Bomb test sends shock waves
WORKERS, NOV 2006 ISSUE
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Central News Agency announced on 9 October that it had successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions. It came, said the announcement, "at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation".
The announcement, which caused shock waves around the world, continued: "It has been confirmed that there was no such danger as radioactive emission in the course of the nuclear test as it was carried out under a scientific consideration and careful calculation. The nuclear test was conducted with indigenous wisdom and technology 100%. It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defence capability. It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the area around it."
The test follows the USA's failures to give security guarantees to the DPRK or to carry out its promise of providing two light-water reactors and nuclear fuel. The DPRK has long warned that the US state was preparing to attack it and said that developing its own nuclear deterrent was the only way to prevent this.
Britain and the US have led the charge in condemning this "breach" of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which the DPRK is no longer a signatory (it withdrew quite properly and in accord with the treaty's articles in April 2003). Britain and the US, however, are signatories to this treaty, which was agreed in 1968 with the aim not only of stopping nuclear proliferation, but also (Article VI) of nuclear disarmament on the part of the nuclear states. Time for sanctions against them?