Korea: the right to exist on its own terms

Solidariogb | Declaration | 1st November 2026

ENGLISH

Seventy years after the guns fell silent on the Korean peninsula, the war has still not formally ended. The 1953 armistice was never replaced by a peace treaty. For the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, that has meant living for generations with foreign troops on its border, large-scale military exercises on its doorstep, and a regime of sanctions designed to strangle its economy.

At SolidarioGB we read this history from Latin America. We know what is done to countries that refuse to kneel: blockade, economic siege, subversion and, when those fail, direct intervention. Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua know it well, and so do the Korean people. What distinguishes the DPRK is that it has been targeted for so long and has not given way.

We hold that the DPRK’s insistence on independence is not an eccentricity but a rational answer to its situation. Countries that gave up their defences under pressure have seen what followed. Whatever one thinks of the weapons themselves, their purpose is deterrence, and the real threat to peace in Korea is the pressure that makes deterrence seem necessary.

The same logic applies at home. A people under permanent siege has had to build with its own resources and its own labour. The new Pyongyang General Hospital, begun in 2020 in the middle of a pandemic closure and under sanctions, opened in 2025 as part of a programme to build medical facilities across the country. Whatever its limits, this is the kind of work that sanctions are meant to prevent, and that a state organised around its people’s needs, rather than private profit, can still attempt.

The right of every nation to choose its own system, without tutelage from Washington, is not negotiable. It is the thread that ties Korea to every people that resists. In the imperial centres, an honest account of the DPRK is rarely heard, so we say clearly that its defence of its sovereignty deserves understanding and solidarity, not demonisation.

The Co-ordinating Committee of Friends of Korea in Britain will discuss these questions in a public meeting on Saturday 7 November 2026, 3.00–5.00 pm (John Buckle Centre, London SW8 2LA, and on Zoom; for the link, email friendskorea@yahoo.co.uk by 6 November). We encourage our readers to take part.

Peace and sovereignty for Korea! No to sanctions, no to imperialist war!