Korean Airlines will not transport troops to Iraq

Organized workers in South Korea are solidly opposed to their government’s sending any troops to bolster the U.S. occupation of Iraq. And they are doing something about it.
On June 24 the unions representing flight attendants, pilots and airport employees announced they would refuse to transport either troops or equipment to Iraq. They are part of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, which has led the militant labor struggles of the past decade.
In announcing the decision, KCTU President Lee Soo-ho said that union leaders had also discussed a general strike to stop the deployment, but failed to reach a conclusion. “The means of struggle is flexible, along with changes to the situation,” said Lee.
Back in February, when the South Korean parliament was still dominated by conservative parties, it had yielded to U.S. pressure and voted to immediately send 600 South Korean troops to Iraq and to deploy 3,000 more this summer.
But in April President Roh Mooh-hyun, who is an establishment liberal and former labor lawyer, weathered an impeachment attempt by the reactionary parties. Parliamentary elections at that time resulted in a major shift to the left, leaving his new Uri Party with a clear parliamentary majority.
The people expected Roh and the new parliament would act on their demand to cancel the deployment. But he did not, and now the people are angry.
However, the Korean Democratic Labor Party–a left opposition party that draws strength from both the unions and the movement to get U.S. troops out of Korea, and which for the first time gained parliamentary seats in the April election–has been making cancellation of the deployment a major demand.
When a Korean translator, Kim Sun-il, was killed recently in Iraq, the population back home responded with even greater anger at their government’s policies. The vigils and marches that followed stressed the demand to end the violence by getting out of Iraq.
These demonstrations had a similar character to those in Spain in March after more than 200 people, most of them workers, were killed and 1,500 injured in the horrific bombing of four commuter trains in Madrid. The people blamed the attacks on the U.S. war and occupation, and on their government for being part of it. Three days later, the center-right government of Jose Maria Aznar, one of Washington’s few European allies in Iraq, lost the election. His successor, social democrat Juan Zapatero, quickly announced he would bring the Spanish troops home.
For over half a century, U.S. imperialism, which has occupied South Korea with tens of thousands of troops ever since World War II, was able to pretty much tell compliant governments there what to do, in both domestic and foreign policy. But public opinion has changed enormously in recent years. Millions of South Koreans have risked repression and been active in progressive movements–of workers, students, immigrants and a broad cross-section who want the United States to sign a peace treaty with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north, end the military occupation of the south, and allow the Korean people from both societies to work toward the reunification of their nation.
Inside the U.S. capitalist establishment, there are quite a few who fear that the Bush administration’s obsession with Iraq has only further weakened the position of the class of U.S. multi-billionaires in other parts of the world, such as Korea. They have been arguing in various forums–such as think-tank conferences, op-ed col umns and television commentaries–for more threats and pressure on the DPRK
U.S. workers, however, have nothing to fear from the growing progressive movement in South Korea. On the contrary, the airline unions there, by refusing to cooperate in sending troops to Iraq, will weaken this horrible occupation, thus saving the lives of Iraqis and young Korean and U.S. workers.
Unions here should reach out in solidarity to their Korean sisters and brothers and say no to the bosses of Halliburton, Bechtel, ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and the other billionaire corporations behind the war.