Western Massachusetts hosts report back on anti-imperialist delegation to Korea

Amherst, MA – On Thursday, October 29, the River Valley Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) hosted FRSO Central Committee Member Chrisley Carpio at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for a reportback discussing her recent visit to South Korea as part of the Jaju Solidarity Delegation in August.

The delegation was organized by Nodutdol, with activists traveling from the U.S., Guam, Hawaii and the Philippines. They represented groups including FRSO, the Anti-War Action Network (AWAN) and many others.

Carpio presented to nearly a dozen attendees, telling the crowd, “In the United States, people often refer to the Korean War as the ‘forgotten war’, But in Korea, they call it ‘the war that never ended’.”

Carpio and others on the delegation visited multiple sites of U.S. military atrocities, including Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. military base in the world, as well as the mass grave of Sannae Gollyeongol – the “longest grave in the world” and Camp Casey, a military base known for its camp town where women were sex trafficked for American soldiers. Carpio explained to the room that the camp town sex trade is still operational, but now employs Filipino women instead of Koreans.

During her time in the country, Carpio met with organizers from the student movement, women’s movement, and other civic society organizations, like local anti-war groups as well as farmers and trade unions. She explained to the attendees the culture of anti-imperialist organizing in the southern part of the peninsula and how activists are fighting for justice for those killed by U.S. soldiers and displaced by the occupation while they organize against the military presence altogether. She also discussed the current organizing Korean by activists protesting the possibility of South Korean troops being asked to assist the U.S. in aggression against Iran and in the Strait of Hormuz.

The event ended with a question and answer session. One attendee asked if the delegates faced political repression during their visit, Carpio responded, “What we were doing was high profile enough that they didn’t enforce those rules, but if you are an author locally who writes something sympathetic to North Korea, you are likely to do prison time.”

Carpio continued, “But we did a lot of our organizing in private churches and in restaurants that were reserved for the day. We were followed by spies and policemen and they knew we were coming and knew about the protests, but I think it was a calculated decision to not make a big incident by arresting us.”

When asked what reunification would look like, after explaining the desire for reunification across the peninsula from Korean activists, Carpio said, “There is not reunification without socialism, even if there is a debate about what reunification will mean.”

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