Vol. 73/No. 25      June 29, 2009

The resolution widens a 2006 UN ban on North Korean arms imports and exports and calls for inspecting and destroying “all banned cargo” to and from North Korea “on the high seas, at seaports and airports.” At the insistence of Moscow and Beijing, the resolution states that if a ship’s “flag country” refuses to be boarded at sea, it can send the vessel to any port it chooses and have the inspection carried out by local authorities.

While exempting “small arms and light weapons” from inspections, the Security Council demanded advance notice of all such shipments. It also calls for further financial sanctions against North Korea.

In an interview with the Militant, Sin Son Ho, ambassador to the United Nations for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), pointed out the hypocrisy of the Security Council in approving sanctions against North Korea, when the governments of the council’s five permanent members—the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia—wield the largest nuclear arsenals in the world.

The U.S. government maintains some 5,700 active nuclear warheads, about 3,700 of which are ready for launch at a moment’s notice. Washington is the only government in the world that has ever used such destructive power outside a test. In August 1945 U.S. warplanes dropped a nuclear bomb on each of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians.

By official count, Washington conducted 1,054 nuclear tests between 1945 and 1992. However, geophysicist Jim Lawson has documented 2,200 “known and putative” nuclear explosions conducted by Washington.

Moscow comes in second with 715 official tests and 969 explosions between 1949 and 1990. France, 210; the United Kingdom, 45; and China, 45.

Sin pointed out that “not once were any tests” by members of the UN Security Council brought before that body. The Security Council condemned North Korea for conducting just two tests.

“Our nuclear tests are for defense, for deterrence only, in face of U.S. threats and blackmail against our sovereignty,” said the North Korean ambassador.

Sin noted that even though the U.S. war on Korea lasted from 1950 to 1953, the war has never officially ended. In the course of the Korean War, U.S.-led forces dropped more than 428,000 bombs on Pyongyang alone—a city whose prewar population was only 400,000. It is estimated that 4 million of the 30 million people in Korea were killed in the war.

Washington and North Korea signed a cease-fire agreement in 1953, but Washington has refused proposals by the DPRK to sign a permanent peace agreement.

“We have requested on hundreds of occasions that the U.S. government replace the cease-fire with a peace agreement,” Sin said. “But Washington has rejected every proposal.”

As the council prepared to vote, South Korea sent hundreds more marines to its northern border. More than 600 were deployed to Yeonpyeong and Baekryeong islands June 12, according to Yonhap news agency.  
 
 
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