North Korea Accuses UN Security Council of ‘Double Standard’ over US Missile Tests

Hyonhee Shin / Reuters

SEOUL (March 28, 2021) — North Korea said on Monday that the UN Security Council showed a double standard as its sanctions committee criticised the country’s recent missile test as a violation of UN resolutions.

North Korea launched a new type of tactical short-range ballistic missile last week, prompting Washington to request a gathering of the UN Security Council’s (UNSC) sanctions committee.

At the committee meeting on Friday, the United States called for imposing additional sanctions and tightening the implementation of existing measures, denouncing the test as a violation of UN resolutions, according to Jo Chol Su, director-general for international organisations at North Korea’s foreign ministry.

Jo said the meeting was “designed to negate the right of our state to self-defence,” warning it would devise a “countermeasure.”

“It constitutes a denial of sovereign state and an apparent double standard that UNSC takes issue, on the basis of the UN ‘resolutions’ — direct products of the US hostile policy,” Jo said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

“It does not make any sense that only our righteous self-defensive measure should be singled out for denunciation, when many other countries across the globe are firing all kinds of projectiles for the purpose of increasing their military strength.”

The statement came after North Korea said on Saturday that the administration of US President Joe Biden had taken a wrong first step and revealed “deep-seated hostility” by criticising its self-defensive missile test.

New Global Alliance Defends UN Charter

Clear Rebuke Of US Imperialism

Danny Haiphong / Black Agenda Report. 

The United States has long positioned its imperial ambitions as the definition of international law and rejected entirely the spirit and authority of the UN Charter.

 (March 27, 2021) — A new alliance  called the “Groups of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations” has formed in a clear act of resistance to the unilateral and aggressive policies of the United States and its junior partners. Representatives of the alliance reside fully in the Global South. Nations spearheading the initiative include the DPRK, Iran, Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines, Syria, Venezuela, and Palestine in addition to the largest of the developing countries, Russia and China. The alliance makes clear its firm opposition to coercive measures such as sanctions and the obliteration of historic agreements that emphasize multilateral cooperation.

“Since the end of World War II, the United States and its allies have spearheaded an international regime of terror.” 

There is a clear material foundation for the formation of the new alliance. The United States has long positioned its imperial ambitions as the definition of international law and rejected entirely the spirit and authority of the UN Charter. Hostility toward the UN Charter has only worsened over time whether in maneuvers such as the US withdrawal from the INF treaty  and the JPCOA  or the imposition of starvation sanctions  on Iran, Nicaragua, Syria, and Venezuela.

“US Hostility toward the UN Charter has only worsened over time.”

These examples only scratch the surface of US criminality in the international realm. Since the end of World War II, the United States and its allies have spearheaded an international regime of terror  whose primary mission is to pacify the planet to the dictates of private capital and militarism. Whether in the form of the ongoing US war of aggression on Korea or the CIA overthrow of the democratically-elected Iranian government in 1953, no nation in the Global South has come out unscathed from the US empire’s destructive quest for hegemony.

The fall of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc in the last decade of the 20th century left the Third World without the sufficient political strength and organization to ward off the worst excesses of US domination. Many Global South nations were forced to accept US hegemony and concede defeat. Others were set ablaze by the US-led axis of empire. The US-NATO overthrow of Yugoslavia  in 1999 and the permanent wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan are just a few examples of the carnage wrought by a US-led global order.

“No nation in the Global South has come out unscathed from the US empire’s destructive quest for hegemony.”

As is true of all prior social systems, the growth and expansion of an existing social order lays the basis for a new one to take its place. Premature declarations of “the end of history” or the total victory of US imperialism have been contradicted by the survival and growth of movements for self-determination worldwide. In the last year alone, Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism regained power  following a failed US-backed coup, the leftist leader of the Worker’s Party Lula Da Silva  was cleared to run for President in Brazil, and Ecuador is likely to elect a left-wing government into power in the second round of its presidential election. But the success is not constrained to Latin America. Syria and Iran have survived countless attacks from the empire and lesser-known cases such as Eritrea and Zimbabwe have survived violent US efforts to recolonize the African continent.

It would be remiss, however, to deny Asia of its rightful place of leadership in the new global order emerging from the ruins of imperialism. The rise of Russia and China has quickly become the principal source of anxiety  for a US empire in decline. Russia, while remaining a capitalist country, has rebounded from its collapse at the hands of Western supported oligarchs beginning in 1991. Russia and China currently lead the fight for a multipolar world or a planet free of a singular hegemonic power dictating world affairs. The US has grown particularly concerned with China , not least because its planned economy is equipped with advanced technology and the dual goal of defeating poverty and climate change—two of the most profitable byproducts of late-stage capitalism.

“Russia and China currently lead the fight for a multipolar world.”

The formation of the “Groups of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations” is the logical conclusion of the great costs imposed upon those nations which have rejected an international order dominated by the hegemonic ambitions of US imperialism. To minimize the significance of this development, US corporate media has framed the alliance as a response to Biden’s renewed focus on “multilateralism.” Yet the Biden administration has only further pursued imperial expansion and used the term “multilateralism” to render the criminality of the system more digestable.

Biden has escalated the US’s aggressive posture toward Russia and China . His administration has also committed itself to the destruction of weaker nations such as Syria  without any protest in the corporate media or society at large. In fact, the corporate media has praised Biden’s temporary COVID-19 relief bill as a victory against poverty while minimizing the devastating impact of his administration’s mass deportation regime and reliance on the mechanisms of private profit to address what has always been a public health issue in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Biden has only used the term ‘multilateralism’ to render the criminality of the system more digestible.” 

American exceptionalism has been deployed by the Biden administration as a weapon of mass destruction in the battle of ideas. Gone are the days where US leadership was questioned as incompetent under Donald Trump. “America is back” and ready to utilize “alliances” to enforce imperialism in a period of crisis. That the early days of the Biden era have offered no relief from the ongoing violence of US militarism has necessitated the formation of a Global South-led alliance that defends the very concept of international law from US and Western-led imperialist annihilation.

Peace loving people wherever they are should not hesitate to support the “Groups of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations.” But it will be equally important for people outside of the alliance to understand what its development means for the broader struggle for liberation. That is, unity must be achieved across social boundaries around a common set of demands. Special attention must also be placed on the concrete conditions and interests of respective social classes and peoples.

The tension between the broad and the particular, the abstract and the concrete, is where theory meets practice. The “Groups of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations” has reconciled these tensions in the struggle for peace. It is we in the United States and the West who must return the favor and engage in the difficult work of digging our way out of the empire’s contradictions from within its repressive core.

Danny Haiphong is a contributing editor to Black Agenda Report and co-author of the book “American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News — From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.” Follow his work on Twitter @SpiritofHo and on YouTube as co-host with Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report Present’s: The Left Lens.

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