exchanges. So from this point on the war became one of attrition, much like the trench warfare of World War I. casualties continued to be high on both sides for the duration of the war which lasted until 1953 when an armistice without reunification was signed.

Of course the victims suffering worst were the civilians. In 1951 the U.S. initiated “Operation Strangle” which officialls estimated killed at least 3 million people on both sides of the 38th parallel, but the figure is probably closer to 4 million. We do not know how many Chinese died – either solders or civilians killed in cross border bombings.

The question of whether the U.S. carried out germ warfare has been raised but has never been fully proved or disproved. The North accused the U.S. of dropping bombs laden with cholera, anthrax, plague, and encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever, all of which turned up among soldiers and civilians in the north. Some American prisoners of war confessed to such war crimes but these were dismissed as evidence of torture by North Korea on Americans. However, none of the U.S. POWs who did confess and were later repatriated were allowed to meet the press. A number of investigations were carried out by scientists from friendly western countries. One of the most prominent concluded the charges were true. At this time the US was engaged in top secret germ-warfare research with captured Nazi and Japanese germ warfare experts, and also experimenting with Sarin, despite its ban by the Geneva Convention. Washington accused the communists of introducing germ warfare.

Napalm was used extensively, completely and utterly destroying the northern capital of Pyongyang. By 1953 American pilots were returning to carriers and bases claiming there were no longer any significant targets in all of North Korea to bomb. In fact a very large percentage of the northern population was by then living in tunnels dug by hand underground. A British journalist wrote that the northern population was living “a troglodyte existence.”In the Spring of 1953 US warplanes hit five of the largest dams along the Yalu river completely inundating and killing Pyongyang’s harvest of rice. Air Force documents reveal calculated premeditation saying that “Attacks in May will be most effective psychologically because it was the end of the rice-transplanting season before the roots could become completely embedded.”

Flash floods scooped out hundreds of square miles of vital food producing valleys and killed untold numbers of farmers.

At Nuremberg after WWII, Nazi officers who carried out similar attacks on the dikes of Holland, creating a mass famine in 1944, were tried as criminals and some were executed for their crimes.

So after a horrific war Korea returned to the status quo ante bellum in terms of political boundaries but it was completely devastated, especially the north.

I submit that it is the collective memory of all of what I’ve described that animates North Korea’s policies toward the US today which has nuclear weapons on constant alert and stations almost 30,000 forces at the ready. Remember, a state of war still exists and has since 1953.

While South Korea received heavy American investment in the industries fleeing the United States in search of cheaper labor and new markets it was nevertheless ruled until quite recently by military dictatorships scarcely different than those of the north. For its part the north constructed its economy along five-year plans and collectivized its agriculture. While it never enjoyed the sort of consumer society that now characterizes some of South Korea, its GDP grew substantially until the collapse of communism globally brought about the withdrawal of all foreign aid to north Korea.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, as some American policymakers took note of the north’s growing weakness  Secretary  of Defense Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz talked openly of using force finally to settle the question of Korean reunification and the claimed threat to international peace posed by North Korea.

In 1993 the Clinton Administration discovered that North Korea was constructing a nuclear processing plant and also developing medium range missiles. The Pentagon desired to destroy these facilities but that would mean wholesale war so the administration fostered an agreement whereby North Korea would stand down in return for the provision of oil and other economic aid. When in 2001, after the events of 9-11, the Bush II neo-conservatives militarized policy and declared North Korea to be an element of the “axis of evil.” All bets were now off. In that context North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, reasoning that nuclear weapons were the only way possible to prevent a full scale attack by the US in the future. Given a stark choice between another war with the US and all that would entail this decision seems hardly surprising. Under no circumstances could any westerner reasonably expect, after all the history I’ve described, that the North Korean regime would simply submit to any ultimatums by the US, by far the worst enemy Korea ever had measured by the damage inflicted on the entirety of the Korean peninsula.

(Acknowledgement to Bruce Cumings and I.F. Stone)

The original source of this article is Counterpunch